Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Listening to this debate, one would think that something major and radical was happening to our parliamentary system. In fact, what is being proposed is an extremely modest change, which I welcome, because more radical change would be unwelcome to most Members of the House. We have heard a number of Members talk about boundary commissions and history, but the Boundary Commission is only a post-war invention. It is something that our country can be proud of, because it tries to draw boundaries in a neutral way, while taking into account local interest. The only changes in the Bill are, first, the proposal to keep constituencies nearer to certain numbers, because there is currently a vast disparity in seats—and this after the first election on the new boundaries—which causes unfairness. Secondly, anyone who has been to a public inquiry held by the Boundary Commission will know that they tend to be attended by Labour, Liberal and Conservative agents and Members of Parliament, who all make representations. Sometimes local government is involved, but inquiries of that sort are not something that members of the public are necessarily aware of or want to go to. Therefore, 12 weeks in which to write in to make representations, which is also provided for in the Bill, is not unreasonable, and I am sure that the Boundary Commission, in its normal, impartial way, will take such representations into account. However, if Members are worried, they just have to ensure that lots of people write in, and I am sure that when personal interest comes into it, that will be the case. The most radical part of the Bill is the reduction in the size of the House of Commons, but it is not very radical, because it essentially means that our electorates will increase on average by 5,000 or 6,000, which is not very dramatic. In fact, for many Members, their electorates will decrease by 5,000 or 6,000, because they are already larger than the size that has been chosen. There is a pinch point and a difficulty, which we may talk about later if we get there, to do with crossing county boundaries, which will cause the Government endless headaches. Nevertheless, what we have is, broadly, a modest change. 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.