HC Deb 26 May 1978 vol 950 cc1925-42

12 noon

Mr. W. Benyon (Buckingham)

I wish to take advantage of the Adjournment debate to raise with the House the question of the serious situation which has arisen in connection with the work of the Parliamentary Boundary Commission for England. In view of the news in this morning's paper, perhaps this is an appropriate subject. I shall use my own constituency of Buckingham as an example, but, as I hope to show, the problems of my seat are mirrored elsewhere in England and also in Scotland and Wales.

My constituency now has one of the largest electorates in England. If the General Election is to be held this year, or before next February, it will be fought in Buckingham on an electorate of 99,101, and the constituency's rate of growth is higher than that of any other in the United Kingdom. Using the 1978 figures, which have only just been published, according to my researches I find that there are only six seats in England, which have larger electorates. They are Lichfield and Tamworth; Norfolk, South; and Meriden, with just under 100,000 electors, and Bromsgrove and Redditch; Newton; and Basildon, with over 100,000 electors.

However, while these constituencies have been growing steadily but comparatively slowly, my own constituency of Buckingham has risen at a rate of between 5,000 and 10,000 electors per annum, and this is scheduled to continue for many years to come. As far as I can see, only Bromsgrove and Redditch is anywhere near approaching the same rate of growth. It is significant that Basildon has already been the subject of an interim report from the Boundary Commission in relation to new constituencies in Essex.

Hon. Members will know that the law requires the Parliamentary Boundary Commission to report some time between June 1979 and June 1984, and because of its current difficulties it is sensible to assume that it will report nearer the latter date than the former. We must also remember that Parliament has to pass the necessary orders implementing the report, and this itself takes time. If the worst were to happen and we had to wait for another five years, the electorate of the constituency of Buckingham could by then be as many as 140,000.

To put this into perspective, such a seat would be larger than any present seat in Northern Ireland, it would exceed by 100,000 voters 10 seats in England, ranging from Newcastle upon Tyne, Central, with 24,000, to Islington, South and Finsbury, with 39,000, five seats in Wales, including the boroughs of Ebbw Vale and Merthyr Tydfil, and nine seats in Scotland, including three seats in Glasgow. I mention these urban seats in Wales and Scotland because many people believe that the small electorates in those areas are all rural, They are not. Many of them are urban.

I need hardly remind the House that if the General Election takes place this year it is highly probable that Parliament will not be in a position to consider and vote on the Boundary Commission's report before the subsequent General Election takes place. Indeed, one can speculate that if the majority achieved by any party at the next General Election were small, Parliament might not be able to take a decision on this before two subsequent General Elections, therefore, the importance of this must become very evident as we consider it.

Confining myself to England, I think that it is of some significance that of the 10 largest seats in England, five are held by the Labour Party and five by the Conservative Party, all with very small majorities, so that there is an equal political implication there. But of the 10 smallest seats in England, every one is held by the Labour Party. I mention this not to make some passing party point but simply to illustrate the dangers of the present position.

In one sense the situation is ludicrous. One can imagine a foreigner saying "No one but the British, the oldest democratic society in the world, would allow themselves to be governed in quite such an undemocratic manner." But the situation also holds great dangers. There is a widespread feeling now—much of it unexpressed—which is critical of our present system.

Those who turn their face against electoral reform, either by proportional representation or in any other way, are fond of claiming that the great advantage of our present system is that it is easy to understand. If this be so, of course its deficiencies must be as plain as its advantages. People appreciate that there must be some discrepancy between constituency size, but they find it very hard to understand why one Member of Parliament should be elected by 30,000 electors and another by 100,000 electors.

At the moment the Enfield case—this is sub judice, I realise—which is at present before the court, has stopped the operations of the Local Government Boundary Commission. I am not a lawyer and I do not know the way in which the law works, but it seems to me that this case is of such enormous importance that every effort should be made to bring it to completion as soon as possible. Until the work of the Local Government Boundary Commission is resumed, the Parliamentary Boundary Commission cannot continue its task.

