New Clause 1 - Electorate per constituency

Part of Parliamentary Constituencies Bill – in the House of Commons at 3:45 pm on 14 July 2020.

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Photo of David Linden David Linden Shadow SNP Spokesperson (Housing, Communities and Local Government) 3:45, 14 July 2020

I would make two points on that. First, the primary purpose of this Bill is, I suspect, to reverse the mess made by the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011, which sought to reduce the number of seats in this House from 650 to 600. That is the whole point behind clause 5, which I am sure the hon. Gentleman has read assiduously. Secondly, if Members want to talk about fairness in the voting system, we should start by looking at the broken first-past-the-post electoral system, where we have Members who have majorities of nearly 40,000. So if the hon. Gentleman wants to talk to me about equal voting, we can absolutely do that, but we must not ignore the elephant in the room that is the broken first-past-the-post system.

One thing that is even more illogical about this is the fact that legislation once made in Brussels is soon coming back to Westminster as a result of our exit from the European Union. Scotland, which used to have six Members of the European Parliament, has lost that representation, and it is now expected to lose further representation in this place when legislative powers return from Europe. That is wrong; even Unionist Members in this House must recognise that.

So when the Division bell rings tonight and hon. Members decide how to cast their vote on new clause 2, they must ask themselves if they still believe that Scotland should lead the United Kingdom, as we were told in 2014, or was that in fact just hollow words in the heat of a referendum campaign to pull the wool over the eyes of the people of Scotland? Voting to affirm reduced or diminished representation for the devolved nations in this place is an unforgivable act, which will only seek to reinforce the view that Westminster does not care what the devolved nations think and we might just be better with independence after all.