Category: Speeches

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
Shaun Bailey – 2020 Speech on the Parliamentary Constituencies Bill

Below is the text of the speech made by Shaun Bailey, the Conservative MP for West Bromwich West, in the House of Commons on 2 June 2020.

I start by echoing a point that the hon. Member for Glasgow East (David Linden) made about today’s proceedings and pay tribute to the House and parliamentary staff who ensured that we were able to do what we have done today. Whatever our views, they have done a fantastic job in ensuring that while we are back here, we can participate as we need to.

Equal-sized constituencies with one Member, one vote and all Members being equal has been a core tenet of our democracy for nearly 200 years. I am proud of the fact that the communities I represent were at the heart of that battle 200 years ago to ensure that every individual had their voice heard, no matter where they came from, how much money they had in their wallet or how much property they owned. The likes of the chartist council at Princes End, the chartist council in Wednesbury, John Wilkes from Tipton Green, Richard Cooper from Princes End, George Browning from Wednesbury, and later Black Country suffragettes such as Hilda Burkett and Emma Sproson led the fight to ensure that a working-class lad from a council house, who was told that he would amount to nothing, can stand here today in this Parliament and represent those people’s descendants.

I want to ensure that that chartist and suffragette legacy is carried on. I am proud of the fact that in my constituency, community groups such as the WMA community centre in Tipton Green and Q3 Academy in Tipton ensure that our young people can continue to access democracy. I believe that the Bill honours that tradition. If we look at what it tries to resolve, we need to ask ourselves some fundamental questions.

Is it right that in town A, half as many people can vote for an MP as those in next-door town B? Is it right that the difference between the 20 smallest and the 20 largest constituencies in this country is 675,000, which I believe, looking at my right hon. Friend the Member for Elmet and Rothwell (Alec Shelbrooke), is about the size of the city of Leeds. Is it right that 27 million people are reportedly being under-represented because they live in constituencies where they are above the average threshold?

I am slightly confused by the Opposition’s position on this matter. My hon. Friends have touched on the history of the Labour party in trying to block this levelling up of our electoral system. The Minister mentioned the 1969 Labour Government’s attempt to block the independent boundary review, and in 1982 Labour tried to take things to the courts but failed. The hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) is not in his place, but he made the good point that common sense needs to be applied to this at all times. I totally agree on that, but I wish to address some of the comments the Labour party has made. For example, Labour Members say that this Bill is an Executive power grab, but the basis of this is an independent, judicial-led Boundary Commission; this is taken out of the power of the Executive and given to an independent body. In addition, this is primary legislation and Parliament can of course amend or abolish it at any time. It is a basic principle of our parliamentary democracy that we, as Members, can do that if we need to, so I must disagree with the Labour party on that point.

I am conscious of the time and I wish to allow colleagues to speak, so I will just make the point that the last time the boundaries in my constituency were amended I was five years old. A lot has changed since then. Many of us have changed, with some probably changing more than others. It is time that we get this done. I say to right hon. and hon. Members from across this Chamber that if we truly believe that everyone’s vote is equal and we truly believe in ensuring that our democracy continues to grow and thrive, we must pass this legislation.

June 3, 2020
Cat Smith – 2020 Speech on the Parliamentary Constituencies Bill

Below is the text of the speech made by Cat Smith, the Shadow Minister of State for the Cabinet Office, in the House of Commons on 2 June 2020.

I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from “That” to the end of the Question and add:

“this House whilst supporting the retention of 650 parliamentary constituencies declines to give a Second Reading to the Parliamentary Constituencies Bill because the Bill would disproportionately and undemocratically concentrate power over constituency sizes and boundaries in the hands of the executive, because the Bill fails to create a more flexible electoral quota allowing greater consideration to be given to local ties and community connections when drawing constituency boundaries, and because the proposed numeration date for the boundary review of 1 December 2020 risks boundaries being based on an incomplete register owing to the impact of the covid-19 pandemic on the preparation of electoral registers.”

Every single one of us in the House today represents a constituency that has been drawn up based on the electorate data of nearly two decades ago. Twenty years ago, our country and our communities looked very different. Some of our communities have grown and others have seen population decline. Indeed, in that time, 2 million more electors have come on to the electoral roll and it is time we counted them when it comes to the constituencies we represent.

We hope that the review can be completed before the next general election and that there will be no further delay. After two shelved boundary reviews, the public will not want more taxpayers’ money to be wasted on a review that does not see the light of day. We need a boundary review, and the Opposition stand ready to work with the Government on that if it is fair and the rules are not inserted or omitted on the basis of any perceived political advantage for any party.

