Clive Efford
MP for Eltham and Chislehurst · Labour · United Kingdom
“Thank you for allowing me to take part in this statement, Madam Deputy Speaker, given that I was not here at the beginning—I was carrying out my duties elsewhere in the House. I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement. What is she likely to do in my part of south-east London for technical and vocational places?”
“I rise to speak to amendment 97 in my name, which would remove clause 10 from the Bill. Clause 10 gives powers to the Secretary of State to vary the proportion of public and private provision of health services if they consider that to do so is in the interests of the health service.”
“Labour’s 2024 plan to make work pay set out a welcome desire to bring more essential services back into public control—something that is welcomed by health workers across the country, because so far the “biggest wave of insourcing in a generation”, as was promised, has felt more like a trickle when it comes to the NHS.”
“The explanatory notes for the Bill say that this new flexibility is necessary “where there may otherwise be a breakdown in provision of a health service.” Can we imagine a situation where the Secretary of State has concerns about a health service and that an approach to assist a local provider would be rebuffed?”
“There are ample powers to enable the Secretary of State to intervene and resolve breakdowns in the provision of a health service. On clause 10, we must balance what it adds in those situations against its potential misuse by an ideologically driven Government that are determined to privatise our NHS.”
“It was a pleasure to join my right hon. Friend at Greenwich council’s development of 435 council properties in my constituency for the launch of the social and affordable housing programme. Some 70,000 homes are planned, and that is welcome and overdue.”
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“We have seen a 69% increase in the number of black people stopped and searched over the past five years. At the same time, there has been a 69% decrease in the number of white people stopped and searched. Is it correct that the use of racial profiling to stop and search people is a waste of resources? If that is true, why the delay?”
“That shift moved against the Labour party in what have been called the red wall seats. Some common experience within those communities caused a large body of people to come to a collective view. Place and common experience are important factors in the way people form views about how they want to be represented. To undermine the connection between place and the most common experiences of the community hits at the root of the democratic process.”
“I mean, the origin of politics is the marketplace—the agora—where the popular view would prevail. That is really where the roots of democracy lie. What happens in that marketplace—in that common place within a community—is that people discuss and debate matters, and express views about their common experiences. And eventually, they come to a collective view. To look at what happened at the last election, in many communities up and down the country, people were sick and tired of being left behind and felt that their communities were forever in decline while others were benefitting from being part of the European Union, the globalisation of the economy or whatever it was. Collectively, they came to the same conclusion and there was a seismic shift within those communities.”
“That came out loud and clear, even from those who were more sympathetic to the argument that place is important in people’s minds in how they vote. My fear grew as I listened to the evidence that if we hand this process over to bureaucrats or academics, in the absence of understanding of that relationship between MPs and the communities they represent, and of the affinity that MPs develop with those communities, we will end up with a mathematical exercise. We have set the parameters at 5% and basically we just draw rings around the population across the country 650 times, and then we will satisfy the criteria. And by the way, within that, we will do a bit of manipulation to try to meet some community needs. For me, that hits fundamentally at the heart of what the democratic process is all about.”
“I apologise, Mr Paisley, for missing part of the debate, but I was in the main Chamber for business questions and came here as soon as I could. I sympathise with the idea that we should set the parameters for this process, and then remove the politics from it and allow a clean process to come to its conclusion. That is a very attractive proposal and it is easy to see the strength of that argument, on the surface. However, when we listened to the evidence from the experts, one of the things that came across absolutely clearly —I should say that I am speaking in favour of the amendment—was that they do not understand the role of parliamentarians and they do not understand the relationship that parliamentarians have with their constituencies.”
“If I was going around saying, “Well, it doesn’t really matter. Draw the line at the High Street. It’s all fine,” it would not be fine. The hon. Member for Heywood and Middleton has rightly pointed out that we represent many communities. My constituency could be called Eltham, Plumstead South, Shooter’s Hill, Charlton South and Kidbrooke. Many different communities and villages have come together in the conglomeration of the suburb of south London. People do identify with those areas. I could even add Eltham Heights and New Eltham; I could name every street.”
