Parliamentary Constituencies Bill — House of Commons, 2020-11-10
Topic: Government Operations
John Francis Spellar (Labour, Centre-left): Exactly right Moving on to constituency size, the right hon. Member for Elmet and Rothwell (Alec Shelbrooke) rightly points out the disparities between seats in the Leeds area. Basically, the fundamental reason for that was David Cameron’s proposals to try to get electoral advantage out of reducing the number of seats and making a very tight margin of difference. To be quite clear, the reason they were not carried was that they impacted on many Conservative Members of Parliament as well. Many of the newer Members here probably think, "It don’t apply to me, it’ll be all right" but it is the butterfly effect mentioned by the hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain). When we have such tight margins, and if we are not going to be disrupting wards as the building blocks, then we will find that there will be gratuitous disruption Everyone understands that movement of population results in some disruption to constituencies and Members of Parliament. That happened in 1997 when I had my seat carved three ways, with part of it going to the then Speaker, Madam Boothroyd—it was not a good option to try to run there—so I fully understand how disruptive that can be. The reason why the proposals did not go through, and why we have had such a long delay, is precisely because, stubbornly, two Prime Ministers insisted on trying to go ahead. It was not just Members on the Opposition Benches who were opposed to it, but many Government Members who can understand when population change sometimes leads to disruption, but really do not understand it when it gratuitously causes great disruption to communities, Members of Parliament and their electorates The other thing about the proposals and very tight margins is that we very often lose a sense of identity and place. Even within urban areas, there is very often a great sense of identity in parts of a city. They are not all homogeneous. Herbert Morrison described London as a collection of villages. There is a great sense of identity. Again, everyone understands that there will be some difficulties at the margins, but to impose arbitrary lines on far more constituencies than necessary to achieve equalisation is resented, and rightly so I come to the argument made by the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) comparing Basingstoke and Wales. The Boundary Commission, when it gets the national registration figures, divides them up to create a quota. It then allocates the number of seats to a region based on that quota. The changes to the situation in Wales have nothing whatever to do with Basingstoke or what happens in the Rhondda, whether it is 5% or 10%, because the number of seats in Wales—that region’s share—will be fixed by the national quota. Incidentally, I would gently point out that in the previous Parliament the Conservatives opposed our attempts to have Ynys Môn as a separate constituency when our good friend Albert Owen was the Member of Parliament. Albert retired and the Conservatives unfortunately won the seat. Lo and behold! Suddenly, their interest in the concerns of Ynys Môn rocketed up. I am sure Conservative Members can explain why that change took place Finally, I find strange, and to a degree reprehensible, this opposition to trying to get the most complete register. We know that, not just in the UK but around the world, those who are under-represented on the register are those such as teenagers and people in their early 20s. We know that those who live in private rented accommodation are under-registered, and that many of those in our BME communities and in our inner cities are under-represented on the register. We urge councils to spend large sums of money to try to track those people down and get them to register. Why not take a course of action that is straightforward, cost-effective and cheap to ensure that they are registered? Please do not wrap this up in some great constitutional issue about the divine right to register. Whether people choose to vote is another matter, but on registration this is about naked party political advantage. It is the same in the US, and it is the same here. It is time for this Trumpery to end.