General matters

Lord Wilson of Sedgefield Excerpts

Tuesday 21st December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Phil Wilson (Sedgefield) (Lab)]

I take this opportunity to talk about an important issue that affects the economic welfare of my constituency and the north-east of England.

The Government recently postponed a decision on the intercity express programme. A final decision is to be made in the new year. The intercity express programme will replace the rolling stock on the east coast main line and the great western line. The previous Government appointed Hitachi as the preferred bidder, and Hitachi selected Newton Aycliffe in my constituency as its preferred site at which to build a new fleet of trains if the contract goes ahead. That means the creation of British jobs, a much-needed boost to the private sector in the north-east of England and the arrival of a major manufacturer in the region.

The Government are also considering an alternative train system that would entail coupling diesel engines to electric trains, an option that would more than likely mean that the trains would be imported from abroad, offering none of the benefits to the UK economy and adding further delays as the whole project would have to go out to tender again.

If there was ever a reason why the existing rolling stock needs to be replaced, it is evident today. The east coast main line is suspended between King’s Cross and Peterborough, with trains breaking down here, there and everywhere. The trains rely on overhead electric cables, and when they are down the trains stop. The Hitachi trains are bimodal, which means that they can switch from diesel to electric and vice versa when the need arises. Southeastern operates such Hitachi high speed trains, which have an excellent record in the current bad weather. That is a ringing endorsement of the technology and work force.

Given the combination of the weather and poor rolling stock, the journey home to the north-east for me and many others will not be a very pleasant experience over the next 48 hours. But what is more important is the economic impact of Hitachi’s desire to move to the north-east of England. The move to Newton Aycliffe would create 800 direct jobs and more than 7,000 jobs in the supply chain, many of them in the region.

Hitachi’s investment would be the biggest investment in the north-east of England since Nissan back in the 1980s. It would also tick many other boxes for the Government. It would grow the private sector. There would be a £48 return on every £1 of public investment. There is no requirement for public sector investment until after the next election, well after the scope of the present CSR. More important is the additional income to the Exchequer from the creation of so many manufacturing jobs, the average wage being between about £25,000 and £27,000. The northern TUC has published a study by the Institute for the Study of Labour in Bonn, Germany, which revealed that such jobs at such rates of pay would generate about £13,000 per employee. In the case of the 800 jobs at Hitachi, that is £10.4 million a year in saved benefits and lost sums raised through direct and indirect taxes. If we consider the supply chain too, it has been estimated the figure would rise to over £100 million a year, a sum not to be sniffed at when we all want the deficit to be cut in a careful and structured way.

In Sedgefield, unemployment stands at 1,935. According to Government figures published last week, every unemployed person costs the Exchequer £7,800 in benefits and lost taxes. Therefore, unemployment in Sedgefield is costing the country about £15 million a year. That estimate is based on someone leaving jobseeker’s allowance and earning £12,200 a year. I have two issues with that. The average wage is higher than £12,200, so the cost to the Exchequer per person unemployed will be higher. Secondly, it shows what a great paucity of ambition the Government have for those who are out of work that they believe a person will leave JSA and earn just £12,200 a year. We need real jobs with real wages and a real future. Hitachi would offer the area that, and that is why this is so important to my constituency. Hitachi coming to Newton Aycliffe would help the town fulfil its ambition. If the intercity express programme does not go ahead or the programme is ordered in from abroad, thereby exploiting British jobs, the people of the north-east will feel as if the door is being slammed on the region and on their future.

Finally, I want to thank the thousands of constituents who signed the petition supporting the Hitachi bid and the Northern TUC for its help, along with the North East chamber of commerce, Unite the Union, the Federation of Small Businesses, The Northern Echo and well over 100 companies in the region who have leant their support to the Hitachi campaign. The intercity express programme must go ahead if we are to see private sector growth in the north-east of England. The economic case has been made—more jobs, greater tax income, and the biggest investment in the region for 30-odd years. Hitachi has shown great faith in the north-east. It is time for the Government to do the same by giving the go-ahead to the intercity express programme originally proposed by the last Government and by allowing Hitachi and the north-east to get on with the job.