“We cannot just go to a boundary commission and say, as one former Member of Parliament for my constituency said once, although not to the commission itself, that it would be fine to draw a line down the middle of Eltham High Street. The constituency goes into Bromley on the south and Greenwich on the north. People in my community were up in arms that our community should be divided between two constituencies in that way and that the integral centre of our community—the High Street—should be divided. People value place. They feel that it is important that representation bears some resemblance to place and takes into account the entirety of the community, and its common characteristics. That is an important process. If I were to advocate such a split, at the election I would not expect many people who valued the area to vote for me.”
“That was dismissed in the evidence we had from the experts. They did not value or feel that we value the views of our constituents. Actually, that is how we get re-elected. If we ignore our constituents, we will find ourselves unemployed very quickly. We have to show, as much as we humanly can, that we are listening and sympathetic, or empathetic, to the views of the people we seek to represent, and that we will take those views and seek to get answers. Even if we cannot get the answers that they want, we will get them a decent answer to the questions they are posing. That accountability of MPs to their communities is important. In this process, we are accountable too.”
“Yes, there has to be, within this process, some degree of equalisation as to the weight of people’s votes and we have to try to achieve that as much as possible. I am arguing that, within that, we have to respect the importance of place, location and community in the democratic process. If we start to pick those apart just to meet a numerical requirement, we will diminish and undermine the ability of those people to seek representation that makes their views known collectively—how they feel about their area and their collective experience—through a democratic process. It is important that we understand them. Why I feel that this is important comes back to us. I will move on to that point further this afternoon, but it is about how accountable we are, for what we do, to our communities.”
“I do want to continue, Mr Paisley, but should I pause there?”
“In response to the hon. Lady, yes, I do agree. We do have that opportunity. But we must also ensure that when those final decisions are published— following the rules that we have set in train to review parliamentary boundaries—that comes back before us, so that we can ensure that the views of our communities are expressed and the rules we have set have been followed. That is the right of Parliament. We are accountable to the people who elect us. The people who decide the boundaries must be accountable, ultimately, to Parliament. If we start to undermine that process, we will go down a slippery slope. That does not mean each individual MP will get their own way, but it does mean we must hold people to account for the processes that we set in train. That process must come back before Parliament.”
“The day when we just abdicate that responsibility is a dark one for our democracy.”
“Lo and behold, because that proposal was very close to the boundary commission’s original proposals, the boundary commission flipped right back and we had a major upheaval in my part of south-east London. The commission did not listen at all to the arguments that had been made locally and had prevailed in two successive reviews of the boundaries until that point. That is why we need to have a final overview. We cannot just abdicate responsibility for the process and leave our constituents without a voice. No matter how many people are cynical about it, we are accountable for what we say in this process. It is quite right that we, as the elected representatives of those people, should have some oversight of the final outcome, and that the commissioners should be accountable to Parliament for what they have done.”
“The problem was that the boundary commission started its deliberations in south-east London by saying, “The numbers in Bromley borough come to exactly three constituencies that can be coterminous with that borough.” That was their starting point, and the rest of south-east London had to fall into line. That was a huge problem, and during the first review, local arguments managed to convince the boundary commission to change its mind. The second time around, the same arguments were applied and the boundary commission came out with a set of proposals. Those went out for a second round of consultation, and then somebody who had nothing to do with all the local arguments and comments came up with a mathematical equation. They did the whole of south-east London on three pages of A4.”
“It was a figure that was plucked out of the air and thrown into manifestos, and we were then lumbered with it. Of course, the Whips then came into play, and we ended up with legislation to reduce the House of Commons to 600 MPs and had to go through that process. Once MPs had looked into the abyss and saw what it all meant, Parliament came to its senses very quickly. I never supported that proposal, but when the first boundary review was released—we had two—I came out all right. I would have had quite a safe seat, with that review only adding a bit to my existing constituency, but I still opposed the proposed changes in principle. The second review did not go so well.”
