Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Paul Blomfield Excerpts

Tuesday 19th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

If this Bill passes, we will make the most significant reduction in parliamentary representation since 1922. If we are to make such a fundamental change, we need carefully to examine the basis on which we do it. There needs to be a proper assessment of constituency size, which the electoral register will not provide. In particular, any electoral register from December of any one year will not provide it.

My hon. Friend the Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) said earlier that we know that there are particular groups of voters who are under-represented—young people, students, those living in houses in multiple occupation, those in black and minority ethnic communities and those in social housing. In a constituency such as mine, all those groups combine and are linked to a very high level of turnover to create significant under-representation and under-registration. In just one of my wards, 23% of households have no one registered. In another, the figure is 19% and in another it is 16%. Across the constituency, the average is 15.5%. Many of those who are not registered to vote are those who face the problems that translate into higher levels of casework for me and for my office.

Registration in the constituency contrasts sharply with the neighbouring constituency, Sheffield Hallam, which is represented by the Deputy Prime Minister. It was a traditional Conservative seat until 1997 and some might say it is again. With the demographic profile of Sheffield Hallam and the stability of the population in that constituency, there are very high levels of registration. The number of unregistered households averages just 4%.

[Roger Williams (Brecon and Radnorshire) (LD)]

rose—

[Pete Wishart]

I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. Given the depressing statistics that he has related to the Committee this evening—[Interruption.] Sorry for the confusion, Mr Hoyle. Given the depressing outlook of the figures that he has given about voter registration, can he explain what the previous Labour Government did to try to improve the situation?

[Paul Blomfield]

The previous Labour Government did a great deal. Much of the responsibility for execution, of course, lies with the city council, which is run by the Liberal Democrats and it characterised itself by turning voters away from the polling station.

[Chris Ruane]

Talking of Liberal Democrat councils, is my hon. Friend aware of the previous Liberal leader of Islington council, who, when the Labour group asked for a registration drive before the election, said, “No, we’re not having that. That’s how we win elections”?

[Paul Blomfield]

I was not aware of that. I am grateful to have been informed and I am not at all surprised. As I said, in Sheffield Hallam, where there is only 4% under-registration, we begin to see the real nature of what lies behind the Bill.

I must disagree with the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing)—this is not just about those who are eligible to vote. Significant numbers of people who are not eligible to vote still need the support of their Member of Parliament. That should be taken account of when determining constituency size because we are there to provide a voice for all those in our constituency.

[Mark Tami]

Does my hon. Friend agree that even when one or two people in a household are on the register, one often finds during elections that there are four, five or six people in the house who are eligible to vote but not on the register?

[Paul Blomfield]

I accept that point entirely. On the calculation of unregistered households in my constituency, I estimate that there are about 25,000 people who are eligible to vote but who would not be counted into the constituency on the basis of a strict redefinition of boundaries by the electoral register. I think that we should—

[Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)]

Take your hand out of your pocket when you address the Chamber.

[Paul Blomfield]

I apologise for any offence that I have caused the hon. Gentleman, but I think it would be more useful to focus on the issues under debate. In that context, I want to support amendment 125, which provides for the Boundary Commission to develop a much more accurate assessment of numbers, drawing on information from the Office for National Statistics. I would have preferred it if amendment 229 was also being considered, as that specifically covered census information and would have provided another excellent way of redrawing boundaries.

[Gavin Williamson (South Staffordshire) (Con)]

We all accept that the information that comes from local authorities about the electoral roll is not always totally perfect, but people would not accuse others of gerrymandering as a result. If we started using information from many sources, there might be accusations of gerrymandering because of the use of that information.

[Paul Blomfield]

Amendment 125 takes the census as one source of information, but there are and have been fairly well-justified suggestions of gerrymandering based on the way in which the electoral register would be used were it applied in the December of any year.

[Chris Ruane]

On that point, electoral registration officers can calculate the eligible population in each ward in each of our constituencies. They have that information on databases such as the housing benefit and council tax databases, so it is available and could be produced to a high degree of accuracy.

[Paul Blomfield]

I accept that point and add that taking the electoral register in the December of any year in a constituency such as mine, with its turnover, would ensure that the numbers would be depressed. In the four months leading up to the general election, we added about 4,000 voters to the register in Sheffield Central. They were caught up in the excitement of the campaign that we were running, but those additions reflect the difficulty of using the December figure.

[Henry Smith]

Is not the answer to the problem better individual electoral registration rather than playing around with the size of constituency boundaries so that some constituencies have larger populations while others have smaller populations?

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Blomfield]

Obviously, we would all like to see better electoral registration. The point is that we know there are significant groups within all our communities for whom it is difficult to achieve the levels of registration that we wish to see.

[Mr Betts]

My hon. Friend is making a good point; the information that he has given the Committee about the great disparity in registration levels between his constituency and Sheffield, Hallam is very stark. But if he looks at information that was given to a Select Committee hearing in the Parliament before last in the House, about initial returns to the registration officer from different parts of Sheffield, he will find that registrations from Manor, an inner-city part of his constituency, were only just over 50% at first instance, while in the Dore ward in Hallam they were over 95%. And if we use a December figure before the canvassing has really got going to get additional people on the register, those initial returns and the disparity between them will be even greater than the disparity between the registers as they now stand.

[Paul Blomfield]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that point, because it highlights the particular difficulty of using the December register. There can be only two reasons to use December as the point at which to measure registered electors: either because there is undue haste in trying to push through this process, or because there is a recognition that at that point those voters who some would wish to see disregarded will not be reflected within the register.

The Government would claim that the Bill is about new politics, but a failure to address these concerns will send a message to the public that this represents the very worst of old politics, putting party advantage before democracy and, as one Government Member said on Second Reading, putting decisions behind closed doors before transparency. If the Bill proceeds unamended, it will not only damage the Government but damage confidence in our democracy.

[Simon Hughes]

I wanted to make a couple of brief comments, even before I was provoked by the hon. Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies). As it happens, I was inaccurately provoked, because he misread the table produced by the Library. I am one of the Members of Parliament whose constituency is in the top 10 of those where the proportion of the population registered to vote is smaller and the population is larger. The official figures in a House of Commons table show that Bermondsey and Old Southwark has a population of 122,510—we are No. 10 in the list—and an electorate of 77,628: almost the quota that is suggested across the country. The electorate make up 63.4% of the population according to the latest figures.

There are two explanations. One is that a lot of the differential is accounted for by people under 18; that applies across all our seats. The second is that there is a mixture of people—inner London has this in common with many places—who live there perfectly lawfully but are not entitled to vote. They are not UK citizens, they are not Irish citizens, they are not EU citizens and they are not Commonwealth citizens. We have a lot in my constituency; we are very proud to do so, and I serve them without discrimination, just as I would serve anyone on the electoral roll.

However, there is a problem of under-registration of those who should be on the electoral register, and I am never going to take any lessons from the Labour party because throughout the period of Labour Government the problem was exactly the same, and the legacy is that the Labour party left us with an under-registration of 3.5 million people.