Parliamentary Constituencies Bill

Maria Miller Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments & Ping Pong & Ping Pong: House of Commons
Tuesday 10th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Cat Smith]

Indeed. The hon. Member is right about the butterfly effect, because of course we cannot change one parliamentary constituency without having a knock-on effect on all the neighbouring constituencies too.

The truth is that constituencies should look like communities. I thought that point was made very effectively on Second Reading by the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller). I hope she does not mind if I quote what she said then:

“Constituencies should not just be numerical constructs; they should be constructed for communities first and foremost”.—[Official Report, 2 June 2020; Vol. 676, c. 804.]

I completely agree.

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

Forgive me, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I was quoted. Does the hon. Lady agree, though, that a variance of up to 10,000 voters will actually give the Boundary Commission more than ample flexibility to be able to accommodate communities? The figures she was citing earlier were not, I think, entirely accurate.

[Cat Smith]

I hope that the right hon. Lady will be able to expand on that in her contribution; she is next on the call list to speak. However, I do not quite understand the point that she is trying to make, because there is always going to be a balance between—[Interruption.] If she would like to listen, there will always have to be a balance between hitting the quota and getting as close as we can to 0% from the quota—it would be desirable if every constituency had the exactly the same number of electors—while keeping communities together. I do not think that the idea of dividing a street or a housing estate arbitrarily to create exactly the same size constituency boundaries would cut the mustard with the public. The 5% rule runs a coach and horses through those community ties. It creates a kind of painting-by-numbers approach to the boundary review, and it will lead to long-established communities being split from one another and will erode local identities and divide neighbourhoods. Quite simply, we cannot have it both ways; we cannot protect local ties and enforce a strict quota.

Throughout the Bill, the Government have argued that a 5% tolerance will make every vote count equally, but I would argue that even a 0% quota would not make every vote carry the same weight. Leaving aside the fact that millions of voters are effectively disenfranchised every election owing to the existence of so-called safe seats, it is simply not true that every vote would count equally as a result of this Bill, because at any election we now know that in the region of 9 million eligible electors are incorrectly registered and are losing out on their chance to vote. Millions more will potentially join them if the Government’s plans to roll out voter ID come into force, as we have seen, similarly, in US elections.

I turn to Lords amendment 8, which was tabled by Lord Shutt, who, very sadly, died two weeks ago. He was passionately committed to improving our democracy and it is quite fitting that his last contribution was in support of this amendment. I was speaking to the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) earlier today and he told me that he was a down-to-earth, humble, funny and genuinely nice bloke. I would like to put on record the Opposition’s condolences to his family at this sad time.

Lord Shutt’s amendment would represent a significant step forward in voter registration and, hopefully, participation among young voters. As we all know, electoral registers are the fundamental building blocks for constituency boundaries. Sixteen and 17-year-olds can register as attainers head of their 18th birthday. Since the introduction of individual electoral registration, the number of 16 and 17-year-olds who have been registered has fallen from around 45% in 2015 to just 25% last year. This amendment would enable the Government to ask local authorities’ registration officers to add 16-year-olds to the electoral register when they get their national insurance number or, alternatively, ensure that 16-year-olds would be provided with information on how to apply to join the electoral register on receiving their national insurance number.

This sensible arrangement could radically improve the number of young people registering to vote, hopefully helping them to develop a habit of a lifetime of voting, and—more relevant to this legislation—mean that our constituency boundaries are representative of younger voters. The 16 and 17-year-olds that are considered when it comes to drawing constituency boundaries are likely to be the electors at a subsequent general election. For that reason alone, the Minister should give the amendment great consideration.

In conclusion, the Labour party fundamentally rejects the Government’s attempt to end the parliamentary approval of the new constituency boundaries, and we ask that Members think hard about the impact of the restrictive 5% quota. Ministers know very well exactly what needs to be done to enable greater democratic engagement, and the fact that they have consistently failed to take any action tells us all we need to know.

[Mrs Miller]

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Cat Smith). We also seem to have a number of Members of the Public Bill Committee in the Chamber today. It was a vigorous and very compelling Committee and I am sure that the debate today will follow that.

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[David Linden]

The right hon. Lady talks about manifesto commitments. It was not that long ago that there was a manifesto commitment to have 600 seats in the House of Commons. What changed for the Government? [Interruption]

[Mrs Miller]

As one of my hon. Friends says from a sedentary position, it was a different manifesto. Even more importantly, one fundamental change that the hon. Gentleman will know more about is that we are choosing to leave the EU and, as a result, Members will have more work to do.

[David Linden]

Will the right hon. Lady give way?