“When we were going through the process of reducing the number of MPs, a lot of people were opposed to that proposal. Let us be clear: it came after a period when MPs had been vilified because of expenses, and two very young, new leaders of their parties decided to jump on to that bandwagon and start kicking MPs. “We are too expensive. There are too many of us. Let’s cut the cost of politics. Let’s cut the number of MPs.” It was an act of populism, and a very successful one, with those leaders trying to capture a political mood because they wanted to remove the Government of the time. What came out of that was a proposal to go down to 600 MPs that had no basis in any science, or any review that had taken place; it had no basis in anything apart from the whim of these two young, ambitious politicians.”
“What ended up happening was that one of the wards, which had roughly 10,500 residents, was given 12 properties that were on the other side of the south circular and the other side of a large green in order to come within that tight number set by the commissioner—a limit of 3% or 5% that he had set himself, not the limit within the rules, which was 10% plus or minus. These 12 houses, which had no connection at all to the rest of the ward apart from being in the same borough, were forced to be part of that ward. That is the sort of decision that requires people to come back and say, “Wait a minute, what is going on here?” We need to have some oversight of decisions such as those, which is a good reason why we should not just set this in train without being able to oversee the conclusions that the officials and academics have drawn up.”
“Thank you, Sir David, for calling me again to continue my contribution. I was saying that it is very important for us to have accountability in this process, and some oversight to make sure the rules have been followed. I will give an example, which does not come from a parliamentary boundary review but from a local government boundary review that happened in my borough. The commissioner took it upon himself to make every ward come within a very tight percentage plus or minus. There were no requirements within the rules for that; it was a self-imposed ordinance that he decided he was going to follow rigidly, despite local protests.”
“Even if the outcome is not the boundaries that the public support, at least they will have had the right to have their voices heard in a way that is convenient and in a location that enables them to participate. Putting restrictions on the boundary commission is a step in the wrong direction. I fundamentally disagree with the bit in subsection (12). On a boundary review that is well overdue and is going to be difficult, the Government have set a tougher timescale. The game is up. This really does expose the political considerations. This is all about the timing and choice of a general election date from 2023 onwards. It has nothing whatever to do with doing an efficient job in reviewing parliamentary boundaries.”
“I am not arguing about the fact that these changes have to be made and that we have to achieve some sort of equilibrium, which at the same time recognises communities, but it will be a difficult exercise that the Government are making even more difficult because of the timescale they are setting. Saying that the second stage of the review will have only six weeks and the final stage only four does not seem to be consistent with the idea that we set parameters and let the boundary commission get on with its job. All of a sudden we are starting to put difficulties in its way. I would support the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Glasgow East if it were put to a vote. It is important that we give flexibility to the boundary commission so that the public have confidence in what the commission is doing and that their views can be heard.”
“The Bill sets a rigid timetable, which is acceptable, but subsection (12) says that we will have only six weeks for the second stage and four weeks for the third, because we have a rushed timetable. In the evidence, we were told time and again that this will be a major upheaval because the boundaries are 20 years out of date. Rather than truncating the consultation period in the coming boundary review, we should at least stick to the length of time we are setting for subsequent boundary reviews. Apparently we are not doing that and we can rush at this one, like a bull at a gate. This is a substantial review that will bring about major changes because of the age of the boundaries we have, which is quite right.”
“I am sorry that I did not call you “Sir David” earlier. I was not trying to de-noble you and I apologise. I support the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Glasgow East. We are in a curious situation with this clause. On the one hand, the Government are saying, “Step back, set the parameters and let the boundary commission get on with it,” but when we get to this clause they become prescriptive. The clause limits the scope of the boundary commission to consult and to set up consultations with an area in a way that meets the reaction they are getting from a local community. It says that there can only be five consultations in an area. That does not seem to me to be stepping back, allowing the boundary commission to get on with its job, and reacting according to representations from the community.”