The Bill must proceed with the aim of delivering a fair and democratic review. We want the new boundaries to reflect the country as it is today and ensure that all communities get fair representation. Those boundaries must also take into consideration local ties and identities.

I welcome the Government’s decision to reverse their previous position of reducing the number of MPs to 600. As we have left the European Union and the work of the UK’s 73 MEPs falls to this House, it would have piled a heavier workload on to fewer shoulders. More importantly, it would have handed further power to the Executive, because reducing the number of MPs while refusing to cut the size of the Government payroll would create a dangerous level of Executive dominance at the expense of Parliament and our democracy.

Welcoming the return to proposing 650 MPs brings me to the last two wasted reviews on the 600 figure. With two abandoned reviews, we are in a farcical situation with boundaries. While Tory Ministers argued with their Back Benchers, public resources flooded down the drain. Millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money has been wasted. The unfinished 2013 review cost British taxpayers £7 million. It wasted the time and expertise of the boundary commissioners in working towards a target that was destined to be scrapped, and the 2018 review was equally wasteful. In a written question, the Government estimated the cost at £8 million. The Government have not provided a recent figure on that, but I have given the Minister the opportunity to do so by tabling a written parliamentary question asking just that.

However, one of the biggest concerns that the Opposition has about the Bill is the Government’s decision to end parliamentary oversight of the process. It is yet another attempt to diminish scrutiny over executive power. Parliamentary oversight is fundamental to the democratic passing of a Bill, and this Bill is no different. The Minister says that it is to stop MPs blocking new boundaries, but in the last Parliament it was her Government who never tabled that review for a vote, so we will never know the outcome of a vote that never took place.

The process of needing MPs to vote for the final report from the commission is an important safety net, because without it we would now have just 600 MPs here today. When the Government wanted to go back to 650, it was that safety net that allowed them to do so and make that happen, but removing parliamentary scrutiny is worrying for the future integrity of our democracy. This loophole allows a power grab, with no parliamentary backstop to limit the dominance of the Executive. The Government have not shown any regard for the primacy of Parliament. Indeed, the unlawful prorogation of Parliament is a case in point.

I note the remarks that the Minister made about the enumeration date in the Bill of December 2020. I am glad that she is looking at this, and I look forward to her update to the House, because after 20 years of delay, the boundaries must reflect the electorate with the best possible accuracy. I urge her to consider ditching the 1 December 2020 register in light of the unprecedented covid-19 crisis that we are currently living through. Our councils are working flat out to support our communities at the present time, and to ask them to undertake an annual canvass at a time of social distancing when they have stretched capacity risks that register being patchy at best. So I welcome the Minister’s remarks and put on record my thanks for the hard work that all our councils are doing in supporting some of our most vulnerable residents at this time.

Lloyd Russell-Moyle

Does my hon. Friend agree that there may be a case to always link the register to the last general election? We know that that is a credible register. Other crises might come up in the future, and the Government will always have to be changing, whereas if the register is always based on the last election we will know that it is based on a mandate that people have exercised.

Cat Smith

I thank my hon. Friend for that very sensible point. What he notes, of course, is that we see a spike in voter registration when we have a general or a local election. Of course, this year there are no elections because of the coronavirus crisis, but just six months ago we had a general election in this country and we know that the December 2019 register is incredibly accurate because we saw a spike in voter registration.

We are also aware that electoral registration officers are already expressing concern about the impacts that coronavirus will have on the December 2020 registers, and the prevailing opinion is that the annual canvass is likely to be impacted in some significant way. I urge the Minister to favour using the very recent general election data of December 2019. The Office for National Statistics released that data just last week, and we saw more than 1 million people register between December 2018 and December 2019, indicating that the December 2019 register is much more accurate than the December 2020 register will potentially be.

The fact that the data was published last week demonstrates the lag in collating that data. So if, for example, the Government were to continue to use the December 2020 register, commissioners would probably be waiting until May 2021 before they had collected that data from EROs and could get on with their work. Let us help the boundary commissioners begin their important work as soon as possible by using the data published last week, which we already have, relating to December 2019 and the general election.

Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)

Does the hon. Member accept that one of the key issues is to ensure that the electoral officers are properly sourced, supplied and located across the various constituencies? One of the problems in the last election was that because there had been a refurbishment and, indeed, a reduction in the number of election officers, there were errors in sending out people’s polling cards and some people did not know who in their household could vote. Does she agree that this is a good opportunity to ensure that electoral officers are properly supplied and in the right locations?

