Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill

Debate between Pat Glass and Paul Monaghan

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 18th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Pat Glass]

The hon. Lady misses the point completely.

[Dr Paul Monaghan (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (SNP)]

On size, is the hon. Lady aware that the Boundary Commission for Scotland has proposed the notion that my constituency will be incorporated into a larger constituency called Highland North, covering 13,000 sq km, the same size as Northern Ireland? No one would seriously suggest that Northern Ireland should be covered by one MP, but that is what the proposals for Scotland suggest.

[Pat Glass]

The hon. Gentleman makes the case clearly.

The proposed system not only seeks to reduce the number of MPs, thereby making them more remote from their electorate, and to cut out 2 million registered voters, thereby giving them no vote, but seeks to create constituencies of equal size, irrespective of what that does to communities, and to include a review of the boundaries every five years, which will ensure that practically every constituency will change every five years. We will weaken MP accountability to our constituency and voters, because every five years the voters will be different people. In a sense, that will strengthen MPs’ accountability to their party, on whom they rely to be reselected, and will weaken their accountability to our constituents.