The best estimate I have at the moment is that it is unlikely, even if this case is heard and settled this summer, for the Local Government Boundary Commission to be in a position to make recommendations in time for next year's local elections. This in itself will have grave implications for local government in certain parts of the country. The consequence in relation to the Parliamentary Boundary Commission is that it is highly unlikely—I do not think that it is alarmist to draw this conclusion—that Parliament will be able to take a decision on the report of the Parliamentary Boundary Commission much before 1984—a somewhat significant date, you may feel, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

It is not my task today to consider Northern Ireland, where the representation will rightly be increased following the report of the Speaker's Conference, or Scotland and Wales, where representation must depend on the outcome of the current devolution proposals. I am simply concerned with England. Hon. Members will know that this matter is governed by the House of Commons (Redistribution of Seats) Act 1949, as amended by the 1958 Act.

The main change made by the 1958 Act was to lengthen the intervals between the general reviews of constituencies so that these must be submitted not less than 10 years or more than 15 years from the date of the submission of the Commission's last report. This is the vital aspect. The absurdity of this provision can be seen in a constituency such as mine, where the electorate is changing, as I have said, at a rate between 5,000 and 10,000 per annum. The quota or average for an English seat is 65,000, so that seven years could see an entirely new seat created. In fact, we are just on the verge of seeing that position in Buckingham at this moment.

To seek a remedy, therefore, one turns to Section 2(3) of the 1949 Act, which allows the Boundary Commission to submit to the Secretary of State interim reports for areas where special circumstances occur. As I have said, I believe that such a report has already been made in Essex, but nothing has been done about it.

About three years ago, when the situation in North Buckinghamshire was apparent for all to see, I approached the then Home Secretary and the chairman of the Boundary Commission. I was told politely that it was not in the public interest to anticipate the general review of constituencies—in other words "Nothing can be done, you must lump it."

One can appreciate the problem of the Boundary Commission in Scotland and Wales, because Schedule 2 to the 1949 Act lays down that there must not be fewer than 71 seats in Scotland and 35 seats in Wales. But for England there is no such restriction. There is discretion, the wording being that for Great Britain as a whole the number of consituencies shall be Not substantially greater or less than 613. There is, therefore, no intrinsic difficulty for the Boundary Commission to take one particular local authority area and make an interim recommendation.

At the moment in Buckinghamshire—and, indeed, elsewhere—the Parliamentary Boundary Commission is not proceeding because it is awaiting the decisions of the Local Government Boundary Commission, whose work, as I have already said, is prevented from continuing.

In a letter to me dated 24th February 1978, the secretary to the Parliamentary Boundary Commission wrote as follows: This Commission has decided that district wards should not be divided between constituencies because these wards frequently represent a community with interests in common and because in general they are used as the basis of local party political organisations. Naturally the Commission wish to take account of the revised pattern of district wards and they must therefore wait the completion of the Local Government Boundary Commission's review of electoral arrangement in all of the districts in a county before they may proceed with a review of the parliamentary constituencies in that county. I accept what the secretary says in that letter. My contention is simply that in areas of high population change, interim reports should be made and the orders laid before the House of Commons by the Secretary of State at the earliest possible moment. This should not be discretionary, it should be mandatory. That is the short-term requirement. In the longer term, a change in the rules as laid down in the 1949 Act is urgently necessary.

In this connection, I refer the Minister to the last report of the Parliamentary Boundary Commission in 1965, the one which was eventually implemented in 1970. In paragraph 39, which discusses population movement, the Commission reported as follows: we are not required by the Rules to pay regard to future population movement. The Rules require the use of current electorates and do not ask us to make recommendations on the bias of electorates as they will be in say 5 or 10 years. We cannot, however, escape the fact that the intention of the present law is that a general review should form the basis of constituency boundaries for at least the next 10 years and it would therefore be desirable to make recommendation that would so far as possible cushion the effect of gains or losses of electorate so far as they could be foreseen with some degree of certainty. We had in mind that new towns —my constituency includes one of the largest new towns in the country— had been a major cause of growth of electorates in several constituencies since the last review". I submit that that is an impossible task for the Commission to undertake, no matter how brilliant or clever its members, or what resources the Commission has to deal with the matter. For instance, a political decision in relation to a new town could completely nullify any forecast for the constituency concerned. Therefore, this imposes an impossible task on the Commission.

