Business of the House

Mark Durkan Excerpts

Thursday 8th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. He rightly draws attention to how the free schools programme is a major success, with 79 free schools already opened. They are popular with parents and pupils. In my constituency, a free school sponsored by one of the academy schools is extending provision in places where parents and pupils most want it. I understand that a group in my hon. Friend’s constituency will shortly make an application to open Salisbury sixth-form college in September 2014; it will focus on science, technology, engineering and maths and address a shortage of such provision in the area. I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Education Secretary will welcome that application and give it very careful consideration.

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

Regarding the Government’s agenda and legislative programme, the Leader of the House has given us another “spot the business” statement. In large part, this Chamber is again reduced to playing keepy-uppy. In that context, how does he think that we can credibly explain, at the Parliament Week events to which he referred, that this Chamber could not afford the time duly to consider the House of Lords Reform Bill, which won such an overwhelming vote on Second Reading?

[Mr Lansley]

It will not surprise the hon. Gentleman to know that in my view his question is better directed towards Labour Members, who voted for the Bill on Second Reading and made it clear that this House was supportive of the principle of reform of the House of Lords, and then failed to vote to give it the time to be debated.

Business of the House

Mark Durkan Excerpts

Thursday 18th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who is absolutely right. Not only the figures published today but also the document published today, which summarises the performance of the NHS in the first quarter of this financial year, through to the end of June, demonstrate that NHS staff are continuing to deliver continually improving performance. I heard Opposition Members show apparent disbelief about that; I remind them that when we came into office, more than 200,000 patients had waited beyond 18 weeks. We have brought that down by more than 50,000. Approaching 20,000 people had waited beyond a year for treatment and we have brought that figure down to below 5,000. That is in addition to many other aspects of improving performance in a service that, on the latest data, has already delivered, in a year and a quarter, £7 billion of the up to £20 billion efficiency savings required and continues to deliver an overall financial surplus.

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

In the aftermath of the LIBOR scandal, we were told by the Chancellor and the Prime Minister in statements, debates and questions that changes could be made to the Financial Services Bill. Are we to take it from the current consultation on secondary legislation that the Government no longer plan to adjust or add to the primary legislation?

[Mr Lansley]

I direct the hon. Gentleman to what the Financial Secretary to the Treasury stated in a written ministerial statement to the House yesterday. That clearly set out the position.

Business of the House

Mark Durkan Excerpts

Thursday 13th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

My hon. Friend is right. The courage of the men and women of the Special Operations Executive was remarkable. Members of the House will recall that three years ago that courage was recognised with a memorial on the Albert embankment, including a statue of Violette Szabo. None the less, what my hon. Friend has said about Ravensbrück camp will no doubt have been noticed by the German embassy here.

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

When, and from whom, may we expect a statement indicating that the Honours Forfeiture Committee is going to look at the honours attached to the names of anyone who was implicated in the scandalous syndicate of deceit that was exposed yesterday? When it does so, will it also consider the case of Derek Wilford, who was clearly indicted by the Saville report?

[Mr Lansley]

If I may, I will ask colleagues with those responsibilities to write to the hon. Gentleman about those matters, and ask that I be informed about what the timetable is for considering them.

Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards

Mark Durkan Excerpts

Monday 16th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

I have quite fundamental reservations about the motion before us this evening, because, a bit like the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann), I have serious concerns about the implications for the work of the Treasury Committee. The way in which we are moving to set up the Commission, with a selection of members of the Treasury Committee—almost a Treasury Committee A team—being assigned to the Commission, will obviously have an impact on the Committee’s working capacity at a key time.

We heard from the Chancellor in the Chamber two weeks ago that he was appointing Martin Wheatley, the incoming chief executive of the Financial Services Authority, to conduct a review that would report within six weeks. That review was going to make recommendations that could feed into reconsideration of the Financial Services Bill. I would have thought that the outcome of the Wheatley review would be the subject of serious consideration by the Treasury Committee. I also wonder how the House would consider the implications of that urgent review, which the Chancellor has instigated, under Martin Wheatley. Will the Financial Services Bill Committee be reconstituted or will we just receive scrambled amendments? There will be confusion, because the Wheatley review is meant to come up with recommendations for legislative change—through the Financial Services Bill first, but possibly also through the banking reform Bill, which the Government have told us is due in the new year. Surely the journey to the banking reform Bill should involve serious consideration and pre-legislative scrutiny by the Treasury Committee, and perhaps others too.

I am not sure how the Treasury Committee can perform its usual role of giving such key legislative consideration if so many of its members and its Chairman are absorbed in the inquiry that this motion establishes—an inquiry that will be intensive and could even turn out to be extensive, in terms of the issues it gets into. We as a House are asking the Commission to surf a very dense, murky and smelly swamp in short order and come up with clear findings and recommendations. We are assigning it quite an inordinate task, which not only will be hard to achieve in itself, but will end up damaging the work of the Treasury Committee.

As someone who sat on the Financial Services Bill Committee, I was conscious of the fact that we had many members of the Treasury Committee serving on that Committee. I was also struck, however, by the fact that they resiled from positions that they had agreed to, as members of the Treasury Select Committee, in their very good report into aspects of the Financial Services Bill. It was quite common for the hon. Member for Nottingham East (Chris Leslie) to make points in that Bill Committee in which he quoted extensively from the Treasury Select Committee report, only for members of the Select Committee to disown the report or distance themselves from it. I was almost expecting them to say that they were not inextricably linked to their membership of the Select Committee in that particular capacity. That experience gives me concern about splitting the attention and capacity of the Treasury Select Committee in this way, and I worry that this might be a well-motivated misadventure in regard to its implications for the work of the Committee.

I hope that the Leader of the House will be able to clarify the Government’s hopes and intentions in relation to the timing of the Financial Services Bill and any amendments that they believe should be made to it in the light of the LIBOR scandal, given the Chancellor’s statement two weeks ago, and in relation to the banking reform Bill. There appear to be potentially overlapping and intersecting reviews going on, and if we in this Chamber are mandating them, we need to take responsibility for the possible confusion that could be caused to others and to ourselves.

I do not believe that these arrangements will be enough to deal with the scale of the problem or the questions that it raises not only about banking but about the competence and due diligence of this Parliament. Are we as parliamentarians up to the task of properly scrutinising legislation and introducing regulatory changes? Is it enough for us to devolve the task to a group of people hand-picked from the Treasury Select Committee by the Whips and expect them to come up with all the answers while we take responsibility only for receiving them? I do not think that that is good enough.

I did not vote for a parliamentary inquiry device when we voted on the matter the week before last, but I accept that this is the chosen outcome. I have serious reservations about the way in which the terms of reference for the Commission have been laid out here, and about the possibility of its composition weakening the Treasury Select Committee at a key time when two Bills are due to come back to us in the autumn, along with another Bill in the new year. I am also worried about the Committee’s ability to deal with other unfolding revelations that might emerge not only from the LIBOR scandal but from issues relating to quantitative easing, to which the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) referred, and to deal with the outflow from the machinations in the eurozone.

