Energy Bill [Lords]

Debate between Maria Miller and Alec Shelbrooke

2nd reading
Tuesday 9th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Dame Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker. I rise to support the Bill. I was hoping to hear from the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) a few more of the positive things that this Government have achieved, which are important to acknowledge, so that people can see that progress has been made, not least the fact that half of all our electricity is now generated from renewable energy sources—something we could be forgiven for missing in her speech.

I do not want to repeat what has been said in the debate, much of which I agree with, but I want to bring up two particular issues that I hope the Minister will take note of: fusion power and lithium-ion storage facilities. He will not be surprised by that. They both illustrate the ingenuity of our scientists and the fact that, as our understanding of new energy sources develops, the Government’s response to those energy sources needs to develop and those technologies need different regulation.

Let us take fusion technology first. Last year I visited General Fusion in Vancouver, British Columbia, an incredible Canadian firm working with the Culham Science Centre in Oxfordshire, which will be the home to the firm’s fusion testbed. We should be very proud of that. The Bill fundamentally changes the way in which fusion technology is regulated in the UK, because we understand it much more now. The current regulatory regime characterises fusion in the same way as nuclear, which is just plain wrong. To better recognise the fusion process, the Government are rightly introducing measures in clause 110 to remove fusion from nuclear site licensing requirements. That is very welcome. It is more accurate. It provides confidence to investors, the industry and the public alike, and it is an example of how the Government are recognising the need for regulatory changes.

That is in contrast with the issues around lithium-ion battery storage facilities, which are covered in clause 168—the Minister knows where I am going next. For the first time, the Bill recognises that electricity storage is separate from electricity generation. It is a new sector. In the past, power stations were designed to match consumer demand. With around half of our electricity now generated by wind, it is essential to store electricity to help out when the wind is not blowing, to put it plainly. Over 90% of our UK electricity storage capacity is in lithium-ion batteries, and while recognising energy storage, the Bill is silent on issues that are fundamental to the future of this sector, including fire safety.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that a lot more research needs to be done on where these storage facilities are based? Thermal runaway can cause fires that take several days to put out, and some of the chemicals used to extinguish those fires are toxic. There are planning applications coming forward for facilities that are far too close to people’s homes.

[Dame Maria Miller]

My right hon. Friend is right that there are hundreds of applications coming forward in around 350 constituencies, and I urge Members to check whether any such applications have been made in their patch.

I would like to draw on a slightly different issue, which is that if we do not have the right regulation for lithium-ion battery storage, we will not attract investment into this area in the future, because we will not be encouraging those lithium-ion battery storage facilities to be designed in a way that mitigates the risks we know exist. At the moment, the planning application process takes no account of the proven fire risks that my right hon. Friend just referred to with lithium-ion battery storage plants. Thermal runaway is a chemical reaction caused by overcharging or a design fault, and these fires cannot just be put out; they can only be stopped by cooling with large amounts of water over several days, which creates toxic fumes and polluted water runoff. Even though the use of batteries for this purpose is relatively new and there are currently only 35 such facilities in action, we have already had one major fire in Merseyside in 2019 that took 59 hours to put out.

This new technology is being rolled out at lightning speed, with 473 new sites under way, yet there is still no planning guidance for local authorities, no requirement to obtain an environmental permit from the Environment Agency and no requirement for the fire service to be consulted over designs or locations. The Bill must directly address that gap in regulation. Since I raised the problem with Ministers in July last year, and following a roundtable with five Departments in March, there now appears to be agreement that regulatory change needs to be considered. This Bill is exactly where it needs to be addressed, and I am happy to table amendments to that effect if the Government are not able to do so themselves.

In an open letter to all Hampshire council leaders, Neil Odin, who is the fire chief of the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Fire and Rescue Service, stated that these batteries

“can malfunction and lead to an intense fire, and when they do, pose a significant harm to the environment”.

That is coming from the head of one of the largest fire authorities in the country. I believe they also pose a significant risk to people, including firefighters, and I hope that in advance of Report the Minister will work with me to amend the Bill, so that lithium-ion battery storage can continue to play a hugely important role in realising the Government’s ambitions but with the right regulatory governance in place, not only to ensure the safety of our residents but to encourage insurance companies and those who want to run these facilities to do so in the future.

Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Bill

Debate between Maria Miller and Alec Shelbrooke

Committee stage & 3rd reading
Monday 13th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Miller]

Oh, the hon. Gentleman is getting me into the maths quiz with which he tried to tempt the Minister. I will leave the Government to decide that, because it is more in the Minister’s bailiwick than mine.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

Is not the essence of what my right hon. Friend is saying that it is exceptionally difficult to get elected to Parliament—we have all been through it—and it costs a lot of money? We tend to forget that candidates who have not been elected to this place more often than not give up work. Coming back to the point I made to my hon. Friend the Minister earlier, is there not a body of work to be done on the period between our Prime Minister calling an election and the short campaign starting? We must try to make it fair for those standing for Parliament for the first time, which can have an enormous financial cost.

Parliamentary Constituencies Bill (Seventh sitting)

Debate between Maria Miller and Alec Shelbrooke

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 7th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 30th June 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Mrs Miller]

This will probably be a slightly longer speech than I would have hoped given the note that we received from the boundary commission last night. Now might be a relevant point to discuss the content of that note, although it will not necessarily be easy given that we have had it for such a short period. The reason why it is relevant to discuss it at this point is that clause 6 refers to the rules to achieve the overall objective in the Bill, which is to create constituencies of equal size, and those rules are set out in schedule 2 of the 1986 Act. Therefore, in this stand part debate I would like to talk about three different points so that the Minister might be able to respond and so that they are on the record for the boundary commission to understand the importance of these things to getting this right.

The first point is the content of the boundary commission’s note, which will help us create equal-sized constituencies by looking at sub-ward level. The second point is about protected constituencies, which I know we will come on to when we consider my string of amendments to the schedule, but I will briefly touch on it. The third point is how we take into account future growth, which I raised in an evidence session, but it was interesting that nobody really answered the question, so I am going to raise it again for the Minister to perhaps respond to.

Looking at the first issue, the number of electorates per constituency at sub-ward level, I put on record my thanks—and I am sure the thanks of the whole Committee —to Mr Bellringer of the Boundary Commission for England and his team for the note of 29 June and such a rapid response to the issues raised when he gave evidence. The lengthy note we received uncovers that we have hit upon something important. My right hon. Friend the Member for Elmet and Rothwell and others made the point several times that it is important that, first and foremost, we look at equality in the context of local ties. I think the only issue I take with the note from the boundary commission is the assertion that wards always—they say generally—

“reflect communities of broad common interest in an area”.

I think they mostly, but not always, do that. We could all give great examples of where wards even in our own constituencies do not particularly reflect communities of broad common interest.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

I thought I would intervene on my right hon. Friend rather than make a speech later because she is making absolutely the right points to sum up this stand part debate. A very important line that I picked up in the letter said that,

“wards generally reflect communities of broad common interest in an area, and to split them therefore risks splitting local ties”.

My right hon. Friend will agree that we do not want to argue with that statement, but that should also be the guidance for forming the constituencies: if the commissioners recognise that at ward level, they must recognise it at constituency level as well when choosing the wards that they are going to build constituencies from.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Miller]

My hon. Friend is right. It feels to me that the issue needs further consideration by the boundary commission. It is a great shame that even though it has already done an extensive piece of work with Ordnance Survey, surveying polling districts between 2013 and 2018—at a cost of a quarter of a million pounds, according to the note—there still seems to be resistance to looking at that in more detail or, as my hon. Friend suggested, at other data sources, which are presumably much more readily available. I understand that the Post Office delivers post every day, and therefore must update its information on a regular basis—particularly when new houses are built. Many of us will have had constituency casework on that issue.

Perhaps individual political parties might want to pick that issue up with the boundary commission. My feeling is that the Committee would want to press further for it to look at it in more detail.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

Is not the point—and the thing that we are trying to avoid—the fact that in previous boundary reviews there have been significant changes from draft 1 to draft 2, when things have moved to the evidence stages? Is not it better for the boundary commission to approach the matter with the advice and thought provided by the Committee, to try to get draft 1 right, so that there will just be minor changes in draft 2?

[Mrs Miller]

There is an old adage in the business world about doing the right thing right. Yes, the commission should do the right thing right first time, and not create re-work. I note from the letter that the Boundary Commission for England wrote to the Committee that it recommends that it should give priority to mapping metropolitan areas, given the late stage we are at, and the concerns it might have about being able to map the whole country at this stage. I think that that is part of the answer, but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Heywood and Middleton said, there is also room for it to look at other datasets, so that it will not be quite so focused on just one solution. I note from the submission that one member of staff was given the matter as a project. Perhaps if a little more resource was put into it, it could be turned around a little more quickly.

