Parliamentary Constituencies (England) (Amendment) Order 2009

My Lords, before expressing a view on this amendment, perhaps I may take the opportunity to set out the legislative background to the order. Section 2(1) of the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986 established, among other things, the Boundary Commission for England. Under Section 3(3) of the Act, the commission may submit to the Secretary of State a report recommending the way in which any particular area should be divided into constituencies. The boundaries of the current parliamentary constituencies in England are set out in the Parliamentary Constituencies (England) Order 2007, and these constituencies conform to the pattern of district and borough council areas as established on 12 April 2005. However, as your Lordships know, since that date a number of changes to the local government wards have been recommended by the commission and subsequently implemented by order. As a consequence, the boundaries of a number of parliamentary constituencies no longer align with the relevant changed areas. Two of those local government changes occurred in the district of South Northamptonshire and the district of Mendip in Somerset. For reasons that are unclear to me, the commission decided that in the case of those two areas, but not in the remainder of those altered since 12 April 2005, realignment should be made to the affected parliamentary constituencies, which are Daventry, South Northamptonshire, Somerton and Frome and Wells. Accordingly, the commission conducted a statutory review under Section 3(3) of the 1986 Act. The commission published its provisional recommendations in July 2007, inviting representations. As there were a number of objections to the recommendations, the commission held public inquiries in both areas, thereafter producing revised proposals in each case. Despite further written objections to those proposals, the commission decided to make no further adjustments and reported to the Secretary of State on 25 July 2008. The draft order before us implements, without any modification, the Boundary Commission report. I should say at the outset that we have no intention of supporting the Liberal Democrat amendment, or, indeed, of challenging the order. Parliament, although it has the constitutional right to do so, as the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, pointed out, should, in our view, be very slow, for obvious reasons, to challenge decisions about the composition of individual parliamentary constituencies. However, the decisions that the order implements raise three issues on which we suggest that clarification would be helpful for the future. First, there is no statutory duty on the commission to realign parliamentary boundaries following alterations to local government ward boundaries. Nevertheless, the commission has always so acted as a matter of policy and practice. Here, if I understand the situation correctly, the commission appears to have altered the boundaries of four constituencies affected by ward boundary changes since 12 April, 2005, but to have ignored the remainder in the same class. If I am correct about the facts, perhaps the Minister would be kind enough to explain why that was so. Secondly, following the public inquiry in Somerset, so the debate in another place suggests, the inspectors’ revised proposals contained a solution that was never, it is said, raised or discussed at that inquiry. The revised proposals—again, so it is said—are those that appear in the order. If that version of events is correct, would it not be preferable to alter the inquiry rules so that, in future, a public inquiry can be reconvened so as to furnish objectors with the opportunity to test such a solution, which would otherwise remain unexamined? Finally, there will plainly be occasions when the Boundary Commission’s policy to realign parliamentary constituencies following ward boundary changes will conflict with its statutory obligation contained in the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986 to take into account local ties that would be broken by an alteration to a parliamentary boundary. It would be desirable if some help could be given to inspectors in the form of guidance to assist them in determining the appropriate approach to balance those potentially clashing considerations.