Parliamentary Constituencies Bill

Debate between Maria Miller and David Linden

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

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

Parliamentary Constituencies Bill (Sixth sitting)

Debate between Maria Miller and David Linden

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

[David Linden]

I shall speak to amendment 9. During Second Reading, I was struck by the thoughtful approach of the right hon. Member for Elmet and Rothwell, who made a plea—often repeated during the evidence sessions—for commissioners to move away from using wards as the building blocks for drawing up constituencies, and instead to break it down and use more manageable and flexible building blocks. That point was also pressed many times by the right hon. Member for Basingstoke.

In evidence from Ms Drummond-Murray during the evidence session of June 18—referring specifically to Question 8 of that session—the Committee will have noted that Scotland can break it down by postcode, if necessary, rather than using the more clunky ward building blocks. Furthermore, evidence given by Mr Scott Martin, solicitor at the SNP, drew the attention of Members to spatialhub.scot and the technology that is in play north of the border, in response to Question 102 at the Bill’s evidence session of June 18.

Polling districts are usually natural communities on their own, and are good building blocks for constituencies when wards cannot be used. Drawing constituencies using polling districts also makes the constituencies much easier to implement for the electoral administrators. They just need to reallocate the constituency that applies to each polling district, rather than allocating each individual elector. It also means that voters will not need to be allocated to different polling places when boundaries are redrawn. The parties referred to by Sir David should also be borne in mind here. Political parties that select their candidates on the basis of their members’ vote are the first users of constituency boundary data. Reallocating polling districts rather than drawing new boundaries makes it easier for political parties to ballot their members, which they may wish to do before the new boundaries are effective on the electoral registers. I remind the Committee that amendment 9 seeks to add to the tool box for the boundary commission. Rule 5(1) lists factors that a boundary commission “may take into account” to such an extent as it sees “fit”. Amendment 9 also recognises that a polling district’s data may not always be usable, clearly ensuring that it stays as set out and that the data is only used by the relevant boundary commission satisfied that a particular area and data are properly usable. Amendment 9 merely supplements clause 6 and allows boundary commissioners to draw upon technology as set out in the Bill’s explanatory notes.

I am keen to hear the Government’s thoughts on the amendment, and if they plan to object I would like to hear the reason; I will make a judgement on that before I decide whether to press the matter to a vote. I have outlined the rationale behind the amendment, and I look forward to the Minister’s feedback.

[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.

Parliamentary Constituencies Bill (Fifth sitting)

Debate between Maria Miller and David Linden

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

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

It is a great pleasure to see you back in the Chair and in charge, Mr Paisley. I repeat on the record the remarks that I made on Second Reading regarding the view of the Scottish National party. We would prefer not to be represented in this place at all, but for so long as the constitutional requirement is that Scotland remains tied to the United Kingdom, Scotland should have no fewer than the 59 seats that we have in this place.

I echo much of what the hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood said regarding parliamentary approval. Our fundamental position is that we did not vote against the Bill on Second Reading because we wanted to see it come to Committee. I genuinely believe that the Minister is a thoughtful person, who will consider arguments on their merits. I hope that in the course of today’s sitting and the two sittings next week, she will take on board the amendments tabled not just by the SNP and Plaid Cymru but by the Labour party, which have been tabled with a view to making the Bill better, and making it work for our democratic process.

The hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood is right about parliamentary approval. I have difficulty with the proposal. I listened to Professor Hazell and Dr Renwick give evidence, and I have genuinely wrestled with where we should end up on parliamentary approval. I am afraid that I probably still maintain my position on Second Reading: I am uncomfortable with a process wherein Parliament does not have the final say, because of what we saw in the last Parliament, during which the Government decided that they would try to plough ahead with 600 seats. They lost their majority over the course of that Parliament, but the whole process underlined the need for Parliament to have the final say, and I wish to put that on record.

[Mrs Miller]

Reference keeps being made to the shift to 600 seats from 650. That decision was made by Parliament; it was not the result of a boundary commission review that Parliament then ratified. Does the hon. Gentleman not understand that, as Parliament made that decision, today we are discussing Parliament changing it back?

[David Linden]

I am immensely grateful to the right hon. Lady for that intervention. It is fair of her to put that on record, but the issue is the change in policy by the Conservative party. She is right that the 2011 legislation to reduce the number of seats to 600 was introduced by the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition Government. I think a number of us on the Committee—some of us tried to tease this out in the evidence hearings—find it rather strange that, after the Conservative party had a very good election in December, all of a sudden its position changed from wanting to have 600 seats to wanting to have 650.

