Category: Parliament

Ruth Jones – 2020 Speech on the Parliamentary Constituencies Bill

Below is the text of the speech made by Ruth Jones, the Labour MP for Newport West, in the House of Commons on 2 June 2020.

I think I win the prize for patience this evening. Many of my points have already been made, but I make no apology for reiterating them because this Bill will have an important impact on all of us in this House.

The onset of the covid-19 pandemic and its continued impacts in Newport West and across the United Kingdom —indeed, across our whole world—has shown now more than ever that strong and constructive scrutiny of the Government is vital. That is how we must approach this Bill, and this debate, as it works its way through the House. As such, I am pleased that the Government’s plans to cut the number of MPs has been scrapped, because this is not the time to engage in less democracy. As we leave the EU, it is even more vital that the increased workload of MPs is reflected in the make-up of our national Parliament and the design of its constituencies.

I am concerned about the removal of parliamentary approval and scrutiny from the process. Under the current rules, Parliament has the ultimate authority to accept or deny boundary changes. The draft boundaries order must be agreed by both Houses of Parliament before being approved by Her Majesty at a meeting of the Privy Council. However, the measures contained in the new Bill will remove Parliament from the process, which means that Parliament will no longer be required to approve the draft order before it is made by Her Majesty at the meeting of the Privy Council. We all remember what happened the last time the Government attempted to bypass Parliament as they sought to illegally prorogue Parliament, and this is not a good way to go.

Another key part of the Bill is the fact that the review will be based on the number of registered voters on 30 December 2020. This means that the size of the electorate on 30 December 2020 will be used throughout the new boundary review as the officially recognised size of the current electorate. We know the pressures that will be triggered by Brexit and covid-19, and we know about the uncertain housing situation at the moment. This risks the data on which these major changes will be based being flawed and incomplete. We all remember what we were doing in December 2019 and can testify to the obvious fact that a general election acts as a major driver of registering to vote. As has already been said, we see huge spikes in voter registration during national elections and during local elections, too. We now know that there will be no election between today and 1 December 2020, so we will lose that ability to ensure that the voter roll accurately reflects those entitled to vote. Let us stick to the December 2019 data.

My final point is that we must take account of geography, not just numbers of voters. Mountains and valleys, rivers and reservoirs make a difference, and I urge the Minister to remember this. I will not be opposing the Second Reading today and I am pleased the Government have made some concessions, but I caution them to take the politics out of this process, and to give the people of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland the House of Commons they need and deserve.

June 3, 2020
Maria Miller – 2020 Speech on the Parliamentary Constituencies Bill

Below is the text of the speech made by Maria Miller, the Conservative MP for Basingstoke, in the House of Commons on 2 June 2020.

I commend the Minister for her powerful speech in presenting the Bill to the House. We all come here with equal power vested in us by our communities, but my voice represents a constituency of 83,000 people, while the hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain) represents a constituency of 61,000 people. It is difficult for us to explain to our constituents why that inequity is there. I hope that all of us here would agree that that is not right, and that we should have in our democratic system an inherent equity between Members of Parliament in terms of the number of people who are able to vote for them.

I fully support the Government’s move to automaticity, if that is the right word—to bring in boundary changes without Members of Parliament having to get involved. Indeed, the 5% tolerance ensures that equality will be ingrained in the future and moves us away from having to have these debates on a regular basis. We should all just come clean: this is a difficult issue for Members of Parliament. We have an inherent interest in the outcome of boundary reviews, which makes it difficult. My hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose) made the point incredibly well. We need to put those decisions outside this place to be made.

One thing that has not been discussed is that new Office for National Statistics data estimates that six new constituencies will be generated in the south-east region of this country. This place needs to give some thought to how those new constituencies should be constructed. Constituencies should have a sense of purpose. They should have a sense of history and a sense of community.

When my constituency was first part of a boundary review, back in the 1940s, just 13,000 people were living in Basingstoke. There are now 83,000 people living in my constituency, and Basingstoke sprawls across four constituencies. My challenge to the Boundary Commission is simple, and I think the Minister needs to help it with this. Constituencies should not just be numerical constructs; they should be constructed for communities first and foremost, and we should construct them for the future, not simply salami-slice away what has gone before. That is the right thing for us to think about now, because this boundary review will be seismic in some areas of the country, and we need to ensure that we grasp the opportunity.