There is a lot of work for the Treasury Select Committee to concentrate on, and I am not sure that it will be assisted by the creation of this device. If the Committee is content with the arrangement, I will have to accept its opinion. However, that does not absolve us in this Chamber from our legislative responsibility in respect of those two Bills, which the Chancellor has told us could be directly relevant and whose scope and reach will need to be adjusted to take account of the LIBOR scandal and possibly other scandals as well.

I have profound reservations, but I wish those who are undertaking the inquiry well. They have a difficult task ahead of them, and I do not know how they are meant to perform it if, as the motion suggests, they will sometimes be expected to work as sub-Committees of one. That would create the bizarre scenario of a sub-Committee of one relying on the hired specialist advisers and other agents who will be licensed by this motion. That would create some fairly peculiar scenarios that Parliament might find hard to stand over. Members of the Commission might also find it hard comfortably to take ownership of all the undertakings of the Commission, given the odd construct that is provided for in the motion. I accept that this is a scramble in particular circumstances, and that time is pressing. However, I am not sure that it has been a good scramble. I think that there should have been better thought and more consideration, and I think that many of the people who are comfortable with this device now may end up regretting their decision.

House of Lords Reform Bill

Mark Durkan Excerpts

Tuesday 10th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

In following the hon. Member for Bournemouth West (Conor Burns), I acknowledge the strength and sincerity of his contribution, but I strongly and sincerely disagree with his views on these matters. I pay tribute, none the less, to his conduct and to his positive contribution as a Parliamentary Private Secretary in relation to Northern Ireland, where his insights and instincts were hugely appreciated by all parties and by people outside of party politics as well.

The Social Democratic and Labour party does not take seats in the House of Lords. As a point of principle, we do not believe in taking seats in a Chamber that is unelected, and in any other situation people in this House would see a wholly unelected Chamber as being anomalous, anachronistic, absurd and, indeed, a constitutional atrocity.

Only a few weeks ago, here in this Parliament, we hosted Aung San Suu Kyi. The majority of the parliamentarians who were present and called to assemble to hear her speech, however, were unelected, and she was talking about the importance of elective democracy. That is an irony which should not be lost on anyone in this House or, indeed, in the other House.

I have listened to many arguments from Members on both sides of the Chamber, and people seem to be turning themselves inside out in relation to the different position that they now hold on programme motions, compared with how comfortable they were with such motions when their party was in government and was the absolute master practitioner of them.

I have listened to Government Members raise queries about the West Lothian question, and they might rightly feel affronted that in this Chamber elected Members who are not from England are able to pass laws that affect England, but they seem to have no problem at all with unelected people from wherever passing laws, or with their numbers being inflated and added to all the time.

There are easy ways of dealing with primacy. The Parliament Act needs to be affirmed, but it also needs to be amended and updated. There is no reason why that could not be done if the Bill receives a Second Reading and we go on properly to amend it. Primacy can also be reflected in ensuring that this Chamber is the sole seat of the Executive. There should be no Ministers in the other place. If it is meant to be a revising, second legislative Chamber, its role should be primarily to do with legislation and its revision, and it does not need any Executive membership. Ministers can go to that Chamber and speak to and answer for their Bill, but they need not be Members of the other House.

We have heard the arguments about 15-year terms. If the fixed-term Parliaments had been for four years, then three terms would equal only 12 years, which would be more reasonable than 15 years, but unfortunately we are stuck with that because the legislation gave us five-year terms. However, it is better that people are elected for 15 years than appointed for life.

As regards how we can justify the Parliament Act in terms of maintaining financial privilege in this House, we can do that because the people elected to the other House will be, in some ways, unaccountable. The only people who should have powers over taxation are those who will be accountably representative. The justification is to say that there should be no taxation without accountable representation.

I, like others, would criticise many aspects of the Bill and hope to see them amended and changed if it were to make progress—although of course it now has the “uncommitted” status that the Speaker told us about earlier. Many people have said that there is a strong case for having some appointed Members, but I am not sure about that. If there is such a case, I want to hear it tested and proved further. Perhaps that is the issue that would most justify a referendum. If there is to be constitutional reform with a democratic House of Lords, and if other people will continue to be appointed through some obscure system, perhaps that should be subject to the decision of the people. They will have the right to elect the first set of Members, so perhaps they should have a say in a referendum whether they want the other Members as well.

On the question of the bishops, I am not comfortable with the idea that there should be a Bench of prelates drawn from one Church alone. If there is a case to be made, as I have heard people argue, for a pastoral Bench from which people can speak on the basis of certain ethical and faith-informed values, its Members should not be confined to one denomination or one faith. Perhaps they should not have votes either, because they should not want to be sullied or compromised in relation to party political matters.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

The hon. Gentleman diminishes the role that the bishops have played in the other House, but he must accept that on welfare reform they led the charge that brought that matter back to this House and got it to change its position.

[Mark Durkan]

I would accept the hon. Gentleman’s point if he and his party colleagues had not voted against the bishops’ amendment on child benefit, which said that it should be excluded from the benefits cap. If there is a case to be made for the bishops on the basis of the contribution that they have made, which I do not decry, I still do not know why they should be solely confined to the Church of England and why that is ordained in the Bill.

Members are telling us that the Bill is not wanted by the public and that it will be a waste of parliamentary time and a distraction, yet some of them would have been prepared to vote against the programme motion to say that they wanted even more time taken up on it in this Chamber and elsewhere. A wise observation is that irony in politics is usually hypocrisy with panache. There is a lot of irony in the strange positions articulated by many Members on both sides of the House, and there is a lot of panache in the way that they have presented their cases, but of course, Mr Deputy Speaker, I have heard no hypocrisy.

Business of the House

Mark Durkan Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

Issues of whipping are a matter for my right hon. Friend the Patronage Secretary. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman was in the House yesterday, but the Government made their views on this issue known then.

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

I thank the Leader of the House for his statement. Yesterday, we were promised one motion, but today we are being told that there will be two, which apparently, given what he has just said, will be rival motions. As has been mentioned, many people see a case for a parliamentary inquiry that will inform amendments to the Financial Services Bill and also see the need for a wider judicial inquiry to get to the bottom of this problem. This “strokery” of good key business being made a casualty of today’s announcement and of rival motions will frustrate Parliament in doing the job it needs to do in response to this crisis.

[Sir George Young]

I say to the hon. Gentleman that there is a disagreement between the two sides of the House as to the best way forward. The right way to resolve that disagreement is to have a debate and then have a vote on the two alternative propositions. That is how this House makes a decision.

Business of the House

Mark Durkan Excerpts

Thursday 2nd February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

Some weeks ago, the Leader of the House promised me in this Chamber that we would have adequate time to consider the Welfare Reform Bill on receipt of the Lords amendments. Given the very short time we had yesterday, we could not divide on the programme motion, as we wanted to protect precious time for debate. The Minister of State hogged the Dispatch Box for some 45 minutes during consideration of the third group of amendments. One of the amendments that was then accepted, because it could not be put to a Division, hollowed out the Child Poverty Act 2010, which was supported by all parties in this House in the last Parliament. Will the Leader of the House ensure that the House can reconsider the matter, so that we do not end up telling the public that we inadvertently deleted a key field in that important Act, which was passed in the last Parliament?