Cat Smith

I thank the hon. Member for giving me the opportunity to put on record my concerns about the overstretched nature of electoral returning officers in our councils right across the country. Cuts to local government have not protected electoral returning officers and the resources that they are working with.

Turning to the issue of the electoral quota, I know that Members across the House will want to highlight their concerns about the impact of this boundary review on communities in their constituencies. Community has never been stronger than during these troubling months. Right across the country, we are seeing communities come together to support vulnerable people, and now more than ever, community connections must be valued and respected. However, the restrictive 5% quota tolerance in the Bill flies in the face of protecting community ties. I know that many of my Welsh colleagues are planning to speak this afternoon, and they will highlight some of the geographical challenges the quota throws up—by which I mean mountains dividing constituencies. In Devon and Cornwall, the Government have repeatedly ignored the historic and proud identities of those counties. Boundaries based on strict numbers that ignore identities do not carry community support, as we have seen with the so-called Devonwall seats in the last review. Will the Minister ensure that there is no Devonwall seat in this Bill? I suspect that Cornish MPs might want to table an amendment to protect Cornish identity. If they were to do so, would the Minister back them?

As the Minister knows, there is consensus among respected experts such as Ron Johnston, David Rosser and Charles Pattie, who agree that the 5% rule causes significant disruption to community boundaries. Indeed, they concluded that the substantial disruption on the map of constituencies in the aborted sixth review was not entirely the result of the reduction of the number of MPs from 650 to 600; their report showed in detail that disruption was caused by the introduction of the uniform national quota and the 5% tolerance. I commend to the Minister the private Member’s Bill introduced by the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone), which suggests a 7.5% quota. Communities across the UK will be more representative if a wider quota is introduced. Why is the Minister refusing to accept the evidence and introduce a quota that would be better for everyone?

John Penrose (Weston-super-Mare) (Con)

Is this not an example of the prayer of St Augustine—grant me chastity and continence, but just not yet? If we are going to do this, let us do it right and let us do it now. The hon. Lady is making an argument for perpetuating inequity.

Cat Smith

I completely dispute the hon. Member’s argument; that is absolutely not the case. I am very keen that the Government should be able to get on with this boundary review. I want new boundaries to be in place ahead of the next general election, because at the moment we stand in this House representing constituencies based on data that is two decades old. We should absolutely move on from the status quo, but I am saying that we should ask for a quota of 7.5%, because we could then keep community ties together and represent constituencies that actually look like the communities we stand here and claim to represent.

Alec Shelbrooke

The hon. Lady has come on to the 5%, rather than moving on from that, but the OSCE standard around the world states that there should be a variance of no more than 10% from constituency to constituency if there is to be a fair election. Would the hon. Lady like to develop her argument in relation to that international standard?

Cat Smith

The Opposition recognise the need for constituencies to be broadly as equal as possible, but anyone who stands up in this House and says that they truly believe that all constituencies should be equal should look at the data from December 2019. If we were to take that data on how the electorate looked and say that every constituency had to be exactly equal, every constituency would have to have an electorate of 72,613. Not 72,614 or 72,612—those figures would be outside the quota. There will always need to be a variance, and it is a question of striking a balance between having constituencies that are broadly equal and constituencies that represent their community ties.

Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)

The amendment does not mention 7.5%. If that is Labour party policy, would it not lead to a situation where there could be two constituencies side by side with a 15% difference in their numbers, thereby totally undermining the argument that every vote should have equal weight?

Cat Smith

The 7.5% I drew attention to is in the private Member’s Bill promoted by the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone), so if the hon. Member for Dartford (Gareth Johnson) wants to know where the figure comes from, I suggest he speaks to his hon. Friend.

I am conscious that you want to get all Back Benchers into this debate, Madam Deputy Speaker. There are many aspects of the Bill that make sense and that we welcome—for example, giving the boundary commissioners more flexibility to use local government and ward boundaries that are yet to come into force. We also welcome the move to hold reviews every eight years. The longer cycle will limit the disruption caused to parliamentary constituencies, potentially resulting in savings, but ensuring that MPs remain accountable to their constituents, so that we are not elected to this place and our constituents are never given a chance to hold us to account in a further election.

I look forward to hearing the contributions from all Members to this important debate. It is time for a democratic boundary review, and the Labour party will not stand in the way of that. However, the Bill must not strengthen the power of the Executive at the expense of Parliament. I hope the Minister will consider changing the numeration date, given the extraordinary circumstances of covid-19.

June 2, 2020