Examination of Witnesses (Question Numbers
180-198)
MR BOB
FARRANCE, MS
LIZ BENSON,
MR HUGH
BUCHANAN AND
MR EDWARD
LEWIS
9 SEPTEMBER 2010
Q180 Eleanor Laing: And would you
say that it works in practice?
Mr Buchanan: Let us find out at
the Scottish Parliament elections.
Q181 Eleanor Laing: Thank you. Can
I go on to the actual boundaries, just following on from that?
Again, there has been some criticism of the possibility that county
boundaries might have to be crossed and that possibly city boundaries
might have to be crossed. In your estimation, would it be correct
to say that instances where county boundaries or city boundaries
would have to be crossed, in order to achieve equality within
a 5% tolerance, would be very few, and that in most cases of the
600 constituencies that will be created there will be no need
to cross county or city boundaries?
Mr Lewis: Most boundaries for
local authorities in Wales will be crossed but, of course, you
have to put that in the context that up until now we have been
using the preserved counties—that is, the former county
council areas that no longer exist except in law and for the ceremonial
purposes. There is also, if you take a long-term view, the possibility
that local government itself will change over a period of time
and there could be fewer local authorities and, therefore, and
you would have new boundaries there. So I don't think it's a huge
issue of having to cross boundaries by local authorities.
Mr Farrance: The English experience
is that, at the fourth review, the English Commission started
to cross boundaries for the first time in the London boroughs.
At the fifth review it needed to do so in respect of the unitary
authorities in many areas. Some it could observe. The easiest
way to look at is: what is the electorate of the area, divide
it by the electoral quota, and you get its theoretical entitlement
to seats. That may not be, and in most cases isn't, an exact number.
Therefore, as soon as you apply a parity target the chances of
having to cross the local authority boundary become much greater.
Q182 Eleanor Laing: But if there
are 600 seats would you estimate that that might happen in maybe
20 seats or 50 seats, but it wouldn't be 300 seats, would it?
Mr Farrance: It's very hard to
gauge at this stage how many seats would cross the boundary between
two authorities, without doing the modelling on the figures.
Chair: Eleanor, I am going to have to
stop you just to get a few more questions in. Tristram?
Q183 Tristram Hunt: In terms of this
suggestion that one would take account of history, identity, geography
and sense of place as much as possible but yet, ultimately, it
comes down to the raw utilitarian numbers, can you give us a sense
of that balance of how you are going to try to take account of
those competing forces?
Mr Buchanan: They are not competing,
in the sense that one has an absolute position in the Bill and
the other is entirely discretionary.
Q184 Tristram Hunt: So, this would
be absolutely clear that if this Bill passes you will be under
the straight legal obligation to go for this raw number and if
we cross rivers, we cross mountains, we divide communities, you
have a statutory obligation to do that and it doesn't come into
your remit if that is divisive of traditional communities or identities?
Mr Buchanan: When you do constituency
design there is almost always two ways of doing it, two or more
options. You start with this absolute requirement that electorate
must fit within a target range, but then you will probably have
one option that crosses that river and another option that doesn't
cross that river. So you end up weighing up two solutions that
are satisfactory or unsatisfactory, to different degrees and in
different ways, and the Commission will form a judgment on which
of those it views is preferable, publish that as provisional proposals,
listen to people's responses, which will often be positing the
alternative that the Commission has already deliberated on, and
then take the process forward from there.
Q185 Tristram Hunt: Will this involve
a cultural change within your organisation, such that you now
have this utilitarian impulse?
Mr Buchanan: No, because parity
has always been there in the rules. It's just given primacy in
the Bill in a way that hasn't been the case before, but it has
been in the legislation.
Q186 Tristram Hunt: When you suggested
that you would hope the public would try to understand the process
that you are going to go through and make their voice heard, what
resources or what capacity is needed so that the public do get
involved? There is this implication in your evidence, and in some
of the evidence we have seen, that nasty political parties get
involved and try to make you think things you don't want to think,
whereas now we want the public to come and express their views.
