Parliamentary Constituencies Bill — House of Commons, 2020-11-10
Topic: Government Operations
Catherine Jane Smith (Labour, Centre-left): I welcome the Leader of the House to his place this afternoon. He is, of course, standing in for the Minister for the Constitution and Devolution, the hon. Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith), who, given her recent health diagnosis, is taking some time away from this House, but not from her work. I want to put on the record how much the Labour party wishes her a speedy recovery, because I agree with the Leader of the House that he is a poor substitute for the formidable Minister The Labour party supports a boundary review in time for the next general election. Throughout all stages of the Bill, Opposition Members and their noble lordships have worked constructively to use this opportunity as a chance to improve and enhance the UK’s democracy. I thank the noble Lords for the constructive amendments that we are considering, and urge all Members to support them. The amendments all have the same central aim, which is to ensure that our parliamentary constituencies are drawn using data that is as complete and accurate as possible As I watched the US election unfold last week, I was reminded that our democracy and strong constituency links should not be taken for granted, and that we should be working constantly to improve and defend our system of parliamentary governance in this country. At every stage of the Bill, the Government have had ample opportunity to improve democratic representation— from filling the gaps in our electoral register to ensuring that our constituency boundaries properly reflect the communities within them. Sadly, though, the missing 9 million people from our electoral roll will now not be included in next constituency map of the UK Turning to the Lords amendments before us, I want to begin by addressing Lords amendment 6, which ensures that the appointment of members of the Boundary Commissions is made and seen to be made independently of Executive influence. This amendment is important because of the significant change of removing parliamentary oversight. In the past, Parliament has always played a democratic role in the boundary review process. This Bill will remove the very backstop that secured the existence of the 650 constituencies we all represent in this House today The passage of this amendment would ensure that, much like the appointment of judges, the appointment of boundary commissioners was wholly independent. Deputy chairs of the boundary commissions for England and Wales would be appointed by the Lord Chief Justice, not the Lord Chancellor. Commissioners would be appointed by a selection panel comprising the deputy chair of the relevant commission and two others appointed by the Speaker of the House of Commons. A report would be submitted to the Secretary of State saying whom the panel had recommended. As it stands, this Bill allows Government Ministers to have undue influence over their appointments, and the Government’s track record on appointing their close friends to positions of public authority speaks for itself. I simply do not trust a Government who have shamelessly appointed their mates to run the BBC, Ofcom, NHS Test and Trace and other major bodies I would also like to address Lords amendment 7, which seeks to alleviate the inevitable break-up of communities resulting from a too narrow 5% quota. While this might seem dry, at its heart the change has a real consequence for communities in the UK. Constituencies must be of broadly equal size in a fair and representative democracy—and on that point, I hope we all agree—but international best practice recommends that flexibility should be baked into the system to allow for consideration of geography and community ties. The Council of Europe’s Venice Commission code of good practice in electoral matters recommends allowing a standard permissible tolerance from the electoral quota of plus or minus 10% UK experts who gave evidence to the Bill Committee recognised that the tight 5% quota will force constituency boundaries to cut across communities, ward boundaries, rivers, lakes, mountains and of course motorways to engineer the right mathematical numbers. Indeed, the secretary to the Boundary Commission for England admitted that a smaller tolerance makes it "much harder to have regard to…factors…such as the importance of not breaking local ties, and having regard to local authority boundaries and features of natural geography."––[Official Report, Parliamentary Constituencies Public Bill Committee, 18 June 2020; c. 7, Q3.] When the 5% variance was first introduced in 2011, the Government at that time were committed to having a 600-seat Chamber. The average number of electors per constituency therefore would have been much higher, meaning that the 5% that the boundary commissioners would be working with would actually include more electors to work with in the margins of these seats. This is an important point, because by failing to widen the tolerance while increasing the size of the Chamber back up to 650, the commissions actually have far fewer electors to work with—roughly in the region of just 3,000 electors. If we consider that the average urban ward in England is about 8,000 electors, we can appreciate the significance of needing at least 4,000 electors either side of the quota to prevent the breaking up of wards and communities.