Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Russell Brown Excerpts

Monday 1st November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mark Durkan]

I think I understand the point that the hon. Gentleman is trying to make. Personally, I am no fan of the United Kingdom. I am not a comfortable subject of it, and, as far as I am concerned, my small nation is not represented in the United Kingdom. My small nation is divided between the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. I have no doubt that that will be work for another Bill on another day.

I want to make the point that the amendment in respect of the distinct Northern Ireland quota has its own merits, even if the Government, wrongly, unwisely and unfairly combine to defeat the other sensible amendments that would entrust boundary commissions with their own discrete quotas.

The other key area in amendments 188 and 193, and particularly in amendment 193, is to do with ensuring that the Boundary Commission for Northern Ireland will not just have to respect carefully things like local government wards, as the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) has spelled out, which the Bill as it stood was already providing for, but will have to have regard to the fact that constituencies in Northern Ireland are also, absolutely by statute, constituencies of the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Under the Northern Ireland Act 1998 and the Good Friday agreement, it was decided that parliamentary constituency boundaries would be exactly coterminous with the Assembly multi-seat boundaries, so changing the parliamentary boundaries means changing the Assembly boundaries. Under this Bill, they will be changed every five years, according to arithmetic dictated by the UK in general. We could end up with geo-sectarian issues as a result, and with the unsettling effect of boundary reviews throughout the life of every Assembly and every Parliament. Towns and villages will feel that, because of the boundary arithmetic, they are being pushed out of their natural hinterland and perhaps split between two Assembly constituencies, and that the natural base for their Assembly seat could be lost. There could also be implications for health care and other services.

[Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend made a point about the people living on the periphery of a constituency chopping and changing between elected representatives at every election. What does he think that will do for the morale of those people, when they come to cast their vote? Is it good for democracy if those people feel that they are not really part of anywhere at all?

[Mark Durkan]

I do not believe that it is good for democracy. Thankfully, Northern Ireland now has a more settled process, but we face continuous and unsettling boundary reviews, some of which will come into play in time for the next parliamentary election but not in time for the next Assembly election. An Assembly election could therefore take place within boundaries that are about to disappear, and the next parliamentary election could be held within different ones. People will be completely confused. Equally, the number of our constituencies could go up and down, because the Sainte-Laguë method means that we are always in danger of just losing or just gaining a seat at each review.

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Most people in this country accept that the boundary commissions have to do the work that they do, and that, having one vote of one value and equal-sized constituencies, is the right way to a fair, modern democracy that properly represents every person who lives in any part of the United Kingdom. The boundary commissions have not been inundated with individual members of the public whose hearts have been broken by the thought of being represented by a different Member of Parliament.

[Mr Russell Brown]

I cannot speak about Epping Forest or Brentwood and Ongar, but, when the boundaries changed in Scotland in 2005, the proposal for my constituency was to take out two large wards from the town of Dumfries itself. People were so angry that they mounted their own campaign, which they took to a public inquiry, and they won the case that they should not be separated. It is wrong for the hon. Lady to say that only political parties undertake such activity. The strength and voice of communities should be heard, but the Bill will not give those communities the voice that they deserve in a democratic society.

[Mrs Laing]

I understand what the hon. Gentleman says, and I understand how strongly the people of Dumfries feel, but that is not the point of democracy. In a modern democracy what counts is not valleys, mountains, rivers and perceived ancient boundaries, as we heard argued in the previous debate; what counts is that every person in the United Kingdom has a voice of equal value and votes.

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[Mrs Laing]

The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point with which I cannot disagree. It is the arithmetic that rules. Labour Members try to find arguments against that, but the fact is that if one believes in a modern democracy where every vote is of equal value and every Member of Parliament comes here with an equal weight of potential votes behind them, one cannot argue otherwise. I would go further and say that there should have been no exceptions in the Bill.

[Mr Russell Brown]

This evening and on other occasions, Members of this House have put great emphasis on equal votes having equal value. If the coalition Government succeed in doing what they are attempting to do, the vote of every person who goes to the polling station will be equal when they enter, but a 48% turnout will give a different value to that vote than it would if the turnout were 70%. Equality is about more than just the number of bodies in a constituency—it is also about votes being cast, and that can cause a disproportionate level of representation.

[Mrs Laing]

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is speaking from sincere and heartfelt beliefs, but that is totally illogical. If there are, say, 76,000 potential voters in a constituency and 40,000 of them decide not to vote, that is their democratic choice, just as it is the democratic choice of the other 37,000—I think I got the arithmetic wrong there—to cast their vote. People who decide not to vote are exercising their democratic judgment in the same way as people who decide to vote. There has been a lot of discussion about where the heart is, communities, boundaries, and so on—matters that appear to be anything other than purely arithmetical.