Constituency Boundaries (Islands)

Lord Harper Excerpts

Tuesday 15th June 2010 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr Mark Harper)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr. Sheridan, in my first outing on this side of the House—strange though it seems, but very welcome. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Turner) for his generous opening remarks and for how he represents his constituency so ably. I want also to mention, in passing, how he pronounced the constituency of the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil) better than I just did. The hon. Gentleman will remember when I tried to pronounce his constituency in the House of Commons four years ago. I mangled it a bit then, but he gave me credit for at least trying rather than just copping out and calling it the Western Isles so I am sure that he will forgive me if I make a mess of it again.

When researching for the debate, I was interested to note that, before the Great Reform Act of 1832, the Isle of Wight was represented not as ably as it is now by my hon. Friend, but by more Members of Parliament. Indeed, eight Members of Parliament represented it in the House. The three boroughs of Newport, Newtown and Yarmouth each elected two Members of Parliament, and the rest of the island outside those boroughs was represented by the two county Members for Hampshire. The world has indeed moved on from a rather over-represented island to one that is probably under-represented given the number of Members of Parliament, but outweighed by the quality of its one Member of Parliament.

My hon. Friend is right that the Government have set out proposals for fewer and more equally sized constituencies. He is also right in saying that no decisions have been taken. He said that the Government were planning on having a quota of 77,000 electors with a 10% cut in the number of Members of Parliament. That was the policy set out by the Conservative party before the election, but Ministers are currently considering both the size of the House of Commons and the electoral quota that flows from it. As yet, no decisions have been taken by the coalition Government. I thought that it was worth putting that information on the record in case people assumed that the Conservative party’s proposals were being automatically rolled forward. My hon. Friend welcomed the general thrust of our proposals to reduce the number of Members of Parliament in the House of Commons and to reduce the cost of politics. He is a demonstration, as are other hon. Members who represent constituencies with larger than average electorates, that it is perfectly possible to represent them very ably in the House of Commons and make sure that they receive a good service.

It is now worth picking up the point made by the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar about the unelected House of Lords. He is right that several peers were appointed to that House in the previous Government’s dissolution honours list and that more peers might be created. He will also know that that my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister has set up a cross-party Committee charged with bringing forward by the end of the year a draft Bill to introduce either a wholly or a mainly elected second Chamber, which will deal with the issue that he highlighted about the number of unelected Members in that House. Those proposals will be scrutinised by a Committee of both Houses and will be taken forward. The issue that the hon. Gentleman raises is real, but it is in hand.

It is also worth saying that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight said, the work on considering boundaries, setting the size of the House of Commons and deciding on the guidance that the boundary commissioners will have as they set about their work needs to be approached with great care. Many Members of Parliament have already been lobbying me on what they think the rules should be and making cases both in the House and privately for their own constituencies, and I am listening to them intently. However, we must balance against the concerns raised by my hon. Friend and the hon. Gentleman the fact that, at the moment, electors’ votes are worth different amounts depending on where they live. As my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister said in the main Chamber, it is the ultimate postcode lottery that some electors’ votes are in effect worth more than others because it takes fewer of them to elect a Member of Parliament.

[Mr MacNeil]

Surely the way to address that anomaly is through proportional representation and perhaps the single transferable vote. Even if there are numerically even constituencies, some voters will still be worth an awful lot more if they happen to be in a swing seat. In a safe seat, the power of the voter is not as great as it would be in an area or a country where the single transferable vote is used.

[Mr Harper]

I am sure that you, Mr Sheridan, would not want me to be tempted into a discussion of the various electoral systems that we could have, so I will not be tempted by the hon. Gentleman. As he knows, when the Government introduce their Bill on the alternative vote and boundaries, there will be ample opportunity in the House, both on Second Reading and in a Committee of the whole House, to debate electoral systems. I am sure that he will take part in those debates with his normal vigour and good spirits, so we shall leave that question until then.

With regard to both the points that have been made, it is important, when we consider the rules and the framework that will be set for boundaries, to consider how Members of Parliament are able to do their jobs and the accessibility of their constituencies. I have looked carefully at the constituencies that are entirely constituted of islands and those that have significant islands as part of them, and it is worth saying that they do raise a number of issues, which my hon. Friend and the hon. Gentleman outlined clearly and which Ministers are considering carefully.

We will consider carefully how the process of the boundary reviews will be undertaken. We will listen to colleagues and, when we have published our proposals in a Bill, which we expect to introduce in the House before the summer recess, we will listen to colleagues’ representations in the Chamber. They can be assured that it is a constitutional measure, so it will have its Committee stage not in a Committee Room, but on the Floor of the House. Therefore, if hon. Members are not happy with the proposals when we have published them, they will of course have a full opportunity to debate them and raise them with Ministers on the Floor of the House.

[Mr Turner]

Did I hear the Minister say that there would not be a Boundary Commission, or was that a misunderstanding on my part?

[Mr Harper]

No, there would be a Boundary Commission. The decisions for Ministers are on, first, the size of the House of Commons—the Government have yet to reach a decision on that; we are considering the matter carefully—and secondly the instructions and guidance that the Bill will set out for the four Boundary Commissions for the four constituent parts of the United Kingdom as they set about their work. That will be about the quota for the constituencies, the number of electors that each constituency should have; the amount by which the Boundary Commission can vary from that number—the margin, if I can put it like that; whether there are any other considerations, as there are now, that it can take into account; and the extent to which those other considerations, such as the island nature of constituencies and the geography, are allowed to override numerical equality. We are currently considering those matters, which we shall bring before the House.