On that note, I wish everybody a merry Christmas.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Wilson of Sedgefield Excerpts

Wednesday 20th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

My hon. and historical Friend is absolutely right. That adds to my argument, and to arguments that I shall hope to adduce later. As I said, there need to be some exemptions where there are overriding geographical, political or cultural issues that need to be resolved.

One of the overriding political issues is the bonding together of the Union, which historically has taken into consideration the existing political structures in Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. That is why we have tabled amendments 127 and 135, which would mean that the Boundary Commission would not be able to proceed until the referendum had happened in Wales. In that way, we would know that there was a settled view about what powers the National Assembly for Wales would have.

There are other amendments in this group. In particular, the hon. Member for Leeds North West (Greg Mulholland) has tabled amendments 341 and 342, either of which I would be happy to support; I very much hope that he will press one of them to a Division.

The hon. Gentleman made an important point in his contribution to the debate when he said that we have only just had a boundary review and we are to have another by 2013, which seems rather a fruitless exercise. He is absolutely right; it would be better if we did things on a longer time scale, and towards 2018. That point relates to his amendment 341. His amendment 342 would mean that instead of having reviews every five years, we should have them every 10 years. I say to hon. Members who are hard and fast in their view that we should have a full boundary review, every five years, on the basis of purely mathematical, arithmetical equations, that that would put every single parliamentary seat in doubt every single time. It may not be that every single one is changed every time, but a large number probably would be. The danger is that that gives rise to a conflict when an hon. Member knows the seat that they will be fighting at the next general election and they want to get in touch with the voters in that seat not as an MP but as a candidate. That is likely to lead to a considerable number of unfortunate circumstances in the way that Parliament behaves. It was difficult enough in the last general election, when the Speaker and the courts had to intervene in two cases in London where boundaries had been redrawn and MPs wished to be able to correspond not as an MP but as a candidate, and the sitting MP objected to that intervention.

[Phil Wilson (Sedgefield) (Lab)]

Does the shadow Minister agree that over, say, a 20-year period of four Parliaments one community could find itself in four different constituencies and have four different MPs, not because an MP is deposed but because the constituency boundaries are being changed to ensure that all the arithmetical figures stack up? That breaks the strong and important link between the constituency MP and the local electorate.

[Chris Bryant]

Absolutely. Particularly in many rural areas where the difference between reaching the mathematical perfect number and not reaching it might be 1,500 or 3,000 votes, a medium-sized village or small town might have to be divided in half, or a river might run across the constituency and new polling districts might have to be created. A whole series of different issues might mean that the individual voter ultimately ends up being less confident about knowing who their political representative is.

The hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing), who knows that I have a great respect for her—I waited until she took her seat before referring to her—made several points, one of which related to the fact that we should not be redrawing the seats for our own convenience. She is absolutely right. We should, however, ensure that the political boundaries for constituencies are for the convenience of our electors. Our electors do not think in terms of lines on a map but in terms of political communities, cultural connections and social connections, and where the roads go and do not go. If one is to bind together little bits of geography just because they sort out a perfect map according to mathematical excellence, one might assist the convenience of the Boundary Commission, but one will not necessarily assist the convenience of voters, who want to know and understand who their Member of Parliament is—and it is better that they do. I know that there are split wards, but it would be better if there were not.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Bryant]

As the hon. Lady knows, there are differences between Wales and Scotland: Scotland has a Parliament which also has powers over crime and justice, which Wales does not have; Scotland has a completely different legal system, which Wales does not have; and it raises taxes, which Wales cannot do. It is a very different system, therefore.