[Mrs Miller]

If the hon. Gentleman will allow me not to give way, this is not a debate between the two of us. The Leader of the House has set out important responses to these amendments which deserve a great deal of consideration. He has given a comprehensive analysis of these Lords amendments. Taking into account the fact that the Government have accepted amendments 3, 4 and 5 already, I would like to confine my comments to amendment 7 but also join him in agreeing that all the other amendments are manifestly unnecessary. Indeed, the Committee considered those issues in detail and found that the Bill should remain as it is.

Amendment 7 would undermine the essence of the Bill because it increases, not reduces, the opportunity for differences between constituencies. I referred to Basingstoke during my intervention on the hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood. Currently we have almost 83,000 voters in Basingstoke, whereas a constituency such as Rhondda has just over 50,000. That shows starkly the necessity for change and for us to take this opportunity to make that change work as well as it can. It is as much to do with the way the current system works, in terms of Parliament being able to intervene in these measures. The difference between those constituencies is stark. But it is incumbent on us to ensure that any changes we put in place do not build another raft of problems for the future.

[John Spellar]

The right hon. Lady’s example of the Rhondda does not hold, I am afraid, because the allocation of seats to Wales will be based on the number of registered electors. Therefore, there may be some variations within Wales, but her seat in Basingstoke and constituencies in Wales are covered by another part of the Bill. Yet again, why have this dislocation when it does not actually impact in the way that she is describing?

[Mrs Miller]

I think my voters, and I am sure others, would want to be aware of the difference between constituencies, and whether they are in Wales or Hampshire, each voter should have the same ability to be represented in this place. That is manifestly not the case at the moment.

We had no end of evidence from experts on that point, and I think we should all thank those who took the time, not only to give written evidence to the Committee, but to appear before the Committee in person too. It was clear from that evidence to the Committee that there was no compelling reason to deviate from the Government’s proposals; it is important to put that on the record today.

Dr Alan Renwick from University College London said in oral evidence that no academic expert would be able to decide that what was on the face of the Bill should be changed. It is clear also from the evidence that there is room for accommodating those rules that we discussed at length, that there is sufficient flexibility in practice, and that the Boundary Commission will still be able to adhere to community ties.

I now come to the main point that I want to make to the Leader of the House, because it really perturbed the Committee. I absolutely agree that the amendment should not be made, but I want to be opportunistic and take the opportunity to land this point once more with the Government. We were concerned about the evidence that we saw from the Boundary Commission for England, and its ability to work within the way that the Bill sets out.

The oral evidence from Mr Tony Bellringer from the Boundary Commission for England very much underlined the commission’s current approach of working with wards as “building blocks”, and emphasised that currently that organisation does not hold a system or a dataset that could allow it to work in any other way. Yet, on the other hand, we heard—I think on the same day—that the Boundary Commission for Scotland does just that: it holds datasets that allow it to work at a sub-ward level. It is important that my right hon. Friend addresses that point, so that we may send a very loud message to the Boundary Commission for England that our democracy is important to us, that the Bill is all about equally sized constituencies, and that the commission needs to work with that.

My hon. Friend the Member for Heywood and Middleton (Chris Clarkson) reminded us in Committee that it was the chartists who, in the people’s charter of 1838, called for the principle of electoral equality, and said that that should remain the cornerstone of our democracy now and in future. I hope that the Leader of the House will reassure the House that no historical approach by the Boundary Commission for England will stand in the way of that organisation’s creating equal constituencies following the coming into force of this legislation, so that a vote in whichever part of the United Kingdom we live, from here to Ynys Môn and beyond, can count equally.

[John Spellar]

The right hon. Lady wants equality. Did she not move the amendment that said that Ynys Môn should stand alone, even though it would be much smaller than the quota?

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[Mrs Miller]

I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman would not want to be the person from the Labour Benches to tell the people of Ynys Môn that Labour does not believe that theirs should be a unique constituency.

Thank you so much for the opportunity to contribute to the debate, Madam Deputy Speaker and I hope the Leader of the House can answer my questions.

[David Linden]

It is a pleasure, as always, to follow the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller).

I start by sending my best wishes to the Minister for the Constitution and Devolution, the hon. Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith), who has been a formidable but good-natured opponent on the Bill. Naturally, there is much for me to disagree about when it comes to my dealings with Britain’s Constitution Minister, but personal health always transcends politics, and I know I speak for us all when I wish her all the very best for her treatment in the coming weeks and months. I look forward to seeing her back at the Dispatch Box.

I also welcome the Leader of the House to our proceedings on the Bill. He is always incredibly entertaining and I have certainly enjoyed watching his transition from a robust and consistent Back Bencher to a member of the Cabinet having to participate in the parliamentary gymnastics of Government U-turns that have become a hallmark of this Government.

