argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-11-18
Topic: Government Operations
Mark James Harper (Conservative, Centre-right): That is very thoughtful of you, Mr Speaker, although I am surprised, knowing of your enormous powers of recall, that you do not have a verbatim account of my maiden speech in your head, but then, sadly, we were not blessed in 2005 with having you in the Chair; otherwise, I am sure that you would remember it As I said, I only wanted to spend a short time on the preamble to my speech, although I was probably a little indulgent in taking interventions. I will deal specifically now with the points that the hon. Member for North West Durham made in her speech. First, she talked about gerrymandering, which the Leader of the Opposition has also talked about and which comes from the United States of America. Of course, there is a massive difference between us and the US. In most states of the US, boundaries are not drawn by independent boundary commissions, as they are here; they are drawn by the elected representatives, who are obviously partisan. Here, we are fortunate to have boundary commissions, all four of which, Mr Speaker, you chair in an ex officio capacity, although you do not take part in their deliberations. The four deputy chairs, effectively the operational heads, are judges, so they are, of course, beyond question in their political independence. In the United States, however, gerrymandering is a problem Taking your advice, Mr Speaker, I will not go on at length, but, for those who are interested and want to follow this issue at length, I refer to an interesting article in the Washington Post on 15 May 2014. Obviously, in the House we are not allowed to introduce written material or pictures, but the article referred to three districts, and the descriptions of them gave a sense of the interesting boundaries in America. Maryland’s 3rd is called the "Praying Mantis"; Pennsylvania’s 7th is called "Goofy kicking Donald Duck"; and Texas’s 35th is called the "UpsideDown Elephant". The point is that we do not have gerrymandering in this country; we have independent boundary commissions following clear rules set out by Parliament, and they are specifically not allowed to take into account the partisan or party political effect of their decisions. I wanted to knock that argument on its head straightaway.
Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-11-18
Topic: Government Operations
Mark James Harper (Conservative, Centre-right): I certainly was not "the poor Minister". I hugely enjoyed my role as Minister for Political and Constitutional Reform. I got to spend an enormous amount of time in the Chamber, with Mr Speaker frequently in the Chair, although I am not sure he enjoyed listening to the debates as much as I enjoyed speaking in them. I do not, however, recognise the origins that the hon. Gentleman mentions The hon. Member for North West Durham made a serious point about the accusations made about people who registered ahead of the EU referendum. A thorough piece of work has been done by a gentleman called Matt Singh, who works for an organisation called Number Cruncher Politics, an independent organisation that has looked at this issue very carefully. For this to be an issue, the 2 million extra voters would have to be unevenly distributed across the UK. If in some areas there had been a much bigger rise in the number of electors than in others, that would of course affect the distribution of the 600 seats set out in the legislation Interestingly, Mr Singh, in his very thorough analysis of the 2 million increase, wrote: "The data does not support the suggestion that using the later version of the register", as the hon. Lady proposes doing, "would materially alter the distribution of seats. Instead it points to a very even distribution of the 2 million newly-registered voters between" currently held Labour and Conservative seats. If we added all the 2 million, of course we would increase the size of the register, but because the extra voters are evenly distributed across the country, we would not significantly change the distribution of constituencies. So I think that is a bit of a red herring As I draw towards the conclusion of my remarks, as you wanted me to, Mr Speaker, let me deal with the Bill.
Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-11-18
Topic: Government Operations
Mark James Harper (Conservative, Centre-right): If my hon. Friend will forgive me, let me start to deal with the Bill, as I said I would. I shall deal specifically with the proposals set out by the hon. Member for North West Durham, and I want to make a bit of progress before giving way to my hon. Friend The first point raised by the hon. Member for North West Durham was about the number of MPs, and I think she completely failed to answer my question, which was to what question was the answer 50 more Members of Parliament. She did not tackle the cost of her proposals. The current law says that the number of MPs will fall from 650 to 600. Increasing that number by 50 would come at an estimated cost—I think she alluded to this in her remarks—of about £10 million to £12 million a year. That means about £60 million across the Parliament. I heard no proposals from the hon. Lady about how that was to be paid for or any reason why the proposal was a good one at all.
Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-11-18
Topic: Government Operations
Mark James Harper (Conservative, Centre-right): I do not agree with my hon. Friend. The figure is based on how much MPs claim at the moment and how much we are paid in salary. What my hon. Friend needs to remember is that there is currently a massive disparity between MPs in Welsh constituencies, for example, who have fewer than 50,000 electors, and others. Those Welsh Members are already in a part of the United Kingdom where a huge amount of domestic policy areas are dealt with not by them at all, but by Members of the Welsh Assembly. They get the same level of support as my hon. Friend, yet he has to serve a much larger constituency in terms of electors—and he serves them very diligently indeed. In England, there is not a devolved Administration, so English MPs have to cover the full range of domestic policy areas. I think it would be perfectly possible to deal with the fewer number of MPs without seeing a significant increase in the expenses budget for each of us. Those MPs who currently have very small constituencies will have to deal with no more constituents than many of us already have to deal with.
Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-11-18
Topic: Government Operations
Mark James Harper (Conservative, Centre-right): Let me first deal with the seemingly reasonable points about the House of Lords made by the hon. Member for North West Durham. She made a couple of points. First—big tick here—I was, of course, the Minister responsible in the last Parliament for securing a much smaller, democratically elected and less costly House of Lords. I received a great deal of support, but not from Labour Members. If Labour Members had given their support to the programme motion that we would have brought forward, we would have been able to reform the House of Lords and have a democratically elected Chamber. That did not take place.
Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-11-18
Topic: Government Operations
Peter William Bone (Conservative, Centre-right): We cannot allow this myth to carry on. The Second Reading of the House of Lords Reform Bill got the biggest majority of that Parliament. The fact is that the Government did not move the programme motion, so we do not know what would have happened. It should absolutely not have been programmed, as it was a constitutional Bill that should have been gone through line by line. Any parliamentarian such as my great right hon. Friend should have supported that.
Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-11-18
Topic: Government Operations
Mark James Harper (Conservative, Centre-right): I will answer my hon. Friend’s question, but not at length, as I do not want to try your patience, Madam Deputy Speaker. My hon. Friend is right that Second Reading was well supported, but we had clear indications that the programme motion would not have been supported by Opposition Members, so the Government—quite rightly, in view of all the other challenges we faced—were not prepared to risk other legislation not getting through Parliament as a result. We were not able to make progress What the hon. Member for North West Durham needs to recognise, as my hon. Friend the Member for Pendle (Andrew Stephenson) said, is that the cost of the House of Lords has reduced since 2010—it has fallen, not increased. Since last year’s general election, there has been a net change in the size of the House of Lords of only 14 peers. What the hon. Lady forgets is that Members of the House of Lords are now able to retire and that a disproportionate number of those retiring are Conservative peers. It is true that there was a significant increase in the 2010 Parliament, but that was, of course, under a coalition Government, and a significant number of the new peers were Liberal Democrats.
Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-11-18
Topic: Government Operations
Mark James Harper (Conservative, Centre-right): It is about costs. I can remember standing at the Dispatch Box and setting out how much money we would save by reducing the number of MPs. If the hon. Lady remembers, this was part of reducing the cost of politics more generally. That is why, for example, in the last Parliament, Ministers had a pay freeze and Members in this place had their pay frozen for a significant period of time. It was during those difficult years when the economy and public finances were challenged. Reducing the cost of politics was not the only reason, however, because the primary reason for the boundary changes and for using a more up-to-date register was to have more equal votes and more equal-sized constituencies so that our constituents could be more fairly represented in this House.
Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-11-18
Topic: Government Operations
Andrew George Stephenson (Conservative, Centre-right): Does my right hon. Friend agree that there would be a more immediate cost if the Bill were passed of abandoning the process at the point at which it has currently reached? We have already had 500 hours of public hearings, with the involvement of 20 members of staff, 21 assistant commissioners and 14 videographers. There have been 36 public hearings across England, the last of which are taking place today. The cost of scrapping all that and redrawing the boundaries on the basis of this completely new proposal would, even if it could get through in time, surely run into many millions of pounds.
Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-11-18
Topic: Government Operations
Mark James Harper (Conservative, Centre-right): That is a good point. There are dramatic differences among the numbers of constituents we all represent, with the same level of resources—and, as I said earlier, a further factor that was not reflected in the Act is that Ministers and Members of the House of Commons are not really responsible for much of the domestic legislation in parts of the United Kingdom where government has been devolved, because that is taken care of by the devolved Administrations Let me finally deal with the central point made by the hon. Lady. She said—and I have no reason to doubt her integrity in this regard—that she wanted to enable the boundary commissioners to conduct the review and to hit the target date of 2018 so that we could have new constituencies, according to her rules, before the 2020 election. Let us assume that the commissioners will use the December 2017 registers, and let us accept the argument—advanced very clearly by the hon. Lady and a number of other Members—that the issue is of interest to our constituents, and that the public hearings and public consultation for which the existing legislation provides will therefore take place, given that the hon. Lady does not wish to alter those provisions. That process will take 24 weeks. Effectively, the hon. Lady is giving the boundary commissioners 17 weeks in which to draw up initial proposals from the 2017 registers, engage in the consultation, listen to all the responses, come up with revised proposals, run another set of consultations, listen to any proposals for change in those, and then present final proposals in a matter of a few weeks. I do not think that that is credible. I do not know whether the hon. Lady has had any discussions with the four boundary commissions about whether it is in any way doable, but I do not think it is. I served as the Minister responsible for these matters. I looked into the resourcing of boundary commissions, and had conversations with their secretariats about the work that was involved. I think that what is really at work here is a set of changes that would, in practice—my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch put his finger on it—make a boundary review before the next general election impossible. This is a repetition of what the Labour party, along with the Liberal Democrats, did in the last Parliament. The aim is to push things out so that we can have a general election in 2020 based on boundaries that are 20 years out of date, on the basis of registers that do not effectively include people over the last two decades. I think that that would be an outrage I hope that the Bill is not given a Second Reading, but if it is, we shall want to amend many parts of this wide-ranging legislation in Committee to ensure that it does not make progress in its current form. If it were to do so, we would be ensuring that voters were not equally represented and their voices were not equally heard. I think that this is a very retrograde and bad Bill.
Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-11-18
Topic: Government Operations
Christopher Robert Chope (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend has reminded us of that previous debate. Does he agree that one of the reasons that some of us could not support the Government on that occasion was that they would not answer the straight question as to whether there would be a pro rata reduction in the size of the Executive if there were a reduction in the number of MPs. The Government would not answer that, saying that it was premature to ask the question.
Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-11-18
Topic: Government Operations
Peter William Bone (Conservative, Centre-right): I remember my hon. Friend making that point, with which I entirely agreed Things have got worse. We now have more Government Departments, and rightly so, given that we are coming out of the European Union, but I guess that we are also going to have 60% more laws to look at. The argument for reducing the number of MPs seems to be false, especially as we are getting rid of 70-odd MEPs. Also, the Government cannot possibly claim that they are doing this on the basis of cost. We have only to look at how much more money is being spent on Spads. Even during the Blair years it was only a few million, but it is something like £9 million now.
Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-11-18
Topic: Government Operations
Peter William Bone (Conservative, Centre-right): I absolutely agree that as a matter of fairness we should try to equalise the seats, but it is absolutely wrong to reduce the number of MPs and to say that it is being done on the basis of cost. Democracy cannot have a cost put on it. We could of course have a dictator—that would be very cheap! But that is not how it works. In fact, the Government have tended to go a little way towards being a dictatorship. We have had sofa decisions that were not made in Cabinet, and at times it has been really difficult for us in this House to vote on certain issues because of these wretched programme motions. My hon. Friend the Member for Kettering and I spent a lot of our time during the coalition Government voting against programme motions on every occasion, because we had said in our manifesto that that was what we were going to do The former Prime Minister made a great speech on Parliamentary sovereignty, and if those proposals had been enforced, MPs would have been encouraged to have a free vote in Committees—although the Government would have been able to change things on Report—and we would have had more open debates without programme motions. That all fell by the wayside, however, because the Government do not really want that to happen; and, to be honest, the shadow Government do not want it either. That is why we have never made progress on that. Hon. Members will remember that the timetable for this House was going to be run by a parliamentary business Committee within two years of us coming into power. I remember talking to the then Chief Whip, who said that that would happen over his dead body, and of course it never did happen. So please do not talk to me about manifesto commitments.
Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-11-18
Topic: Government Operations
Andrew George Stephenson (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Gentleman is making an eloquent case for the Bill, but we had about 650 MPs before Brexit and before we went into the Common Market. We now have the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly, the Northern Ireland Assembly, police and crime commissioners, and elected mayors. We are just about to get a huge devolution of power in Greater Manchester, which he knows about and has spoken eloquently about. I would therefore suggest that this House can be reduced probably even further than the modest reduction proposed in the 2011 legislation. I would go for 400 MPs. I would happily see this place reduced much further.
Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-11-18
Topic: Government Operations
Mark James Harper (Conservative, Centre-right): I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman was listening when I made my remarks about the independent analysis that has been done on the 2 million figure. If these 2 million voters are equally spread across the UK, they make no difference to the distribution of seats. Either what I said, quoting an independent source, is true or it is not. If he does not think it is true and he has a different analysis produced by some independent people, perhaps he could share it with the House; otherwise, this makes no difference to the distribution of seats and is a false argument.
Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-11-18
Topic: Government Operations
Oliver Letwin (Conservative, Centre-right): I should begin by saying that, like the hon. Member for North West Durham (Pat Glass), who introduced the Bill, I have no personal interest in this, because I, too, will be standing down at the next election I should say to my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) that doubtless I am much contaminated by six years in government and 18 years on the Front Bench, but I nevertheless believe it makes sense for us to consider these issues as though we had a population that needs to be served by a system of government that works in the interests of that population. We should not be thinking about this simply in terms of the House of Commons, which is a matter of more concern to many people in this place than it is to many of our citizens, who want to be well governed but who do not know much about and do not much like the workings of the House of Commons. The House of Commons certainly should not think of itself as a model to the world, because, as the hon. Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn) rightly said, there is currently much scepticism about the organs of our democracy.
Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-11-18
Topic: Government Operations
Peter William Bone (Conservative, Centre-right): My right hon. Friend will doubtless make a powerful and interesting speech, but does he come to this debate with the belief that there should be a separation of powers, with an Executive outside this House? That may colour his views in this debate.
Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-11-18
Topic: Government Operations
Oliver Letwin (Conservative, Centre-right): As my hon. Friend knows from previous conversations, I do take that view and have done so, uniquely in the Conservative party, I believe, for about the past 40 years. I shall briefly touch on that at a much later stage in my remarks, but for now I simply wish to observe that it is important that we think about this issue as grown-ups who are trying to look after the interests of our fellow citizens, not as people who happen to be sitting on these green Benches trying to look after the interests of the House of Commons, which is an artefact of no value whatsoever unless it is part of the good governance of our country in the interests of its citizens This is the first time I have attended a debate on a Friday for very many years, and I was surprised to discover that I was quite interested in the nature of the debate. It seems that, from time to time, there have actually been some arguments made—that is a rare thing to hear in the House of Commons. In principle, three kinds of arguments have been going on. The first is whether equalisation is the aim of the current Act governing the Boundary Commission activity or whether it is about gerrymandering. The second is about whether 600 is a better number of MPs than 650. The third is the question raised by the hon. Member for Newport West: is it right to make incremental change in pursuit of incremental improvements when large questions about the constitution as a whole also need to be addressed? I want to discuss each of those points in turn First, I turn to the question of whether the motive for and effect of the current Act of Parliament governing the Boundary Commission’s activities is equalisation or gerrymandering. As I would have expected, my right hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) dealt very effectively with the fact that the current Boundary Commission review does not include reference to the people who registered at the last moment. I was the Minister who brought to the House arrangements to ensure that people who registered at the very last moment were able to vote in the referendum, and it is certainly right that they should have been registered. My right hon. Friend dealt very well with whether the fact that they registered after the Boundary Commission figures were produced affects the outcome of the review to any significant extent However, we do not need to rely on my right hon. Friend’s view on that because the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David), who interjected from the Labour Benches, blew the whole argument out of the water when he quoted, quite sensibly, the Library figures. They showed that the total effect, even on an analysis less favourable to the argument I am making than that which was provided by the independent source for my right hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean—the House of Commons Library analysis—the total net difference is two extra in London and one fewer in the south-west and in Northern Ireland. There is no significant distributional impact.