Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Robert Syms Excerpts

Wednesday 20th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[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.

[Mr Robert Syms (Poole) (Con)]

To be entirely clear, is it Labour party policy that England be under-represented in this House?

[Chris Bryant]

No, it is not Labour party policy that anywhere be under-represented. We believe, as I said yesterday evening, that it is important to achieve greater equalisation of the number of voters in each electorate, but that should not be a purely mathematical exercise. Where there are overriding concerns, those should be brought into play. Indeed, the Government agree to some degree, because they have created a degree of exception for Northern Ireland and a completely different set of exemptions for two seats in Scotland, which, according to the Government’s interpretation of the situation—and, I presume therefore, the hon. Gentleman’s—will effectively create two rotten boroughs in Scotland. We think that if we are going to make exemptions, we should make a broader set of exemptions, rather than just those two.

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[Chris Bryant]

The Minister says that not so charmingly himself, so the favour goes back to him.

Under the clause, new subsection (5A) would read:

“As soon as may be after the submission of all four reports under subsection (1) above that are required by subsection (2) above to be submitted before a particular date, the Secretary of State shall lay before Parliament the draft of an Order in Council for giving effect, with or without modifications, to the recommendations contained in them.”

So the Boundary Commission will bring forth its report, there will be no public inquiry and the Minister will then bring forward the boundaries with or without modifications. It is the phrase “with or without modifications” that I have difficulty with, and clearly the Select Committee does too.

The hon. Lady mentioned that her Committee had to do its business very swiftly. Indeed, I think it had only five days in which to undertake a whole inquiry. That is one reason why I believe the Bill is being taken through with undue haste. A substantial number of amendments have been tabled and will be considered on Monday, but we already know that some of them are inaccurate and will be modified when the Government bring forward territorial statutory instruments in relation to Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. I very much hope that the Minister will enlighten us as to whether those statutory instruments will be subject to the affirmative or negative procedure. [Interruption.] That is not what will happen on Monday because the measures are not going to be debated next Monday at all, contrary to what the Deputy Leader of the House has just said from a sedentary position.

The Government believe that we should retain in present legislation the phrase “with or without modifications”. That is a pretty broad power.

[Mr Syms]

With previous boundary reviews, there have sometimes been attempts at judicial review of elements of what the Boundary Commission has done. Most of them have been rejected, but we have to consider that that is a possibility and that minor modification might be required—or does the hon. Gentleman think that will not happen?

[Chris Bryant]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point about the due process that needs to be gone through. I believe that we need a due process in relation to the Boundary Commission, because it might proceed incorrectly according to the rules that are laid down for it, it might proceed in a partisan manner or it might not consider all the factors that need to be considered. That is why we have heretofore always had a system of public inquiry, and not just written reports being sent in. That is essential for there to be utter confidence in the process that the commission goes through. He is absolutely right that there is also, sometimes, a process of judicial review. I suspect that if the Government push through the Bill in the partisan way that they are doing, without any provision for public inquiry, the likelihood of a judicial review being sought in many constituencies in the land will be very high indeed.

The hon. Gentleman might say that that is a good reason why the Minister needs even more power to draw constituency boundaries as he thinks fit. Unless the Government can be shifted from this view—whether that happens in this House or in the other House—we shall almost inexorably end up with no due process, other than the recourse that people might have to the courts.

The Minister will probably tell us that the Government need this power because apostrophes and commas are sometimes put in the wrong place and there are inadvertent errors. That is why the amendment, which was tabled by several members of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, is perfect: it simply says that the Minister, if he or she wishes to make any modification, must return to the Boundary Commission and ask, “Are you okay with this amendment?” If Ministers were in a conciliatory, cross-party mood, they would accept the amendment.

I fully understand that the precise wording they propose is that of the current legislation. That is fine when due process can go on after the boundary commissions have done their work—for example, public inquiries, where the public can have their say on the boundary commissions’ proposals. Where that does not happen—that is the intention of the Bill, although it is something that we shall return to later—it is important that there is a bind on Ministers, so that they are not entirely free to dream up any kind of modification that they might want; otherwise, strictly speaking in law, I guess that Ministers would be perfectly at liberty, if they felt that the boundary commission had got something slightly wrong and representations were made to Ministers, to make such modifications as they thought fit.

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[Mrs Laing]

No, I have spoken for long enough. It is important to stick to equality. Once that principle is accepted, it should be adhered to. Of course, we need to have a 5% tolerance for the sake of practicality and because the Boundary Commission must be able to apply the rules reasonably, but we should stick to equality. This House is about looking at the politics and the principle, not about special pleading for particular constituencies and particular Members and their convenience. I urge the Committee to accept that 600 is a perfectly reasonable number and that equalisation—one vote, one value—is the important democratic principle.

[Mr Syms]

Listening to this debate, one would think that something major and radical was happening to our parliamentary system. In fact, what is being proposed is an extremely modest change, which I welcome, because more radical change would be unwelcome to most Members of the House. We have heard a number of Members talk about boundary commissions and history, but the Boundary Commission is only a post-war invention. It is something that our country can be proud of, because it tries to draw boundaries in a neutral way, while taking into account local interest.

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[Phil Wilson]

Can we not go for equalised numbers without reducing the number of seats? I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman’s love-in with the number 600, but essentially we need to hear an argument. Nobody is disagreeing that we perhaps need more equalised constituencies, but why reduce the number of seats, especially when the average number of constituencies since the war has been about 649 or 650? It has stayed at that level for 60 or 70 years. Why radically reduce it now?

