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Mr. Clive Soley (Hammersmith): My reason for intervening in the debate is to draw attention to the size of the House of Commons and the way in which the instructions that we give the boundary commission affect that. I was pleased that my hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) told the Home Secretary that we should debate the issue, as I consider it profoundly important.
First, let me make a few comments about the boundary commission's work in west London. I congratulate the boundary commission on the way in which it has carried out its work. It was very fair. As my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks) said, at one stage we in the Labour party believed that we would end up with a net loss of some 20 seats. In fact, the outcome was broadly politically neutral and that is to the boundary commission's credit. Certainly, there was a major debate in my area between the various political parties. The problem for the Conservative party was that local parties gave conflicting evidence. One local Conservative party branch agreed with me about the proposed changes; another disagreed. As we know from our experience in 1983, if a party gives conflicting evidence it tends to lose out.
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I have to stress the importance of the boundary commission locally. I have represented Hammersmith for 16 years. At the next election, the constituency of Hammersmith will cease to exist. The southern wards of my constituency will go into the new seat of Hammersmith and Fulham. The other five wards, including the one where I live, will go into the new Ealing, Acton and Shepherds Bush seat. If, as I hope and anticipate, I am successful in representing the area after the next election, I shall represent Ealing, Acton and Shepherds Bush instead of Hammersmith.Although I understand the need for the change, I regret not being able to continue to represent Hammersmith. It is a remarkably good area to represent--a mixed inner-city area--and I have enjoyed it immensely. I know it well and I shall miss the southern part of my constituency. However, I recognise that the change is necessary because of the small size of my constituency.
At the time of the review, I took the view that it would have been better to move the boundary into north Kensington, not least because the Notting Hill carnival would have been in my constituency. One could hardly have a better carnival. It is a quite remarkable event and I recommend it. When David Gardner, who also deserves congratulations, put it to me that it would not be logical, he was right: the only way to make sense of the surrounding areas was for Shepherds Bush to be linked with Ealing, Acton, with which it also has a number of connections.
My main point is about the size of constituencies. My constituency had to change because I have an electorate of about 47,000. Although I had some quite innovative and exciting thoughts about representing Hammersmith in the winter and teaming up with Western Isles to become the Member for Western Isles in the summer in order to improve the figures, the logic was that the size of the constituency had to be increased. It is one of the smallest constituencies in the country--14th, to be precise. The electorate will increase from 47,000 to 83,000 and my work load will double overnight.
In general, Members of Parliament work very hard. If hon. Members do their constituency work well, they will know that the burden of that work is considerable, especially if they represent inner-city areas. An increase in the electorate from 47,000 to 83,000 will produce a dramatic increase in the work load; I shall have to change my approach to the work and the area.
As has been said, there are 651 Members of Parliament. That will increase by nine or 10. For some years, I have felt that one of the most important reforms that we can make in the House is rather painful--recognising that too many Members sit in the House of Commons. In my view, we should reduce our number over a period from 650 to nearer 450. Before somebody jumps up and asks, "Will you volunteer to be one of the 200 who go?", I should like to say that the quick answer is no. There is, however, a more sophisticated answer and I shall come to that shortly.
Mr. Tony Banks: I agree with everything that my hon. Friend has said, particularly about our work load, which I shall discuss if I manage to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker. May I add some extra ammunition to my hon. Friend's excellent argument? The United States Senate
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and House of Representatives have a total membership of 535, representing a population significantly larger than that of our small country.Mr. Soley: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. What follows from my recommendation, which I hope we shall debate in future years--perhaps between Front Benchers on either side of the House, among the parties and in the Chamber--would dramatically affect how the House of Commons works and the quality of our work.
Members of Parliament have not had a good press recently, but let us look at the good side. Most Members of Parliament work extremely hard. They dedicate themselves largely to the work of their constituents and at the same time try to address national and international issues. It is profoundly important work, but even with the increase a couple of years ago, the allowance that we receive is still too little.
Like all Members of Parliament, I receive enough to employ one secretary and a part-time worker. If, as at present, my secretary goes on holiday, I depend on being able to afford to bring in someone to work two days a week. The rest of the time, unless I am in the office, people are likely to get the answerphone. That is not a good service.