[Sir George Young]

I understand the hon. Gentleman’s concern. The question whether any further debate is held on the Bill depends on another place, to which it has now been returned, amended. I did announce last Thursday one day’s debate on the Welfare Reform Bill. No official representations were made against what I had planned, and there was no Division yesterday on the programme motion. There were three separate debates yesterday, every single Lords amendment was considered, and we had already had some two days on Report, so it was not as if the House was addressing these issues for the first time. My view is that, in the context of Commons’ consideration of Lords amendments of other Bills, a one day debate was adequate, and that its structure enabled debates to take place on all the important Lords amendments.

Business of the House

Mark Durkan Excerpts

Thursday 12th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

The Leader of the House may not want the Chamber to be seen as a “legislative factory”, but nor should it be seen as just a political wii game in which many points are scored but nothing substantial is achieved. Once the session of keepy-uppy in which the Chamber is currently engaged has ended, will it be able to give commensurate consideration to the important issues in the Welfare Reform Bill that are being subjected to serious deliberation and amendment in the other place?

[Sir George Young]

I hope the hon. Gentleman will accept that the coalition Government have sought to be more generous than the last Government in allocating time for their programme to be dealt with on the Floor of the House. We have allowed two, and in one case three, days for the Report stages of important Bills, and we intend to maintain our good record of giving the House adequate time in which to consider legislation. That commitment also extends to important amendments that have been passed in another place.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Mark Durkan Excerpts

Monday 1st November 2010 Commons Chamber

[John Thurso]

I am receptive to the hon. Gentleman’s argument. However, if he knew my constituency, he would know that saying it might like to be called Thurso is probably the worst insult that could be delivered to the Royal Borough of Wick and to Wickans. May I put it on record that I am entirely content with Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross—or however much of Ross I may end up with?

There is a clear need for the Bill to be amended and if, given the lack of time, we cannot achieve that, I sincerely hope that the other place will take a long, strong and hard look at it. This is the sort of constitutional change that simply must not be allowed to slip through on the back of an electoral pact.

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

I want to speak to several amendments that I tabled in this group. Amendments 188, 193, 189 and 192 all refer to issues that arise in the context of Northern Ireland. This group includes other amendments that address issues that arise in the context of Wales and the Scottish islands, and constituencies that include such areas. There is also an amendment relating to the Isle of Wight.

My amendments are not about “ferrymanders” for constituencies with many islands, nor are they about “valleymanders” because of the geography of Northern Ireland, but they address two points. One is the principle of having a distinct quota in Northern Ireland. Amendments 9, 200 and 202 would give the four boundary commissions four discrete electoral quotas for the constituent parts of the United Kingdom. I have no issue with that, and I agree with it in principle, although I am not here to legislate for other parts of the United Kingdom.

I tabled amendment 192 because the Government seem to have set their face against separate electoral quotas for constituent parts. It calls for a distinct Northern Ireland quota. If the seat reduction goes through, we will end up with about 15 constituencies. Because the boundaries will be changed every five years, according to the UK quota arithmetic, it could be that under the Sainte-Laguë system for distributing seats to the four constituent boundary commissions the following boundary review might reduce the number of seats in Northern Ireland to 14, and the boundary review after that, depending on what happens with registration, might raise the number again.

Chopping and changing the number of seats in Northern Ireland every five years without any regard to either a sense of equality or a quota that relates to Northern Ireland’s particular circumstances has difficulties. My amendments, which are specifically about Northern Ireland, could stand so I ask the Government to consider them even if they combine to defeat the other amendments, which sensibly and correctly call for discrete quotas. If separate boundary commissions are to be given particular tasks for particular areas, they should at least be mandated to produce a specific quota for those areas.

[Mr MacNeil]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good and interesting point in that it underlines the general population instability in the UK. Recent scholars of the Union have pointed out that the Scottish percentage of the UK population has decreased. In the years to come, given the pattern of movement in the UK and the way in which the economy is run from south-east England, we might see more MPs from England and fewer from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The hon. Gentleman thus makes a very sensible point.

[Mark Durkan]

The hon. Gentleman spells out exactly the vista that is ahead of us with this Bill. Not only are the different boundary commissions not allowed to take account of the totality of circumstances within the territories for which they are responsible, but they are bound not just by the arithmetic of the UK quota but by the fixed limit of 600 seats. Part of our problem with all this is that we have a fixed limit of seats. There is not one seat more and not one seat fewer; there is just an absolute given number. I can see in that some of the conundrums that will beset this House every single time a boundary review is undertaken.

[Mr David Hamilton]

Does the hon. Gentleman not accept that there is no recognition that in 2005, Scotland moved from 72 MPs down to 58 MPs? If the proposal goes ahead, there will be a further reduction of eight in Scotland. That is an outrageous reduction in MPs and representation throughout Scotland. It is much more than the percentage that is being talked about over here.

[Mark Durkan]

The hon. Gentleman has spelled out exactly what lies ahead with this Bill. There is uncertainty over the changes that will come with the introduction of this Bill but, in addition, in every single Parliament there will be an arithmetical play-off over who gets the last bundle of seats out of the 600. Does a party qualify under Sainte-Laguë for an extra seat, or does it end up losing a seat in Scotland, Wales or in Northern Ireland? The Boundary Commission will then be asked to deal with the consequences again.

[Kevin Brennan]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the Government’s approach to this Bill, and the observations from some Government Members, profoundly misunderstands the nature of the United Kingdom? By equalising—except with some exceptions—the parliamentary constituencies, it completely ignores the fact that we are a united kingdom of nations of different sizes. In the United States, where there are equal congressional districts, the Senate balances the rights of the smaller states. There is no balancing within this Bill for the small nations, which could never ever outvote the interests of the largest nation in this United Kingdom.

[Mark Durkan]

I think I understand the point that the hon. Gentleman is trying to make. Personally, I am no fan of the United Kingdom. I am not a comfortable subject of it, and, as far as I am concerned, my small nation is not represented in the United Kingdom. My small nation is divided between the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. I have no doubt that that will be work for another Bill on another day.

I want to make the point that the amendment in respect of the distinct Northern Ireland quota has its own merits, even if the Government, wrongly, unwisely and unfairly combine to defeat the other sensible amendments that would entrust boundary commissions with their own discrete quotas.

The other key area in amendments 188 and 193, and particularly in amendment 193, is to do with ensuring that the Boundary Commission for Northern Ireland will not just have to respect carefully things like local government wards, as the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) has spelled out, which the Bill as it stood was already providing for, but will have to have regard to the fact that constituencies in Northern Ireland are also, absolutely by statute, constituencies of the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Under the Northern Ireland Act 1998 and the Good Friday agreement, it was decided that parliamentary constituency boundaries would be exactly coterminous with the Assembly multi-seat boundaries, so changing the parliamentary boundaries means changing the Assembly boundaries. Under this Bill, they will be changed every five years, according to arithmetic dictated by the UK in general. We could end up with geo-sectarian issues as a result, and with the unsettling effect of boundary reviews throughout the life of every Assembly and every Parliament. Towns and villages will feel that, because of the boundary arithmetic, they are being pushed out of their natural hinterland and perhaps split between two Assembly constituencies, and that the natural base for their Assembly seat could be lost. There could also be implications for health care and other services.

[Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend made a point about the people living on the periphery of a constituency chopping and changing between elected representatives at every election. What does he think that will do for the morale of those people, when they come to cast their vote? Is it good for democracy if those people feel that they are not really part of anywhere at all?

[Mark Durkan]

I do not believe that it is good for democracy. Thankfully, Northern Ireland now has a more settled process, but we face continuous and unsettling boundary reviews, some of which will come into play in time for the next parliamentary election but not in time for the next Assembly election. An Assembly election could therefore take place within boundaries that are about to disappear, and the next parliamentary election could be held within different ones. People will be completely confused. Equally, the number of our constituencies could go up and down, because the Sainte-Laguë method means that we are always in danger of just losing or just gaining a seat at each review.

[Mark Tami]

Can the hon. Gentleman foresee a situation in which a small town or village could move one way for one election, and back again for the next? In the Northern Ireland context, that could have considerable ramifications.

[Mark Durkan]

Yes, it could have serious ramifications. I do not need to spell out the names of particular townlands and their hinterlands, but the consequences are obvious, especially for multi-seat constituencies.

In the various amendments that I have tabled, I am not saying that we are seeking inequality for Northern Ireland. The principle of equality of constituencies should exist, particularly in constituencies that have to elect six Members, supposedly on a PR basis. They should be broadly equal, but they should be equal in a Northern Ireland sense.

[Mr Dodds]

On this issue, the hon. Gentleman and I agree about the Bill’s impact on the Northern Ireland Assembly. We might not agree on how we see our future, because my party obviously sees Northern Ireland as part of the United Kingdom. He is absolutely right to mention the Assembly constituency boundaries, however. Those boundaries will be about to change when the election is held in 2019, so anyone standing in those elections will have been representing their constituency for four years, but the boundaries will have been changed for the past three years. That is a completely unacceptable situation.

[Mark Durkan]

The right hon. Gentleman is right to backlight exactly the sort of anomalies that will be created by the Bill. We are meant to be legislating for the whole of the United Kingdom and its constituent parts, so let us not legislate to create anomalies.

[Paul Murphy]

I say to my hon. Friend the Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Belfast North (Mr Dodds) that a great deal of negotiation and compromise led to the Good Friday agreement, which created the situation in which the parliamentary constituencies equated with the Assembly constituencies. Does my hon. Friend not agree that the actions of the Government are such that, if their proposals are accepted, all that work could be jeopardised at a stroke?

[Mark Durkan]

I totally agree with the right hon. Gentleman, who served with great distinction in Northern Ireland, not only as Secretary of State but as Minister of State. He was also the person who chaired the Strand 1 negotiations. Everyone rightly praises George Mitchell for his role, but not enough praise is conferred on the right hon. Gentleman for his role, and for the patience and perspicacity that he showed at that time. I must remind him, however, that in those negotiations, some of us were advocating that Northern Ireland should be granted the alternative vote system for Westminster elections as well. He and his right hon. Friend the then Prime Minister resisted that proposal, however.

[Mr MacNeil]

The crux of my hon. Friend’s argument is the instability that will be caused by the five-yearly boundary reviews. Does he feel that an opportunity was missed in Committee when the House rejected an amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Leeds North West (Greg Mulholland) that would have established reviews every 10 years? That would have brought greater stability for mainland Members who, rather than looking over their shoulder every five years, would have had some breathing space and a continuous constituency for at least one Parliament. Does my hon. Friend agree that, unfortunately, the other place might have to ride to the rescue of the Commons yet again?

[Mark Durkan]

Again, my hon. and Celtic colleague has spoken with great sense. Hon. Members will regret what they are doing with this Bill. They will find themselves living with the consequences, and comparing the boundary process with the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority process.

[Mr Dai Havard (Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney) (Lab)]

The uncertainty to which the hon. Gentleman alludes has particular resonance in Northern Ireland, and extraneous matter can fill many vacuums, as we have seen in the past. Does he not agree, however, that that uncertainty, coupled with a fixed-term Parliament, would not be good for democracy, because Members elected under such a system would be interested not in representing the people but in the next stage in the development of their own electoral process?

[Mark Durkan]

I thank my hon. Friend for that point. Like so many other hon. Members, he reinforces exactly the kind of malign scenario that will emerge as a result of the Bill. Boundary reviews will take place during the life of every Parliament, with an absence of local inquiries, if the Government get their way. Also, as we know from our discussions in Committee, the Secretaries of State will be able to make modifications when laying reports. Boundary commissions will consult first on one report, then on another. The third report will then be final, but the Secretary of State may lay it with modifications.

[Kevin Brennan]

Does my hon. Friend agree that an unforeseen consequence of this electoral hokey cokey, with villages and communities coming in and out of constituencies every five years, could be competition for additional casework between Members of Parliament, as happens under the additional Member system? It would be utterly unhealthy if a Member of Parliament were seeking to represent the area that he would be representing in the next Parliament rather than his present one.

[Mark Durkan]

I note the hon. Gentleman’s point. I am not sure that the public would object to lots of local representatives working hard for them and their interests, but I understand the complication that he alludes to.

There is a glaring absence of any reference to the Northern Ireland Assembly in the Bill. We have not even been consulted or communicated with about the process. I have tabled amendments that deal with that. Whatever the Government’s attitude to all the other very worthy amendments, I ask them to bear in mind that they are in serious deficit in the attention that they are giving to Northern Ireland.

[Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan), who makes a case for which I have a great deal of sympathy. I should like to express the great frustration of hon. Members representing Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly that we have not had an opportunity to advance the voice of, and the case for, Cornwall in debates on a Bill that will have a significant impact on Cornwall and its future. We should really have had such an opportunity before but, because of the arcane way in which we still manage our business in the House, we are left with the clock ticking away, and with very little time to make our case. As my hon. Friend the Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso) said earlier, this is a clash between two principles. The first is that of equalisation, and no one could properly argue against that. However, we must also consider the important principle of respecting tradition, history and geography.

I draw attention to my amendments 196 and 4. One deals with the principle of discretion for the Boundary Commission to apply not just to Cornwall, but to other places, too. Sometimes people are not aware of the potential consequences that flow from their own community, their own identity and their own place. It is important to have an amendment that provides the Boundary Commission with a great deal more discretion. The other amendment deals with the historic and essential boundary of Cornwall, the integrity of which must be respected and protected.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Laing]

I see the hon. Gentleman’s point. However, the logic and arithmetic of that is that it does of course happen, but it pretty well cancels itself out from one constituency to the next. People often, for various reasons and quite legitimately, register in more than one place, but the fact that it happens all over the country cancels it out.