--- Later in debate ---

[David Linden]

I am happy to clarify. I am referring to question 181, which can be found on the last page of Hansard for the public sitting on Tuesday 23 June.

I want to ask the Minister to comment on a point made by Professor Curtice, who said:

“I am concerned that there is some political consideration going on here. Nobody has raised the point that the next review under this is supposed to end in July 2023 rather than in October 2023. No justification is given for that in the Cabinet Office memo or in the explanatory notes. The only explanation that I can think of—maybe I am being unfair—is that somebody is wanting to pave the way to make it possible to hold a general election in autumn 2023 rather than in spring 2024. Certainly, somebody needs to explain why the next procedure is going to be foreshortened by three months for a set of boundaries that are then going to be in place for another eight years, and this is not going to happen thereafter. There is no justification so far, and I encourage the Committee to inquire further.”––[Official Report, Parliamentary Constituencies Public Bill Committee, 23 June 2020; c. 98, Q181.]

On that basis, I put that point to the Minister. I hope that in the course of her remarks she will clarify that particular point in relation to line 11 of clause 1.

[Mrs Miller]

I am very pleased to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Paisley, and to speak to amendments 2 to 4 and that clauses 1 and 2 should stand part of the Bill. This gives us an opportunity to explore some of the important principles within this Bill to deliver fair and equal-sized constituencies for our country.

We like to pride ourselves on being a strong democracy. We stand in the mother of all Parliaments. Yet the current provisions do not give us the absolute certainty that each of our constituencies are of the same size. Our constituents do not each have the same power to elect somebody to represent them. Some seats require a larger population—for example, I have 83,000 constituents —and others require up to 30,000 or 40,000 fewer constituents within their constituency boundaries.

I want to put on record my absolute support for the Bill and the hard work that my hon. Friend the Minister has put into it. It delivers, as has been said, on an important manifesto commitment to remove the current flaws in the system. I am somewhat perplexed as to why the Labour party has tabled amendments that would surgically remove one of the important principles in the Bill, which is fairness in the way that the recommendation from the boundary commission is dealt with.

I am not the only one expressing surprise. We heard from some eminent constitutional experts in our evidence session that the current system is worse than flawed. In particular, we heard from Professor Hazell and Dr Renwick from the constitutional unit at University College London, who said in their written evidence that

“the independence of the UK’s process is currently violated at the final step”—

“violated” is quite a strong term coming from an academic—

“when parliament’s approval is required to implement the Boundary Commissions’ proposals.”

Quite simply, with its amendments, the Labour party is choosing to ignore the advice of constitutional experts by continuing to support and promote a system that violates the independence of the approval process, which fundamentally undermines what the Bill seeks to achieve. That evidence goes on:

“Parliament’s current approval role has allowed inappropriate political interference to occur three times.”

I am quite astonished that the Opposition would want to be on the record as ignoring that advice and evidence, and fundamentally changing what the Bill would achieve.

If that evidence is not enough, the OSCE report, which was cited during an evidence session, makes it very clear that when reviewing and reforming a system of legislative processes, there must be fairly and equally sized constituencies. It is not just academics in this country who say that we need to change our system, but an internationally recognised institution, which says that, if reforming, we should be trying to put in place protocols and safety clauses to ensure that constituencies are as equal as they can be.

I hope that the Opposition will provide a stronger reason for wanting to change the Bill than the reasons that they have already given. Otherwise, we run the risk of continuing with a system whereby Parliament, when it chooses, stops reviews going through. At the moment, we are dealing with boundaries based on data that is 20 years out of date. That is not just unfair to individual constituencies but, as we heard in evidence, it fundamentally undermines our democratic process.

I hope that hon. Members, regardless of party affiliation, can see the inadequacies of the amendments and will reject them, as I will, because they are fundamentally wrong for our democracy. It is wrong that the votes of voters in my constituency have less impact that those of voters in other constituencies. I urge the Opposition to withdraw the amendments, which would so badly undermine not only the Bill but our democratic system.