Let me reiterate yet again that I am not saying that we want to hold to the status quo, but I think there will be a danger for the Unionist argument in Wales if we move forward in one fell swoop from having 40 seats to there being only 29 or 30. That would create problems for the future. Let me also say that I hope that Welsh Members work sufficiently hard that they provide value for the House, even though the hon. Lady thinks there are too many of us.

[Phil Wilson]

The Deputy Prime Minister keeps going on about this being the greatest constitutional reform legislation since 1832. The 1832 Act went on to equalise the size of constituencies but left the number of constituencies at 658; it did not reduce them at all. I believe the current Government want to reduce the number of seats in order to gerrymander the whole electoral system so that we do not have a Labour Government in the future.

[Chris Bryant]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, except in one respect: the 1832 Act did not equalise the seats at all. In 1867, there was a discussion about equalising seats but that was decided against. The argument that was used then, and which has been used consistently in the past, is that it is more important for Members to represent communities than it is for there to be precisely numerically equal seats. Obviously that was, in part, because of the nature of the franchise at the time.

--- Later in debate ---

[Austin Mitchell]

Some of us labour under the misfortune of being better looking than others—[Laughter.] We might appear more on television for that reason, although my days as a television hero are long gone. The essence of my argument is that this demand comes to us from the people. This is not about us putting ourselves forward to do the work; the demand comes from the people and they have to be served.

[Phil Wilson]

The people who support the idea of reducing the number of MPs from 650 to 600 say that it will save about £12 million, but even they are saying that we will need more resources to look after our constituents and that we will therefore need more staff. That £12 million will disappear overnight to pay for the extra resources that we are going to need.

[Austin Mitchell]

My hon. Friend is right. We cannot economise on democracy. We are a basic part of our democracy. We are the protectors of the people and we cannot economise on that because the demand comes from them, and they have to be served. That is our job. Some people argue that 650 MPs is too many and that this legislature is bigger than others. Yes, it is bigger than many other legislatures, but we have to bear in mind the fact that most other systems are federal. In other words, countries such as Australia, Canada, Germany and the United States have elected representatives at several levels of government. We do not. We are the only elected representatives who can act for the people in that way. That is why the figure of 650 appears in my amendment and why there should be no reduction. The proposed reduction in clause 9, which my amendment would stop, is based on a contempt for MPs and the work that they do. I want to reject that contempt.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Chope]

I take the hon. Gentleman’s point very seriously, because the allegation that there is to be constitutional change in order to try to benefit one political party over another is a very serious one. We should not allow that allegation to be spread among the electorate unless there is a justification for it. I am looking for some assurance from my hon. Friends on the Front Bench that there is no political manoeuvring and that instead this is an objective, non-partisan measure. So far, however, I have not been convinced that that is so, and I do not think the arguments put from the Opposition Front Bench and by Back Benchers on both sides of the Chamber have been properly addressed.

I have made the following point to the Deputy Prime Minister in many previous discussions in the House. There should not be a reduction in the size of the legislature without a pro rata reduction in the size of the Government. The response I have always received to that is, “Well, we don’t see the need to do that as the two issues are not connected,” but they are fundamentally connected. The hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Austin Mitchell) and others have already made the point that the measures under discussion will give much more power to the Executive and less power to the legislature, and that is totally at odds with what the Prime Minister said when he was Leader of the Opposition that he was going to do. He said then that he wanted to increase the power of Members of Parliament and reduce the size and power of the Executive. He said that in the run-up to the general election, and it was even spelled out in terms in the Conservative party manifesto. I hope that at the end of this debate we will hear from the Front-Bench team how they think that these measures are consistent with undertakings given to the electorate both before and during the general election campaign.

