Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Tristram Hunt Excerpts

Tuesday 19th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Geraint Davies]

I should certainly like to help the hon. Gentleman on that point. What the amendment actually says is that we should use figures by the Office for National Statistics for who is estimated

“to be eligible to vote in United Kingdom parliamentary elections”.

Obviously, the question is how the ONS would make that estimate. The answer is by using a combination of the register of electors, the census and other data forms.

As has already been pointed out and as we all know by now, there is a systematic bias against the registration of certain categories of people—ethnic communities, people in private rented accommodation, 17 to 24-year-olds and, generally, those in poorer areas. Those poorer areas tend to be more likely to be represented by Labour MPs. That explains the difference in the average figures for registration. The problem that I have with the current thrust towards quickly redrawing the boundaries on the basis of registered voters is that clearly there will be a bias in that, so people from poorer communities will be under-represented. That is not effective or fair democracy.

[Tristram Hunt (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab)]

Is my hon. Friend as surprised as I was by the fact that the Government do not seem committed to putting in extra resources in the lead-up to December to gain the count that they seek for the new constituency boundaries?

[Geraint Davies]

That is unfortunate and surprising. If one were cynical about it, one would say that the Conservatives already know that there is a registration bias in favour of people who, demographically, are more likely to vote for them, so why should they take the action that my hon. Friend suggests? I introduced the amendment to say, “Let’s do this on a fair and equitable basis.” We want more registration because the people who are registered to vote are the people who are allowed to vote. That is a separate issue from the relative sizes of constituencies, which should be based on the number of people who are eligible to vote. We hope that those people will, over time, register to vote and will ultimately vote.

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[Geraint Davies]

My hon. Friend makes a very interesting and important point. Wales is a nation of just 3 million people sitting alongside a larger nation that is 17 times its size. It is completely dependent on the financial stream from Westminster to fund the devolved Welsh Assembly. Historically, the relationship between the number of seats per head in Wales has been different from that in England because of the need to keep the Union together, in harmony, in a situation of great inequality between the two neighbours.

I fear that the haste with which this process is moving forward and the tremendous step change that it will make to the representation of Wales in Westminster—reducing the number of seats by a quarter from 40 to 30—will have such a dramatic effect on the people of Wales that they will be driven into the arms of the nationalists. There is a danger that we will fracture the United Kingdom. I am sure this could be part of a Conservative conspiracy, whereby some in the Conservative party think, “Well it is nice to have the Union, but these people in Wales keep on voting Labour, so wouldn’t it be better to chop ’em down, cut their money and live with a world where we can guarantee continuous Tory government in England at the expense of an impoverished Wales that is split between Labour and the nationalists, who will then be thrown the right to raise their own taxes on a tax base that is a third poorer?” That is the sort of grand plan that seems to be emerging. It is very concerning that the haste and nature of the changes we are considering are such that they will risk and provoke rips in the fabric of the United Kingdom. That is absolutely terrible.

[Tristram Hunt]

My hon. Friend makes a very persuasive case. Do the measures in the Bill not suggest that there is no real feel for the fabric of the United Kingdom from the Government and that the interrelationship between Wales, the Duchy of Cornwall, the Isle of Wight and many of the Scottish islands is not felt by them? Their desperate desire to ram the Bill through is incorrect.

[Geraint Davies]

Yes—

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[Mrs Laing]

Of course the hon. Gentleman is right. First, I do support his special pleading to IPSA. Secondly, I am glad to have given him the opportunity to put the record straight on the EEA; we are all better educated for that.

Our duty is not to try to amend the Bill to make life easier for Members of Parliament. What matters is not our certainty about where the boundaries of our constituencies will be drawn, but how the democratic process works. I have thought to myself, “Why have there been so many illogical arguments this evening?” I realise, of course, that it is because of special pleading.

[Tristram Hunt]

Does the hon. Lady recall, as I do, the evidence that we received on the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, which suggested that where there were arbitrary and dramatic changes in boundaries, an absence of democracy often followed, as local party activists and local electors began to lose influence and interest in the local democratic process?

[Mrs Laing]

I recall the point being raised in the Select Committee, but I am afraid that I disagree with the hon. Gentleman on that point. The fact is—