Parliamentary Constituencies bill (Third sitting)

Debate between Maria Miller and David Linden

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 3rd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 23rd June 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Mrs Miller]

Q Thank you very much, Sir David. I thank Mr Williams for coming to give evidence today; it is incredibly helpful to hear from a wide range of political parties. I note that in your introduction, you said you would cover issues in England and Wales, and I thought I detected a slight accent—I do not know whether you come from Wales. I wanted to press you a little further on that, because there are four protected constituencies in the Bill: two constituencies that will be the Isle of Wight, a single constituency in Orkney and the Shetland Islands, and the constituency formerly known as the Western Isles. Do you feel there is an argument to be made for protected constituencies in Wales? Other than Northern Ireland, which I think has its own set of issues, it is the only part of the United Kingdom that does not have protected constituencies.

Chris Williams: There is an argument to be made, particularly around Ynys Môn. I am worried about how all this is going to be perceived in Wales, with a drop of about 20% in the number of MPs, and I think it would be a softener if they see they have been treated equally with England and Scotland, with Ynys Môn seen as a protected constituency. There is an argument about taking into account other geographical features when protecting constituencies, but if you start to look at mountains or rivers, you then start to look at the height or width of mountain ranges, and you get in a complete mess. Certainly, there is a sea in the way between Ynys Môn and the mainland, which is exactly the same criterion that is being used for the Isle of Wight, the Western Isles and Orkney and Shetland. I think it should be applied in Wales as well; otherwise there would be a rightful feeling of wrongdoing to Wales.

[David Linden]

Q Can I ask you specifically what the Green party’s view is on the distribution of seats that will result from this Bill? It is my understanding—the Committee has been told this previously—that Scotland stands to lose seats, and you have spoken about the 20% drop in Wales. Does the Green party of England and Wales have a view on whether or not that is appropriate, and what that does for the integrity of the Union?

Chris Williams: Our Scottish Green colleagues will have a similar position to you on the Union. I guess we come from a perspective of wanting every vote to have the same weight and potentially the same impact on an election, in terms of determining the future Government. The difficulty we have is that whatever we do with the process and with first past the post, there is always going to be some inequity between the constituencies, even if we have no tolerance or variance limit at all. By the time they come in, the numbers will still be different, because the data is always historical and never accurate enough. If we are going to go down the line of every vote being pretty much equal, and trying to make that as equal as possible within the system, it is very hard to argue for a great deal of difference between England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. I would say that a vote in Hartlepool is as equal as one in Ogmore but, at the same time, I can see that this might well bring greater arguments for further devolution.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Miller]

Q We have had some powerful evidence that parliamentary boundaries are to a greater or lesser extent an artificial construct, although rules are put in place to try to acknowledge issues, which should be taken into account. I want to probe further something that Sir John talked about earlier. Because we are dealing with boundaries that are 20 years out of date, this will be a disruptive redistribution.

What comments can be made about trying to future-proof any proposals, to take into account any proposed developments and house building, while noting that those cannot be taken into any analysis of the quota? Do our experts have any views on whether that should be taken into account with regards to the geographical boundaries, so as to avoid unnecessary disruption in the future?

Professor Sir John Curtice: There is a difference between the rules of the Local Government Boundary Commission for England and the parliamentary boundary commissions. The local government boundary commissions are permitted to take into account anticipated housing developments. I have had the occasional private conversation with people about this. You may want to quiz the Local Government Boundary Commission for England. The question that arises is how accurate the forecasts of house building and demolition activity are and the extent to which that ensure that the local government ward boundaries do not get out of date.

The answer to you is that it is certainly possible—see the rules of the Local Government Boundary Commission for England—but regarding the extent to which it is effective, you should ask the Local Government Boundary Commission for England, because I am not certain. There is a difference and you could anticipate doing a degree of that.

Professor McLean: May I add to that? It is rather unfortunate that there are two sets of boundary commissions with different operating rules. Although it is not in the Bill, I do not understand why there needs to be a separate local government boundary commission, in particular one that operates under different rules, as John has just highlighted, from those used by the parliamentary boundary commission.

If one had to choose between these sets of rules—the Local Government Boundary Commission for England permitting evidence about future housing developments and the rules currently before you not permitting them —I would go with the rules that are in front of you, for the same reason that I gave in an earlier answer. One person’s likely housing development, which may just happen to favour that political party could be countered by another person’s likely future housing development, which may favour another party. I feel for the poor inspector, who is, by construction, not a specialist in the area, and is faced with claims that are very hard to adjudicate. You can adjudicate numbers, but future housing development is much more difficult.

