Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill: Committee Stage — House of Commons, 2018-06-19
Topic: Mixed Topics
Michael James Tomlinson-Mynors (Conservative, Centre-right): It is a great pleasure to take part in the debate and to follow the hon. Member for Stroud (Dr Drew). He said that he agreed with my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double). If he follows my hon. Friend’s arguments exactly, he will be voting with the Government in the Lobby, so I look forward to seeing whether he agrees or not I have taken a keen interest in private Members’ Bills in my short time in the House. Some have accused me of taking a rather curious interest, but I blame my hon. Friends the Members for Torbay (Kevin Foster) and for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton), neither of whom is able to speak in the debate because of their other duties My hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills promoted the NHS (Charitable Trusts Etc) Act 2016—Peter Pan and Wendy’s Bill—which was the first private Member’s Bill in which I participated on a Friday. I have successfully taken a presentation Bill, the Road Traffic Offenders (Surrender of Driving Licences Etc) Bill, through Second Reading and Committee, only for it to be objected to on Third Reading. Yes, there was a lone voice of objection, but it was not the voice of my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope); it was another Member. I will return to that procedure in due course I entirely understand the passion of the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Afzal Khan) and his concern for piloting his Bill through this place. Taking legislation through the House is a difficult and treacherous business, and perhaps it should be, because surely it should not be easy to place legislation on the statute book. The one consolation of losing my private Member’s Bill was that it would not have succeeded in any event, because a general election got in the way, although of course that is rather cold comfort The motion does not touch on the merits of the boundary changes, but it is important that I express my view, as other hon. Members have done, because it seems beyond argument that there should be an equalisation of the number of constituents in each constituency. Doubtless there will be exceptions from the south to the north, and both my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Seely) and the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Angus Brendan MacNeil) would argue passionately for why their constituency should be of a different size At the moment, for example, we have Arfon, a constituency of about 41,000, whereas North West Cambridgeshire has more than 93,000 electors. I have an electorate of 65,000, and also in my county is the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin), which has an electorate of over 82,000. My other hon. Friends in Dorset have electorates ranging between 72,000 and 75,000. They may well think that I have an easy time of it and am slightly less busy than they are. I, of course, would argue that that is not the case, but there is a point about reorganising the boundaries to equalise the electorates Dorset, not unlike Cornwall and other areas, presents challenges. On the current iteration of the proposals, there will be a cross-county seat and we will lose a Member of Parliament. Be that as it may, I firmly believe that reorganisation and the equalisation of constituencies is beyond argument I have a novel point to make, which is not always possible for the last Government Back Bencher to speak. G. K. Chesterton is not quoted often enough in this place, and I think that I have time to read out the full principle of Chesterton’s fence—the principle that reforms should not be made until the reasoning behind the existing state of affairs is properly understood. I will quote this section in full: "There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, ‘I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.’ To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: ‘If you don’t see the use of it…Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.’" We would be well advised to take advice from that principle in this case, in two respects. The first is in relation to private Members’ Bills when one Member objects; the second is in relation to the financial privilege afforded to the Government of the day I was bitterly disappointed, of course, when my Bill was objected to by just one Member—I repeat that it was not my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch. When that procedure was raised in a point of order by my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), Mr Speaker rightly noted that a single voice objecting to a Bill does not count just on a Friday. He said: "I should point out, in fairness and for accuracy, so that no one is misled, that the rule about a single objection applies similarly to any other business before the House after the moment of interruption. —[Official Report, 18 June 2018; Vol. 643, c. 50.] He then referred to Standing Order No. 9(6) Before we look at procedures and say, "Let’s just get rid of that," we should first look at what their purpose is, and then at whether they serve that purpose and, if not, how we should reform them. On reform, the second area to which all this applies is the financial privilege afforded to the Government of the day, whereby there is a clear constitutional right to initiate financial resolutions. That is my novel point: Chesterton’s fence, which should be spoken about more often. Perhaps Chesterton should also be quoted more widely in such debates.