What conceivable reason can there be for picking this arbitrary figure of 600? One rumour circulating among many of my colleagues is that the motivation behind the move is to provide another way for the Executive, through party managers and the party machine, to be able to put the frighteners on reluctant supporters of the coalition in both Government parties. Boundary Commission representatives said in evidence to the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee that as a result of these proposals every single constituency in the country will have to have significant boundary changes. The Whips have peddled a bit of misinformation, suggesting that if a Member’s constituency already has about the right new number of constituents—76,000—then, “You’ll be all right, Jack,” but the Boundary Commission has made it clear that every single constituency boundary in the country will have to be significantly altered. What goes with that, of course, is the reselection of Members of Parliament, and what goes with that is more power for the Executive, through the party managers, to try to influence the reselection process.

Although we know that, in fact, the most independent MPs got the best results in the last general election, it does not prevent—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) is right: she had an outstanding result in the general election, on which I congratulate her, and it had nothing whatever to do with her loyalty to her party when it was in government. What she achieved sends a very important message. I hope that many of my 147 new colleagues will take that message to heart and realise that even if this Bill goes through and a change is made to almost every constituency, those who have stood up fearlessly on behalf of their constituents will do better at the ballot box, and probably in the reselection process, than those who supinely followed whatever they were told to do by the Whips. That does not alter the fact that this can be done to put the frighteners on people, because nobody quite knows what the future will bring.

[Phil Wilson]

The hon. Gentleman is talking about the chaos that the boundary changes will create, but if this measure goes through, that will not just occur this time around; there will be uncertainty every term, not only for all Members in this place, but for our electors. We could end up breaking the link, which we all respect, between elected politicians and their voters.

[Mr Chope]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. A proposal that has not yet been tabled in an amendment or a new clause, but perhaps could be tabled on Report or in the other place, is for a sunset clause, in order to see how the new number works in practice, rather than allowing it to go on indefinitely. He may be interested in proposing such a sunset clause—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Laing]

I should not respond to sedentary interventions, but we are not talking about turnout, as hon. Members know. We are rather more sophisticated than to go down to that level. Potentially, every Member should be elected by an equal number of voters.

[Phil Wilson]

Nobody really disagrees with the point about equal-sized constituencies. What we are looking forward to hearing from the hon. Lady is an argument about why we need to reduce the number of seats from 650 to 600, other than that she likes the number 600. That is the only reason that she has given us. I like the number 650, and I will make an argument for why it should stay at that. I need an argument from the hon. Lady as to why it should be reduced to 600.

[Mrs Laing]

Why should it be 650? Why should it not be 700 or 542? Pick a number out of the hat, or do the lottery. Six hundred is a perfectly reasonable number and as good as any other number—[Interruption.] It is a workable number, and it is also reasonable to reduce the size of the House in the interest of a more efficient democracy.

--- Later in debate ---

I sat on the Opposition Benches for a number of years and saw the previous Government introduce various constitutional changes. They included the change in the boundaries for the European Parliament, which was done without consultation, without the Boundary Commission being involved and, I think, without even a manifesto commitment, so we saw the previous Government do all sorts of awful things. The reality is that we are making a modest change, in order to go for some kind of equalisation, which is the basis of fairness.

[Phil Wilson]

Can we not go for equalised numbers without reducing the number of seats? I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman’s love-in with the number 600, but essentially we need to hear an argument. Nobody is disagreeing that we perhaps need more equalised constituencies, but why reduce the number of seats, especially when the average number of constituencies since the war has been about 649 or 650? It has stayed at that level for 60 or 70 years. Why radically reduce it now?