I am not quite sure how the Committee can put further pressure on to the boundary commission, but my ask to it would be why it is not looking at other datasets and why it cannot resource the matter more. Surely the Government, for whom the project is important, would want to look at any suggestion of additional resources that are needed to complete the work in a reasonable timeframe so that such data could be available, whether that is only for metropolitan areas or for a broader cross-section of the country.

The second issue that I wanted to turn to, briefly, is protected constituencies. Clause 6 touches on the rules in schedule 2 and I think we can be more ambitious for the Bill, in relation to using the concept of protected constituencies not just in England and Scotland but Wales. We will discuss two amendments on that later in our proceedings, when we can pick up on some of the issues raised by the hon. Member for Ceredigion and show our understanding of the importance of community. As a kingdom of islands, sometimes we need rules in place to respect that unique nature of the United Kingdom. We will come on to that shortly.

My final point is on taking into account future growth, which I raised with a couple of our evidence givers. I suppose I am thinking about constituencies like my own, Basingstoke, which has grown significantly in the past three decades, from being a sleepy market town predominantly surrounded by the most amazing and beautiful Hampshire countryside, when it was the constituency of David Mitchell, the father of my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), to what it is today, which is one of the top 10 centres of employment in the south-east—still surrounded by the most amazing and beautiful Hampshire countryside.

To the west of the town is a major development area by the name of Manydown, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse). No houses have yet been built, but they will be, and to stop unnecessary change in the future it will be important for that in some way to be taken into account geographically in the setting of the boundaries.

Please do not get me wrong: I am not asking for that to be taken into account in the quotas, but surely with such major areas, which have already had many hundreds of thousands if not millions of pounds-worth of development put into planning for the future, it would be an unnecessary change pending in the future for it not to be taken into account. I am sure every single Committee member can think of somewhere in or near their own constituency where that would be the case.

Given that one of the factors in the rules—I think I have this right—is that we can look at such things for the future, I hope that the boundary commissions will be able to think about the geographical nature of what they do, not just the numerical population-based nature of it. However, I did not get a sense from their response, or from others, that that was something they were focused on yet. I hope that we can register that with them at this early stage, to stop what my right hon. Friend the Member for Elmet and Rothwell said in his intervention on planning for the future and instead to get things right first time.

Parliamentary Constituencies Bill (Eighth sitting)

Debate between Maria Miller and Alec Shelbrooke

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 8th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 30th June 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Alec Shelbrooke]

I thank the hon. Lady for her remarks on her new clause.

Let me start by being controversial: I believe that the plus or minus 5% should be seen as a matter of last resort, and that the boundary commission should try to do everything in its power to be bang on the money in the middle. Let me develop that argument, and I am willing to take interventions on it.

These figures are not correct, because I have not messed around with the numbers. I am using them just as illustrations. If we take that figure to be 72,165—that is not the exact figure, but I am using it for illustrative purposes—in less than 600 seats, that figure would have been 78,198, of which another 5% would be 3,909 electors. Five per cent. of 72,165 is 3,609, whereas another 7.5% of 72,165 is 5,413. I make those illustrative points because the difference between the 5% on 600 seats and the 7.5% on 650 seats is 1,500 electors more. The difference between 5% and 7.5% on the 650 seats is roughly 1,800 voters. I wanted to lay that out at the start; please do not talk about the inaccuracy of the figures because I know that they are inaccurate, but they are in the ball park.

The Bill provides for the boundaries to be reviewed and set every eight years. We know that there are several cycles going on, with local government reviews, polling district reviews and ward reviews. As my right hon. Friend the Member for—I have already forgotten her constituency.

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

Basingstoke.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

I was going to say Billericay, but I think that is your constituency, Sir David, or was at some point—I am losing my thread. My right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke has on several occasions drawn our attention to the planned housebuilding population changes that we all know are going to happen in constituencies. The plus 5% and plus 7.5% variances are open to interpretation about what they actually mean. Are we using them as a starting point, with constituencies at the absolute minimum or maximum to start with, knowing that within a certain time, they are going to be out of the equation?

