Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

It is a great pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan), who always speaks with a deep understanding of Northern Ireland, with a great passion for Northern Ireland, and, of course, with eloquence. I was elected in a by-election in 1986 to represent a constituency that was then known as Knowsley, North. I represented Knowsley, North in the House until 1997. Following earlier boundary changes—a public inquiry had been held before the boundaries were finally fixed—I ended up representing a constituency known as Knowsley, North and Sefton, East. I represented Knowsley, North and Sefton, East for 13 years. In the meantime, the boundary commissioner came along again, and I now represent a constituency known as Knowsley. I therefore speak as one who has experienced dramatic boundary changes in my constituency on two occasions. I think it instructive to examine what happened on both those occasions. On the first occasion, when the boundary commission proposed that the Knowsley, North constituency should be coupled with Sefton, East, a public inquiry was held. Different views were expressed on either side of the boundary about what was and what was not appropriate. People had their say. I attended the inquiry on more than one occasion, and heard the debates about what links existed between the two constituencies. Two facts emerged that tipped the balance. The first was that a large number of people living in the Sefton, East part of what subsequently became the Knowsley, North and Sefton, East constituency worked in Knowsley, which was an industrial area. The second was that many people travelled between the two constituencies for leisure purposes. The leisure centre in Kirkby, which was in the old Knowsley, North constituency, was heavily used by people from Maghull, Aintree and Melling, so a link was established, but it would never have been established—nobody would have even checked the statistics on this—unless there had been a public inquiry. In the end, the original Boundary Commission proposals stood and the new constituency was formed; it became a parliamentary seat at the 1997 general election. My constituency's second boundary change took place before the last general election. I made some comments about the Wirral earlier and, on reflection, perhaps I overstated the case. I think I said that we ended up with the boundaries we have got because of prejudices on the part of the people in the Wirral. Prejudice is probably too strong a word, so let me retract it. However, what did clearly emerge was that because of the arguments put by the people of the Wirral, we have undersized constituencies in that part of the county of Merseyside than on my side of the river in Knowsley. It is rather like a county. I will come on to counties shortly, because I realise it might sound as if I am arguing against myself. Let us consider constituencies within a county with reference to the idea of a balloon. If we squeeze some air out of one part of it—air being the electors—it will emerge somewhere else, and it emerged in Knowsley. I now represent a constituency of just under 80,000 people, whereas some Members of Parliament in the Wirral represent under 60,000. The Government's argument would be that if we equalise that, it would not matter, but I honestly believe that 80,000 electors is too many for an MP to be able to represent adequately. It is not that, as the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing) said, I am too lazy or incompetent to do that; it is just really difficult. I now want to talk about some of the practical implications of the two changes I have experienced. The first of them is to do with representing a constituency that is partly in two different boroughs. The Knowsley, North and Sefton, East constituency was slightly less than half in Sefton with the rest in Knowsley. Many Members on the Government Benches represent areas where that is already the case, but most of them are probably not in metropolitan districts. For Members with constituencies that are in a metropolitan district rather than a shire county, the powers of local authorities, primary care trusts and so forth are much more important and much more focused. For 13 years, I represented a constituency that had two primary care trusts, two hospital trusts, two local authorities and two different area police command divisions, and dealing with that is very difficult. Apart from the practicalities of needing to keep lists of everybody we have to deal with, we deal with areas that have different kinds of crime, different kinds of health problems and different kinds of relationships with their local authorities. That does make a difference. My hon. Friends the Members for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies) and for Blaenau Gwent (Nick Smith) made that point quite well, and I support it. Now if, as seems perfectly possible under the provisions in this part of the Bill, we start to say that county boundaries can also be crossed, the problem could be compounded even further. At some points, my constituency is right on the edge of West Lancashire—indeed, it is on the edge of a lot of other constituencies. It is perfectly possible that if this Bill goes ahead as it is, my constituency could end up containing part of Lancashire, as could the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for St Helens North (Mr Watts). That would involve a whole different set of relationships, and my hon. Friend and I could find ourselves motoring up and down to Preston on an almost daily basis in the recesses as we try to represent another county, as well as the metropolitan county in which we are located.