[Mr Syms]

Most Parliaments set their own size—that is part of most constitutions—but two that do not are the UK Parliament and the Bundestag in Germany. The reason the Bundestag does not do so is that it has a list system to compensate the first-past-the-post Members, and when the German electoral commission looks at the arithmetic division of the proportional votes, to ensure that they are proportionate, it can adjust the size of the Bundestag, sometimes by up to a dozen seats. However, the history of this country is that, by and large, we have allowed the Boundary Commission to go out and draw up the boundaries, and then to come back with numbers. However, what happens is that there is creep. Every time we have a boundary commission, the numbers go up. [Interruption.] No, they do, with one exception, which is when the numbers for Scotland are reduced. On the whole, however, the numbers creep up. Therefore, with this Bill, we are being asked to give guidance to the Boundary Commission, so that it can go away and then come back with a report.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Williams]

I, too, will try to be brief, as I know some colleagues want to speak on the second string. This clause has huge ramifications, some of which I agree with—notably the equalisation of boundaries. We have just had an enormous boundary change in Bristol. I lost 30,000 electors whom I used to represent in 2005, but gained 30,000 electors from another part of the city at this election. The number of my electorate is pretty much the same as it was five years ago. It is 82,728, with my neighbour the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) representing 69,448 electors. Within the same unitary authority, one MP has 13,280 more electors to represent than another. That is surely an anomaly that has to be corrected. That is why I believe it important to have frequent boundary reviews, not 10-yearly or with even longer intervals as we have experienced before.

[Phil Wilson]

The hon. Gentleman says it is all about equalising constituencies, something people do not necessarily disagree with. Why, however, do we need to reduce the number of MPs to achieve that? We could simply divide the electorate by the number of MPs—irrespective of whether there are 650 or 600 MPs. We could equalise the constituencies on that basis.

[Stephen Williams]

I was just coming on to the reduction from 650 to 600, and I would like to offer some friendly scepticism to my colleagues on the Government Front Bench. The Deputy Leader of the House was candid enough to say that reducing the House of Commons by 50 Members was arbitrary, but I am even more concerned about this number being arrived at without full knowledge of the whole package of constitutional reforms that this coalition Government are going to introduce.

I know that the Deputy Prime Minister has an ambitious programme of constitutional reform for the future, but we do not yet know the detail. We do not know the composition of what I hope will be a wholly elected second Chamber. We do not know what its powers will be or whether it will reflect the four member nations and regions of the United Kingdom. That makes it difficult to deal with the issue raised several times by the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant)—that of giving more recognition within Parliament to Wales. I think that could be dealt with more properly in an elected second Chamber than here. We still do not know whether more powers are to be given to English city regions. Full devolution has been granted to Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales and to London, but English local government certainly needs radical reform and more powers.

We have heard about cost—I do not believe that it provides a good reason for reducing the size of the House of Commons—and about international comparisons. France, for instance, has 577 seats and Germany 622, but as we heard earlier, they have far greater devolved Administrations and Bristol’s twinned cities of Bordeaux and Hanover have enormous powers in comparison with those of my colleagues who run the city of Bristol.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Heath]

The hon. Gentleman will have to wait until I get to that point in my remarks, because I have a few other comments to make on what others have said in the debate.

We have heard not only that it would be impossible for Members to accommodate extraordinary constituencies of 76,000, despite the fact that so many of us do it, but that it would be impossible for electors in such constituencies to know who their MP was. We have heard that it would be impossible to have a career structure because anyone who had experience outside the House could not be elected if we had constituencies of 76,000. What an extraordinary proposition that is.

The final proposition was that this is all a partisan move—[Hon. Members: “It is!”] The Opposition say that it is a partisan move to reduce the number of Labour MPs, but we have also heard from the same side in the same argument that it will not reduce the number of Labour MPs. So, we are gerrymanderers, but we are totally incompetent gerrymanderers because we are reducing our own seats and improving the position for the Opposition.

Again, I find it extraordinary that people whom I believed were reasonably intelligent and reasonably numerate can imagine that reducing the size of the House from 650 to 600 means that the 50 smallest seats are the only ones that disappear—they just go puff and disappear into the ether—and that all the rest carry on as they were. The suggestion is that the fact that most of the smaller seats are Labour seats shows that this is a partisan move against the Labour party. I am sorry; I just do not accept that. I do not think that it is a logical argument.

