Orders of the Day — Representation of the People Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 16 February 1948.

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Photo of Mr James Ede Mr James Ede , South Shields 12:00, 16 February 1948

No, Sir. There are several cases in the Boundary Commissioners' Report where what is regarded as a more historic name connected with a constituency is that by which the constituency is known.

There is no magic about the number of hon. Members of which this House should consist. It has varied considerably from time to time. Immediately before the Act of Union with Scotland, it appears to have been 513. The Act of Union gave Scotland 45 seats in 1707, and when in 1801 Ireland sent Members here, another 100 were added, making a total of 658. This remained the membership until 1885, although the distribution itself was varied. In 1885, the total was increased to 670, and in 1918 to 707, England and Wales having 528, Scotland 74 and Ireland 105. It was purely by accident that the figure of 615 was reached. Parliament had designed to have a House of 707, but the passing of the Government of Ireland Act reduced the Irish representation to 13 and the total to 615. Just before the last General Election 25 new seats were provided, which makes the total 640. The First Schedule to this Bill provides for 608 seats, of which England has been allocated 489, Scotland 71. Wales 36 and Northern Ireland 12.

The history of the Boundary Commission has been one of very devoted work to the task which we confided to them. The first Report was the subject of very severe criticism, and I am sorry the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Woodford (Mr. Churchill) has gone, because when I asked the House to agree to a revision of the first Report, he attacked me on the ground that this was an effort to gerrymander the constituencies with a view to preserving a constituency for the Prime Minister. I had no doubt, as I said at the time, that any revision of the figures of the constituencies on the lines desired by the House would not be beneficial to the party on this side of the House; in fact, this party would stand to gain by the exact mathematical division that was provided by the first report.

The second Report, which makes an endeavour to deal with constituencies as communities rather than as mere mathematical aggregations, has led to some anomalies that the first Report avoided. On general grounds it is to be commended to the House as an honest effort to carry out the instructions of the House. I ought to call attention to the eight large constituencies of more than 80,000 electors, which are to be found among the English constituencies. They are too big for one Member upon a mathematical basis, and too small for two. They undoubtedly give rise to an anomaly. I have no doubt that, in the course of our proceedings, we shall hear something about them and about other constituencies where the average rule appears to have been departed from.

The electors in the future will have one qualification only—that of residence in the constituency. That alteration leads to the abolition of the business premises vote and the university vote, to both of which I will allude later. Clause 1 also provides for two registers. On this matter there is a slight deviation from the recommendation of the Report of my hon. Friend the Member for Ilkeston. His Committee recommended that the qualifying date for what is known as the spring register should be 1st December, but it was found, upon conference with the printing trades, that that date was too near the date of publication, having regard to the Christmas holidays, for the work to be carried through in the time. Therefore, the qualifying date for England and Wales for this register will be 20th November.

I understand that it would have been impracticable to choose the same date for Scotland because one of the Scottish removal terms is on 28th November. Therefore, the date for qualification for the spring register will be 1st December in Scotland, as was recommended by the Committee. I understand that the Christmas holidays are not so much observed in Scotland as in England. I had thought, from rumours which had reached me, that the New Year made a very considerable interruption north of the Tweed, but I understand that the interruption is not so great as to make it necessary to vary that date.

We also provide for two registers for Northern Ireland. Generally speaking, throughout the Bill we assimilate the law, and practice of Great Britain and of Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland will be under the same obligations as Great Britain. For instance, there was a reservation in one of the reports of the committees to which I have alluded that there should be a period of residence in Northern Ireland before a person could be qualified to be enrolled on the register. We have decided that the law in Northern Ireland in that respect shall be the same as in this country.

Clause 2 deals with persons who may be temporarily absent from their homes on the qualifying date, and makes arrangements that they shall be registered for the address where they are usually to be found Clause 3 is consequential on the redistribution scheme now being carried through and enables the necessary modifications to be made in the Redistribution of Seats Act. Clause 4 re-enacts the law for England and Wales with regard to registration officers and areas. Clause 5 carries out the requirement that two registers shall be published, and it makes an arrangement which I know will be gratifying to Members on both sides that the compilation of the register shall proceed by canvass, as was the case prior to the war. That return to former practice will, I am certain, be generally welcomed. I would point out, however, that the canvass will have to relate to residence on a particular day and that there is no qualifying period before that day which has to be taken into account.

Clause 6 deals with Service declarations and re-enacts the existing law. We have considered the question of other persons not resident in the United Kingdom, and we have decided not to accept the recommendation of the Committee presided over by my hon. Friend that members of the Control Commission should be included among persons to be registered for voting overseas. Neither have we extended registration to other ranges of persons overseas. We think that the register should deal with persons who reside in this country. The only exception that we propose is in the case of the Services.

Clause 7 re-enacts the existing law with regard to polling districts and polling places, subject to minor recommendations that were made by the Carr Committee, and to one alteration to which we attach very considerable importance. In county constituencies it is not infrequent to find that polling districts are very large and that polling places are a very long way from numbers of the electors. We therefore provide in Subsection (2, b) that every rural parish shall, in the absence of special circumstances, be a separate polling district. That does not prevent a populous rural parish being divided into more than one polling district or from having more than one polling place. That amendment has long been required.

Clauses 8 and 9 provide for voting by post for all now entitled, and, in addition, for all Parliamentary candidates, their wives or husbands, policemen, polling officers and others prevented by official duties in connection with the election. In a future general election there will be no postal vote for members of the Armed Forces serving overseas. The only way in which it could be done with efficiency would be to have, as there was on the last occasion, a considerable period between the date of the poll and the date of the declaration of the poll. Most hon. Members found a happy issue out of the long period of waiting, but I suggest that it is not a desirable thing to have in ordinary circumstances. When there are numbers of men and women abroad, as there were on the last occasion, it was obviously a necessity, but in future the number of electors abroad will be fewer. Even for Forces abroad, there will be probably a less proportion of people entitled to vote, as a higher proportion of the Services people overseas will be under 21 years of age. The next Clause—