I believe that the only sensible solution is one that requires the Boundary Commission to consider every five years those areas containing constituencies whose electorates have varied considerably from the last review figure. Such a mandatory review would at least avoid the worst excesses that we are seeing at present and which I have tried to describe.

The counter argument that this would distort representation for England as a whole is scarcely valid. My researches show that very few areas would be involved and that the movements downward would be compensated by the movements upward. They would probably be equal. But even if they were not, would one or two extra Members of the House of Commons pose any real threat to our constitution if by so doing we convinced people that they were assured of a fairer deal?

We are all proud to be Members of Parliament. We are sent here by the people to provide a Parliament for the people. It is, therefore, essential that the system should be seen to be fair and just. Not to mince my words, I can only describe the present situation as a "democratic scandal". It must be put right quickly, because if it is not it will threaten Parliament and, more important, it will threaten democracy itself.

12.14 p.m.

Mr. John Ellis (Brigg and Scunthorpe)

At the start of this debate three hon. Members were in the Chamber—the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Benyon), the Minister, and myself. Since then our numbers have gone up by one, with the arrival of the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Mr. Clark). Although our colleagues are conspicuous by their absence, I genuinely congratulate the hon. Member for Buckingham on raising this very important matter. I have a feeling that there will be subsequent occasions when hon. Members will be rising in their serried ranks to moan, groan and make comment on the situation in which we find ourselves. It will then be interesting to remember this morning. I believe that a great deal of praise will go to the hon. Member for Buckingham for bringing such an important matter to our attention.

I appreciate the spirit in which the hon. Member talked about this situation. It does not matter that he spoke from the Conservative Benches while I speak from the Labour Benches. I think that I agreed with the whole of what he said.

It is certainly true that nowadays people have conflicting opinions about this House and about how it should change the electoral questions before it, such as proportional representation. They are all very weighty matters. But one thing is absolutely crystal clear: unless we have a system which is the same for everyone in the country the system is manifestly unfair. When Parliament set up the present system all those years ago I do not suppose that it ever dreamt that we would ultimately wind up with some electorates of 30,000 and others of more than 100,000. The hon. Gentleman mentioned examples of constituencies which now have electorates of more than 100,000. My own constituency is affected. At present, I have an electorate of more than 93,000.

I hope that the Minister will comment on the existing practice of dealing with the local government boundaries first. I believe that that has always led to trouble. I believe that one should first think of the body—the constituencies—and how they will fit in, rather than start at the bottom and try to construct the body upwards. That leads us into enormous difficulties.

A belief which is increasingly shared on both sides of the House is that the last reorganisation of local government was an unmitigated disaster. It meant that in my own area we now have a Humberside which stretches to both sides of the river. Indeed, there are petitions that we should revert to the old ways. I do not share that view, but equally I believe that the present system is totally indefensible.

I believe that this is the old "economy of scale" argument. We all went mad on computers and thought that bigger and brighter was best. But we are politicians who are concerned with people. That can be demonstrated in so many ways. The North Lincolnshire area of Grimsby, Immingham and Scunthorpe is very different from the deep heart of Lincolnshire. As I have said, we build up to the constituencies from the local base. It is nonsense to think that a group of men representing Beverley, on the other side of the water, can make detailed decisions about my constituency, especially when the representatives from that area may not have visited the places about which they are talking. What has led to nonsense at local level has led to nonsense at constituency level.

The hon. Member for Buckingham looked forward to the future. I look back to the position in the past when to some extent a case was made for changing my constituency at the time of the last reorganisation. The name was changed, but nothing else was done. Even then, the boundary was very strange, and it was difficult to fit in everything.

As I said, the position has been made much worse. The farce has been taken one stage further by the creation of the new European constituencies, and there will be some spin-off here. Of course, folly that this wretched organisation is in any event, so the way in which my own boundary has been drawn up in this respect is also a folly. They have managed to split Humberside. Grimsby, with which we have a natural empathy because we are on the south bank, has gone in with Lincolnshire, and my constituency remains as the one surviving outpost in south Humberside. It is quite ridiculous. The boundary which has been drawn on my southern flank makes no sense to anyone. It weaves in and out. There has been speculation in the past about certain great interests that managed to put on pressure to keep part of the patch in Lincolnshire.