How is that going to happen?
Mr Farrance: Well, I would say
that the Commissions have always wanted the public to express
their views. I don't think it's a new thing.
Q187 Tristram Hunt: Now you have
a longer time frame for them to do so, as I understand it, within
the Bill. So, how are you going to encourage this? Do you have
the resources to do that, or do you just hope it's going to happen?
Mr Farrance: No. At the last two
reviews in England the Commissioners put together an information
booklet to inform about the process, what the rules would require.
I would anticipate a similar booklet for this forthcoming review.
I would also expect the news releases that all Members here have
probably received from the Commissions over the years in respect
of reviews, to be as full as they ever were, giving explanations,
again, about how the review process works. Of course, all of that
information will be online.
Mr Buchanan: I think the other
thing to say is that the Commissions don't see themselves as acting
alone here, that the Commission's primary task is to carry out
the review but the communication is often done through political
parties. So, I think the onus comes back to politicians, and your
organisations, to inform and to prompt people to make appropriate
responses, responses that can be accommodated within the law rather
than emotive responses that cannot, unfortunately, be accommodated
within the law.
Q188 Tristram Hunt: Finally, are
you in charge of the naming of constituencies?
Mr Buchanan: Yes.
Tristram Hunt: Could I suggest to you
that constituencies that have names "northeast", "southeast",
"southwest" and "northwest" are very boring
and do not promote identity or affection. You might want to draw
on some of the historical and geographical affection for places.
I would like to be MP for The Potteries rather than Stoke-on-Trent
Central.
Chair: We will take that as an advance
plea there. Naming constituencies after members of the Political
and Constitutional Reform Committee will also be acceptable. Catherine
McKinnell?
Q189 Catherine McKinnell: I wanted
to follow on a little bit upon the line of questioning that Tristram
was starting with there. I know you have explained that, in your
view, or certainly there has been evidence to show, that change
of this magnitude should happen in a big bang approach as opposed
to incrementally. Do you have any concerns about the time scales
that you are required to undertake this operation?
Mr Lewis: I don't think the time
scales for Wales are going to be too challenging. I think the
reality is England, being the biggest area, has the biggest task,
but for Wales certainly there is not going to be a difficulty.
Catherine McKinnell: So, can I direct
the question to England?
Mr Farrance: The difficulty is
what is unknown and that is the level of response. At the fourth
general review the Commission received in the region of 40,000
representations. At the fifth general review it's in the region
of 29,000. We don't know which way it will go next time. It may
be that the public are not as fully engaged as perhaps we would
wish; it may be they find it difficult to put forward solutions
that are different. A lot will depend on that. Taking a potential
worst case scenario, based upon what is in the Bill in front of
us, the initial view of myself and the Commission is that the
timetable is achievable.
Q190 Catherine McKinnell: You explored
with Tristram that you would probably also give the public information,
but I imagine extending the period of consultation to 12 weeks
and changing the format of it quite significantly will require
much different, and probably much greater, resources in terms
of dealing with written correspondence. Are you confident that
those resources will be made available to enable you to do that?
Mr Farrance: Yes. We've been working
closely with the Cabinet Office, the sponsor of our body, and
we have a programme director who is assisting in terms of identifying
the staffing levels we will require and the skill set. So, at
this moment, we're confident that we will be able to acquire the
resource that we need. Time will tell.
Q191 Catherine McKinnell: Also in
terms of time scales, the changes are going to be based upon the
electoral register as at December. Your own reports have suggested
that there are potentially 3.5 million voters missing from the
registers. It's not an Electoral Commission report that suggested
that, but there have been reports that suggested that there are
a significant number of potential voters missing from the registers.
Is the Electoral Commission taking any steps at this stage to
try to increase voter registration?
Mr Buchanan: An Electoral Commission
question not a Boundary Commission question.