Let us look at the other end of the scale and consider an issue that is profoundly important to all Members of Parliament, particularly Back Benchers. I understand from the Speaker's Office that a Member of Parliament can expect to speak only four times a year in a major debate. Hon. Members on both sides of the House should ask themselves how much time they spend in the Chamber trying to speak in a debate, having no chance of doing so and eventually leaving the House without having spoken on what may be important to their constituents or on issues of national or international importance.
It is not desirable for Members of Parliament to be in the absurd position of trying to speak in debates, and getting in only four times a year. The figure of four or five times a year often means that a Member may make a speech of no more than 10 or 15 minutes' duration. I was always opposed to the 10-minute rule which limits Back Benchers' speeches to 10 minutes, not because I do not think it is possible to make a good speech in 10 minutes-- often the best speeches are short--but because there are times when one cannot do that and, more important, the 10-minute rule impacts heavily on Back Benchers who have not made Privy Council status or been on the Front Bench or are fairly new to the House. Those are the ones who get squeezed out. At the end of the debate, the 10-minute slot often becomes a five- minute slot. If we want to be more effective, we have to give ourselves more time here.
Hon. Members should ask themselves another question. I tried to get information and was unable to do so because I gather that the Speaker's Office cannot analyse the information in this way. How many times on average can hon. Members expect to get called for a question? Some people seem remarkably lucky at Prime Minister's Question Time and their names pop up again and again. Why those people do not win the national lottery is beyond me. Perhaps they do, and are just not owning up, but in my experience the number of times one gets into the top slot for asking a question at Prime Minister's questions is very small. One is lucky to get in once or twice a year. On the same basis, questions to Ministers are not likely to be called
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or to get into that part of the Order Paper that enables a Member to make what may be an important point. If Members of Parliament are to be effective, we need to give them more time to have an impact in the House, and that means in the Chamber, not just in Committee. If we reduced the size of the House from 651 to about 450, there would need to be a dramatic increase in the resources available to hon. Members to do their jobs. Those resources would not necessarily be paid in cash. I want to employ people to do my research and to provide me information that I need. I have spent 10 of my 16 years here as a Front-Bench spokesman. When I was the shadow Minister for housing and planning and the Government used to table several hundred amendments after the Committee stage of a Bill, to be dealt with on the Floor of the House, I was expected to deal with the amendments with one part-time researcher. That is not the way to get good legislation.I ended up having to take my own view of the wisdom or otherwise of a particular amendment, and relying on what outsiders had to say--local authorities, housebuilders' associations and groups of planners. They would write to me with their views on an amendment; I would come up with a synopsis, form my own view and then decide whether the Labour party should officially oppose or support an amendment. That is no way to do business. It leads to bad legislation which can come back and hit one in the eye. People on the receiving end of bad legislation do not appreciate it. One has only to think of the poll tax, the Child Support Agency, and so on--
Mr. John Carlisle (Luton, North): I agree with the hon. Gentleman that the number of seats should go down, but he also has to think about the implications for government. Who knows? If a thunderbolt strikes the country in two years' time, he may find himself a Minister. Does he agree that, if our numbers fall, the number of Ministers should also be reduced-- dramatically? Of course, if it is proportionate, Back Benchers will have no greater chance of making speeches of the length that the hon. Gentleman wants; but he must deal with the fact that the whole machinery of government should be reduced too.
Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I trust that we will not begin a wide- ranging constitutional debate. The debate is beginning to stray far from the actual subject before us.
Mr. Soley: I appreciate that comment, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am describing how the boundary commission's work results in the House growing ever bigger. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn and the Home Secretary that this whole subject should be discussed--but not now, I acknowledge. I will not pursue what the hon. Gentleman had to say, except to give the view that some of the consequences will entail devolved government. That is one reason why I favour regional government so strongly. I would be happy to pursue that subject-- [Interruption.] --but I will not do so on this occasion.