In Wetherby, which is one part of my constituency, 800 houses are being built, and more are being built further down—a considerable number of houses. Some 5,000 are due to be built in the Leeds East constituency, which neighbours mine. The hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood mentioned North Yorkshire as a council that would not have to cross county boundaries if we went to a 7.5% tolerance. Some 10,000 houses are due to go in just on the boundary with my constituency—that is in just one small part of North Yorkshire—so we know that there will be a large shift in populations in a relatively short period, and certainly in that eight-year window.

Mr Bellringer said in his oral evidence—I think to a certain extent the Committee accepted his argument—that we have to draw the line at some point, so we cannot use in the figures new housing and so on. He was talking about potential ward boundaries; the point being that you have to draw the line with ward boundaries that have already been drawn, and not those that might be drawn.

Over the eight years, we will see considerable change in population in constituencies. Indeed, the driving force behind a lot of the Committee’s conversation has been that the data will be almost a quarter of a century out of date by the next election. That was always going to mean a significant movement in constituency boundaries because of the amount of time that has passed. Should the boundary commission be trying to construct seats within the plus 5% or minus 5% tolerance when, maybe with a year, that seat could be bigger than plus 5% or smaller than minus 5%?

I am not saying that we should change the Bill, but in my view, the boundary commission should try to be bang on the money at around 72,000 or 73,000, depending on the final figures. Surely, if we want a balanced electorate, we should look at how we can make that work over the cycle, so that when large housing developments are built, we tinker and make minor changes in an area every eight years, rather than the huge changes that we are making now.

My constituency has 82,000 electors and Leeds East has 66,000. Those are roundabout figures that vary quite a lot, and 10,000 houses will be built during the next five years. By definition, there will have to be a major change in eight years’ time. If we have already bumped right up to the 5% window when forming the initial boundary for the 2024 election, we are talking about elections after 2032. I cannot remember the exact phrase in the Bill regarding when the next review would come into effect. It could be 15 years from now before the next set of figures come in. There would be a lot of time in which there could be huge variation.

Parliamentary Constituencies Bill (Sixth sitting)

Debate between Maria Miller and Alec Shelbrooke

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 6th sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 25th June 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Mrs Miller]

I wanted to make a couple of short comments on amendments 8 and 9, and commend the hon. Member for Glasgow East—he confesses to being a “cheeky chappie”—for tabling them. The amendments may be probing amendments, as I do not necessarily think they would apply in his neck of the woods, but they would certainly apply in England and Wales. I can see why he has tabled them, following our discussions, because they would put on the face of the Bill a requirement that polling district mapping be available for use. It became clear in our evidence that that was not the case; that is why evidence sessions are so useful. I am sure that hon. Members will, like me, be paying quite particular attention to their constituency information, and indeed their polling district information, not least because we are often asked to comment on where polling stations are, and our in-depth knowledge of our constituencies is an important part of our job. We know where the polling stations are and where the polling district boundaries are.

I was quite blown away by some of the responses to the questions I put to Mr Bellringer from the English boundary commission. Returning to amendment 9 before I go into exactly what he said, I understand why the hon. Member for Glasgow East tabled it. If we are going to really do what the Bill requires, which is to create equal-sized constituencies, going to a sub-ward level, whether that is, as he suggested, through polling districts, or—as in my line of questioning to the boundary commission—through postcodes, as in the part of the United Kingdom from which the hon. Member for Glasgow East comes, we need to be able to manipulate the data and the constituency information we have on a very refined level. It seemed odd that that has not been explored in the detail that hon. Members might have expected.

Sir Iain McLean, when he gave evidence, talked about the tension between getting equal-sized constituencies and the issues around local ties, which we discussed in earlier strings of amendments. The importance of equal size is clearly pre-eminent in the Bill and the amendment we are talking about now is important to deliver that important strategic focus of the legislation.

I was perplexed first by the inconsistent approach to the use of sub-ward level data in England, Scotland and Wales, and the fact that postcode data is used in Scotland and Wales but not in England. When I pressed that with Mr Bellringer, he very clearly said on the record that that information was very difficult for the boundary commission to come by; it would take a long time to access the data in the detail required. I was then perplexed by my further lines of questioning to Mr Bellringer, which made me think that, frankly, sub-ward level data had been put into the box marked “too difficult” and it was not necessarily going to be revisited. I would like to send a clear message from the Committee: that that must be revisited.

