Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill

Debate between Pat Glass and Stephen Doughty

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

[Pat Glass]

I welcome my hon. Friend’s very strong point about the island communities.

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend has made a very strong point about the difference in the registers and under-registration. Is she aware that that will be magnified in places such as Cardiff, which is among the fastest growing cities in the UK? We are already under-registered and we are going to grow very fast. The reality is that, within a year or two, the proposals will be so out of date and people will be so disfranchised. Does my hon. Friend agree that that is a double whammy for places such as Cardiff?

[Pat Glass]

I do, and that situation is reflected right across the country.

Fewer and fewer people are bothering to vote in general and local elections, because they do not see it as relevant to their lives. We live in a time when many of our people see a divide between themselves and the establishment. That means us, by the way—even people like me, and I was born in a council house in a mining community and went to a comprehensive school. They see huge divides between us, the political elite—or the metropolitan elite, as the red tops like to call us—and anyone who seems to have a vested interest in parliamentary democracy, and the people, as the red tops like to call everyone else.