At the moment, the provisions in schedule 2 of the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986 are very sparse in terms of the directions they give to the Boundary Commission. They talk notionally about local ties, and those often figure large in the consultations that follow, but is there an opportunity here to give more direction to the Boundary Commission about their importance for constituencies, and about the importance of mid-sized market towns such as Basingstoke, which saw significant boundary changes in 2010? We have done the right thing and built new houses, but we have been rewarded with a fragmentation of our constituency, which is not necessarily healthy for the future.

Why are towns in certain parts of the country split east-west and north-south, and others simply salami-sliced away? We need a better approach to constructing our constituencies for the future.

June 3, 2020
Craig Williams – 2020 Speech on the Parliamentary Constituencies Bill

Below is the text of the speech made by Craig Williams, the Conservative MP for Montgomeryshire, in the House of Commons on 2 June 2020.

I start by outlining my great support for the Government’s position, in terms of increasing the number to 650. My predecessor and many Welsh MPs have been labouring that point ever since the initial policy of reducing the number to 600 came out, and now we are leaving the European Union and the tier of politicians that once were MEPs in this country is being removed, the fact is that we need more Members of Parliament covering devolved areas, in terms of seats.

I have listened to a lot of people contributing to the debate. At the outset, I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Romford (Andrew Rosindell) and the hon. Member for City of Chester (Christian Matheson) on the points that they made, in particular, about the Union and communities being built up from the bottom. Most of my wards are a lot smaller than their polling districts. That is the nature of local government in Wales, so I certainly appreciate that. The hon. Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones) was a little unkind to say that Wales needs to retain the 40 seats, given that some constituencies are under 40,000 electors in Wales. Clearly, there needs to be some review, especially given the fact that we now have our own Welsh Parliament. There is no need for constituencies of 40,000; that needs to be addressed within this.

I am in a privileged position, having represented one of the smallest geographical constituencies with the highest electorate, and now representing one of the largest geographical constituencies with the smallest electorate. I will put a steer into the Boundary Commission about Montgomeryshire. It was formed in 1542 by the royal charter of Henry VIII, which gives Montgomeryshire some legs in this Chamber. The point I want to make to Government Front Benchers is about the variance and the geographical challenges, as well as population. Montgomeryshire is, for the initiated farmer, 537,000 acres big. For the uninitiated, that is a large constituency, so it involves a lot of travel. That is a challenge, as are large electorates and populations.

The 5% variance could do with a little kick. I have heard that the norm internationally is 10%; I would push for 7.5%, and I hope we go into that matter in some detail in Committee.

I have alluded to the point made by the hon. Member for City of Chester (Christian Matheson) about the Union. Some thought has to be given to how the Bill interacts with the constituencies of our nation in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland. In Wales, we have two forms of electing Assembly Members—the next time, they will be Members of the Senedd—as there are regional and constituency Members. Crossing first-past-the-post constituencies with the regions in Wales will cause even more confusion than currently exists, and I implore the Boundary Commission to look at that.

I will end, Mr Deputy Speaker—I want to allow colleagues to come in and I can see that you will be up on your feet shortly—with a plea about Montgomeryshire and other rural constituencies. This contribution could be considered as the first submission to the Boundary Commission, but we must look at the huge geographical areas, variance and the freedom to protect those communities and constituents who find it hard to relate when Members are travelling for close to two hours. It is easier to attend this Chamber in London than to get to the south of my county council area. To get from the top of Montgomeryshire to the bottom at Brecon and Radnor takes several hours.

June 3, 2020
Kim Johnson – 2020 Speech on the Parliamentary Constituencies Bill

Below is the text of the speech made by Kim Johnson, the Labour MP for Liverpool Riverside, in the House of Commons on 2 June 2020.

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this important Bill. However, I believe that basing the review on the number of registered electors as of 1 December 2020 will not provide an accurate or up-to-date picture of our current electorate and will have huge implications for cities such as mine with universities. The 1 December 2020 register is the enumeration date for the review, meaning that the size of the electorate on 1 December will be used throughout the new boundary review as the officially recognised size of the current electorate. I believe that that will cause many issues, as the electoral register is likely to be severely impacted by the current crisis. The coronavirus is likely to have a significant effect on the annual canvass, meaning that the registers will be less accurate and complete than other recent registers.