Because our constituencies are relatively small, our constituents often treat Members of Parliament as councillors. I have always taken the view that constituents with council problems should go in the first instance to their councillors. I do not always make myself popular in my constituency when I insist on that. I am disturbed
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when people are given the impression that councillors do not matter--that they need not bother to vote for them because they can go straight to their Member of Parliament. That is why I ask people to see their councillors first.If we act on that suggestion and instruct the boundary commission to reduce the size of the House over time, Members of Parliament will be called on to perform as substitute councillors less and less often. That will be good for councillors, constituents and Members of Parliament alike.
I recognise, of course, that reducing the size of the House from 650 to 450 will mean people losing their jobs. I always used to be asked whether I was volunteering, and the answer was always no. The process should take place over a period. Whereas now the boundary commission's instructions always seem to lead to the House getting bigger, I suggest that we begin to reverse that trend so that the numbers start to fall, over time. We are all used to the painful processes of selection conferences, new boundaries, and so on, and we would eventually reach the target. It is important that we do so--for the House, for the quality of debate, and for the status of Members of Parliament and of councillors.
We should all start discussing the issue now. I used to be told that, if we took this route, the Labour party would lose every election. Interestingly, that is no longer usually said--although Conservative Members may be beginning to say it. When our party was doing badly and we were reduced to our heartlands, the saying may have been true, but no party need lose an election just because of the size of constituencies.
If my proposals involve changing the voting system, so be it--we shall have to face up to that. Proportional representation is not all it is cracked up to be, but no great issue of principle is involved. We simply need to get the system right.
I hope, Madam Deputy Speaker, that I have not strayed too far from the report. I end with a strong plea: it is vital to the workings of the House and to the roles of Members of Parliament and of councillors that we reduce the number of Members to about 450 over a period of years.
5.25 pm
Mr. John Marshall (Hendon, South): I listened with some interest to the speech by the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr. Soley), who suggested reducing the size of the House to 450 Members, but who preceded that suggestion with a complaint that his
electorate--although he need not assume that he is going to win--after the election might number 83,000. If we reduced our numbers to 450, that would be the norm, not the exception.
I suppose that the boundary commission is rather like the cricket umpire. When he raises his finger, the player is meant to walk without questioning, as our cricketers do. Similarly, when the commission says that a ward is to be changed, we are meant to say amen to that. As the Home Secretary said, no one doubts the independence and integrity of the commission, but we sometimes doubt its logic.
In 1982, when I lived in the constituency of Ealing, North, the ward that I represented on Ealing council was transferred from Ealing, North to Ealing, Acton, even
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though the boundary commission received 1,500 representations saying that the ward should remain part of Ealing, North. The commission said, "No, you don't understand; you only live here. Of course it should be in Ealing, Acton." Now, under this review, the ward is being transferred back to Ealing, North from Ealing, Acton, and the commission claims that that is only logical. Apparently, what the commission takes away in one review it can put back in the next, and the logic that accompanies some of its reviews is less than 100 per cent.I should like to take up the point made by the hon. Member for Hammersmith about the number of constituencies. There always seems to be an inbuilt bias in these reviews that results in increasing the size of the House ever so slightly. The boundary commission is told that the number of Members should not be substantially more or less than 613. When these various reviews are completed, there will be about 660 Members--8 per cent. above the target set for the commission. Every post-war boundary commission review has ended up increasing the size of the House.
Where will this stop? When will the term "substantially more" come into play? When will the commission decide not to create any more net constituencies? I hope that the Minister will deal with that question at the end of the debate, and that any future inquiry will take it into account. I see no case for increasing the size of the House yet again.
The role of the boundary commission is to equalise the number of votes in each constituency. We have heard the hon. Member for Hammersmith complain that the electorate in the constituency of which Hammersmith will be a part is to rise from 47,000 to 83,000. I can understand that complaint. If the hon. Gentleman represented a seat in Scotland, he would be taking up a new constituency, Glasgow, Shettleston, with an electorate of 48,792, or an old one, Paisley, North, with 49,418.
In London, there are the constituencies of Islington, North, with an electorate of 56,517, and of Islington, South and Finsbury, with 55,912. In London, the boundary commission has failed abysmally to equalise the value of votes. A vote in Islington will be worth much more than one in Croydon, Bromley or Hammersmith. The hon. Member for Hammersmith will have an electorate that is more than 59 per cent. greater than that of Islington, North or of Islington, South and Finsbury. There is an electoral quota of 69,281. The hon. Gentleman's constituency will be more than 20 per cent. above that quota. Other constituencies in London will be more than 20 per cent. below it. London has not been reviewed properly by the commission.
