Clause I. — (Constituencies and electors.)

Part of Orders of the Day — Representation of the People Bill – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 16 March 1948.

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Photo of Mr John Parker Mr John Parker , Dagenham 12:00, 16 March 1948

It is a fact that they have to pay a sum of money for the purpose, but it was only in about 1930 that the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge changed over from the system of "contracting in" to "contracting out," which is the present system there. Even then, we are a very long way from having all the graduates actually registered for votes in those universities.

I take the view, and there is evidence in support of it, that if we were to give graduates the opportunity of voting either for the university seats or for their residential seats, most of them would prefer to vote where they lived rather than in the university, which is a much more artificial organisation for representation. If we were to try to give any kind of equality to votes, even on the present number of people voting, we would be able to give only about two seats to the universities as a whole. I am certain that there would be a much smaller registration for votes for university seats if the graduates had to choose where they wished to vote. There might not be enough electors to return even one Member. It is absurd to make any such suggestion.

I conclude by saying that the case for university Members has not been proved. The suggested possible compromise of people being able to vote either for university or residential seats would not work, because I do not think there would be a sufficient number of people registered to make it worth while, even grouping all the university graduates together in one seat. I hope that the Government will stick by their proposal, "One man, one vote," and abolish university seats.