The constituency that I represent—Liverpool, Riverside —has an electorate of almost 73,500 and three universities, with an estimated 70,000 students living in the city. The data proposed is two decades old, but it is estimated that the electorate has increased by at least 2 million since the last boundary changes. There are also widespread concerns that, due to the coronavirus, many students will not return to their universities by December 2020, meaning that thousands of students from across the country will not be registered to vote. This will significantly skew the electoral size of university towns, where the student population is dense. As a result, constituency boundaries will not reflect the true size or make-up of the constituency under normal circumstances.

To conclude, I urge the Government to consider using the December 2019 electoral register as the enumeration date for the review. This would capture a highly representative snapshot of the electorate in the run-up to the 2019 general election. That date would also prevent any delay to the review, thereby allowing new boundaries to be in place for the next general election.

June 3, 2020
Marco Longhi – 2020 Speech on the Parliamentary Constituencies Bill

Below is the text of the speech made by Marco Longhi, the Conservative MP for Dudley North, in the House of Commons on 2 June 2020.

Although I listened carefully to the hon. Member for City of Chester (Christian Matheson), there does seem to be the common theme that both Labour Governments and Labour in opposition seek to put up smokescreens for more and more delay, whether in getting Brexit done or indeed updating our boundaries. They are determined to delay, and one does have to wonder why.

Our seats across this nation have changed a lot since the last boundary changes over 20 years ago, and it will take a Conservative Government once again to bring about fairness and equality for the people who have put their trust in us. We see such a disproportionate size-balance across constituencies, and our electors need fair representation; it is simply not fair that some seats have as few as a few tens of thousands of electors, yet others have well over 100,000, with both just having one Member representing each group.

Dudley has just shy of 62,000 electors and last saw a marginal change in 2010, following a bigger change in 1997. I appreciate that my seat, should I—as I hope, obviously—retain it at the next election, will need to increase in size by approximately 10,000.

It would also make sense for constituencies to align more closely with local government boundaries. For example, at present, I have a single lone ward that sits with an MP in Wolverhampton, while it sits in fact in Dudley. We should be keeping communities together, and that would of course help and make sense.

Finally, the covid-19 pandemic will have had an impact on our local communities well above and beyond the awful, tragic loss of life, but the proposed review presents an opportunity to take full consideration of every aspect that the virus could have had an impact on.

June 3, 2020
Christian Matheson – 2020 Speech on the Parliamentary Constituencies Bill

Below is the text of the speech made by Christian Matheson, the Labour MP for the City of Chester, in the House of Commons on 2 June 2020.

Contrary to what we are hearing from Government Members, I warmly welcome the Bill and its main provision, which is the reversion back to 650 Members of Parliament—as, I think, do many colleagues on the Opposition Benches. It is a misrepresentation to suggest that we are opposing the Bill tonight. The Opposition are entirely within their right to put down a reasoned amendment that suggests areas where we would like to see improvement. We will not be opposing the Bill on Second Reading, although we do have concerns.

I have to say that I am also a bit frustrated to hear Government Members saying that we need to get on with the process. We could have been getting on with the process two years ago, with the private Member’s Bill promoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Afzal Khan). It was the Government, with the lack of a money resolution, who held that process up, so we will have no more of that in the debate.

I absolutely support the idea of an independent Boundary Commission that will work independently. We do have confidence in the Boundary Commission. What is not independent, however, is the instructions that are given to the Boundary Commission. That is where the manipulation by the governing party comes in, and that is why the Opposition are right to question the judgment being made tonight. The obvious example is the strict adherence to the numbers and the primacy of the numbers over every other consideration, such as communities of interest or geographical size. That strict adherence will give distorted constituencies, especially with a tight variant from the national average. We will lose community cohesion. We will have very large geographical areas that make it extremely difficult for hon. Members to represent them. That is why—I think the hon. Member for Newbury (Laura Farris) touched on this—there has to be some disparity in the numbers to take into account other factors.