It is interesting to compare English seats with those in Scotland. I recognise that constituencies such as Western Isles and Orkney and Shetland must have a small electorate because they are geographically remote. However, there is no reason why urban constituencies in Glasgow should be significantly different from urban constituencies in London. My constituents wonder why my constituency is being chopped in two when Glasgow, Shettleston; Paisley, North; Glasgow, Govan; Glasgow, Cathcart; Glasgow, Pollok; Glasgow, Rutherglen; Glasgow, Baillieston; and Glasgow, Maryhill will have electorates of 48,000, 49,000, 50,000, 50,578, 51,411, 51,749, 52,225 and 52,584 respectively. The big one, boys, is Glasgow, Anniesland, with 52,624. Why should
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seats in London with similar electorates to those to which I have referred--the new constituencies that will be created in Scotland--be dismembered?We are trying to equalise the value of votes throughout the country and the commission has signally failed to do so. I hope that those who advocate devolution will examine the figures. They give the green light to changing the number of Members who sit in this place if we ever have regional government.
Many of us think that the London secretariats were set up in a thoroughly unsatisfactory way and that they should not be maintained for future boundary reviews. We were told at the beginning of the exercise that the commission would, with the exception of the London borough of Richmond, regard the Thames as a barrier to pairing London boroughs under the secretariats. What will happen? Secretariat No. 5--Barking and Havering, north of the Thames--will link with Bexley, Greenwich and Lewisham, south of the Thames. That is an example of the commission breaking its own rules. Given the way in which the secretariats in London were linked, London will end up with 74 Members rather than 71. When the commission next turns its attention to London, I hope that it will not assume automatically that the current secretariats are satisfactory for any further review. The commission is bound to have regard for the size and shape of constituencies. I hope that I have shown that it has had little regard for the size of constituencies--we would not have such huge discrepancies within London if it had. The shape of some London constituencies also shows that the commission has had little regard for that consideration. If there is a Division, I have told my Whip that I shall have great difficulty in supporting the report. If I am absent, he will not be completely surprised.
5.33 pm
Mr. Nick Harvey (North Devon): I apologise to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and to the House, for not being in my place at the beginning of the debate. I was detained on Select Committee business. It is a pleasure to be able to take up the remarks of the hon. Member for Hendon, South (Mr. Marshall). I think that it is the first time that I have agreed with one of his speeches. No doubt it will be the last. During the time that I have been in the Chamber, he is the first Member to draw attention to the clear anomalies and flaws in the report. In his spirited consideration of the anomalies in the sizes of the constituencies, he set out the principal problems that my colleagues and I have with the report. Many of the failings of the report are common with the failings of previous boundary commission reports. It will come as no surprise to anyone in the Chamber to hear me say from the Liberal Democrat Bench that my colleagues and I regard the principle of shuffling the shapes and sizes of constituencies as entirely unsatisfactory when what is needed is a comprehensive review of the entire electoral system.
The way in which we are debating the issues and the way in which they have been taken up in the television interviews that I have watched lead me to think that we have rather missed the point. It has been an unedifying spectacle watching the right hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Dame A. Rumbold) and the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) reflecting in the nation's television studios on an electoral process in which their
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parties have had more or less success in effectively gerrymandering the boundaries. That approach is neither here nor there, but it would seem that Labour has had more success than the Conservatives had anticipated that it would have at the start of the process. That is not a consideration that the House should be bringing to bear. In fairness, the right hon. Lady made it clear that she was speaking in the light of the responsibilities that she undertakes for her party. It is for the House to consider the more technical arguments that the hon. Member for Hendon, South has raised.Mr. Oliver Heald (Hertfordshire, North): Is the hon. Gentleman seriously saying that the Liberal Democrats do not take any interest in the political complexions of the constituencies concerned?