“It is clear that going down to 600 MPs was a schism imposed on us by two ambitious young politicians who got together in a rose garden and completely fell in love. It was the wrong decision, and when Parliament got the chance to take a second look, it came to a conclusion that both sides of the House support. With the situation we are in, which we have been in for a long time—MPs represent greater numbers of constituents than ever before, and in some of our inner-city areas that involves many people who cannot go on the electoral register—it has been obvious that we should not cut the number of MPs. We are where we are, but that highlights how the Government are arguing for a position that would have resulted in us making a huge error, had it been in place at the time of the last boundary review.”
“The Bill gets more and more curious. The Minister argued consistently on previous clauses for a position that would have prevented us from getting to the clause, had we been in that position of automaticity and the previous boundary reviews had gone through. If it were not for Parliament’s ability to have a second look at what had been set in train, we would not have the clause to have 650 MPs. It is curious for the Minister to stand up and say that is the right decision and what we should do when she has also argued for something that would have prevented us from getting to this position. That is the argument in favour of Parliament giving the final approval on whatever the boundary commission proposes.”
“The local government boundary commission has made it quite clear that it would move the boundaries to suit that new parliamentary boundary if it were created. I think that the hon. Member for Glasgow East is on to something, and that should be explored as the Bill progresses. We are creating a rigid set of criteria where some flexibility could avoid lots of difficulties that will be created by having small sections of communities in different local authority areas represented by an MP who primarily supports and represents a different community. We should explore that further.”
“That use of technology could therefore allow the boundary commission to go down to sub-street level in the knowledge that, at some later date, the polling district will be changed to meet the new boundary that the commission has drawn up. The commission does not need to be restricted to the distinct polling district area. It can now move forward in the knowledge that, if it can avoid creating a parliamentary boundary that goes across the jurisdiction of a local authority area, which brings in all sorts of difficulties, it has the flexibility to create an additional polling district or to add an additional community from within that local government area, in order to avoid all the problems that come with that cross-border situation.”
“We had an interesting discussion in the evidence sessions about the use of polling districts and what their legal basis was. Peter Stanyon from the local government boundary commission explained that it was often dictated by the location of a suitable venue for a polling station, the accessibility for people with disabilities, and the convenience, to enable communities to vote. Those are important factors, and they seem to be things that lead to a community being provided with a suitable location, which is desirable. Those might be suitable building blocks. However, Mr Stanyon also said that, post a parliamentary boundary review, local government has to have a review if there are changes within its area to a parliamentary boundary.”
“The hon. Member for Glasgow East has provoked an interesting debate about how we go about this process. I did not understand some of Mr Bellringer’s arguments. We all know our constituencies extremely well, and we know the level of detail that electoral registration officers produce, road by road and building by building. On a fixed date, when we enter into the parliamentary boundary review, the number of people registered for a particular street is known. I do not understand why the boundary commission, in communication with the local registration officer, could not, where it needed to, investigate that level of detail, so I did not understand those answers. As the Bill progresses, perhaps some thought can be given to expanding the areas of information that the boundary commission uses to draw up the parliamentary boundaries.”
“Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson pointed out this morning that more than 100,000 people are employed in the leisure industry. Large gymnasiums, swimming pools and lidos such as the one in my constituency can open safely, whether it is 2 metres or 1 metre, and people are incredulous that we are opening pubs, restaurants and cinemas, but not allowing these important facilities and local amenities to open. They cannot wait for a taskforce. Will the Government urgently review the situation and allow them to open alongside pubs and cinemas on 4 July?”
“On the testing figures that we get every day, after we take out studies that are being done through testing, along with double testing and those tests that are sent out through the post, are we not down to just about a third of the numbers that the Government claim are taking place? How can we have any confidence in what the Government say about what they are going to be doing about testing going forward?”
“The evidence from Charles Pattie and David Rossiter, which I am sure you will hear this afternoon, suggests that something like a deviation of 8% would allow much greater account to be taken of local community ties and much less chopping and changing between elections.”