It is vital that we get on with this business now. The pressure of work on Members of Parliament grows and grows. I know that the hon. Member for Buckingham seeks to serve his constituency well, as do most of us in this House, but, as organisations get bigger, so the mailbags of Members of Parliament grow and grow, and the problems multiply. The hon. Member for Buckingham has my sympathy if he has an electorate of more than 100,000. With 93,000 myself, I know how big my own mailbag is. The letters pour in day by day, and it is extremely difficult to deal with all of them.

If we go on as we are, we shall not have redivision for the General Election which is due to take place this year or next. Indeed, I see a situation in which we shall not get redivision before the General Election after next, and the whole system will be completely out of hand.

They were different days when Parliament set up the present system. It may be that it worked quite well then, but it does not now. I believe that this debate is the forerunner of an increasing amount of pressure that there will be to look at these matters in depth. Although we may be few in number in the Chamber this morning, I believe that we are the harbingers of that great debate which must come. I believe that the pressures will mount and, therefore, I hope that the Minister will make a response indicating that he appreciates the gravity of the situation.

We seek to serve our constituents. I believe that with more sensible boundaries speedily arrived at, we shall be able to do a better job. That is not to say that I have no regard for my present constituents. Mine is a very interesting constituency, with steel and agricultural areas. Nevertheless, if one Member of Parliament is trying to serve three or four times the accepted size of electorate he is put in a very difficult position and it obviously must make a difference. We are all indebted to the hon. Member for Buckingham for raising the subject.

12.24 p.m.

Mr. Alan Clark (Plymouth, Sutton)

I must first apologise for having missed the first few minutes of this debate. However, my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Mr. Benyon) did me the courtesy of sending me a copy of the text of his speech which I read with the greatest interest. I can tell the House that my right hon. and hon. Friends are entirely in sympathy with the case made so lucidly by my hon. Friend.

Early on in his remarks, my hon. Friend mentioned the subject of electoral reform. I am not quite certain what he had in mind. However, if we are to retain our existing electoral system and the very special relationship that a Member of Parliament enjoys with his constituents, which I know the majority of hon. Members wish to do, it is essential that this should not fall into disrepute and that the machinery should not become so cumbersome—as would happen if constituencies became too large—that people felt that the existing system was not serving them as well as it had in the past. If that happened, the very basis on which democracy presently functions in this Chamber might be, if not at risk, at least due for change.

Mr. Benyon

To avoid any misunderstanding, although I am a proponent of electoral reform I should make it clear that I mentioned it only to emphasise that the people who oppose electoral reform say that there is a great deal of advantage in the first-past-the-post system and that, if they say that, they have to have a system that makes sense.

Mr. Clark

I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. That was the point that I was trying to make, in perhaps less pithy language.

In these days of greater mobility of the population, people change their addresses much faster and move from one place to another, and it may be that in the industrial climate that will develop over the next few years, with improved technologies, there will be substantial shifts in population long before the Boundary Commissions can catch up with them. There is an unanswerable case for provision for a localised revision of boundaries, and it is the view of my right hon. and hon. Friends that we should be prepared to look at the possibility, where constituency sizes greatly exceed the norm, of requiring the Boundary Commissions to look at the position ahead of their survey of the country as a whole.

I listened with interest to the suggestion made by the hon. Member for Brigg and Scunthorpe (Mr. Ellis) about first settling the parliamentary boundaries and then looking at the local government boundaries. I have some sympathy with that, because I think that the system of approaching the parliamentary boundaries from the bottom upwards leads one into the kind of territory in which the resulting difficulties can hold up the rest of the process. Probably the best procedure to follow, therefore, is to settle the parliamentary boundaries first and let the local boundaries take care of themselves, in terms of the various localised arguments and considerations.

But surely this is the kind of question which we should be discussing in a full-dress debate. I very much hope that the Minister will give the House an indication that there is a possibility of this in the near future, when these and many other matters can be discussed and remedies implemented to correct what in certain parts of the country is a serious, threatening and unjust situation.

