Parliamentary Constituencies (England) (Amendment) Order 2009

My Lords, in moving the amendment I can, as the Minister indicated, be as brief as possible because there has been a full discussion both in your Lordships’ House and in the other place. Three major issues are at stake. First, I want to make it clear to your Lordships that this is not an attack on the integrity or independence of the Boundary Commission. Like others, I have appeared at a Boundary Commission inquiry and have been impressed by the process. However, in the exceptional circumstances of the process by which the commission decided to recommend changes to the boundaries in the two Somerset constituencies referred to in the order, the commission has misdirected itself. Significantly, I am joined in that view by both Members of Parliament whose constituencies are affected, who both argued forcefully to that effect last week. First, the commission misdirected itself on the need for a further interim review just because the second-tier authority, the district authority, had changed its ward boundaries. This is not required by Parliament, by the 1986 Act or by any other statute, and it has not been a deciding factor everywhere else in England. Instead, the commission decided to take more notice of its own rule, which it had invented, than of the local ties that Parliament had asked it to make its major consideration. The Conservative Member of Parliament for Wells argued this point so convincingly last week that I am sure his colleagues in this House will wish to support the amendment on those grounds alone. The misdirection also failed to take account of important links between villages and their local town. Any Members of your Lordships’ House who are aware of those important links, historic and social, will, I am sure, understand that the failure to do so was important. The commission also failed to take account of substantial objections to its revised proposals, even from Mendip District Council, whose ward changes were alleged to be the rationale for reopening the issue. Secondly, there is no party-political motive in challenging the process by which this draft order comes before us. There is no suggestion of any electoral advantage either to the Conservatives, who hold Wells, or to the Liberal Democrats, who hold Somerton and Frome—hence the total agreement of those two senior Members of Parliament, the right honourable David Heathcoat-Amory and David Heath, in the committee last week. Mr Heathcoat-Amory summed it up as follows: ""It is beyond doubt that in 2007 those of us in Somerset were told that the parliamentary boundaries had been fixed for the next election. Indeed, they were approved by order".—[Official Report, Commons, Second Delegated Legislation Committee, 9/3/09; col. 10.]" The issue is simply that the commission has very unusually—exceptionally—failed to take account of Parliament’s instruction and has instead given precedence to a rule of its own in relation to district council ward boundaries. Thirdly, we are faced with an insidious argument from Ministers that we should not question this order. Indeed, in the committee in the other place, the Minister went so far as to suggest that any challenge should be by judicial review. Imagine asking the inhabitants of small villages in Somerset to go to the expense of judicial review when we, in the high court of Parliament, are given a specific duty to scrutinise these orders. Why do noble Lords suppose that Parliament has laid down that this process should take place here? Were we expected to act like the proverbial rubber stamp? There might be a case for MPs to avoid taking the final decision on matters that could be considered to be of electoral significance in their own constituencies. However, in your Lordships’ House there is no reason to have such qualms. We have a firm, principled and statutory duty to say so when we think that the process has gone wrong. I beg to move.