Catherine McKinnell: Boundary Commission,
sorry; apologies. Obviously the two issues are linked, in terms
of the timescales in which you are required to undertake the boundary
changes based on an electoral register that is incomplete, but
presumably this is not an issue that you given any consideration
to?
Mr Buchanan: No. In that sense
we're very much servants of Parliament and if Parliament tells
us to use the electoral register from a particular date we will
carry on and happily do so.
Q192 Mr Chope: Can I just ask Mr
Farrance a quick one on the regional boundaries. Will there be
any need to cross regional boundaries in England as far as you
can tell?
Mr Farrance: At the moment it's
not possible to say. In terms of regional boundaries you're referring
to the boundaries in the 2002 European Parliamentary Elections
Act?
Mr Chope: Yes.
Mr Farrance: Those of you who
represent constituencies in England will be aware that the Commission
has previously worked on a county by county basis and other allocated
constituencies in that way. The legislation, as it will be amended,
will require them to allocate three constituencies across the
piece. I think if you do the mathematics, if you gave each county
or London borough its entitlement, you wouldn't arrive at 503;
you would arrive at quite a different number. So I suspect the
Commission will want—in the first stage—to allocate
constituencies on a regional basis. Once it has done that I would
expect it to try to allocate constituencies to authorities independently—counties,
London boroughs. It's at that stage that the Commission may identify
a need to pair, i.e. where it will create a constituency across
the boundary. I would imagine that will be the process but that
doesn't necessarily mean that you have to create constituencies
across the regional boundary. But the Commission would not be
blind to that possibility.
Q193 Mr Chope: Because of the absolute
parity being required in terms of numbers and the constraints
that is going to impose—just asking about England—have
you worked out how many constituencies, by the time we get to
May 2015, would exceed the parity boundary which would have been
set based upon the registration figures for October 2010?
Mr Farrance: I cannot look in
that crystal ball, I'm afraid. I would need to see the figures
to be able to tell you, for each year from 2010. It's not possible
to guess.
Q194 Mr Chope: So, that is something
you would only be able to do in retrospect?
Mr Farrance: In retrospect, yes.
Q195 Mr Chope: At the moment, if
my understanding is correct, it is possible for a Boundary Commission
for the evidence to be taken that, for example, there has been
decanting that has resulted in a depopulation of one ward, when
the houses are refurbished and people move back, and there is
planning permission being given for 1,000 houses and so on—those
issues can be taken into account at the moment, is that right?
Mr Farrance: Yes. At the moment
the Commission is not blind to growth or decline since the year
it starts its review. However, many of the claims made have proven
to be without foundation in the past.
Q196 Mr Chope: Finally, have you
considered how this Bill might be amended to try, as far as possible,
to accommodate the desire of the Government but at the same time
to give you a little bit more flexibility?
Mr Buchanan: I don't think we
would view it as being our place to set the policy in the Bill.
Q197 Mr Chope: For example, you could
say that the absolute figure should be modified with these possible
exceptions. Would that not be a possible reason?
Mr Buchanan: I think that is for
you to decide and not us.
Q198 Chair: Final question from me
is: it is strange at first sight that we measure constituencies
by registered electors rather than people. Would it present you
with enormous difficulties to base constituency boundaries on
the number of people who are represented by the Members of Parliament?
Members of Parliament—I have to speak from personal experience—probably
have more casework from people who are not on the register than
those that are.
Mr Buchanan: I think there are
significant practical problems. One of the things that this country
does not have is a precise and continuously updated register of
population. Our electoral register is continuously updated and
spring cleaned or autumn cleaned once a year, whereas our population
is only precisely counted once every decade.
Chair: The same with Mr Farrance?
Mr Farrance: I wouldn't disagree
with that answer.
Chair: I am very sorry. I have every
colleague in fact indicating wanting to come back in to ask more
questions. What we will do, if we may, is drop you a line with
some follow-up questions from colleagues. If colleagues will now
write down what was so desperate that they had to get in, we will
do that. Thank you so much for attending today. We really appreciate
your time. Thank you all.
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