Cameron's flawed plan for the Commons

Andrew Blick (London, Democratic Audit): David Cameron told the Financial Times last week that he plans to legislate – apparently in his first term – to reduce the number of MPs by at least 10 per cent and equalise the size of parliamentary constituencies.

On the surface of it, the move seems a fair one. Surely it is wrong that, because of the current uneven size of seats, Labour can potentially defeat the Conservatives with less votes? And cutting back on the size of the MP payroll must be a laudably prudent decision in these times?

But these arguments are flawed.

First, in practice little or no money would be saved. The running costs of the Palace of Westminster would not be reduced. While the salaries of about 60 MPs and their staff might be saved, the members that remained would probably need to take on more assistance in order to deal with the consequent rise in constituency casework per MP. That is, unless a Conservative government is about to seriously address the causes of the rising demands made by constituents – namely the weakness of local government and the lack of access to citizens’ advice bureaux.

Second, this issue is a constitutional one, not a mere matt er of cost-cutting as it is being presented. Is it possible to imagine Barack Obama announcing in his inaugural address that, in the light of the credit crunch, Texas was being abolished? Or Angela Merkel on a whim merging Bavaria with Saxony? Only in the UK, it seems, is such a casual attitude to major constitutional change considered acceptable – as we saw with Tony Blair’s introduction of an Independent Supreme Court by press release in 2003.

Third, there are practical difficulties. Anyone who has been involved in a Boundary Commission review knows how complex and unpleasant they can be. Thankfully they only take place 10 years or so, on a rolling basis. The Conservative proposal would seem to involve every single constituency in the country being involved in a simultaneous review, with many MPs fighting each-other for survival. And the idea of equally sized seats, though it sounds sensible in principle, is the sort of un-organic approach to politics that would horrify Edmund Burke. For instance, if, for arguments sake, the size of every seat was to be 80,000 registered voters, the Isle of White, size about 110,000, would have to be split into two uneven portions, one of 80,000 and the other of 30,000, with the latter attached to a new mainland constituency. A long established political community would have been torn apart by an abstract principle. Whether right or wrong, not very conservative, nor very practical. And I wonder how well Conservative MPs are reacting to the news that they amount to a waste which can be cut back on.

Fourth, the democratic issues. This shake-up would certainly make the electoral system fairer for the Conservatives and abolish the clearly unjustifiable advantage currently possessed by Labour. But the impact on smaller parties could, depending on the way the new boundaries were drawn, be devastating. And the first-past-the-post system, with the problems it brings such as wasted votes, would remain intact. Another problem would be that Parliament’s ability to hold government to account would be reduced. Unless accompanied by a 10 per cent cut in the number of ministers, the abolition of 60 MPs would mean that the relative influence of the executive, wielded through its payroll vote and control of patronage, would increase – surely a contrad iction of the ideas propounded by the Conservative Democracy Task Force? Finally, how would the number of voters in a seat be counted in order to determine its boundaries? If the calculation was based on the total figure on the electoral roll rather than estimates of the adult population, the outcome would be that wealthier areas were rewarded with more seats, since the better-off are more likely to be registered to vote. Those groups in society which already possess greater political clout would be made more influential still, with parties courting their votes ever more enthusiastically.

David Cameron is correct to identify problems with existing electoral arrangements, but his solution is not properly thought through; and it is too clearly directed to the benefit of his own party. Any change to the way we determine who governs us needs to form part of a more considered and wider process, which addresses UK constitutional arrangements as a whole.