Mr. Harvey: That was not my point. I am not criticising other parties for taking such an interest. They should do so, and their local officials are bound to do so. We, however, should be making an objective assessment of the success or otherwise of the process. Other arguments need to be considered. We understand that those who speak as party officials have undertaken a job of work for their parties, and have rightly set about it. It is for the Chamber, in debating an order that has been put before it, to consider some of the technical flaws that I think are to be found in the report. The most obvious flaw is to be found in the size of
constituencies--a point to which the hon. Member for Hendon, South referred. Several hon. Members have said that, as a result of the review, in London, for the first time, seats will cross borough boundaries. That should offer scope for getting seats that are far more nearly balanced and matched in size than those that are proposed.
There is sometimes a case for rural seats to have fewer constituents because of their wider geographical spread. That does not apply to the constituencies of the London borough of Brent, which will return three Members each representing slightly more that 50,000 constituents. The Isle of Wight will be one seat with 102,000 constituents. That electorate will be represented by one Member. There is something horribly wrong when one seat can be twice the size of another in terms of the electorate that is represented, without the argument of a scattered or sparse population being brought to bear.
I shall dwell briefly on the Isle of Wight. The commission issued a press release stating that it would reappraise recommendations for constituencies throughout England
"to ensure fair and consistent consideration of one area compared with another."
It seems that the commission overlooked that when it came to the Isle of Wight. I hope that it will make a special case of the Isle of Wight for separate consideration, as it did of Milton Keynes during the previous Parliament.
I very much welcome the fact that the Home Secretary announced at the start of the debate that, after the boundary review has been completed, there would be further consideration of the rules that govern the work of the commission in its decisions about constituency boundaries. There is quite clearly a need for some further review of the rules and it would be better for those considerations to be undertaken at a separate time from a boundary review. As I have already mentioned, this is the first time that London borough boundaries have been
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crossed. I personally welcome that. I think that some of the London boroughs are somewhat artificial creations of the 1964 local government reorganisation in London, of which the London borough of Barnet, which is absolutely enormous, is an example in point. It might also be an opportunity to look at the point that was raised by the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr. Soley), who said that, in each successive review, the number of Members being returned to this place is getting larger, and that nothing more than lip service--indeed, not even that--is being paid to the requirement to return a considerably smaller number of Members than we shall see in the next Parliament. As well as the issue of numbers, there is the whole question of the representation of natural communities, a number of which have been ridden over roughshod in the process that we have just seen. Liverpool is having yet another dramatic shake-up, although it seems to have had one each time the boundary commission creates a review of any sort. In other areas, the growth in population has quite rightly resulted in new seats being created in some counties. In Dorset, for example, where a new Mid Dorset seat has been created, it would be fair to say that our local party officials have greeted the new boundary there with considerable optimism, because they think that it will help, for the first time in a general election, to bring more Liberal Democrat representation in that county.There has, however, been a complete difference in the way in which some parts of the country have been looked at. For example, Swindon, in Wiltshire, has been cut in half, whereas Colchester, in Essex, which, traditionally, has had two seats--Colchester, South and Maldon; and Colchester, North--is to have only one. In the new boundary that has been drawn up, there is to be one central Colchester seat, with the hinterland going off into the various seats around it, so there is a slight inconsistency in the way in which different areas have been dealt with. Perhaps the rules that are to be reviewed might give more general guidance as to how those examples should be dealt with. In addition, there are various other objections about the shape of particular seats, and the fact that communities have been chopped and changed. The hon. Member for Blackburn referred, rightly, to some of the extraordinary names that are given to constituencies and that cast little light on where they are to be found geographically. I must momentarily refer to the fact that the arbitrary line that can be drawn by the boundary commissioner can have quite serious consequences on the political outcome at the election. In a particularly tight election, some of the more arbitrary bits of line drawing could have a quite dramatic effect on the composition of the House of Commons that came back afterwards. In those circumstances, we could almost have government by geographical accident rather than by popular vote.
Mr. John Carlisle: I think that the hon. Gentleman's last remark needs further investigation. He was suggesting that the commission should take into political consideration what he called the arbitrary line and that that could affect the way in which the election was going.