“Q How far should we go in ensuring that whole communities are kept intact when we form a parliamentary constituency boundary, when balanced against trying to achieve equality of the value of someone’s vote? Dr Renwick: Both of the principles that you have just mentioned matter, and so does the principle that there should not be too much chopping and changing of constituency boundaries from election to election. There is no single correct answer to the question of how those different principles should be balanced. The Venice Commission from the Council of Europe recommends a maximum deviation from perfect equality in numerical terms of 10%. Currently, under the UK rules we have 5%.”
“Q In order to achieve making sure that communities are kept intact, is it desirable that the Boundary Commission has flexibility and is not kept to a maximum of 5%? Dr Renwick: I think there should be a maximum, but there is a good case for saying that the maximum could be extended a little bit without undue cost to the equality of the vote.”
“Decide what your elections are about: if they are about the election of individual MPs and less to do with Governments, you can focus on representing communities; if you think that it is a system for enabling us to choose between alternative Governments, which is the traditional defence of the single member plurality system, I am afraid that local representation has to be given a lower priority.”
“I am afraid that I have spent the last 40 years pointing out the potential conflict between those two objectives and that, if you wish to ensure that the system is fair in the ability of voters to choose between alternative Governments, at some point you have to let go of the emphasis on local representation. In a sense, the debate that we are having now about mathematical equality versus respecting community ties is a sub-part of that broader debate.”
“To that extent at least, yes, you can certainly also argue that a minority of voters—in some instances a crucial minority—will vote for their individual MP rather than for the party, but of course, if you get a boundary redistribution that carves up an individual MP’s constituency, that link is broken. In truth, in our electoral system, there is a continuous and perpetual tension. We want our electoral system to do two things: on the one hand, we want it to provide local representation, and on the other, we want it to be a system that provides a means by which the electorate can choose between alternative Governments.”
“One of the things that we certainly do know—again, this may also be relevant to your question—is that if somebody has been elected for the first time at the last election and defeated the incumbent MP from another party, there is a fairly consistent tendency now whereby, in view of the next election, that new Member, who has probably just won a marginal seat, has a great deal of incentive to be representing their community and to be visible and so on, to get something of a personal bonus. You can see that in the way that the Labour party defended some seats in 2019, with newly incumbent, first-term Labour MPs doing well, and it was similar for the Conservative party in 2017.”
“Iain may know more than me, but it has certainly been a while since I have seen anybody doing anything major on the extent to which community makes a difference. The only thing that I would say is that, undoubtedly, one of the reasons why MPs will always be concerned about any redistribution is that it upsets the connection between them and their existing electorate.”
“One is that, to some degree, middle-class people who choose to live in a more working-class area may actually already be rather more of a Labour disposition, but equally, it has certainly long been argued that to some degree, you are influenced by the social interaction to which you are exposed, so if you are living in a working-class community, you are more likely to be exposed to pro-Labour arguments than if you were living in a Conservative one. Of course, the world has moved on in terms of the demography of party support, which is much less clearly structured by class, and social interaction is no longer as geographically bound as it once was and can now take place over social media.”
“If we go back 20 years, to an era when a middle-class person was markedly more likely to vote Conservative than Labour, and the opposite was true of someone who was working class—that, by the way, is not currently the case—historically, it had long been demonstrated that if you were a middle-class person living in an area that was predominantly populated by people in working-class occupations, you were more likely to vote Labour than if you were a middle-class person living in a more middle-class area. There were two potential forces going on there.”
“Q Professor Sir John, how much does locality and shared common experience in a community influence how individuals vote? Professor Sir John Curtice: The research on this goes back quite a way, and the answer is “to a degree”. For the purposes of answering this question, I will go back 20 years psephologically, because the psephology of party support has changed so much over the past 20 years that this is not necessarily true now.”
“I am afraid that is just an inherent tension within the electoral system that we are looking at.”