[Mark Durkan]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Mrs Laing]

No, I cannot prolong this part of the debate. I am aware that there is very little time and there are a lot of matters to be discussed.

All the other parts of this debate have been froth: the only thing that matters is that in a modern democracy every vote should have an equal value, and every Member of Parliament should come to this House with an equal number of constituents behind them.

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[Sadiq Khan]

This is what we call the respect agenda. I hope that when those in Scotland have seen the Bill rushed through, the way in which the debate has been stopped—the hon. Member for Epping Forest mentioned “truncated” contributions—and the number of MPs who have not been allowed to make a contribution, they will form their own judgment.

We do not want to stop being the envy of the democratic world, and I commend my amendment to the House. I ask those colleagues who are watching the debate in their rooms to do the right thing and support amendment 15.

[Mark Durkan]

I rise to speak to amendments 194 and 195. Before I address them specifically, however, I shall comment on one of the amendments tabled by members of the Select Committee, with which I have a fair degree of sympathy. I must express my slight reservation, however, about the wording of proposed new subsection A2(a) in amendment 205. I am worried that, by asking a boundary commission to publish the criteria it would use in the splitting of wards, we could end up inviting the commission to split wards more than we want. The Bill proposes that wards should not be split, and I think that most Members agree that local government boundaries should not be split. I am worried that that proposal could result in more wards being split than people would want. I would still support that amendment on a vote, however.

Amendment 195 deals with the Government resisting all attempts to keep local inquiries as a general option. Under my proposal, at least Northern Ireland would be allowed the option of holding a general regional inquiry in relation to all the seats in Northern Ireland. This proposal is a fall-back measure.

I want to make it clear that I absolutely support the amendments that would preserve the opportunity of holding local inquiries throughout the United Kingdom. The right hon. Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan) made a powerful speech in support of preserving inquiries and their important role. I know that other colleagues will propose other amendments to preserve inquiries.

I thought that the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing) was quite disparaging about the role of inquiries, submissions and contributions to inquiries. First, where political parties make shallow, self-serving submissions about boundaries and where specious and spurious claims of local identity and local interests are made, there is no better way of exposing them than local inquiries. By their very nature, local inquiries expose, counter and introduce other realities.

The hon. Lady’s speech was about the rule of arithmetic, and I agree that this is what the Bill is about—the tyranny of arithmetic for boundaries in the future. She says that it does not matter. For her, traditions do not matter; local conditions do not matter; identity does not matter; community does not matter—it is all going to be driven by a numerical imperative that says “one size fits all” and nothing else can be considered. An official of the European Commission would be proud of that mindset. It is exactly the mindset that the hon. Lady usually criticises in the European Commission. As well as backing the “IPSA-fication” of boundaries in the future, she is now backing a European Commission standard that says, “No, we just deal in numerical arithmetic; we see only one size fitting all; we make no concession to local realities or local conditions.”

[Mrs Laing]

I rise to defend myself, because that is not at all what I said. On the contrary, communities and local traditions are very important. It is important to have a parish council representing a village and to have Cornishmen feeling Cornish and caring about Cornwall—nobody is changing Cornwall. It is very important to respect local history and the feelings of local communities. That is not reflected in the boundaries of parliamentary constituencies. There are many other ways in which those traditions and communities are respected, observed and upheld. It is not in the boundaries of parliamentary constituencies—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. Interventions should be short, not a second speech.

[Mark Durkan]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I take no responsibility for the possibility that the boundaries of interventions were exceeded there.

I would take the hon. Lady’s point if she had said that in her speech, but that was not the attitude she conveyed. Then, it was the numerical imperative that was going to achieve an equality that she believed overrode every other possible consideration, including those that she has just outlined. Boundary commissions have been able to ensure that these sorts of local considerations are brought to bear on the construct of parliamentary constituencies. In future, after this Bill, however, that is going to be hard.

I do not accept that we should lose the ability to have local inquiries in general as part of electoral reform, but my fall-back amendments are designed to protect the particular circumstances of Northern Ireland, where, as I said when speaking to earlier amendments, it needs to be borne in mind that the parliamentary constituencies are, by statute, also the constituencies for the Northern Ireland Assembly. Many of the issues that will come up as matters of local contention and perhaps even party political controversy will pertain as much to the Assembly constituencies as to other constituencies. Of course, the Northern Ireland Assembly is elected on the basis of proportional representation, which is meant to be about giving equal weight to votes, including those of minorities in particular Northern Ireland constituencies. That is part of the agreement. We want to ensure that, rather than decisions in Northern Ireland being driven by robotic computer-generated arithmetic suggesting boundaries that will secure the numbers that fit, a local regional inquiry can take account of the different interests—not just party interests, but civic and local community interests.

[Mr MacNeil]

Is the hon. Gentleman suggesting—and all of us in the islands must bear this in mind—that there will be a particularly destabilising effect on Northern Irish society? We know what a destabilising effect on Northern Irish society might mean. Is that the main cause of his concern?

[Mark Durkan]

I do not want to dwell on this, because I spoke about it in the context of an earlier amendment, but we should bear in mind that the boundaries will be revised in every single Parliament and Assembly as a result of the Bill. Given the way in which the seats will be distributed in the various parts of the United Kingdom, the chances are that the number of seats in Northern Ireland will fall following one boundary review, rise following the next, and then fall again.

The unsettling nature of the reviews will affect Assembly and parliamentary constituencies. A computer will say, “This is what we have to do,” and it is possible that constituencies will receive the word that the computer says that there must be a reduction from 15 to 14 following the next boundary review. That will be hugely destabilising, and people will feel frustrated when they are told, “Sorry, this pays no regard to the Northern Ireland Assembly.” Another of my amendments, in a subsequent group, would enable the Speaker of the Assembly to be notified formally of all the workings of the boundary commissions. That would make at least some acknowledgement of the impact on the Assembly, which is completely absent from the Bill.

I believe that if the Government are refusing to allow local inquiries elsewhere—and they should not do that—they should at least allow, as a fall-back, a general inquiry in Northern Ireland that will take account of its particular circumstances. I will support any and all amendments that defend local inquiries.

I ask Members to bear my amendment in mind; I ask the Government to continue to acknowledge that there is a deficit in the consideration that they have given to Northern Ireland in the Bill, and to be ready to make up for that deficit.

[Mr George Howarth]

It is a great pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan), who always speaks with a deep understanding of Northern Ireland, with a great passion for Northern Ireland, and, of course, with eloquence.

I was elected in a by-election in 1986 to represent a constituency that was then known as Knowsley, North. I represented Knowsley, North in the House until 1997. Following earlier boundary changes—a public inquiry had been held before the boundaries were finally fixed—I ended up representing a constituency known as Knowsley, North and Sefton, East. I represented Knowsley, North and Sefton, East for 13 years. In the meantime, the boundary commissioner came along again, and I now represent a constituency known as Knowsley. I therefore speak as one who has experienced dramatic boundary changes in my constituency on two occasions.