[David Linden]

Q Thank you to our witnesses for their evidence thus far. Professor Curtice was probably right to say that we should focus on things in the Bill. The two major things are going from 600 seats to 650, and parliamentary approval. To take the first issue in a question to both witnesses, why do you think that the Government changed their position, going from 600 seats to 650?

Professor Sir John Curtice: That is not difficult. Turkeys were persuaded to put Christmas in the calendar in 2011 but, when Christmas eve came along, they decided to abandon it. There was always going to be a question mark about the willingness of MPs to vote for their own demise.

The reason why we were to have the cuts in the first place is that in 2010 both parties in the coalition proposed reductions in the size of the House of Commons. That was a populist response to the MPs’ expenses scandal. In the end, the cut to 600 that they introduced was less than those in the two parties’ manifestos. Then, of course, implementing it became a victim in 2013 of the spat within the coalition over the failure to reform the House of Lords, and in 2018 of the anticipated inability of the then Conservative Administration to get the provisions through—because they were asking turkeys to vote for Christmas. I am indicating that that is a classic case of how, at the end of the day, it is difficult to persuade Members of the House of Commons to engage in a radical reform that will make their lives difficult.

By the way, given that you have asked this question, let me expand its scope slightly. This is an aspect of the Bill that matters, and this is the question of the attempt at automaticity. To make it clear, there is an issue about automaticity—that is, the ability of Parliament to intervene. Parliament intervened in 2013 and stopped the boundary commissioners working—that was the work of Labour and the Liberal Democrats together—and in 2018 the Conservative Government failed to push the provisions through. Back in the late 1960s, the then Labour Government got their MPs to vote down the provisions. To that extent, there is clearly an issue. Although we have a process of neutral boundary proposals operating under rules set by the House of Commons, in effect the Commons has on three occasions, under different Administrations, ended up not implementing the rule, so there is an automaticity question.

My concern, however, is that although the Bill might make it more difficult for that to happen again, it will not stop it happening again. Given that in clause 8 the Bill stops implementation of the 2018 review, going on to have provisions that supposedly make it impossible for Parliament to overturn things in future, the truth is that the same is perfectly possible for a future House of Commons—a boundary review comes along, the current Administration does not like it, saying, “Actually, we should delay it”, and all they need to do is to introduce a quick piece of primary legislation to overturn it.

As we saw with the Fixed-term Parliaments Act, it is very difficult to introduce provisions that discipline the House of Commons to keep to a set of constitutional rules, given that we do not have an entrenched constitution. Although all of us would laud the fact that the provisions of the Bill are an improvement, reducing the ability of Parliament to stop things, we should not fool ourselves into thinking that it will necessarily stop Parliament, not least because even within the terms of the Bill an order has to be laid—instead of

“as soon as is reasonably practicable”

at the moment—under the new provisions,

“as soon as may be reasonably practicable”.

I am not a lawyer, but the distinction between those two things still strikes me as rather fine on whether or not we could still be left in the situation that we had in the last Parliament, when the provisions were simply were not put before the House of Commons in a timely fashion. That could be repeated.

Professor McLean: I have very little to add. The automaticity may look worrying to some, because it removes the rule from Parliament, but parliamentary supremacy is mentioned in the explanatory notes and of course the Bill could be enacted and then repealed by a future Parliament. That is the nature of parliamentary supremacy. It would be very embarrassing—the mother of Parliaments, one of the oldest parliamentary democracies and so on: it is already very embarrassing that it is operating on the basis of 20-year-old boundaries and therefore we did not have equal suffrage in the 2019 general election, to put it at its most blunt. I would concur with John that Parliament could do it again. It would be embarrassing, and I rather hope it does not.

Parliamentary Constituencies bill (Second sitting)

Debate between Maria Miller and David Linden

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 18th June 2020 Public Bill Committees

[David Linden]

Okay, thank you.

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

Q Thank you so much for giving evidence. I want to probe further on the issue of automaticity in the Bill. We are currently working on boundaries that are decades out of date. Much of the reason for that and for problems in the past has been the way in which political parties in Parliament have blocked changes to boundaries. As a party, do you support automaticity, because of the ability to have automatic changes?

Dave McCobb: We support the principle that the proposals that come from the Boundary Commission should be subject to minimal potential political interference, or a majority party could use its majority to impose boundaries on other people. The critical issue is how far the whole process is as divorced from partisan political control as possible.