Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

In the rhetoric that he used in introducing the Bill, the Deputy Prime Minister said that it would put the people in charge. I can accept that to some extent the referendum on the alternative vote does put the people in charge by giving them a chance to decide on their voting system, although I would much prefer a referendum on proportional representation, which genuinely puts the voter in charge. I am particularly concerned about the second part of the Bill, because I do not believe that equal registers equate to equal constituencies. On 5 July, I asked the Deputy Prime Minister whether he would draw on the census that is to be held in 2011 in order to improve registration and accuracy in local constituencies; he said no. Members who have been in the House for some time will know that I am not necessarily the biggest fan of the Office for National Statistics. Thames Water estimates, based on the sewage output of Slough, that there are 21,000 more people in the town that I represent than the ONS believes on the basis of its interim assessment of population. Nevertheless, it is completely clear that we have fewer people registered than are entitled to vote. I asked an electoral registration officer why they did not use more frequently the legal power to prosecute non-registered voters. She described taking 17 cases through a very lengthy and expensive process whereby they were presented to lawyers who took two of them to court, and those involved ended up with fines of £10 and £200 respectively. So I am not surprised that we do not see more active prosecutions. Nor am I surprised that there is not more work on improving registers, given that one of the actions of the interim Budget was to cut the extra resourcing for local authority registration officers and press hugely on local authority budgets. There is a need for a clearer hierarchy of issues in respect of deciding on constituencies. Obviously, equality should be one of the top ones, but it is not the only one. At the last boundary revision, my constituency was increased; I now represent the largest constituency in the whole county of Berkshire. I apologise to the hon. Member for Windsor (Adam Afriyie), who is sitting opposite, because I am going to refer to his constituency without having told him in advance. I accepted the change, which moved 5,000 people from his constituency, whose population is well below the county average, into mine, which has about 12,000 people above the county average. That is what the people wanted. They were in the borough of Slough and were policed in Slough. They used to come to me continually, but I would say, ““I cannot represent you, because you do not live in my constituency,”” but they would say, ““I don't want to be represented by him! I live in Slough!”” There needs to be respect for people's feelings about their neighbourhoods, boundaries and constituencies. These people did not want to be represented by someone who did not have the active relationship that I had with their local police commander and local authority. Let me say that the ward does not send Labour councillors to the borough; it elects Liberals, so no particular borough advantage was involved. However, the change respected the views of people about their communities. The real problem with the latter part of the Bill is that it does not do that. It specifically says that unitary authority boundaries—and all the authorities in Berkshire are unitary authorities—shall not be counted as local authority boundaries, so they are absolutely irrelevant. It also says that inconvenience to voters that comes out of the first boundary review shall be discounted by the Boundary Commission. In fact, the boundary changes are for the convenience of the Government. The urgency is on numbers and getting everything settled 18 months before the next general election. Let us be clear: the constituencies of every Member in the House, apart from those with protected constituencies, are likely to be thrown into the air and dropped down in some completely unpredictable way, without any respect for people's lives and constituencies. We will all have to form new relationships with new voters. Under the Bill as it is structured, it would be just as right for there to be two Slough and Windsor constituencies rather than one for Slough and one for Windsor. That disrespects the voter, and I object to the Bill because of that disrespect for the voter.