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Surely he must appreciate that the commission is totally non-political, and everybody in the House--apart from the Liberal party, perhaps--accepts that.Mr. Harvey: The hon. Gentleman completely misunderstood my point. I was not for one moment suggesting that the decisions made by the boundary commission should be drawn up on the basis of a political calculation of the outcome. I was simply commenting that, as a matter of chance, the outcome of a casual flick of a pen here or there on a map could have a profound impact on the outcome of an election result. The basic point is that natural communities should be recognised and represented as such, and I hope that more consistent guidance can be given to the commission in the rules that are to be reviewed after the report has been concluded. Therefore, if there is consistency in the way in which the marginal decisions are made, it is less likely that anyone will turn around afterwards and feel that he has been a victim of an accident rather than the beneficiary of a consistent pattern of community representation.
The hon. Member for Blackburn referred, quite rightly, to the fact that, as a result of the boundary review, the number of votes that it will take to return a Conservative Member to this place will be less than that required to return a Labour Member. What he conveniently did not go on to point out, however, was that it will require a vastly larger number to return a Liberal Democrat Member. To take the argument further, the Green party, and other parties that are totting up quite a respectable number of votes nationally, get no representation here whatever.
When one looks further at the under-representation of women, ethnic minorities and so on, one realises that our whole electoral system has one conspicuous deficiency in that it simply does not give a true representation here of the make-up of our society or our communities. Nor, indeed, does it represent, in the balance of Parliament, the will of the public. How can it be right that a Government can be elected with only one in three of the British people's votes and yet have a majority in the House? How can it be right that, for 16 years, they have simply pushed through--steamrollered--every single one of their proposals, all bar one or two, on the basis of a mandate that comprises little more than one third of those who are entitled to vote? That is the biggest deficiency.
The whole business of those boundary reviews, which come along and change the boundaries on which elections are fought every 10 or 15 years, is really only tinkering at the edges of a system that is comprehensively and totally incapable of returning to this place a representation that accords with the wishes of the British people. That is why I very much welcome the commitment that was given by the leader of the Labour party: that any future Labour Government will take to a referendum the whole issue of electoral reform, which is long overdue. I hope that, whatever system of electoral reform might be arrived at, it will return a Chamber that represents much more accurately the political wish and the composition of society and the community at large.
A reformed electoral system would also ensure that the adversarial cockpit, which the Chamber too often becomes, would give way to a position where a larger number of parties were more prepared to recognise each other's policies, priorities and philosophies. There could be greater co-operation, in the national good, rather than
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the adversarial system that we currently have and that, too often, puts party priorities above those of the nation as a whole. It has been more than 160 years since the great Reform Act 1832, as it was known, was passed. It is time that the House began to consider the major constitutional reforms that are necessary rather than just updating and modernising a system that is fatally flawed at its heart and of which the report today is just another example in a long line.5.48 pm
Mr. Peter Luff (Worcester): My hon. Friend the Member for Hertford and Stortford (Mr. Wells) need not hold his breath. Although I shall be expressing serious reservations about the work of the boundary commission in my area of England, if it comes to a vote this evening, I shall not be voting against the order, but I do hope that my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary will take the opportunity, for the reasons that I shall set out in my speech, to look again at some of the recommendations, and he has a specific opportunity to change them in some respects.
It was right that my right hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Dame A. Rumbold) emphasised the growing concern felt among English Members and English electors about the imbalance in representation in this place between hon. Members from Scotland, Wales and England. That is an acute problem now, which is causing a growing sense of resentment.
If--heaven forfend--the Opposition were to form a Government at some future stage and implement their half-baked plans for devolution to the regions of England and, above all, to Scotland and Wales, a fundamental rethink about that imbalance would be demanded. I hope that we shall hear a commitment from the Labour Front-Bench spokesman that if a Labour Government implemented devolution for Scotland and Wales they would reduce the proportion of seats for those two countries in this place.
I have a deep reservation, which seems to be widely shared in the House, about the steadily increasing numbers of Members that successive boundary commission reviews produce. I believe that as a result of the review before us the number will rise from 651 to 659, of which England's share will rise from 524 to 529.