[Mr Syms]

Most Parliaments set their own size—that is part of most constitutions—but two that do not are the UK Parliament and the Bundestag in Germany. The reason the Bundestag does not do so is that it has a list system to compensate the first-past-the-post Members, and when the German electoral commission looks at the arithmetic division of the proportional votes, to ensure that they are proportionate, it can adjust the size of the Bundestag, sometimes by up to a dozen seats. However, the history of this country is that, by and large, we have allowed the Boundary Commission to go out and draw up the boundaries, and then to come back with numbers. However, what happens is that there is creep. Every time we have a boundary commission, the numbers go up. [Interruption.] No, they do, with one exception, which is when the numbers for Scotland are reduced. On the whole, however, the numbers creep up. Therefore, with this Bill, we are being asked to give guidance to the Boundary Commission, so that it can go away and then come back with a report.

[Chris Bryant]

How can the hon. Gentleman explain, then, the fact that there were 659 MPs in the previous Parliament, while there are 650 in this Parliament? What he is saying is patently untrue.

[Mr Syms]

But that is principally because of the changes in Scotland, which, incidentally—

[Chris Bryant]

No, it is not.

[Mr Syms]

It is; it happened because of the Scottish reduction. The reality is that we need to build a slight reduction into the system, otherwise we will have a constant creep-up of the numbers. Is it very much more difficult to represent 76,000 electors than it is to represent 69,000? I do not think that it is terribly difficult—we have the staff and the commitment to do it. All that we are talking about is drawing up fair boundaries, with a modest reduction in the House, which is not going to make a major difference to most people in this House, except in Wales.

The problem with Wales is over-representation. There have been changes in Northern Ireland, where the number of seats was increased because the constituencies were very large, as well as in Scotland and England; Wales is the one part of the Union that is out of line. I understand the pain and difficulty that the proposals will cause in Wales, because there will be quite a radical change there, but throughout most of the UK, it will be a very modest change indeed.

[John Mann]

The hon. Gentleman’s argument would be more consistent if he were to tell us why he sees a problem arising if county boundaries in England are crossed. The moment those boundaries start to be crossed at random, we shall have an entirely different solution in England.

[Mr Syms]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. For historic reasons, it will depend on where any such changes might be made. This is one of the arguments that he will be able to put to the Boundary Commission when it brings forward its proposals—[Interruption.] Yes, he will; people will still have the capacity to make representations to the commission on the reports on the constituencies.

[Chris Bryant]

I am sorry, but the hon. Gentleman is wrong. People will be able to make representations only in writing, and they will not know what representations other people have made. They will not be able to inform their arguments through debate. Consequently, we shall not have the fullness of the public inquiry process that we have at the moment. With such radical changes being proposed for the whole of the country, surely it would make sense to maintain public inquiries.

[Mr Syms]

I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman. The system that is being brought in will provide for a 12-week period in which people will be allowed to make representations—[Interruption.] Twelve weeks is a long time. If there is real concern about crossing a county boundary, I am sure that parish councils, local authorities, MPs and councillors will be able to make full representations in that time, and that the Boundary Commission will be able to hear them and come to a decision.

[Gavin Barwell]

There has been hardly any discussion tonight about the existing rules. Will my hon. Friend put on record the fact that, under the rules under which the Boundary Commission currently works, county boundaries can be crossed?

[Mr Syms]

That is absolutely the case.

[Stephen Gilbert]

As I understand it, the next group of amendments deals with cases of boundaries impinging on existing county boundaries. A number of Members are anxious to move on to that debate; it certainly affects my constituents in Cornwall, and I can see others in the Chamber, including my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Turner), who will have an interest in the matter. Does my hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Mr Syms) agree that that group of amendments will indeed deal with that matter? Perhaps we could move on to it.

[Mr Syms]

In the interests of coalition solidarity, I shall finish my speech.

[Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)]

Given that there will be two Front-Bench speeches in addition to other people speaking, and that two votes might be called on this issue, I fear that we might not reach the next group of amendments, although I know that people are anxious to debate those issues. I shall therefore keep my remarks brief.

There are two amendments in my name that are intended to probe the numbers issue. One would replace the figure of 600 with 500, and the purpose of that is to tease out the issue, although it has been reasonably well teased out already. We have debated the numbers and why we need to arrive at one hard and fast figure, rather than setting a number as a target or guide for the Boundary Commission to pursue.

Concern has understandably been expressed tonight about the rigidity of the drafting of the proposals, in that they offer no flexibility to take into account the whole range of factors that have been properly and articulately expressed so far. That straitjacket will result in antiseptic constituencies whose boundaries are perpetually mobile between each election, and I do not think that would be good for the House or for democracy. We want the Boundary Commission to have sufficient discretion to work towards a target while taking into account reasonable geographical, cultural and electoral issues.

We also want the Government to allow places collectively to make decisions for themselves, provided that they do not ask for any special favours. In other words, when it comes to numbers, those in Cornwall are not asking for favourable treatment, but for distinctive treatment. Having 600 Members might result in an MP representing Cornwall having to give up part of a seat in order to achieve proper respect for the boundary between Cornwall and Isles of Scilly. I specified the 500 figure in a private Member’s Bill in October 2003—part of a long campaign in which I have sought to demonstrate to the public that we can achieve efficiencies ourselves and save money.

The impact of devolution and the need to save money and to make international comparisons are issues that have been articulated well so far. I hope, however, that we will have an opportunity to move on to the second string.