I think it instructive to examine what happened on both those occasions. On the first occasion, when the boundary commission proposed that the Knowsley, North constituency should be coupled with Sefton, East, a public inquiry was held. Different views were expressed on either side of the boundary about what was and what was not appropriate. People had their say. I attended the inquiry on more than one occasion, and heard the debates about what links existed between the two constituencies.

Two facts emerged that tipped the balance. The first was that a large number of people living in the Sefton, East part of what subsequently became the Knowsley, North and Sefton, East constituency worked in Knowsley, which was an industrial area. The second was that many people travelled between the two areas for leisure purposes.

The leisure centre in Kirkby, which was in the old Knowsley, North constituency, was heavily used by people from Maghull, Aintree and Melling, so a link was established, but it would never have been established—nobody would have even checked the statistics on this—unless there had been a public inquiry. In the end, the original Boundary Commission proposals stood and the new constituency was formed; it became a parliamentary seat at the 1997 general election.

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[Mr Heath]

No, I have got to make progress.

The third reason for abolishing inquiries is that they rarely lead to significant changes in recommendations. The statistics that are often prayed in aid of local inquiries usually group together many different constituencies and include changes solely to the names of constituencies, to inflate the figure of the proportion that lead to change. The truth, as Professor Johnston told the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, is:

“Public inquiries often have no impact.”

The changes are frequently minor. For example, at the time of the fifth general review in England, only 2% of wards in counties where inquiries were held were moved between constituencies as a result.

What the Bill does—[Interruption.] No, let us deal with what the Bill actually does. It improves the process of public consultation, so that the public will be better able to have their say on proposals. That is why we are extending the period for representations on proposals from one month to three. Where a boundary commission revises proposed recommendations, the period of consultation on the revised proposals will be the same.

In making that decision, the Government have considered the approach taken in other nations. We looked at the example of Australia, which has a 28-day consultation period for proposed recommendations, followed by 14 days for comments. The Government propose a longer consultation period of three months.

[Mark Durkan]

The Deputy Leader has said that where a boundary commission reviews its recommendations, they will be subject to a further period of consultation, but a second revision will be final, and there will be no consultation. An appeal will involve people turning to the Secretary of State, who may, under the Bill, prepare an Order in Council with or without modification. The Secretary of State can therefore change things, but the public cannot appeal.

[Mr Heath]

I would answer the hon. Gentleman in two ways, and I know that he takes a serious interest in these matters. The second inquiry, as he puts it, does not happen now. Once a boundary commission makes its final conclusions, that is the end of the story—and there has to be an end to the process. In the Bill, we are establishing a longer and more thorough process of consultation, all of which will be in the open, rather than in secret, because it will all be published and available for people to see. That is a fairer way of doing things than having highly paid QCs representing two big parties simply making partisan points in front of an assistant commissioner.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Mark Durkan Excerpts

Wednesday 20th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

We have had 51 speakers—or rather, 52, counting the Deputy Leader of the House, who has just spoken. Despite his rather petulant and “ad hominate” speech last night, we have none the less had a good debate. He did, however, correctly excoriate me for not fully adumbrating the amendments that we tabled. That was partly because I took 31 interventions, more than half of which were from Government Members, but perhaps it would be of assistance if I were now to explain precisely why our two amendments are important.

The Deputy Leader of the House was quite right last night to say that our two amendments, 127 and 135, which refer to different parts of the Bill, are not necessarily readily comprehensible at first sight—partly because one refers to clause 8 and the other to clause 16. Both appear at different points in the amendment paper. Consequently, Members will have to turn to pages 429 and 445 to find them.

Amendment 127 would include in clause 8 the words

“within twelve months of part 2 of the…Act…coming into force in accordance with section 16(2) thereof’.”

In other words, the Boundary Commission would produce its report within 12 months of an addition to clause 16(2), which we would insert through amendment 135, stating,

“after the referendum on the determination of powers devolved to the National Assembly for Wales under the terms of the Government of Wales Act 2006”.

The Deputy Leader of the House rightly told me off last night for not explaining precisely why we believe that that is important. As I tried to say in yesterday’s debate, historically, we have constructed Parliament in this country by determination according to the four different constituent parts of the Union. That has included the representation that each part requires in order for the Union to be solid and hold together, which is precisely what happened in the 1536 Act of Union, the 1707 Act of Union and the 1801 Act of Union. With all three, the first thing determined was how much representation there should be from Wales, Scotland and Ireland. Obviously, that was subsequently changed with the creation of the Irish Free State.

The further change to Scottish representation occurred when we introduced devolution, so, following the Scotland Act 1998, it was agreed that because a variety of powers would be given to the Scottish Parliament, it was right and proper for the number of seats that Scotland accounted for in the Westminster Parliament to be reduced.

The first referendum in Wales on devolution brought about the creation of the National Assembly for Wales, which does not have law-making powers or enjoy any powers over crime, justice or policing, so it is a somewhat different body from the Scottish Parliament. However, there is a proposition that follows on from the Wales Act 2006, and it will be tested in a referendum, which the Government have said will take place in the first quarter of next year, but for which as yet no date has been set. The Welsh Assembly Government have requested that it should be on 3 March, but the Secretary of State for Wales has not yet assented to that. We do not know whether a date has been agreed or whether the referendum will proceed. The date of 3 March may well be problematic, as—how can I put it?—it sometimes rains in Wales in March. Sometimes we have fairly excessive conditions in large parts of Wales at the beginning of March, so the date may well end up being inappropriate.

However, be that as it may, we need to be assured of what powers the Welsh Assembly will have if we are then to have a coherent Union-based understanding of how much representation there should be from Wales in the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. That is why we have tabled the two amendments, and I shall press them to a Division, because I have not heard anything from the Deputy Leader of the House to alter my opinion that we should proceed on a Union-based understanding of how we create this House, not on a purely mathematically based assumption.

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

Further to that point, does my hon. Friend recognise that because of the arithmetical formula, the Bill will ensure not just that boundaries will change every five years, but that the number of seats allocated to each Boundary Commission could change? The number of seats in Northern Ireland could go up in one review and down in another, and that in turn would affect the seats in the Northern Ireland Assembly, because the constituencies of the Assembly and of Parliament are absolutely coterminous. The proposal will create havoc.

[Chris Bryant]

The seats in the Welsh Assembly are coterminous with those for this Parliament at the moment, although there is a provision later in the Bill to change that through decoupling. That is something that we must analyse. My hon. Friend is right that there may be a change in the number of seats between each segment. If there is a boundary review every five years, there might well be a change in the number of seats, and in the end I am not sure whether that is likely to lead to a more stable constitutional settlement between the four constituent parts of the Union.

There are those who like to think that there is just the Union, not any constituent parts, and there are those who want to think that there are just the constituent parts—which should not be constituent parts but independent. However, I believe that they are constituent parts of the whole, and I say gently to Ministers that the way in which they are proceeding in relation to some parts of the Union is not likely to aid the Unionist cause. It will be detrimental.

We do not say that the provision in our amendments should be introduced solely if the referendum is successful in granting further powers to the Assembly.