[Mr MacNeil]

May I extend an invitation to the Minister? If his mind is wavering and not fully made up and he would like to come on a fact-finding mission, he is more than welcome to be my guest in Na h-Eileanan an Iar. We could drive from my office to my house, which is a distance of about 150 miles, using two ferries, or we could get two flights. That would perhaps underline the issue of geography in the Minister’s mind, because when a person is pondering something on paper, it may not be understood as easily as it is during a five-hour drive or two flights.

[Mr Harper]

The hon. Gentleman tempts me with his very generous invitation, and I will bear it in mind. None the less, I understand the issues. I have been to the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight on a number of occasions, and I have grappled with the ferry, so I know how difficult it is to get to. One of the other island constituencies affected is Orkney and Shetland. I visited the Shetland islands a few years ago, and have spoke to the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) about the matter. I recognise the problems of constituencies that are accessible effectively only by air and at significant expense. Such points were made very ably by the hon. Gentleman, so I have an inkling of what the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar has to grapple with when he meets his constituents in surgeries and has to visit different parts of his constituency. I will bear in mind his very generous invitation, but he can rest assured that I have a pretty good idea of the issues involved because of the visits that I have made to other island constituencies. This will not just be a paper exercise that takes no account of the realities. The hon. Gentleman can also be reassured that Ministers considering the matter are constituency MPs who recognise the work that colleagues have to do when they represent their constituents. We will think about our own constituencies and how those challenges are magnified in the particular circumstances that were set out.

I hope that the two Members who have spoken will recognise that no decision has been taken. Their constituents can be satisfied that they have very ably set out the unique nature of island constituencies and some of the challenges that they face in representing them both in the House and outside. Ministers will listen very carefully to those arguments as we frame the legislation and as it is introduced on the Floor of the House. We will take these very delicate matters forward with great care and attention. I thank my hon. Friend and the hon. Gentleman for setting out those points and for giving the House the opportunity to consider them at an early stage.

Question put and agreed to.

Constitution and Home Affairs

Lord Harper Excerpts

Monday 7th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Straw]

I do not understand. Either this has been done for partisan reasons—[Hon. Members: “Answer the question!”] Of course, I am going to answer the question—I always do—but I am allowed to answer the question in my own way. The right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith) and I have been debating this for long enough. I say to him that either this has been done for the most crude of partisan reasons, or the Government have simply misunderstood how they can establish fixed-term Parliaments and take away the right of the Prime Minister to recommend Dissolution before then. It is very straightforward. We can legislate for fixed-term Parliaments—our view is that we ought to go for four-year, not five-year, Parliaments—and we can also legislate to take away the power of the Prime Minister to recommend Dissolution before then, but what we should not do is legislate to take away the power of the House of Commons to remove a Government. I am afraid that they are doing that on some curious and spurious arithmetic.

In the same speech in which he talked about the 1832 reform Act, about which I have had to correct him, the Deputy Prime Minister also said:

“We are not taking away Parliament's right to throw out Government; we’re taking away Government's right to throw out Parliament.”

That is utter nonsense. It is casuistry in the extreme. We are talking about the Government’s right to throw out Parliament and we are talking about Parliament’s right to throw out the Government.

I remind the House of an excellent article in The Daily Telegraph, inserted by the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), in which he says that the 55%-majority plan will “taint” the “New Politics” and that to

“introduce such a measure in this way is simply wrong.”

He goes on to say:

“The requirement for a 55 per cent majority to dissolve parliament, and thereby dismiss a government, dramatically reduces the ability of Parliament to hold the executive to account. It is a major constitutional change, possibly one of the greatest since 1911.”

He also draws attention to what would have happened in 1979, which some of us will recall, when the Government of the day lost their majority by one vote. The then Leader of the Labour party and the Government said that there would have to be an election—it followed like night follows day. People talk about having a period of looking at a coalition in such a situation, but what do they think was being done in the days leading up to that vote but searching for a coalition? It was precisely because one was not available that the Government ran out of numbers and the vote was lost. In that situation, when there had been a vote of no confidence in the Government, the Labour Government could have carried on—they might no doubt have wished to—until the following October, because the 55% threshold would not have been achieved. If that had happened, they would have been in the ludicrous and wholly undemocratic position—

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr Mark Harper)]

You’re wrong.

[Mr Straw]

We are not wrong. It is interesting that whenever Ministers have sought to explain this, they have tied themselves in knots. In the very first Adjournment debate of this Parliament, on the day of the Queen’s Speech, the poor benighted Deputy Leader of the House got tied in knots not only by Labour Members but by most of the Conservative Members. I ask the Deputy Prime Minister to spell out how this is going to work and, above all, to withdraw this ludicrous and undemocratic proposal. I say to him, in the full hearing of a packed Front Bench, that the Deputy Leader of the House also put it on record that the Bill would not be guillotined, so that we could forget about programme motions, and that it would be dealt with on the Floor of the House, but it might never come out of the House, such is the controversy behind it.

Constitutional reform is fundamental for any democracy that wants to renew itself and make itself responsive to the needs of an ever-evolving electorate. The Opposition are in favour of reform that will strengthen Parliament and the democratic process, and we will work constructively to achieve measures with that objective in mind. As it stands, this package of proposals contains far too many partisan political fixes, and is not so much new politics as an old-fashioned stitch-up between the two oldest parties in the House. We oppose those changes and I commend my amendment to the House.