We talked about the December 2020 cut-off date being far too late and said that people will fall off the register. At this stage, I was going to talk about other areas where I believe the Conservative party, the governing party, has introduced measures of voter suppression to stop people from getting on to the register or voting. However, the Minister made a significant concession, almost, or recognition—she is not in her place now—about the possibility of having to use the 2019 snapshot, which is the most up-to-date, accurate snapshot we have. It has been published only this week, because that is how long it takes. I welcome what the Minister said, and I hope we can work with her on that.

I am suspicious of anything that removes Parliament from these processes—from any process, frankly. Parliamentary scrutiny is absolutely essential. I do not like the idea of Parliament being sidelined, even when we are discussing matters concerning our boundaries, because these matters are central to our democracy. If Parliament had been removed from the issue of boundaries, then in my area we would now have the notorious Mersey Banks constituency—it was one of those constituencies where we would have had to go out of the constituency, through another, and back into it—because the proposals would not have been able to have been challenged in this House.

I want to raise one final issue: the future of the Union. It is imperative that the Government do not allow us to get into a situation where Wales and Scotland, because of their geographical sizes and the rurality of some of their areas, take a bigger hit than England in terms of reduction in constituencies. The Union matters to me, and I believe that it matters to many Members in this House—it certainly matters to Members on the Labour Benches. If we have fewer Welsh MPs and fewer Scottish MPs, the strength of the Union will be damaged. That may be an unintended consequence, but it is a consequence that Ministers must bear in mind.

June 3, 2020
Andrew Rosindell – 2020 Speech on the Parliamentary Constituencies Bill

Below is the text of the speech made by Andrew Rosindell, the Conservative MP for Romford, in the House of Commons on 2 June 2020.

The imperative to review our boundaries is absolutely essential now. We are talking about an electoral register of 20 years ago. I know that every Member of the House will agree that it is time to get this job done, and I commend the Government for moving forward on this as fast as possible. The Bill will create a new political map for the United Kingdom that will see us through at least the next two general elections, but there is one area that needs to change, and I will focus my remarks on that.

We have an opportunity to create not only 650 constituencies based on equal numbers, but ones that are based around actual towns, communities and places of genuine social, historical, geographical and cultural connections, giving greater recognition to local ties, which unfortunately the current system often prevents. The cause of this is simple. It is the lack of flexibility that results from rigidly using whole local government wards as the main building blocks, when smaller building blocks such as polling districts could be used instead. I commend the Boundary Commission for its independence, but apart from a few exceptions, its unwillingness to divert from using entire wards instead of smaller areas such as polling districts leads to unnecessary changes and upheavals, mass confusion and people who are accustomed to being in one constituency suddenly finding themselves being transferred to an area with which they have much less or no connection. We often see communities divided as a result, and a loss of local identity.

The dismay people feel when they are shunted from their traditional constituency into another one, from which they feel totally disconnected, is damaging to our democracy, as is the failure to have continuity of elected representation. I therefore say to the Lord President of the Council, who is in his place, that I hope the Boundary Commission will be willing to include parts of wards and make smaller, incremental changes that still meet the requirements of the Bill, but make larger changes much less likely and allow communities to unite within one constituency.

It is wrong to force communities to go through massive upheavals when small changes can satisfy the numbers within the scope of the Bill, and prevent a radical and unwelcome change for both constituents and the Member of Parliament, who may have spent many years looking after a community and become familiar to local people. I could provide many examples of that. In the Rush Green community in my constituency, 3,000 people from a polling district could have been moved into the area. Instead, the Boundary Commission chose to bring in an entire ward, dividing up other communities. That approach has to change.

The Boundary Commission needs to review the way it does things to make them more sensible and more community-orientated, while keeping within the numbers set out by the Government in the Bill. This really does matter. I hope the Government will use their influence to ensure that a more flexible approach is used and mandate the Boundary Commission to alter its criteria to allow judgments based on local ties, using smaller areas, polling districts or even a road or a house if it means a smaller area being moved to meet the criteria. It could ensure that we avoid communities being broken up and avoid the radical upheavals that have caused so much unnecessary division in previous boundary reviews.

One final request: one more MP, for Gibraltar, please. They have asked for it. Let us have one more MP.

June 3, 2020
Rachel Hopkins – 2020 Speech on the Parliamentary Constituencies Bill

Below is the text of the speech made by Rachel Hopkins, the Labour MP for Luton South, in the House of Commons on 2 June 2020.