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[Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)]

As a member of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, I am disappointed to find that a measure with cross-party support on the Committee—we all agreed to it—has not been accepted as a good piece of advice on amending a Bill which did not have the pre-legislative scrutiny that might have incorporated such a provision in the first place. Indeed, that is why we have such bodies as Select Committees. They exist to ensure, in an atmosphere that is not adversarial, a greater depth of debate than has been possible even in our debates on the Bill over the past couple of days and today. All Select Committee members felt that, as a safeguard, the amendment was a reasonable way to progress, and, if Ministers have no intention of making unreasonable modifications, they have nothing to lose from accepting such a provision.

The hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing) said that she had no concerns about her Government using such powers. We might think differently, but equally she might think differently if there were a change of Government. From the perspective of our discussions in the Committee, the measure simply represented a safeguard that accounts for the fact that the whole procedure has changed. We know that the provision in the Bill is very similar, so we are not ignoring it, but the amendment was agreed to in the wider context of a debate about how we carry out such boundary changes, and the fact that public inquiries will not take place. We wanted to ensure that things could not be altered at the last minute in an unsatisfactory way that cut across whatever public consultation there had been throughout the process.

With many aspects of the Bill, we have forgotten the underlying reason for wanting to legislate on the constitution. I remember the Deputy Prime Minister, when he introduced this constitutional programme, saying that he wanted to overcome the distrust in politics and the fact that people appeared to have lost faith in politics and politicians, and that he felt that the constitutional changes would improve the situation. Having listened to some of last night’s debate, I think it very important that we bear that test in mind when we consider the provision before us. We should ask ourselves, “Do these various detailed provisions improve that trust or detract from it?” The amendment would be a small and fairly technical provision that went some way to meeting that test. I commend it to the Minister and hope that it might be accepted.

[Mark Durkan]

The amendment would represent a very important reassurance, because the Minister would not be able to make highly arbitrary and subjective judgments on any modifications that were introduced. As my hon. Friends have pointed out, we are being asked to consider a situation in which, in every Parliament, there will be a boundary review in respect of the next Parliament. That means that in each Parliament, and in each Government, the relevant Minister will in effect have his or her hands on a boundary review. That fundamentally changes the political nature of the operation, and it might be abused. I am thinking not only of one party against another; it could be abused within a party. It could become yet another of the Whips’ weapons against recalcitrant Government Members—they could say, “Look, we can redistrict you.” That is what has happened in the United States. We find many former members of Congress who say that they were blatantly redistricted by their own parties because they did not fit or did not particularly toe the line. We have seen that happen in various states.

The arrangements provided in the Bill are pregnant with the possibility of abuse or accusations of abuse. The parliamentary process needs to be protected from that. The House has made a mistake in accepting boundary reviews every five years rather than every 10 years. That means that every Parliament will be affected and infected by the issue and the controversy around it. If Ministers want to be free from that, they should agree to the amendment.

[Mr Heath]

I am extremely grateful to the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing) for moving the amendment. I give my best wishes—and, I am sure, those of the whole Committee—to the Chairman of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, who would normally have been here to speak about its proposals.

We have had a short and helpful debate. The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) has told us about the derivation of the word “gerrymander” again; hopefully, we will hear that each day this Committee sits. It worries me when the hon. Gentleman talks about due process: the more he talks about it—and it is not the issue before us at this stage—the more I think he does not know what it means. We will come back to that later.

The hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore) assumed a position on the part of the Government without knowing what it was. I suggest to her that that is not a sensible way to go forward; that is meant to be helpful. We are grateful to her.

The hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) got the tone exactly right. There is an issue, and we understand that. The amendment would allow the Order in Council laid before Parliament to give effect to the boundary commissions’ recommendations with modifications only if the commissions were content with the changes made. As we have heard, the existing legislation does not have a restriction on modification such as that proposed by the amendment. The Bill simply preserves that power.

There is no record of that power ever having been used. There was an instance in which a Government urged Parliament to reject boundary commission proposals in toto rather than modify them, and some would suggest that that in itself was an abuse, but a Government have never urged Parliament to modify such proposals, so there is no history on the issue. However, I entirely understand the desire expressed by the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee to ensure the independence of the boundary commissions and see that their work is not modified for partisan reasons by any Government.

I say to the hon. Member for Epping Forest that the Government would like to consider the matter in more detail. There might be a situation in which, for the timely implementation of the boundary commission’s recommendations, any unintended errors in the reports would need to be corrected in the Order in Council. We would want to consider carefully how any such restriction on the power to include modifications in the Order in Council might work.

There may be a technical defect in what the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee has brought forward. That is not a criticism of its work. The amendment appears to require all four boundary commissions to agree to any modification, rather than the relevant commission or commissions for the part or parts of the United Kingdom where the modification is being made. We may have to look at how the amendment is cast.

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[Austin Mitchell]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. Many of the ideas that I raised, the questions that I have asked and the things that I have debated in Westminster Hall come from constituents and constituency problems. That is the nature of democracy—that is how it has to be. We have to face the fact that the state is interacting with people and imposing things on them more than ever before.

Let us look at the flood of problems that we have had with the Child Support Agency, and the fact that a special hotline has had to be created for MPs, so that they can get through to Belfast and have incomprehensible conversations. [Interruption.] I appreciate the difficulties that the constituents of my hon. Friend the Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) face doing that kind of job—if I could make it easier, I would—but it creates an enormous amount of extra work for us. The same is true of tax credits, which are extremely complex. There is all that interaction, and believe me, Ms Primarolo, there will be a lot more interaction as a result of the cuts announced today, as people come to us with problems to do with benefits, invalidity and cutting off job support. That is going to create a lot more work for us in our constituencies and a lot more work in our surgeries.

[Mark Durkan]

I just want to reinforce my hon. Friend’s point. He has to ring Belfast about CSA cases, but he is not the only Member who has to ring people in remote parts who know nothing of the situations that we are dealing with. We in Northern Ireland experience that regularly when we deal with tax credits. In fairness, the conversations that we have with Frank in Preston are comprehensible; it is the other officials who are the problem.

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[Mrs Laing]

I agree in principle with everything the hon. Lady says, but I would argue that three years is quite sufficient time for the Boundary Commission to undertake the task before it. The decision on the principle of the work going ahead can be taken in the Chamber over these few weeks of discussions on the Bill, and three years is quite long enough for the commission to do its work. The hon. Lady agrees with me on the principle of equalisation. Once a principle is established, it ought to be put into practice as soon as possible. Three years is plenty of time.

[Mark Durkan]

The hon. Lady says that 600 is a reasonable figure in the same way that the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority asserts that the figures it comes up with are reasonable. The problem is the rigid application of that reasonable figure, which will give rise to all sorts of problems and contradictions for which this House will be blamed.

[Mrs Laing]

I have been insulted many times in this Chamber, but I have never, ever been compared with IPSA before. I entirely disagree with the hon. Gentleman. There is proper consultation. Opposition Members speak as if the Boundary Commission is not involved in the process, but it is, and it has three years to do its job. It is perfectly capable of doing that job. The resources are in place and there is no problem.