12.30 p.m.

The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Brynmor John)

The hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Benyon) prefaced his remarks by saying that this subject had a certain topicality in view of comments in the papers this morning. The hon. Member should, first of all, differentiate between news and speculation—something which it is not always easy to do with the newspapers. The item that he mentioned falls into the latter category.

I recognise the importance of this subject for the quality of democracy in this country. There are a number of other issues which must be considered, along with numerical equality in our constituencies, as being relevant to the point. We would all agree, particularly because we discuss our own conditions incessantly—we are all experts—that there is a dire need for the Local Government Boundary Commission and the Parliament Boundary Commission. They are the ways in which we have settled upon fixing seats. They are the means by which we remove this subject from the arena of party controversy and put it in the hands of those charged by Parliament to do their best to secure the results which Parliament wishes.

There was one serious error of fact in the speech of the hon. Member for Buckingham. He referred to Basildon and implied, no doubt in good faith, that there had been interim proposals for Essex which had been brought forward in view of the size of Basildon but not acted upon. That is not so. What he is talking about is Essex as part of the general review. That county was brought forward as part of that review. It is one of the six counties where the parliamentary seats have already been decided upon. It is simply not true to say that either an interim report has been brought forward or that it has been brought forward and not acted upon.

Mr. Benyon

I am grateful to the Minister of State for his comments. I quite understand the point. What I was saying was that here was one of the seats about which I had been talking which has been the subject of a recommendation from the Boundary Commission. I should not have used the word "interim". It is perfectly possible now to act for Essex.

Mr. John

I should like to deal with that point in due order, because I accept what the hon. Gentleman has said.

Although the debate has revolved around the Boundary Commissions it has largely concentrated on the parliamentary situation. One of the central themes has been whether we should start work from the bottom upwards or from the top downwards so as to get a result on the patterns of Government in this country, using that word to cover both systems. We must remember that whichever way we do it there will be problems.

The hon. Member made a case for saying that working from the top was the more logical, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Scunthorpe (Mr. Ellis). I am sure that with equal facility and no little speed after that decision was announced there would be others rising in their places in this House to make exactly the contrary argument. One of the central reasons why it makes sense to do things from the bottom upwards is that as they are at present organised—and my hon. Friend touched a responsive chord when he spoke about the quality of the reorganisation—the fact is that districts are often much bigger in area than would normally be encompassed by one parliamentary seat. We are not always talking about one seat to one district; we are often talking about two seats to one district, or even three seats to a district.

I return to the point about quality of representation. It is certainly true, I concede this at once, that one of the factors that must be involved when considering the quality of our democracy is the point that a person who votes should be represented in roughly the same proportion as all others. There are at least three other points arising from this and some of these militate against the simple arithmetical tyranny.

The first point is that, of course, there are seats in parts of our country which are rural in character and where the population is low but the distance so vast that it would not be feasible for us to have strict mathematical equity. My hon. Friend is in an unusual position in that he represents a rural and urban seat combined. There must be tolerable variations in the system.

Another point which bears upon the quality of democracy is that of certainty. A person must know where he is and in whose constituency he is, so that he can build up an identity with that constituency and with his representative. Here we return to the question of the frequency with which these matters are reviewed. It is not true that the 10–15 year rule has been immutable. When the House of Commons (Redistribution of Seats) Act was passed in 1949 the rule was that the review should be between three and seven years. It was as a result of complaints in this House that the rule was changed in 1958, making the period 10–15 years. It was thought that reorganisations were taking place almost as soon as the previous patterns had been laid down. There was no chance to establish a firm basis and therefore no chance for an association to form between a Member and his voters. In view of the high volatility of the electorate, which I acknowledge and which has been described, that is a peculiar problem.

It is no good saying that an electorate of 65,000 would automatically benefit the elector and the Member unless that Member is sufficiently associated with the constituency as to feel involved in it. Otherwise we should get the situation that we see in some parts—the London boroughs, for example—where there is a high turnover of population with a very low percentage poll because no one feels an essential association with the area and often the Member is not well known.