I am pleased to be able to speak in this debate, as electoral boundaries have a special place in my heart—not just as a newly elected MP, but as someone whose career prior to being elected to Parliament included a thoroughly enjoyable stint some 20 years ago working for the Local Government Commission for England on periodic electoral reviews of local government boundaries. I am still friends with many of the other boundary geeks who worked there, and it is right that I declare an interest in that some of those friends and colleagues moved on to work more recently for the Boundary Commission for England on parliamentary reviews.

It would be remiss of me not to mention or thank all the hard-working electoral administrators working across our local authorities. Good democracy requires good administration, and it is important to recognise the immense efforts that many of these officers continue to make to ensure that all our constituents are accurately and appropriately registered to vote and that elections are well run and within the law—all against a backdrop of ever diminishing council budgets during the decade of austerity.

I speak in this debate with some experience of the process of making boundaries and an understanding of the public’s response to both well made and poor boundaries, and as a politician with a keen eye on the outcome of any boundary changes for the length of time I may have to serve in this place. However, I want to focus on the first two points in supporting the reasoned amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Cat Smith). First, the legitimacy of our democracy rests on public confidence in the process as much as in the outcome. As part of that, the process of making boundaries must be as transparent as possible so that the public can have as much ownership of the structures of elections as of the outcome. For this reason, I believe that the removal of parliamentary approval from the process is a backward step. Parliamentary scrutiny of any proposals ensures transparency of the process within the public domain and avoids any perceptions, right or wrong, of power grabs by the Executive.

Secondly, I welcome the Minister’s comments about the proposed enumeration date being set at 1 December 2020, but I recognise that the annual canvass for the electoral register this year in late summer or autumn is likely to be significantly impacted by coronavirus. If the electoral register for December 2019 is to be looked at, she might also want to look at the ONS figures, which stated that almost 500,000 people joined the register between 1 December and 12 December, so it will be really important to get accurate data.

My final point is about the variance from the electoral quota. This can have a detrimental impact on the representation of communities and on effective administration, as has already been said. If the number of MPs is fixed and the electoral quota is fixed, the only element of flexibility to support community identity and community connections is the percentage variance from the quota. That can be reflected in whether it is moved further away to 7.5% or 10%, which is something that can be debated. It can also reflect the topography in more rural areas, and it can help to better reflect the community connections in urban areas. The numbers are quite small when we look at them in the round. Finger in the air, if the quota is around 73,000, a 5% variance would give around 3,500 electors. A 7.5% variance would be around 5,500 electors. That is not much of a difference. In fact, people in this Chamber have smaller majorities than that. Maybe that is why they want to stick with the 5%. Some would say “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”, but I would suggest that greater flexibility in the quota helps to create better constituencies by providing for better community identity and connections with constituencies, and by ensuring greater public buy-in to any proposals.

June 3, 2020
Laura Farris – 2020 Speech on the Parliamentary Constituencies Bill

Below is the text of the speech made by Laura Farris, the Conservative MP for Newbury, in the House of Commons on 2 June 2020.

I rise to support the Bill knowing that I may well be a turkey voting for Christmas. I am a new MP, but I am reliably informed by my predecessor that when the boundary commission previously turned its attention to my seat, of its various proposals, none helped. Perhaps that enhances the force of my support for the Bill, because I give it without much to gain.

In the six months I have been a Member of this House, I have thought carefully about what it means to represent and what it means to be represented. Before consideration of this Bill, I had not been fully aware of the extent of the population disparity between the various seats. It is striking how closely the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich West (Shaun Bailey) resemble my own. I did not know that the seat of Ashford, with its 90,000 constituents had more than double the constituents of the Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross seat. I acknowledge the sensible remarks made by my hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Fay Jones) that there are important geographical considerations, but we cannot avoid the fact that a vote in Caithness has twice the value of a vote in Ashford, and to me that distorts representation. When he wrote “Of true and false democracy”, John Stuart Mill said that in a “really equal democracy” every community is represented in equal proportion. Without this, he added, there are those

“whose fair…share of influence in the representation is withheld from them…contrary to the principle of democracy, which professes equality at its very root”.

