The point about Sir Fitzroy Maclean was that wherever he went in the constituency, he was instantly recognised. I well remember him coming to our primary school on a number of occasions. I do not know how many surgeries he held in those days, if that was the fashion, but he was a man who was deeply embedded in his constituency. He was a champion for everyone who lived in that constituency. After a minor boundary change, he was followed by John Corrie, again a Conservative Member of Parliament—a very vigorous Back Bencher, most notably remembered, I think, for his attempts to row back the abortion legislation. He was an indefatigable champion for that constituency, and my God did he have a difficult job, because during the time he was representing that constituency in the late 1970s, industry was decimated with the closure of the ICI factory in Stevenston which had hitherto employed 10,000 people across three or four towns. It was the absolute bedrock, but it was swept away. The shipyards were closed. All of the industrial heartland of that part of the west of Scotland, which has still not recovered, was swept away, and he did his best to represent that constituency. Of course, it was no surprise when he lost his seat and was replaced by Brian Wilson in 1987.
What Sir Fitzroy Maclean, John Corrie and Brian Wilson, first in opposition and then as government Ministers, all had in common—and we have been so fortunate in that constituency over the years—was that they were dedicated champions of the people of that constituency. People felt that they could go to them irrespective of their politics and that they would get a hearing. More than that, something would be done about their plight. The current MP, Katy Clark, is following in that fine tradition.
If you ask people in Scotland to pick an adjective to describe the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, they will overwhelmingly say that he is a very decent man. So I would appeal to the Government’s sense of decency here. We simply cannot sweep away without any objective justification or rationale the important link that constituents have with their MP. I am looking at it from the constituent’s end of the telescope, not from the MP’s end of the telescope.
Why was it that Fitzroy Maclean, John Corrie, Brian Wilson and now Katy Clark could conduct themselves so effectively as great MPs for the area? I think it was because the area of the constituency is entirely manageable. They can get around to all the important people in the constituency—and by ““important people”” I do not mean VIPs, I mean ordinary people. They can get around all the clubs, the community groups and all of the things that are really important where people want to see their MP. They want to connect with their MP and put their case. They want to be there in surgeries. How on earth are they going to enable the really important constitutional and traditional link which we have in this country and which we take for granted at our peril? How are we possibly going to maintain that link if we have constituencies where MPs simply cannot do the job that historically and traditionally people have expected them to do? There is no point shaking your head about that. It is really important.
Sometimes when those of us who are involved in the middle of politics think about this, we think about it from our own perspective, but I want to talk about this from a constituent’s perspective. I want the very best service possible for constituents, and I urge the Government to think really hard. I plead with the noble and learned Lord to give us in his answer some sense of how we are to explain this to people. I find it impossible to explain to people why this arbitrary figure comes out. In his answer, will the noble and learned Lord please give us an objective, sensible rationale for sweeping away what I think is the most important link—the ability of constituents to access their representative and the ability of elected representatives to do the very best job possible for their constituents?
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
Proceeding contribution from
Baroness Ford
(Labour)
in the House of Lords on Monday, 17 January 2011.
It occurred during Committee of the Whole House (HL)
and
Debate on bills on Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill.
Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
724 c245-6 
Session
2010-12
Chamber / Committee
House of Lords chamber
Subjects
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Timestamp
2023-12-15 14:21:19 +0000
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