At a time when we read that Members of Parliament are so unpopular-- apparently we are second only to journalists in the unpopularity stakes--it seems more than a trifle perverse to create more of us. But be that as it may, we seem to be set on that course. However, for the sake of the good running of this place, if for no other reason, we should seek, not to increase but to reduce the number of Members of Parliament, and to give that reduced number increased resources with which to do their job.
As we have been reminded, a precedent for having 659 seats has been set, and indeed exceeded, in the past. A useful note from the Library reminds us that
"Between 1885 and 1918 the Commons had 670 MPs as there were 101 Irish MPs a number maintained by Gladstone in the 1885 Reform Act despite the fall in Irish population. This Act also awarded Scotland 12 extra seats in compensation, bringing its total to 70 (excluding university seats). However with the departure of Southern Ireland following the Government of Ireland Act 1920 the number of seats in the Commons fell back to 615 (including
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university seats) as Northern Ireland was represented by 12 Members (excluding the 1 university seat). Both the Speakers Conferences of 1916/1917 and 1994 had wanted the Commons size to be stabilised yet it has increased from 615 in 1935 to 659 today"-- that is, after the order takes effect.A county such as Hereford and Worcester provides the House with an opportunity to move in the opposite direction, because we should not increase the number of seats in my county from seven to eight. I have done my best to understand the curious electoral arithmetic that leads to the process of steadily increasing representation in the House. In the boundary commission report for England we read about the
"Theoretical Entitlement rounding up point"
and the
"Rounded number of seats".
My grasp of A-level maths was fairly sound--I got a reasonably good grade-- and I was taught that one could not, as the boundary commission does as a result of the formula, round up 1.33 to 2. Moreover, one cannot round up 2.4 to 3, 3.429 to 4, 4.444 to 5, 5.455 to 6, 6.462 to 7 or, as has happened for Hereford and Worcester, 7.467 to 8. All those numbers should have been rounded down. If we could introduce a formula that enabled the boundary commission to do that, we would succeed in reducing the number of Members of Parliament--a result to be desired.
In Hereford and Worcester the result of those calculations is that our average number of electors per seat is 67,326--1,587 fewer than the English average. If I were to take you, Madam Deputy Speaker, on a journey along the M40 from my constituency to the House, we should first pass through Warwickshire, where the average number of electors per seat is 76,257-- 8,931 more than the average in Hereford and Worcester. In Oxfordshire, through which we would pass next, the average reaches 71,196 electors per seat--3,870 more than the average in Hereford and Worcester. In Buckinghamshire, rather nearer to London, the figure comes down to a more respectable 69,155--in line with the national quota set by the boundary commission, but 1,829 more than the figure for my county.
I contend that the boundary commission should not have introduced an extra seat in Hereford and Worcester. The report says:
"We were mindful that the introduction of an extra seat in Hereford and Worcester would make some major changes within the County inevitable".
It also, rightly, reminds the House that
"some 6,000 electors currently in the Borough of Bromsgrove will be transferred to the West Midlands at about the time this report is published. We decided that we should conduct an interim review as soon as practicable after 1 April 1995 to realign the Bromsgrove constituency boundary with the revised County boundary."
I understand the way in which the Act governing the boundary commission was set up, and the commissioners were forced into the ludicrous position that means that we are debating an order and a report that are already out of date, and are the subject of an immediate review.
Major change, which the boundary commission report admits that it is having to implement in my county, is unwelcome. The commissioners do not seem to acknowledge that fact, because the report says: "the disruption and severance of established constituency links if eight seats were allocated, would not be severe."
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I have to tell them that they are simply wrong. The consequences have been extremely severe.My rural wards from the district of Wychavon--Spetchley, Upton Snodsbury, Pinvin, Drakes Broughton, the Lenches and Inkberrow--feel especially sore about that, because successive boundary commission reviews have moved them around with an arbitrariness that I find shocking. It also causes real practical problems for the political parties in building lasting relationships, and associations and constituency parties that can stand the test of time. I resent the way in which those wards have been treated in the past and continue to be treated in the review.
Specifically about the city of Worcester, the report says: "We noted that the electorate of the City of Worcester was 63,622, close to the county average. We therefore proposed a Worcester seat which would be coterminous with the City".
