Parliamentary Constituencies bill (Fourth sitting)

Ben Lake Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 4th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 23rd June 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Alec Shelbrooke]

Q My experience in the city of Leeds, which I represent, is that polling district changes have been splitting polling districts when they have become too big, rather than creating new boundaries. Is that your overall experience? What I am really driving at is that there is a lot of discussion in this Committee about the construction of constituencies and using wards, and obviously the Bill allows for the future shape of wards to be taken into account when being built. As you say in paragraph 27 of your written evidence, you are concerned about your timetables not being rushed. You say:

“Whilst we support the concept of using the most up-to-date local government boundaries, the Committee will appreciate our concern that doing so should not, unintentionally, compromise the independence and integrity”

of our review programme, which I entirely agree with. Is it your opinion that it is vital for the boundary commission to try to stick to wards, or do you think that is irrelevant? It is useful, but with your five-year timetable and their eight-year timetable and things moving apart, do you think it really matters to constituents if the ward boundaries change and do not quite match constituency boundaries? Do you think that we are trying to blend a round hole and a square hole together?

Andrew Scallan: I am trying to work out what a round hole and a square hole together might look like. There is a real challenge. I do not wish to complicate matters, but in the work that we do, we also take a strong view about the arrangements that exist for parish councils, which vary enormously in size and scope. As well as polling districts, as part of our test around effective and convenient local government, we try not to cause too much disruption to parish councils.

People’s strength of feeling varies enormously and I would not like to generalise. We know that people are concerned about the names of wards. We often get people very agitated about that, which you would not necessarily expect, given that they are overlaid on the real map of any local authority area.

The important point for any organisation dealing with boundaries is to try to explain why they have arrived at the decisions that they have arrived at. For a ward, it might be entirely appropriate to include a ward that has, for example, a major road down the middle of it. If that ward is split by that major road for parliamentary purposes, that needs to be properly explained in the formulation of it. It may well be that that will cut a community in two, but it may also be the only way to balance the criteria that we always juggle with, which is trying to get the electorate as close as possible to whatever quota we work to.

[Ben Lake (Ceredigion) (PC)]

Q Mr Scallan, thank you for giving us your time this afternoon. As you will detect from the accent, I might be about to tread on some unfamiliar territory. I was wondering whether you might be able to comment on something about Cornwall. I appreciate that the work of the Local Government Boundary Commission is unlikely to have to address any cross-Tamar local government wards, but you mentioned that you have inevitably undertaken quite a lot of discussion and consultation with local communities across England as part of your main work. I was wondering whether a strong sentiment, or any sentiment for that matter, to maintain the territorial integrity of Cornwall is something that you have picked up in your work.

Andrew Scallan: The strength of views in Cornwall is well known. In terms of our work, it was all self-contained in Cornwall. We try not to get involved in discussions about parliamentary boundaries when we are doing our reviews, not least because we do not want to confuse anyone, especially the community groups that we are dealing with. We have no view about crossed boundaries. We work to our legislation, which basically tells us to stay within local authority boundaries.

[The Chair]

If there are no other questions from Committee members, I thank you, Mr Scallan, for the time you have spent with us. We are most appreciative of the evidence you have given us.

Examination of Witness

Darren Hughes gave evidence.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alec Shelbrooke]

Q Have you asked the people who do not want to be registered why they do not want to be registered?

Darren Hughes: Yes, we have. We have done work on that in the past with organisations that try to reach people who are not on the register. Often there is a mixture of reasons. Some people do not know about it and are just oblivious to the fact that it exists or that it is a legal requirement at the present time. Other people have not engaged with the question of why politics matters, which is why we think citizenship education is so important. Once you get people into a discussion on that, it can change things. In a large, dynamic society like this, there are always a lot of people who are in the middle of things. Their hectic lives and situations sometimes mean that registration falls off the bottom of the to-do list. We should be doing positive things, such as showing people that registration is simple and free, to promote politics as being a good thing for the country and a good thing for society.

[Ben Lake]

Q Thank you, Mr Hughes, for your evidence this afternoon. It has been interesting to learn a bit more about the system in New Zealand. On that point, can I briefly clarify one thing? Am I right to understand that when the equivalent of the Boundary Commission in New Zealand approaches establishing boundaries for constituencies, it takes into account the actual population, as opposed to the number of registered electors?

Darren Hughes: Yes, that is correct. It uses the census, so everybody is taken into account for the drawing of the boundaries. There are different qualification rules to being an elector, but the way that the constituencies are put together is based on the number of people who were living in an area when the census was done.

[Ben Lake]

Q In that sense, would I be right to infer that student populations would be assigned, as it were, for the purpose of drawing the boundaries, to where they are at the university?

Darren Hughes: If that is where they are on census evening, that is correct, although students are able to register at their family address, depending on when they started their study. I hesitate on that, because there was a court case about it once and I would not want to give you the wrong information. I will come back to you on that. It does take into account the place people were when the census was held.

[Ben Lake]

Q My final question is on something that has already been touched on by some of my colleagues, in terms of representing rural areas. Beyond the Maori electorate and constituencies, does the boundary commission in New Zealand take into account any other factors, such as rurality? How does it cope with what I imagine are quite large constituencies, particularly in the South Island? Is that catered for by the list system, or is it something that is considered when drawing up the boundaries?

Darren Hughes: The list system helps in a peripheral sense, in that it is a way to ensure different styles of representation beyond just geography, but the commission itself has to deal with the majority of the Parliament, which consists of geographic constituencies, and it can take into account factors such as rurality. There is a threshold that enables it to do that, which is the same as in the legislation before you: plus or minus 5%. But there is always a very alive debate about whether that figure is high enough for parts of the country that are outside main population centres. As I mentioned before, New Zealand is geographically the same size as the whole UK, but it has a similar population to that of Scotland. There are far-flung places where, to be an effective Member of Parliament, a lot of travel is required.

