Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

My Lords, I have now recovered my composure after the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, criticised my service as a Minister. I have done so with the support of some informed comments from my noble friends Lady Corston and Lord Howarth of Newport. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, although he has reminded me of the ““Scillonian””, on which my wife, family and I used regularly to travel to the Isles of Scilly on holiday. My wife will no longer go on the ““Scillonian””. It is a boat with a very shallow draft, which makes for a wobbly crossing, to put it mildly. She now insists on us flying, although my son and I would prefer to go by boat. I do not know whether we will be going next year because this year when we were on holiday in Tresco she was attacked by a lady in an electric golf cart—on an island that should not have any motorised transport at all other than that owned by the ruling family of Tresco. The people of Cornwall will be listening carefully to this debate. They will have heard the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, speaking on behalf of the Conservative and Liberal Democrat Government. Indeed, the noble and learned Lord was kind enough to his own colleagues on the Liberal Democrat Benches in the other place to list them by name, although I noticed that he had to look at his notes to remember the names of the three Liberal Democrat Members of Parliament for Cornwall. The people of Cornwall will have heard him say, ““I’ve listened to your representations but I’m ignoring them. They simply don’t carry weight. Our rigid adherence to an arithmetic formula will disregard any issues around local community, local culture and local identity””. I found that to be a matter of deep regret. It is also a matter of deep regret that there was not a single contribution from the Conservative Benches, even though three of the seats in Cornwall are held by Conservative Members of Parliament. When this issue was debated in the other place, Cornish MPs were somnolent. They barely participated and did not vote against the proposal that Cornwall should not be treated separately and given appropriate recognition for its culture. The noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Goss Moor, made an interesting observation. I do not stand here to make the case for my amendment and to listen only to my own voice; I listen to the contributions of other noble Lords on this amendment and others. A recurrent feature is the 5 per cent tolerance figure in the Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, got his maths wrong. It is not 10 per cent on 95 per cent; in fact, it is about 11 per cent on 95 per cent. However, as he got his numbers wrong on other matters, we can put that to one side. The noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Goss Moor, is a welcome addition to the House and he made an interesting point about the mathematics. That leads one to say that Cornwall at the moment appears to be eligible for five and a half seats in the other place. We have heard arguments about whether Cornwall should have five or six seats. Perhaps my amendment is deficient in specifying six, because I readily acknowledge that many of the people in Cornwall who express an opinion on this—I fully appreciate that the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, asked how we would test this and prove it to a high degree of competence—say that they would rather have seats that fell within the boundaries of Cornwall even if that meant having fewer seats. The tolerance level at 5 per cent narrows the opportunity for qualitative judgment on this matter. I would be inclined to continue to support the view that Cornwall should have six seats. I do that because of its great geographical isolation and the enormous distances that our Members of Parliament have to travel to return to their constituencies. It is possible that I am alone in seeing this, but it seems that the closer you are to Parliament, the less your constituents want to see you on a regular basis. If you are a Member of Parliament for Cornwall, your constituents expect to see you every weekend. They expect to see you all the time that Parliament is not sitting. That is a factor that we should take into account. It has been argued in respect of Scottish constituencies and the argument applies similarly to Cornwall. The balance of arguments seems to support the conclusion that we should have six Cornish constituencies in the other place rather than five, but I acknowledge that, if I were given the choice, I would personally be in favour of having only five constituencies if they remained within an intact Cornwall rather than straying into the foreign territory of Devon. From my own Front Bench, my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer referred to a tour around Britain on subjects of geography, culture, regionalism and local identity, but he said: "““I sense that the House wants to do something about Cornwall””." I also get that sense. In that respect, I draw considerable encouragement from the remarks made earlier by the Leader of the House, the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, because Cornwall is special. Cornwall is a special community with special needs. Mr David Penhaligon recognised that. Others who have represented Cornwall with a passion also recognise that. The noble Lord, Lord Taylor, to whom I referred earlier, was not in his place during part of my noble and learned friend’s concluding remarks on the amendment but I believe that the people of Cornwall will look carefully at Hansard tomorrow to see what their two previous Members of Parliament who now sit in this place have said in this debate. Looking through the Delphic language and the comments about arithmetic and national issues, they will not fail to spot that neither the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, nor the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, spoke unequivocally in favour of Cornwall retaining constituencies within its own national boundaries.