It also discusses at some length the delicious culinary ideas of "doughnutting" and "sandwiches", and describes what drove the commission to make certain decisions in particular parts of the country:
"On several occasions we provisionally recommended a constituency which comprised the town, with surrounding areas forming another constituency or constituencies. This arrangement was known as the `doughnut'. In other areas we provisionally recommended that the town be split into two, often using a distinctive feature such as a river as a boundary, with each part being added to a rural hinterland. This arrangement was known as the `sandwich'. . .
We had no single formula or policy for choosing between the alternatives but tried to find the best scheme for each town . . . Factors which we take into account in considering the geography of an area include estuaries, major roads and other lines of communication such as railways and rivers which are easily identifiable borders but not necessarily physical barriers". So sandwiches are entirely acceptable to the boundary commission. I have a philosophical problem with some of the arrangements, because I believe that many of our county towns and cities have a close and intimate relationship with their rural hinterland. That is true for Worcester, and its Member of Parliament must understand that close relationship. I am concerned, however, that town and country are now growing further apart in our country. That is not a welcome development.
Dr. Kim Howells (Pontypridd): Does the hon. Gentleman think that the commission seems generally to have favoured the doughnut model rather than the sandwich? What are his thoughts on that? Would not the doughnut model reflect more truthfully the integrity of that relationship between the town and its surrounding villages?
Mr. Luff: No--precisely the opposite. My concern is that if a Member of Parliament represents an entirely urban seat with a rural sea around it, as happens with Worcester, a gulf of incomprehension will grow, and there will be a tendency not to understand the intimate links that exist between town and country.
For example, we have a cattle market in Worcester, which demonstrates the importance of the surrounding agricultural economy, but there are only about three farms within the city boundary. Typically, the entrepreneurs
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who create jobs in the city of Worcester live in the surrounding villages. The housing needs of south Worcestershire cannot be met by Worcester city alone but are met by the districts of Wychavon and Malvern Hills too.Employment and commuting patterns are subtle and sophisticated in our county. Many people live in the villages and come into the city to work. Others live in the city and commute far afield, perhaps to Birmingham. The interest that we all have in a sound environmental policy and in well- planned rural areas for recreational purposes also militates in favour of a sandwich approach, not a doughnut approach, to electoral arrangements. Worcester, however, has been doughnutted. It should have been sandwiched because, to carry the gastronomic metaphor further, sandwiches breed mutual understanding; doughnuts breed misunderstanding.
Mr. Luff: As my hon. Friend rightly reminds me, doughnuts also breed fat.
Another issue causes me concern in relation to the review: the Inkberrow rural ward is being arbitrarily lumped in with an urban region. It will form a tiny minority of that region and its interests stand to be overlooked as a result. In 1991, that ward had 2,415 voters. It contains a number of villages, of which the two largest are Inkberrow and Cookhill.
According to the boundary commission's provisional recommendations, it received quite a lot of representations about the proposed inclusion of Inkberrow in a new Redditch constituency, although it is coy on the exact figure. It says:
"Our provisional proposal to include Inkberrow with the whole of Redditch Borough to form the Redditch seat was an attempt to create a seat which would have an electorate of 60,193, well below the electoral quota, but higher than the Redditch Borough wards alone . . . The Assistant Commissioner considered that there was a choice between creating an undersized seat or incorporating Inkberrow to create a seat of just sufficient size. He weighed up the arguments put to him both for and against our provisional recommendation, and on balance decided there was no good reason to propose an alternative arrangement to what we had provisionally proposed".
The commission, however, had the integrity to admit that, among the representations on its revised recommendations, was a petition containing 198 signatures objecting to the proposal to include Inkberrow in the new Redditch constituency. That figure must be borne against the total number of representations received from the whole county of Hereford and Worcester to the boundary commission's original recommendations; those representations totalled 614. It seems that the boundary commission is swayed more by the number of letters it receives than by the people who are aggrieved by its findings. That is a matter of considerable concern.
Frankly, the Conservative party missed a trick in some parts of the country. The Labour party organised a letter-writing campaign--a mass of individual letters dictated from some central party machine--and we did not do the same.
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