“Q If a community has a shared experience—perhaps, for instance, the “red wall” seats that people have talked about a lot since the last election—and wants to express a collective view through the ballot box, is it not important that those communities are connected and represented in a cohesive and clearly identifiable way, where they have common characteristics, so that their votes will count? Professor Sir John Curtice: That is what we used to have in the system of parliamentary representation when both boroughs and counties were represented and they were often of considerably unequal size. That comes back to the fundamental question about what we think elections should be about. Are they about providing MPs who represent communities, or are they a mechanism for choosing between alternative Governments?”
“Q But if those views are diluted because communities are divided up in a mathematical exercise, do people not become frustrated because their collective view, brought about by their collective experiences in a locality, cannot be represented? Professor Sir John Curtice: Well, you are assuming that the current decisions of parliamentary constituents in some way already play out in— [Inaudible.] As Professor McLean has pointed out, what we regard as our community is sometimes in the eye of the beholder.”
“Q That may well be true. Nonetheless, the community has an opportunity to make those representations to the Boundary Commission. Professor Sir John Curtice: There is a certain geographical concentration of voters who may or may not feel a sense of community, or who may in fact feel that they are an aggregation of many different communities. For example, I expect that relatively few of the constituencies in the far north of Scotland necessarily think that their constituency represents one agreed community, as opposed to a collection of villages. Indeed, if we go out to the Western Isles, where even the concept of village does not really exist, they will not necessarily think that the constituency is some clear, single, coterminous and homogenous community.”
“Q That is true. There are communities within boundaries, but it is important that they are not subdivided, just to satisfy a tight, rigid, mathematical exercise, is it not? Professor Sir John Curtice: The truth is that whatever set of rules you come up with, you may discover that you have got a choice about exactly how you try to represent community interest. At the end of the day, you may well simply discover that whatever rules you come up with, you end up dividing some places that you think—acknowledging that there is a question mark—might be a community.”
“Q My final point would be that, in that case, should we not allow the Boundary Commission more flexibility than the 5%, in order to meet those concerns, where there is a genuine expression of concern from a local community? Professor Sir John Curtice: I think my answer is that, while you might make it somewhat easier to avoid some of the cries that “This community is being divided”, the fact is that—if you go back to the current constituencies—communities are divided. Do we think that some of the lines that are drawn down the middle of Birmingham or London boroughs necessarily represent a community boundary? I suggest that they do not always do so.”
“I see that an amendment has been tabled that Ynys Môn should be added to the list, and Members might feel that Wirral should be added. Those are further instances of geographical peculiarities that might make the application of the 5% plus or minus more difficult. That is a political judgment for Members; as political scientists, or electoral mathematicians, we cannot say anything about it, except that those might be plausible cases. I would be against relaxing the plus or minus 5%, in the light of compatibility with the European convention on human rights, among other things.”
“Q Can I turn to Professor McLean? Do we need more than a calculator to map out our parliamentary boundaries? Professor McLean: I would urge Members not to go down that road. Of course, it is a political judgment for the Committee and the House of Commons. This is somewhat of a knight’s move answer to Mr Efford, but paragraphs 86 to 89 of the explanatory notes have a section about compatibility with the European convention on human rights. The criteria to be met are in paragraph 88 of the explanatory notes: “The Bill maintains the principle of equal suffrage”. The wider the margin, the less equal is the suffrage. That is the trade-off, which Parliament must decide to make. My view is that plus or minus 5% is ample, given that we have the device of protected constituencies. Of course, Members may wish to add to that number.”
“Most of the challenge is about: how do you mirror local authority A’s working practice on to local authority B? Despite the fact that the law that everybody is working to is exactly the same, there are local practices that are slightly different. That comes down to the real nitty-gritty of things like how many staff are appointed to polling stations, the processes used for the opening of postal votes and things like that. It is more an administrative approach that is difficult, which means that the respective returning officers need to communicate very closely with each other, to make sure that there is no element of doubt as to the way in which processes are administered.”