Clause 10 - Establishment of combined region
European Parliament (Representation) Bill
11:00 am
Ms Yvette Cooper (Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department; Pontefract and Castleford, Labour)
Many of the same arguments apply to the amendment as to the earlier groups of amendments that we discussed, and the same issues apply to Gibraltar as to making a decision about the number of MEPs.
First, nothing in the Bill prevents the Electoral Commission from consulting the boundary committees and commissions should it so choose. Secondly and perhaps more importantly, it is not clear what relevance the considerations of the boundary commissions or committees will have in the choice of which region Gibraltar should be included with. The boundary commissions for each country of the UK make decisions only about Westminster parliamentary boundaries and that has no relation to parliamentary regional boundaries, so it is not clear how their considerations would apply to the decision on which region Gibraltar should be combined with. The boundary committees will not consider anything that is likely to have an impact on the boundaries of the regions and, therefore, on which region Gibraltar should be part of during the next couple of years. As I set out in the earlier discussion, recommendations to change county boundaries can be made only if there is express instruction from the Secretary of State. There is no such instruction to recommend changes to those county boundaries so that is not under consideration and it is not likely to change before the 2004 elections.