Although I am not sure I would necessarily support the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Glasgow East at this point, not least because we are still waiting for a note from the boundary commission on how it might handle this, I hope it is listening to the debate to hear the strength of feeling on the matter. For postcodes, Mr Bellringer said,

“we do not have the postcode areas in England. We would have to create them; they could be created, but it would take an awfully long time to do.”—[Official Report, Parliamentary Constituencies Public Bill Committee, 18 June 2020; c. 12, Q14.]

We can wait until that data is ready, if it takes six months or 12 months. The boundary commission needs to start setting the bar a little higher than it has to date on the sort of information it has to hand. Sir Iain McLean suggested that the boundary commission should invest in geographical information systems. I do not profess to be an expert in that and I do not know whether that is what is needed. However, if it is, it should be forthcoming because it is important that we deliver the heart of the Bill, which is about equal constituencies. At the moment, I am unclear about how the boundary commission in England is going to do that. I hope the paper it sends us will edify me on that point.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

It is, indeed, unfortunate that we have made such quick progress that we have come to this clause before we have had the note from the Boundary Commission for England. The discussion we are having links into every single part of the Bill. This is an important moment. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Glasgow East for bringing this amendment—even as a probing amendment, if that is what it is—because it allows us to open up some very important arguments.

We had conversations this morning about whether we should hold the final vote on the Floor of the House. Opposition Members have made some powerful arguments about what would result if the boundary commission got it wrong. We should endeavour—especially with this clause today—to use the knowledge and expertise on the Committee and the evidence that we have taken to steer the boundary commission to get this right first time around. Some of the examples that were given in the past, which were then overturned when communities—not politicians—were able to make the points as to why particular suggestions were wrong, show that these things are not difficult to do, if time and attention is given to them.

I do not like to tie the hands of a body that we have asked to do a job. Being as prescriptive as the amendment would probably go too far, but it sends an important message. One of the problems with past boundary reviews has been that in order to get the numbers right, they have kept wards whole and created some very odd-looking constituencies that do not have anything in common with the areas they represent and their history.

I return to this point about communities all the time. One piece of evidence said that politicians very cleverly argue the “communities” point to get what they want in their seat, but it is an important point; it is not a political argument, and it is not about us. We represent areas: they are our communities. When the original proposal for 600 seats came out—I think it was in 2012—it was proposed that my constituency would run from my solid rural areas right into the centre of Leeds, in the Leeds East constituency. The previous MP there was George Mudie, a man who a lot of people know—certainly in Leeds and in this House—and for whom I have immense respect. He had been in public office for over four decades, I think; he was a leader of Leeds City Council, and a very distinguished one. I do not say that lightly.

He said, “This is appalling. I am an inner-city Member of Parliament. I represent the inner city; my whole professional career has been spent representing these communities.” He was wholly opposed to the Conservative areas of my seat coming into his constituency. Believe me, he would have won; more interestingly, he was more vociferously opposed to the proposals than I was. What it came down to, George Mudie was saying, was that these communities were not like communities, and the proposals broke the bond he had. I cannot remember exactly how long he served for, but I think he had been in some form of public office in those areas of that seat for over 40 years. As I said, he was a very well-respected man, who is missed in this House and in his communities.

When the boundary commission is constructing these seats, it needs to be very careful that it has regard to rule 5 of the 1968 Act, and the five sub-parts of that. That rule is very important when it comes to geography and trying to keep constituencies roughly as they are. I know that is not possible 20 years down the line—there have to be big changes—but one way in which the commission can try to achieve these objectives is to go below ward level. I do not believe we need to prescribe that—to say, “You must start with polling districts”—but in response to the questions that we asked in the evidence sessions, the evidence that we received was legitimately, “I think you need to go below ward level to get this right.” That is not the same as “You must start below ward level”—that is probably not the best approach, anyway. We would want to start with the easiest building blocks we have, and a lot of constituencies will already have those building blocks and communities within them. However, if we go below ward level, when we need to do things with the numbers, there are ways to do so.

