Talking to members on all sides I am clear that negotiation on this Bill could provide a solution. I could make a ‘blame list’ but it won’t get anyone any further so let me just talk about the type of movement that needs to take place.
The important one for me is that we have an all party or independent way of deciding the number of MP’s. This could be done before or after this Bill becomes law and ideally it would be a mechanism like a Speakers Conference.
Another important one is more flexibilty for the Boundary Commission to deal with constituency boundaries. The governments position is plus or minus 5%. Labours position is plus or minus 10%. Those should not be rigid figures for anyone – movement should be possible.
A third possibility is to include public inquiries into constituency boundaries. The government would want this done so that they could be in place for the 2015 election – not impossible.
There are other issues as well but none of them need stop us from finding all party agreement on the Bill. I think some movement by the government on a limit to the number of ministers in the Commons to reflect the smaller number of MPs’ should be one the government could move on. The Tory party is on record as saying they recognise this is important – so it should be possible to include it in the Bill.
To achieve this there has to be negotiations – I hope this is recognised.
limit to the number of ministers in the Commons 80 at the most in the two chambers.
A public enquiry is not, and would not, be needed in to the practices and procedures of the Boundaries commission.
…Or the Government could delay the referendum for a couple of months and then let events in the Lords take their course.
It is reasonable to look at the boundaries though. There has been a good study of the 2010 election results and electoral bias – by Johnston and Pattie (Geographic Journal 2010 – Oct) They show there is a bias in the electoral system towards the Labour Party which means that if the two parties get the same number of votes, the Labour Party would win 54 more seats.
Most of this is due to abstentions, (ie lower turnout in Labour seats), but if I remember right, they calculate that 9 seats are from the over-representation of Scotland (partially) and Wales (significantly) and 9 are due to differing sizes in constituencies. The second figure could be expected to be larger by 2015 as deomgraphic trends continue.
Clive,
The campaigns of Thatcher and Blair for the leadership demonstrate amply that it is not constituency boundaries which decides elections but the forceful powers of speech and conviction.
In that case, even if there were only 400 seats designated for a future parliament, it would still be the campaign, and not the boundary, or the number of seats, which would determine the outcome, given the indubitable integrity of the Commission.
The doubters, Kinnock/Foot/Benn in the late 80s who took the boundaries commission to task for alleged unfair re-arrangement of the boundaries, (after the elections had taken place I might add) were, with the benefit of hindsight, just not worthy campaigners, by comparison with Blair, for example.
Roll on 400, with a peers’ senate of 150-200.
then we will have honest governments of ” no expenses” integrity.
“Roll on 400, with a peers’ senate of 150-200.
then we will have honest governments of ” no expenses” integrity.”
A reduction of that number in the HofL, from
800 now to 200, would make recent intake of peers look like an extended tourist visit.
That would bother only them, certainly not the general public, nor me, either, in the least.
Where is Lord Falconer now?!