Parliamentary Constituencies Bill (Seventh sitting)

John Spellar Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 7th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 30th June 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Mrs Miller]

These amendments and new clauses would effectively create an additional protected constituency of Ynys Môn comprising the area of the Isle of Anglesey County Council. The new clauses seek to amend schedule 2 to the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986, specifically the rules for the distribution of seats, resulting in Ynys Môn being included as a protected seat in rule 6. Consequential and necessary changes to rule 8 and rule 9 of the same schedule are needed to bring that fully into effect. Amendment 14 is a consequential amendment looking at the total number of constituencies.

There is an acknowledged principle in the 1986 Act that in our great British Isles, a collection of islands under our sovereign, Her Majesty, there are instances where the parliamentary constituency system needs to acknowledge challenges and limitations of building a constituency boundary system that adequately recognises island-based communities. Existing legislation does do that for two seats in England, neighbouring my own county in Hampshire, and for two seats in Scotland, but for none in Wales.

At this point I declare an interest. Although I was born in England and represent an English constituency, I was brought up in Bridgend, Wales. My maiden name is Lewis. My two brothers were born in Bridgend Hospital and my two nieces, Isabella and Olivia, attend a bilingual Church in Wales school in Llangattock. Yes, when England plays Wales in rugby, I support Wales. I am aware of the Welsh identity and the powerful role that communities play in Welsh life. When parliamentary boundaries were last debated, the move to 600 seats made it difficult to secure protection for the constituency of Ynys Môn. Given the return to 650 seats, I will attempt to turn the Minister’s head in the hope that she might be persuaded by arguments of both the head and the heart.

The people of Ynys Môn are rightly proud of their island and its unique history. While the boundaries of most other counties might be considered somewhat arbitrary—although not in Yorkshire and Lancashire, as we have heard—the boundary between Ynys Môn and the mainland is physical, perhaps indivisible and immovable.

[John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

There is something I fail to understand in this argument. Is Ynys Môn not connected by a bridge that was built around 100 years ago and is readily used all the time? How is it different from any other bridge in this country over rivers? The Isle of Wight argument was pretty thin, because the ferry is quite effective. Here you have a well-established bridge.

[Mrs Miller]

The right hon. Gentleman brings me straight on to my next point. It is as if he was reading my notes in advance—I am sure he was not. The Menai strait may be narrow enough to travel over by bridge, unlike travelling to the Isle of Wight, which he will be well aware is not connected by any bridges. However, the bridges were built very recently, and the people of Ynys Môn continue to have a strong sense of independence—born from many centuries of separation from the mainland—and have not changed. There are countless examples of Ynys Môn’s deeply held identity as an island community both physically and sometimes constitutionally annexed to the mainland. The island is environmentally and economically distinct from the mainland, being flat and fertile, with its rugged coastline and deep harbours standing in stark contrast to the mountains of Snowdonia.

The hon. Member for Ceredigion will, I am sure, tell me that my pronunciation is not good, but the area is known as Môn mam Cymru—Anglesey, mother of Wales. That is rooted in its history. Countless windmills still stand on the island as testament to the fact that it kept north Wales fed during the middle ages.

[John Spellar]

The right hon. Lady’s definition of “recent” must slightly differ from mine. The Menai suspension bridge was built in 1826, at just about the time we were getting any sort of franchise and about 100 years before we had universal franchise. This is a pretty thin argument, is it not?

[Mrs Miller]

I am sure the people of Ynys Môn will listen carefully to interventions made by Labour Members, which I am not sure necessarily reflect the arguments made over many years by others who have looked at this very carefully. The right hon. Member has a point that can be made, but this is not just a river or arbitrary boundary. This is a significantly sized island, which I think is actually almost double the size of the Isle of Wight. It is significantly larger than the Isle of Wight, so I think a bridge, however long it has been there, does not take away from its sense of identity. Indeed, there is clear and direct precedent for Ynys Môn to be treated as an exception. I hope, more generally, that the Labour party will support this proposal. Certainly, the evidence given to the Select Committee suggested that there was cross-party support. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman is just making a little bit of mischief along the way.

There is clear precedent. The Isle of Wight’s two seats make an electorate of more than 110,000, Orkney and Shetland has an electorate of 23,000, and the Western Isles has an electorate of 15,000, so this is not about the number of people on an island but about the islands themselves, because they are geographically separate, with fractured populations. They have a tradition and identity that tend to override those numerical imbalances, which has rightly been recognised by this place over many years.

Ynys Môn possesses all the same exceptional qualities geographically, but also in its heritage. With an electorate of more than 50,000 registered voters, it is a sizeable community, as well as geographically sizeable. No other constituency I am aware of, or that Members have brought up so far in our consideration of the Bill, is in a similar situation to Ynys Môn. Its nearest comparators have all been granted protected status. While I know and understand the arguments made by some in Cornwall, I hope the boundary commission heeded the issues raised by Devonwall. That is a very different issue from those faced by island communities, and I do not think that the two arguments should merge.

We heard no dissent in our evidence sessions when the notion of protected status was put forward. As an island nation, UK citizens do not need to be told about the unique identity that results from living on an island. Recognising a plurality of identities is part and parcel of the geography of our British Isles and needs to apply to the Welsh island of Ynys Môn. There is a strong depth of feeling on Ynys Môn that the island should have this recognition. In our evidence session, Dr Larner, who is a research associate at the Wales Governance Centre at Cardiff University, was very clear:

“Obviously, Ynys Môn is not as isolated geographically as some of the Scottish constituencies, but, when you consider that the Isle of Wight is involved in these protections, it is reasonable to suggest that Ynys Môn should be too.”––[Official Report, Parliamentary Constituencies Public Bill Committee, 18 June 2020; c. 131, Q251.]

I have to say that my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Virginia Crosbie) put it best when she said: “Ynys Môn is unique. It is very special. The people have a strong sense of identity and community, unlike any I have experienced on mainland Britain. The countryside is rich and fertile, the coastline rugged and rural, and there is a very real sense of being an island standing alone from the mainland, despite the connected bridges. There is a commitment to protecting and promoting local business, the Welsh language and the culture and traditions of Ynys Môn. This is an island community that deserves to be recognised and protected.”

--- Later in debate ---

[John Spellar]

Can we have some clarity on how the arithmetic works? Will Wales be taken as a block and allocated a number of seats, from which the protected seat would then be abstracted and its quota spread among the other seats? Alternatively, will Wales’s population be included with England’s and Scotland’s, so that all the protected seats are taken completely out of the equation and the basic figure for constituencies will be decided quite separately from the protected constituencies?

[Chloe Smith]

I believe it is the former; indeed, that is what the consequential amendments in this bundle go on to do. We can complete that argument when we discuss the tolerance and the way in which the quota is arrived at.

I will now deal with the fact that a couple of amendments are grouped together, and other Members have already asked questions about the procedure. I assume it would be in order for me to indicate that I would like to accept amendment 14 and new clause 10, but not new clause 6 and its associated amendment. That is for the very good reason that consequential changes to the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986 are required to fully implement this protected constituency, and we need to ensure that those consequential changes are made by the amendments tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke, not those tabled by the hon. Members for Ceredigion and for Glasgow East. That is not to say that those Members have not made good arguments today—they have—but I intend to accept the amendment tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke. I hope that is in order, Mr Paisley. I think I have answered all the points raised.