Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-12-01
Topic: Government Operations
Oliver James Dowden (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is my second, and principal, reason for disagreeing with the Bill, and I shall come to it very shortly The point about cutting the cost of politics has been made by many other Members, so I will not labour it, but the statistics are pretty clear. With 600 Members, we will still be relatively over-represented in terms of the number of MPs per capita in comparison with most comparable countries. I do not think that we will be selling our constituents short in terms of our capacity to represent them. I am sure that I am perfectly capable of representing 10,000 more constituents, and I hope that most other Members of Parliament are as well The second argument, which in a way is more powerful, is that we also need to ensure that we have equal weight for equal votes. This argument goes back not years or decades, but centuries, as has been noted—back to the Chartists. The Bill proposes to increase the degree of permitted variance from the current 5%; although it is welcome that the proposal is now to increase it to 7.5%, rather than the original 10%, that still allows up to a 15% variation in the size of constituencies, which means a Member in one constituency will have to work that much harder, as it were, because more people will have to vote for them than in another comparable constituency. There is an inherent unfairness in that The contrary argument for why we should have this greater degree of variance was made by the hon. Member for Stroud (Dr Drew), and it is that there is often a geographical link between areas that should be respected. This argument has been used many times to justify not changing the boundaries; indeed, it was used to say we should stick within county boundaries. It does not have any salience at all with the general public and the people who elect us, however The House of Commons Library has produced a very helpful note on my constituency of Hertsmere, setting out how the boundaries have changed over the decades and centuries. The constituency has at times encompassed parts of north London. Indeed, it has encompassed Enfield, Barnet, Watford and South Hertfordshire. That has not made any significant difference to the representation that their residents have from their MP My constituency currently encompasses a wide range of different places, from areas closely linked to Watford such as Bushey, to Borehamwood, which is a town, and very small villages that still feel as though they are many hundreds of miles from London even though they are but 12 miles away—beautiful, idyllic little English villages such as Letchmore Heath, Aldenham and Ridge. There is, therefore, a combination of urban and rural. Indeed, I represent Aldenham East, the most prosperous ward in the entire country, which sits cheek by jowl with Cowley Hill, one of the poorest wards in the country. As has been noted many times in this debate, it is incumbent upon MPs to represent their constituencies as they stand, and I think all MPs are capable of doing that. It rather demeans the role of MPs to say they are not capable of representing very diverse constituencies that look in lots of different directions, as my own constituency does. So I am not persuaded by that argument The argument I am very persuaded by was made by the hon. Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn) and is about trust in politics. The boundary proposals will contribute to restoring trust in politics. First, they will reduce the cost of politics so our constituents pay less for us to be in this place. They will also restore trust in politics by sticking by something that was already agreed by this House in the Parliament before last, and not seeking to overturn it because doing so meets the temporary electoral interests of certain parts of this House. I therefore urge Members not to support this Bill, and instead to stick by what was agreed in the 2010 Parliament.