For that reason, it seems right to me that we equalise seats based on number and that the margin for variation is deliberately circumscribed.

My second point relates to the retention of 650 seats, rather than the reduction to 600. All the way through, three issues concerned me. First, I had grave concerns about whether the new super-constituencies could offer the sort of quality of representation that people deserve, just at the time we were losing the Members of the European Parliament. I was glad to see that reflected in the impact assessment prepared on 4 May. Secondly, one thing I knew about my own seat is that the 600 seats proposal lacerated some of our communities, cleaving villages from towns that had deep historical links. I hope—I will make submissions as the Bill proceeds—that we can use the preservation of 650 seats to put that right.

Thirdly, I welcomed the coalition Government’s intention to manage the cost of Parliament, but I felt it was directed at the wrong Chamber. The other Chamber comprises 783 Members and costs the taxpayer less but almost as much as our Chamber. If the Members of this House spoke honestly to their constituents and asked them how many Members of the Upper Chamber they could name, they might find that some could name none at all. I know that some Members of that Chamber are brilliant and bring expertise; I know that some of them serve in the Government and in the shadow Cabinet, and are very active in that Chamber; and I know that the vast majority adhere to the highest standards of professional conduct. But when they fall short—and some do—there is absolutely nothing the public can do, and to me that conflicts with the whole principle of parliamentary democracy.

As Ted Heath once said, those who have been appointed to or inherited seats have done in the main

“a tremendous task and we owe them a great deal”,—[Official Report, 2 February 1999; Vol. 324, c. 761.]

but I hope that in this Parliament, we will make the move—

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)

Order. I am terribly sorry, but we have to move on to the next speaker.

June 3, 2020
Judith Cummins – 2020 Speech on the Parliamentary Constituencies Bill

Below is the text of the speech made by Judith Cummins, the Labour MP for Bradford South, in the House of Commons on 2 June 2020.

I would like to talk briefly about the last boundary review process and the failings I believe occurred regarding the Bradford constituencies. I am not criticising the commission, as I think it did an excellent job within the constraints of the rules that were set out in the previous legislation. I do, however, want to propose some changes that will improve the process.

The initial proposals of that review were extremely unsatisfactory for Bradford, producing constituencies that did not reflect the communities of our area. For example, they split my constituency across four local authorities—Leeds, Calderdale, Kirklees, and Bradford. The commissioners noted a

“strong depth of feeling against our initial proposals and a distinct ‘Bradfordian’ identity”.

Their report also said:

“Our assistant commissioners, faced…what they considered was an exceptionally challenging task in constructing constituencies in Bradford that would be acceptable to local respondents”—

and—

“that did not cause split wards.”

Their final recommendations accepted many of the arguments put forward by my constituents, and the commissioners moved a considerable way within the constraints that had been set for them. I have learnt from that experience the value that people place on their constituencies matching in the closest possible way their established community identities. That is why I believe this Bill must be used to improve the process that draws up our next set of constituency boundaries.

The commission faced two major constraints in creating constituencies that voters can readily identify with. The first was the use of whole wards as the building blocks for constituencies. In some large metropolitan authorities, these building blocks are far too big for this purpose. In Leeds, for instance, wards can contain more than 17,000 voters, and both Bradford and Kirklees have wards in excess of 13,000 electors. Working with building blocks of this size within the electoral tolerance of 5% made it impossible to create constituencies that people felt strongly attached to. I believe that local authority boundaries and people’s sense of place should take precedence over ward boundaries. To achieve this, the commission should be allowed to make use of split wards in drawing up new boundaries. The second constraint is having such a small electoral tolerance. As I have said, a 5% tolerance does not give the necessary flexibility to the commissioners. I urge the Government to give the commissioners the wider discretion of using a 10% tolerance where necessary.

Finally, I too am concerned about the impact of covid-19 on the process. Under the legislation, the boundary redrawing will be based on the electoral register from 1 December 2020. Given the Minister’s opening remarks, I say to her that there is no better time than today’s debate to update the House more fully on that point and to get on the record the options she is considering.

The Bill should give the Electoral Commission the tools it needs to produce constituencies of approximately equal size that, crucially, keep communities together within coherent boundaries. I believe the measures I have referred to would improve the Bill and produce a more democratic process for all.

June 3, 2020