[Phil Wilson]

In a debate last night, the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing) proved to me that this is a partisan move, when she said that some hon. Members oppose it because they are

“trying to avoid being turkeys voting for Christmas.”—[Official Report, 19 October 2010; Vol. 516, c. 908.]

That is what the Conservative party is saying.

[Mr Heath]

I am addressing the arguments made in the Chamber tonight that suggested that the reduction from 650 to 600 was an unimaginably ambitious target for the House and would result in the loss of Labour seats and was therefore a partisan move, rather than being what it is: a modest reduction in the size of the House. We have discussed other sizes of the House. The Conservative and Liberal Democrat manifestos proposed a reduction in the size of the House of Commons. The Conservative manifesto suggested the figure of 585, and the Liberal Democrats suggested 500, but on the basis of the single transferable vote.

I have made it absolutely plain that this is a matter of judgment. Six hundred is not a magical figure. I have never pretended that it is. It is an arbitrary figure, but it is one that results in an electoral quota of about 76,000, which is an entirely possible figure, as we have demonstrated, on the basis of the 2009 electoral register.

Business of the House

Lord Wilson of Sedgefield Excerpts

Thursday 22nd July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

I was wondering whether that merited a response, Mr Speaker. I have decided that it does not.

[Phil Wilson (Sedgefield) (Lab)]

Last year, One NorthEast attracted £750 million-worth of inward investment into the region. In fact, 82% of inward investment into the north-east comes through that regional development agency. May we have a debate to expose the fact that abolishing the RDA is an act of economic vandalism?

[Sir George Young]

If they want, local authorities can replace RDAs with local enterprise boards. If the hon. Gentleman’s local authorities believe in the value of regional development agencies, they are perfectly at liberty to recreate one as an LEB.

Business of the House

Lord Wilson of Sedgefield Excerpts

Thursday 15th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

I am cautious about commenting on the particular incident to which the hon. Gentleman refers, but I understand his concern. I will contact Home Office Ministers later today to see whether I can get a reply to the issue he has just raised.

[Phil Wilson (Sedgefield) (Lab)]

As a result of all the changes in the Budget, and those announced over the last few weeks, to health, education and local government, how many commissions are being set up in the next few months?

[Sir George Young]

If the hon. Gentleman tables a question, I am sure that he will get an adequate answer—[Interruption.] I think I have already answered a question in relation to the coalition agreement, and he will find an answer that addresses the commissions set up there. If he tables an appropriate question about any commissions set up after that, I am sure he will get an accurate and prompt reply.

Business of the House

Lord Wilson of Sedgefield Excerpts

Thursday 10th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

That is probably better raised with the Secretary of State for Health, but I say to the hon. Lady that we were the only party at the last election to pledge an increase in real terms in spending on the NHS, so whatever the prospects are for her hospital, they are better than they would have been.

[Phil Wilson (Sedgefield) (Lab)]

The Leader of the House said last week and again today that he has had meetings with IPSA, and I thank him for the overtures to IPSA that he has made on behalf of the House. Is there any point where he can make a statement to the House on the results of those discussions, before the byzantine bureaucracy of IPSA stops and prevents Members of this House from serving their constituents?

[Sir George Young]

I understand the concern and repeat that, as Leader of the House, I would be concerned if the allowance regime stood in the way of Members discharging their responsibilities as constituency MPs. In addition to the meeting with the interim chief executive, the right hon. Member for Doncaster Central (Ms Winterton), my hon. Friend the Deputy Leader of the House and I held a meeting with the chairman of the 1922 committee, the chairman of the parliamentary Labour party and the leader of the parliamentary Liberal group. Discussions are ongoing about how we improve the dialogue with IPSA. I add as a footnote that, if the hon. Member for Sedgefield (Phil Wilson) looks at the list of ministerial responsibilities, he will see that Government responsibility for policy towards IPSA rests with my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister, and the debate in Westminster Hall will be answered by the Parliamentary Secretary from the relevant Department.