Mr. John Ellis

I am following my hon. Friend's argument, and I believe that he has a point. The other argument is that if the process is done from the bottom upwards, when we work out the constituencies we get Members representing various districts and half districts. This leads to agitation because it is unsuitable. People say that it is nonsense. They want to change it, because it has such an empirical form.

Mr. John

Let me deal with that point, because it borders on what my hon. Friend has said. One of the issues that agitate voters is the question where they vote. They ask "Do I vote at the same place as last time?" We all know people who ask this. Certainty on this matter is important. The ward organisations, upon which all parties depend and upon which democracy in this country largely depends, play a great part, not only in determining that a person knows in which constituency he lives, but in discovering whether a person is willing to play a part in the constituency by voting.

One of the obvious and admitted improvements of working from the bottom up—this is a factor to be weighed in our minds—is that by starting from the district we begin on the basis of completed wards and therefore we are able to graft those completed wards on to the national Government base, whereas if we start the other way round we would very often have to chop up wards or lump them together for local government purposes. This is absolutely clear to me beyond peradventure, having studied the local government reports, as I have to do.

Mr. Alan Clark

rose—

Mr. John

I am bearing in mind that this is an Adjournment debate and I do not want to give way too often. I will give way to the hon. Gentleman a little later. Having started with a three- to seven-year review period it was found to be too frequent for the good of parliamentary constituencies and the period was increased to 10–15 years. That means that the Parliamentary Boundary Commission must report at some time between early 1979 and April 1984. It cannot report before that. Although I concede that there is delay—I shall deal with that later—the fact is that at this stage there is no delay which is fatal. This is because it could not report before April of next year at the earliest. During the interval it is dealing with the question of the European constituencies.

My hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Scunthorpe made a powerful attack, as he always does, upon European Communities. He has mistaken the nature of the present boundaries, in that they are provisional. If he has points to raise about the unsatisfactory nature of the boundaries as they affect his constituency, he has a right to make representations to the Parliamentary Boundary Commission on these European boundaries at this stage. I hope that he will do so in order to reinforce the powerful case that he has made.

The Parliamentary Boundary Commission, charged with that duty, relies heavily upon the Local Government Boundary Commission, which, like the Parliamentary Boundary Commission, has devised procedures which allow for maximum local involvement and maximum opportunity for the public to make representations upon the various proposals that are made. Then the local council puts forward draft proposals with the Commission considers. The Commission issues draft proposals which are circularised and advertised. At each of those stages representations are possible. Members of the public can make comments. When the reaction to the interim proposals is received, if the Commission is not satisfied that it has all the information or sufficient consensus on which to found a final decision it can have a local review and frequently does so.

It is only at that stage that the matter comes to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. Even then, another six weeks elapse for representations to be made. That is not wasted time. Many hon. Members have made such representations upon the final proposals of the Boundary Commission to my right hon. Friend. So far, the Local Government Commission has submitted 264 final reports on 224 non-metropolitan districts, eight metropolitan districts and 32 London boroughs. So far, orders have been made in 193 of the non-metropolitan districts, in one metropolitan district and in 31 out of the 32 London boroughs. It is the thirty-second that is causing the current problem. It is the subject of appeal and therefore, I cannot comment on it in detail. Suffice it to say that the Enfield case is crucial as to how the Commission carries out its work and what criteria it has to bear in mind. Therefore, it cannot—nor can my right hon. Friend—properly act on the basis of ignoring this decision. But it is hoped that the appeal will be heard in the latter part of July.

We have, at all stages, been anxious to hear the appeal and to have certainty established at the earliest opportunity. However, the law courts are under a heavy burden and it is not always possible to hasten cases. I hope that a clear and unambiguous decision will be arrived at from that appeal which will enable everyone to proceed with his task with some certainty.

The notice of a general review was given by the Parliamentary Boundary Commission in February 1976. So far, it has published its recommendations for new constituencies in six counties—Cleveland, Essex, Lancashire, Northumberland, Nottinghamshire and Somerset. There are two rounds of local inquiries provided for in that procedure. Local inquiries have been held in four of the six counties. That is evidence of the sensitivity of the proposals and the interest of the local public.