There is a very strange little piece of my constituency, in a ward called Kippax and Methley. It is a stand-alone ward of Leeds City Council, where there are a couple of villages called Methley and Mickletown. The odd thing is that until 2010, a person would have to leave the constituency to get to those villages. They still would have to leave the ward to get to them, because the River Aire runs right through that ward and cuts it off, so they would have to go through the Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford constituency or through a different ward. Before I had Rothwell in the constituency, they would either have to go through the Morley and Rothwell constituency or through Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford. The communities are very similar: they were mining communities and the River Aire runs through them, so it is never a straightforward argument. There are some tweaks and twists around it, but the point I am making is that polling districts can be used to solve some of these slight problems.

I appreciate the amendment that the hon. Member for Glasgow East has tabled. It is an important probing amendment to get on the record why we in this Committee think it appropriate for the boundary commission to use polling districts to split wards. One of the reasons why I was persuaded that we should not prescribe polling districts as the starting point was the strength of the evidence about how those polling districts were themselves put together. I doubt it would happen, but it could create a gerrymandering situation later if those were the building blocks. That came out in the evidence. I am not saying that is what would happen, but it gives the potential for that to happen. It is therefore not right to bind the hands and to give temptation in that area, but it is important that the boundary commissions listen to the evidence. We shall explore this further when we come to the plus and minus 5% amendments later. This will be an important facet of that argument.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alec Shelbrooke]

That is well on the record in my constituency.

[Mrs Miller]

Hon. Members are making important points about their parts of the country, which is underlining the fact that it is different in different areas. For example, the original boundaries of my own constituency of Basingstoke went very near the Berkshire border—not a million miles away from the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury—and parts of that part of Hampshire used to be in Berkshire and have Berkshire postcodes. People who live in that part of Hampshire think they live in Berkshire, but they do not; they live in Hampshire. There might be a little less rivalry between Hampshire and Berkshire than between Lancashire and Yorkshire, which is why sensitivity on the ground is so important.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

I am not a historian, but there was no war between Berkshire and Hampshire—no wars of the roses.

Parliamentary Constituencies Bill (Fifth sitting)

Debate between Maria Miller and Alec Shelbrooke

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 5th sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 25th June 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Alec Shelbrooke]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Glasgow East, because this is a serious point. We are moving approval to an unelected body, which is a strange mix of parties and balance. A load of appointees will be going to the House of Lords, and there is going to be an argument about which party is getting the most—it is a very unrepresentative body. It would be way outside the scope of this Bill to discuss Lords reform, but the problem has always been that there are 650-odd MPs who think the House of Lords needs to change, and 650 different ideas about how to do it.

The House of Lords has a role in this Bill. The Bill is setting the criteria, and it is going to the other place, where it may well get amended. It will then come back to the House of Commons, and this House will vote on it. Funnily enough, I never had a problem with the amendments passed during the Brexit debate in the House of Lords, because they were irrelevant: whether they were accepted was up to the House of Commons. People got excited about what the House of Lords was doing, but it was an irrelevant argument, because its amendments had to be accepted by the House of Commons. That is where the power lies; that is what went on. The Lords is a revising Chamber, and it may frustrate us sometimes or we may have ideological views about it, but it still has its role in this Bill.

This comes back to what the hon. Member for City of Chester said about whether the politics is at the beginning, or at the end. The answer is that it is at the beginning. The House of Commons could bring in a one-line Bill to stop this later on—that power remains with this House—but it is right that we move this process forward. If we are all honest with ourselves, the vast majority of people sat in this room are nervous about what is going to be put to us in September 2021 when the first report comes out, and about how our representations will be received in June 2022. That is the nature of human beings: people think that politicians are not like other people, but of course we are, in every respect. However, we fight for our communities not because we are worried about our jobs, but because that is why we went into politics. We all therefore ask ourselves, “Do I want to see a chunk of the community I have represented for such a long time disappear?” When that happens, it is heartbreaking.

[Mrs Miller]

My right hon. Friend is correct that we all fight for our communities, but we should be doing so on a fair footing. The assertion of the hon. Member for City of Chester that the current system is flawless is simply not borne out by the facts. I have been doing some gentle maths on my Order Paper, and I think my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury and I top the charts with 83,000 constituents in our patches—constituencies that are 50% bigger than that of the hon. Member for Ceredigion. Obviously, there are important reasons that things in Wales have been done in the way they have, but that does not mean we have to continue with them now. We missed out a round of reform in Wales that is long overdue.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

I thank my right hon. Friend for those comments.