[The Chair]

If there are no other questions from Committee members, I thank Mr Hughes very much indeed for his evidence. We are very grateful.

Examination of Witness

Gavin Robinson MP gave evidence.

--- Later in debate ---

[Cat Smith]

Diolch.

[Ben Lake]

Q Diolch, Dr Larner. I suppose we have had quite a bit of discussion, not just today, but last week, about the best way of allocating seats between the four nations of the UK. I wonder whether you have any views about the balance the Bill strikes as it is and whether there are any better ways to strike that balance

Dr Larner: In terms of those who are interested in a solid Welsh representation in the Commons, I would not say that this Bill is particularly good news. On the other hand, if we took a hypothetical situation where the number of Welsh MPs was increased by 10, you would still be looking at a very small proportion of the total representation in the Commons.

Specifically with the Bill, it is tricky to see how that can be fixed. More broadly, if we want to take the nations approach seriously, we need to think about how we do devolution. We need to think about doing that properly in Wales, which has had what my colleague Ed Poole likes to call salami-sliced devolution, as opposed to Scotland. We need proper inter-governmental relations baked into Whitehall processes. Another idea commonly talked about is House of Lords reform. I know that is far beyond the scope of the Bill, but those are the things we need to think and talk about.

[Ben Lake]

Q Thank you, Dr Larner. I would agree with you. I tried to test the patience of the Chair last week by approaching Lords reform, but I will not do it again. I think that the point you made about the salami-sliced nature of devolution in Wales is important for consideration within the scope of the Bill when it comes to the allocation of seats between the nations.

The panellist from the Liberal Democrats suggested that there should be no reduction in the number of seats without further devolution. I think his point was that the devolution settlements across the UK—especially if we compare Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland—are very different. There are perhaps more policy issues decided in Westminster that directly impact Wales.

A recent change that I would be interested in hearing your thoughts on is the UK leaving the European Union. Things that were previously decided on a European level, where Wales had four MEPs, are now being decided at Westminster. Some aspects of that touch, indirectly or directly, touch on policy fields that are commonly considered to be devolved to Wales. Should this new dynamic, now that the UK has left the European Union, in which more things will be directly or indirectly influenced at Westminster, be borne in mind when we allocate seats across the nations of the UK?

Dr Larner: I certainly think that is something to keep in mind, not only with the allocation of seats, but with the general operation of Government. There is another important idea—related to that and other points made earlier by your colleagues—about voter knowledge in Wales: it is important for people to know who is responsible for what.

Another idea often talked about in academia is that a reduction in the number of MPs in Wales, given that people are aware that more constituencies in Wales are being scrapped than in other places, will cause people to give less importance and salience to Westminster generally. That would be the message coming from the centre, if you like. The idea is to make it very clear who is responsible for what, and that should always be taken into account.

[Ben Lake]

Q Finally, some of my colleagues would argue that a fair way of allocating seats across the UK is purely to look at population or the number of electors, and that is a valid point. I was asked last week by a colleague of yours, Professor Wyn Jones, whether there was any logic in maintaining the over-representation of Wales in the House of Commons based purely on population. Since 2001, the population of Wales increased by about 5% to 2011 and again by another couple of hundred thousand to this year. It is projected to increase yet again by 2028, but in all likelihood, due to the relatively slower rate of increase than in England, Wales will continue to lose seats.

The automaticity of the Bill, should it pass, would mean that Wales would not only lose eight seats in this particular review but a further couple of seats at the next review, unless something drastic happens and everybody wants to live in Wales—there is a welcome in the hillsides, by the way. Should that scenario come to pass—I appreciate it is a hypothetical scenario at the moment—could it have any impact on sentiments within Wales and perhaps attitudes towards the Union?

Dr Larner: It is of course hypothetical, but as I have said, there is the idea—I should point out that we do not have firm evidence on this—that a reduction in the number of MPs is seen by some in Wales as meaning that Westminster is no longer as important to them politically. I know that Professor Wyn Jones has some quite strong views about the importance of rural dynamics and things like that, which I disagree with slightly. It is certainly something to bear in mind, however, especially given the real and rapid increase in the visibility and general salience of the Welsh Government and the Senedd in the last couple of months.

[Christian Matheson]

Q Good afternoon, Dr Larner. I am the MP for the City of Chester, so I share a street with Wales. One side of the appropriately named Boundary Lane is England and the other is Wales. If I think about the areas of north-east Wales that abut the border, I am told that there is a sense within those areas close to mine that perhaps because of the geographical separation from Cardiff, they look to England—to Manchester, Liverpool and Chester—more than down to Cardiff and the south. Do you have any sense that that is the case and do you therefore have a sense as to whether Welshness, if you like, or looking to Cardiff for political leadership, is regionalised?

Dr Larner: We have done some research on that. There is not really much geographical variation in terms of general support or attitudes towards the Senedd. Certainly among some people, there is the idea that devolution has largely profited Cardiff. I would not say that that is a unique feeling in Wales. In most systems, there is a general feeling that the further you are geographically from the centre of power, the more fed up you might feel about it.

In those areas, although people might not look to places such as Liverpool and Manchester politically, those areas and cities have a significant impact culturally. There are also more people working across the border in those areas. In a lot of those constituencies, a higher number of people were born in England and might still consider themselves to be English or British, not necessarily Welsh. That is a big divide in Wales. National identity does determine—well, not determine in a lot of ways, but is a good predictor of—your general attitude to devolution.