The draft Order in Council has to be laid before Parliament, with or without modification, and must be approved by the House. The important point is whether it is possible, without further distortion, to separate the largest and fastest growing constituencies from the general run of constituencies in order to give them speedier treatment. I have taken note of what has been said on this matter and I should like to study it. It would be devaluing the interesting contributions of hon. Gentlemen to the debate if I said now "No, we have a ready-made solution".

One of the factors undervalued in the debate is the question of the ripple effect—the separation of one large constituency and the idea that this could be pared down to a reasonable size. The argument for making two convenient whole parliamentary constituencies would be easy to understand, but frequently it makes only one and a half good constituencies, and there is then the problem of fitting in the other constituencies. We would have a general review but it would proceed from the bottom upwards. We would start from the nails in the horseshoe and work up. Those who argue from the bottom upwards would find that although local government would not be dictating the shape of parliamentary constituencies, one, six, nine or 10 constituencies would be shaping the destination of many other constituencies. One would find that one was building from the few to the many.

Although it is difficult to represent growing numbers of people, particularly quickly growing numbers of people, there is no substitute for a general review. I shall consider carefully how and whether those procedures can be speeded up, consonant with giving people the opportunity to have a full say at local level. I do not know whether there will be a general debate in future, but the Leader of the House will read this debate and there will be opportunities to discuss the particular and the general points long before we have to decide these matters. I hope that by then we shall have a more informed debate, because others will be able to read this debate.

The work of both Boundary Commissions is painstaking and meticulous. It is part of the quality of our democracy and it should continue to be so. I do not dissent from the fact that over-large constituencies should be reorganised as quickly as possible. However, I come back to the central point with which I started. Part of the quality of our democracy is that the Boundary Commissions themselves, outside the party political arena, should decide the issues having given the maximum, rather than the minimum, opportunity for public intervention.

Mr. John Ellis

The point has been made that we are in danger of not simply going past the forthcoming General Election but that if the matter goes on much longer there will be two elections before it is dealt with. Will my hon. Friend comment on this and undertake to deal with the question? It may be necessary for the Secretary of State to be in a position, when we next debate the matter, to make a statement on whether we may be in danger of having to go through two General Elections without reforming the boundaries.

Mr. Alan Clark

No one would deny that there would be a ripple effect, but when a constituency becomes so bloated and cumbersome as to impede the proper function of the representational process and the prospect of a general review remains remote, surely the ripple effect has to be accepted and confined as best it can be.

As to the question of wards, of course we all depend on the ward structure for the political awareness of those whom we represent and for their participation, whether hostile or friendly. But where there are population movements and extensions of areas on the sort of scale that we have been discussing in what might be called the emergency cases, some wards become extinct anyway and some areas do not even have a proper ward structure. This must be taken into account when we consider whether we get the parliamentary or the local government boundaries settled first.

Mr. John

I take that point, though it is rather stronger in relation to voluntary party organisations than on the ward structure for the individual voter who knows where to vote. We all have experience of the shifting of a polling booth to a new location confusing people and deterring them from voting. It may sound strange, but that does happen. A different location is often crucial.

I do not overvalue the ripple effect. I wanted to counteract what seemed to be a slight undervaluation of that effect. I am not sure that it is good enough to say that we would have to cope as well as we could. A number of the shot-gun marriages that would be needed to build up the one and a half seats into two seats could be bitterly resented by those who had such changes wished upon them.

My hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Scunthorpe asked whether the review would take place for the next General Election or the one after that. This is so intangible that neither I nor my right hon. Friend could give an answer. When we next debate the matter and we have some certainty in the House, we may be able to say rather more, but I have already fought as many elections as my predecessor had by the time he had been an hon. Member for 20 years. One can never guarantee the size of majorities or the frequency of elections.

I can promise my hon. Friend that the Parliamentary Boundary Commission is seized of the urgency of completing its consideration of these boundaries. It will proceed with all dispatch, consistent with giving people their say on how their future should be shaped. In the end, it is the people whose future is involved who have the best right to comment on the quality of the democracy they have.