The particular U-turn that this Bill legislates for is in reference to clause 5. That undoes the 2011 legislation, which I think the right hon. Gentleman voted for and which would have reduced the number of constituencies in the House from 650 to 600. With new legislative powers coming back from Brussels post Brexit, it would surely have been bonkers to reduce the number of MPs while increasing the legislative power of the Executive. Let me respond to the point of the right hon. Member for Basingstoke. I know that she did not want to have a debate about it, but her point was that the Government changed their position as a result of Britain’s exit from the European Union. In actual fact, as someone who served on the Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill Committee, a Bill brought forward by the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Afzal Khan), I know that, until December last year, the Government opposed that Bill every single way by withholding the money resolution. By that point, Britain was already leaving the European Union, so I am afraid that the right hon. Lady’s argument does not stand up to scrutiny on that part.

The fact that, under new calculations, Scotland will lose out on two to three constituency seats is making a mockery of the promises made after the 2014 independence referendum. In fact, it seems that all the devolved nations will now stand to lose out on constituency seats under the new calculations. The nation, of course, that is due to lose the most seats under these proposals is Wales, with all witnesses in Committee, including the CCHQ representative, Mr Pratt, saying that Wales would, in his own words, “take a hit”. I am sure that Welsh Conservative MPs were delighted about that being placed in Hansard. Again, it has been widely acknowledged that, under the current formula, Wales would lose seats to the benefit of the south-east of England. But this is not the only UK nation that stands to have diminished representation in the House of Commons.

Scotland is currently represented by 59 MPs and although I continue to work every single day of the week to ensure that Scotland is no longer governed by Westminster, until that day comes, I will fight to ensure that Scotland’s voice is fairly heard in this Chamber. Based on the proposed electoral quotas, we would see Scotland losing two or three seats to the advantage of England, which strikes me as being wholly unfair and flies in the face of the rallying calls that Scotland should lead the United Kingdom, rather than leave it. After the 2014 referendum, Scotland was promised that it would be considered an equal partner in this Union. However, the fact that Scotland is now set to lose three constituency seats should continue to highlight the promises made post 2014 that have been proven to be empty again.

I welcome all the amendments made in the House of Lords and commit my party to voting for them when the Division bells ring tonight, but there were some real missed opportunities for their lordships to dramatically improve the Bill. First, I am bitterly disappointed that their lordships did not remove the provisions of clause 2, which deals with the issue of automaticity or parliamentary approval of commission recommendations. Too often in earlier debates, the Government got away with suggesting that MPs should not be marking their own homework when it came to the approval of new boundaries, but I am genuinely surprised that the other House, which has a role in approving recommendations as well, has also relinquished that right. When it comes to Scottish peers—most if not all of them have never been elected—there was a hugely missed opportunity to try to protect the voices of devolved nations in future Parliaments. It should have been a priority for Members of the House of Lords to protect Scotland’s 59 seats in this Parliament and to protect our ability to represent our constituents and not to diminish Scotland’s voice. I see that some Conservative Members look quite perplexed at this idea of protecting seats, but of course it was 1980s legislation under Margaret Thatcher that protected Scotland initially at 73 seats and then they were reduced to 59 under devolution. Therefore, for those who look a bit perplexed about this, it was actually something that was advocated by a Conservative Government.

Having set out our position in the Bill, I will confine my remarks to the amendments for consideration from the other place. I turn to amendments 1 and 2. My party supports the amendments to review the boundaries every 10 years, as opposed to the shorter timeframe of eight years, mainly due to the increased certainty that it gives to constituents and representatives alike. Moving from eight to 10 years does not strike me as being an unreasonable compromise and I am therefore content to offer my party’s support for the amendment being made permanent to the Bill.

On amendment 6, I also support the change to have an independent appointment process. Earlier in my remarks, I made reference to authenticity and the Government’s argument that MPs should not have a role in approving the commissioner’s recommendations. If we follow the logic of the argument about removing perceived self-interest, then the same is surely true for Ministers—in this case, the Lord Chancellor appointing boundary commissioners. Amendment 6 would see the power to appoint commissioners transferred from a politician to the Lord Chief Justice. That would, in effect, stop future Tory Ministers from appointing their chums to the Boundary Commission. By keeping clause 2(2) in the Bill but voting against Lords amendment 6, the Government would, in effect, be having their cake and eating it, and be charged with rank hypocrisy. I know the Leader of the House is a good man, and I am sure he would not want to be portrayed as a hypocrite by voting for such a fundamentally contradictory proposition.