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[Stephen Williams]

Then there is the state commissioner of the county of Ingham, and then there are all the judges to be elected: two judges for the Supreme Court, one for the court of appeals, and the incumbent and non-incumbent circuit judges for the 30th district. There are also a number of state propositions like the referendum that we are discussing.

There will not be elections for all the officers and elected representatives on 4 November this year. There will be no elections for Lansing or East Lansing local councillors, for a directly elected mayor or a directly elected sheriff, or for the two United States Senators who could represent the people from the state of Michigan; and, of course, there will no election for the President or Vice-President, or for all the appointed politicians who help to run Michigan and the United States.

It is clear that a person living in Michigan could potentially turn to a huge number of politicians, both elected and appointed, to resolve their problems. In my city of Bristol, however, there are only three to whom electors can turn. If we are honest with ourselves, instead of worrying about the cost of politics we should admit that we actually do politics rather cheaply in this country. Rather than electing school boards, as they do in the United States, we have school governors—people who give their time freely to serve their communities. Rather than electing judges, we have either appointed judges or numerous magistrates who give their time freely as well.

A reduction to save costs does not seem justified to me, and it is not yet justified in the context of a wider package of constitutional reform both of this Parliament and of the way in which we govern our localities. I look to the Deputy Leader of the House for assurances that we will be given a comprehensive package of political reform to put this reduction into a proper context.

[Mark Durkan]

Like other Members, I am keen for us to reach the next set of amendments, so I shall make only a couple of points.

Arguments are being presented about whether there should be 650 Members of Parliament or 600. The problem that I have with all the figures—including the 585 suggested by the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) and the 500 from the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George)—is that they result in just one sum: one magic, supreme and absolute number. That means that when we take away the holy trinity of the three protected constituencies, the boundary commissions must come up with figures that add up to 597.

That will have to be done in Parliament after Parliament, all the while taking account of changes in the numbers registering in different parts of the country, which will force boundary changes in every one of the four constituent boundary commissions. If there is a significant registration increase in part of England, Northern Ireland could lose a seat in the next Parliament. If there is a drop somewhere else, however, we might gain a seat. In each Parliament, therefore, we will be up a seat, perhaps, and then down a seat. In Northern Ireland, that will mean the boundary review will affect every single seat.

That will be one of the consequences of moving to this absolute figure of 600 and 600 only with no elasticity. To repeat a point I made earlier to the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing), I predict that we will end up questioning whether we decided on the change with too much urgency and as a result were left with a fixed, arbitrary limit and the tyranny of arithmetic—the insistence that one size has to fit all in spite of the reality and all other considerations. That will mean that we will end up with an IPSA-type situation for boundaries. In Parliament after Parliament, MPs will regret that they are dogged by all sorts of fairly arbitrary boundary changes that are driven purely by arithmetic and perhaps dictated by registration changes somewhere else. People in many constituencies will wonder why they are constantly having to go through such changes because of something that is happening somewhere else.

Should the Committee insist on going for diktats that will result in reviews having to be conducted every time and arithmetic for establishing a quota for seats, would there not be merit in amendment 228 tabled by the hon. Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers), which takes 600 as a target figure but allows a margin of accommodation to the boundary commissions so that there can be as few as 588 seats and no more than 612? That margin of consideration would at least allow the boundary commissions to take account of the issues and pressures facing them. Under clause 10, the number of seats allocated to them will be fixed under the Sainte-Laguë formula.

Already the Government recognise that the absolute figure of 600—and all the other aspects of the Bill—cannot be fully applied in respect of Northern Ireland, so they have had to say that in Northern Ireland the seats can vary more widely than the 5% either side of the UK quota. Therefore, we can come in at lower than 5% or over 5%, so our constituencies can be more disparate. That proves that the hon. Member for Epping Forest is wrong in saying that there are no adverse consequences and that the rigid application will not be a problem. The Bill admits that the rigid application is a problem, and it means that Northern Ireland will not be getting equal constituencies. We will have much more disparate constituencies as compared with other parts of the UK. More importantly, we will have much more disparate constituencies in the Northern Ireland Assembly, for which there are six Members. Therefore, disparity of representation and of mandate will arise in, of all places, Northern Ireland and Northern Ireland only. That was not what was intended when this House, as well as everybody else, supported the Good Friday agreement and its provisions.

I therefore ask the Government to consider the very sensible recommendation in amendment 228. Its sister amendment 227 does not accommodate the situation in Northern Ireland, because it allows only a 2% margin of discretion. It should allow for at least 2% or at least one seat. If that could be inserted in the Bill, it would help.

[Gavin Barwell]

I want to start by agreeing with the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt) who, unfortunately, has left the Chamber. He made the point that there is an irony in the positions that the different parties are taking. The Conservative party is making the progressive argument for greater electoral equality, while Labour is arguing the case for greater adherence to traditional community boundaries. One thinks back to 1982 when Michael Foot, then leader of the Labour party, and the Labour Chief Whip took the Boundary Commission to the courts because it had not crossed community boundaries and had not, in Labour’s view at that time, achieved sufficient electoral equality. For the benefit of my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Stephen Gilbert), I shall make four short points about the arguments advanced in favour of these amendments.

We have been asked, first, why we should reduce the number of seats. I can speak only for myself and describe why I shall be voting for such a reduction. I was a candidate during the MPs’ expenses scandal and I carried out a survey of every elector in my constituency. I put to them proposals from all three political parties about things that could be done to improve our political system and found that the second most popular was that the number of MPs should be reduced. [Hon. Members: “To what?”] At the time, I proposed a 10% reduction; that was the figure in our manifesto and I would happily have supported it.

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[Mark Durkan]

The Deputy Leader of the House told us that the figure of 600 was arbitrary. He has still not explained why an arbitrary figure has to be fixed in statute in perpetuity. If this is about creating equality between the component parts of the UK, why does the Bill say that constituencies in Northern Ireland can vary more widely, both among themselves and in comparison with constituencies elsewhere, than those anywhere else? That does not achieve what he says the Bill is supposed to achieve.

[Mr Heath]

We will have to differ on that specific point. I believe that what is proposed provides for a high level of equalisation across the whole United Kingdom. It is based on what is equitable for our constituents.

I return to the point about an incremental reduction, which was raised by one other hon. Member. I should like to make it clear that the issue was considered in the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, and the secretary of the Boundary Commission for England reported that there would be no particular advantage to making the change incrementally. The commission also said that it had both the resources to carry out the review and sufficient time, before the deadline for submitting reports on 1 October 2013, to draw up constituencies for a House of 600 at the review. The suggestion that that is impossible to achieve in the time scale that we propose is not substantiated.

The Government’s proposals strike the right balance. They will end once and for all the fluctuation in the size of the House and the upward pressure on the number of MPs under the current legislation, and propose a modest reduction in overall numbers, which will cut the cost of politics, but do so in a way that will not result in constituencies that represent a departure from the type that we see in this Parliament. I hope that right hon. and hon. Members will feel able to withdraw their amendments and support the Government’s position.