Constituency Boundaries (Islands)

Today, we see an alliance of islanders—an alliance that was perhaps created by the Daily Mail. During the election campaign, the newspaper sent one of its reporters, Mr Robert Hardman—perhaps all the reporters from the Daily Mail are hard men—to both Na h-Eileanan an Iar and the Isle of Wight. Whether his aim was to create some mischief, I do not know—far be it from me to cast aspersions on such an august publication as the Daily Mail—but we were chosen because I represented the smallest constituency in terms of the number of voters, and the Isle of Wight is, of course, the constituency with largest number of voters. The Daily Mail succeeded in uniting us in a common cause. The largest and the smallest numerical constituencies in the UK are of one mind: their islands are indeed special. The hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Turner) spoke eloquently and forcefully for his constituency. I will confine my remarks to my constituency, other than to point out to the Minister that it is odd for a democracy to be looking to cut the elected element of Parliament while almost daily—certainly monthly—we have news of further appointments to the unelected portion of Parliament. Does that mean that, when the Government leave office, the percentage of Parliament elected by democratic means will be far smaller than when they entered office? Quite how that makes the UK look internationally, other than like a laughing stock, I am not certain. Quite how the Government feel about that, other than queasy, I shall not speculate. My constituency is the length of Wales. The Prime Minister might want to give me a territory the size of the Yukon, but that would not serve voters well at all. Areas, of course, need coverage. When a population grows in an area, a constituency with a maximum headage is usually created, obviously with some sensible anomalies, such as the Isle of Wight. That is to ensure an equality of treatment so that all voters have the same kind of representation and access to their MP as voters have in a more urban and populated setting. I speak particularly from my own perspective in Na h-Eileanan an Iar. To give the Minister a small example, last Friday I conducted what I consider to be a small surgery on part of one the islands in my constituency, on the west side of Lewis—actually, we went down to Harris for part of it. We had an ordinary day. We covered 279 miles that Friday—a distance just a little longer than that between Glasgow and Liverpool. That is what I have to do to serve people in a remote island rural setting. I mention that just to give an idea of what has perhaps not been considered when people look on a purely numerical headage basis. I think that it is right that people in rural areas have the same services and access as those in an urban setting. In the islands, we are used to a poor broadband service—British Telecom has a number of exchanges in the area that it has not upgraded yet, although I hope that it will—and I would hate to see democracy and people’s expectations of democracy reach the same standards. In a democracy, everybody requires equality of treatment, representation and access to their MPs. Finally, I wish to make a more political and perhaps more constitutional point. The Union is supposed to be a union between two nations; it does not mean having a 50:50 split of MPs between Scotland and England, as the Minister is no doubt aware. Obviously, as a Scottish National party Member, I would like there to be no MPs at Westminster who represent Scottish constituencies, but we live with the present situation and the way in which the cards have been dealt. In the meantime, I cannot allow what is proposed to proceed without protest and without making common cause with the Isle of Wight in the far south of England and alerting the Government to the dangers of exactly what the Prime Minister and his Liberal Democrat friends might do if they cut the representation of the highlands and islands. I am sure that the Government will not do that. They will reflect, particularly on the strong arguments made by the hon. Member for Isle of Wight, and act with thought and consideration. They will make sure that Scotland does not lose any more MPs, because that would be a retrograde step for people in the highlands and islands and, as the hon. Gentleman pointed out earlier, it would be almost impossible to represent the Western Isles and Skye. We hope that such a mistake is not made, that the Minister will listen and that the right decision is reached. In the meantime, until the day of independence, I shall continue to make common cause with the hon. Member for Isle of Wight.