PARLIAMENTARY CONSTITUENCIES (ORDERS)

§ Mr. Speaker

Before I call the Home Secretary to move the first Motion, it might help if I informed the House that it had occurred to me that there are two courses that the House can take. We can either have four debates on the four Orders standing on the Order Paper, or we can have one general debate in which everything that would arise on any of the four could be discussed, with votes if necessary on each of the Orders. What is the view of the House on this matter?

§ Mr. Edward Heath (Bexley)

My hon. Friends believe that it would meet the convenience of the House if we had one debate on the four Orders, Mr. Speaker.

§ Mr. Speaker

So be it.

I have not selected the four Amendments which stand on the Order Paper and which are, in any event, out of order as they are direct negatives to the Motion. However, hon. Members who hold the views expressed in those Amendments will be free, if they wish, to vote against the orders.

§ The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. James Callaghan)

I beg to move,

That the Parliamentary Constituencies (England) Order 1969, a draft of which was laid before this House on 28th October, be not approved.

I am glad to accept your suggestion and have one general debate, Mr. Speaker. I am pleased that the Leader of the Opposition agrees with this course, so that we may have a general debate on this Order along with the other three relating to Wales and Northern Ireland and Scotland. Perhaps it would be for the convenience of the House if my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary intervenes a little later on the Order relating to Scotland, in view of the indisposition of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland. My hon. Friend will be ready to deal with the draft Order relating to Scotland.

The terms of the Motion make clear the Government's view that we cannot advise the House to approve the draft Orders. Some people may ask why we 429 introduced a Bill in the first place, instead of following the procedure that I am now proposing to the House; that is, of simply putting the Motions and inviting the House to reject them.

§ Sir John Langford-Holt (Shrewsbury)

We know why.

§ Mr. Callaghan

I am not sure that the hon. Gentleman does. I will have something to say about his constituency a little later.

I remind the House that on 19th June last, by a large majority, hon. Members rejected a Motion moved by the right hon. and learned Member for St. Marylehone (Mr. Hogg) calling on me to implement the recommendations of the Boundary Commission. [Interruption.] That Motion was rejected by a very substantial majority of the House of Commons, and I then introduced a Bill which, I must say, I would have preferred to have seen go through—[Interruption.]the other place because it would have carried into force the Government's principle—

§ Hon. Members

What does that mean?

§ Mr. Callaghan

If hon. Gentlemen opposite will stop shouting and listen to me for a moment, they will see what it means.

It would have carried into force the Government's principle that where local government boundaries—[Interruption.] I hope that hon. Gentlemen opposite will listen to me for half a second without interrupting. [HON. MEMBERS: "Get on."] I am prepared to have a rough house if hon. Gentlemen opposite want one, but I prefer them to listen to my argument.

It would have carried into force the Government's principle that where local government boundaries have been recently settled—as in the case of London —Parliamentary redistribution should follow that process, irrespective of the political consequences, whether for good or for ill from the point of view of any party. I regret that the Opposition in the House of Lords has prevented some measure of parliamentary redistribution from taking place.

About 100 seats in this country, mainly in Greater London, could have been, and would have been, redistributed by now, 430 and that would have occurred if the Bill had been passed in another place in accordance with the Boundary Commissioners' proposals in the Greater London area. [Interruption.] If it had not been for the rejection of the Bill by another place, that redistribution would have taken place following the Boundary Commissioners' reports exactly, and following, also, the settlement of local government boundaries. [Interruption.] Perhaps hon. Gentlemen opposite have now got that point in their heads.

The Bill could now be put through again if we were to re-present it—that is, under the Parliament Act procedure—and could take effect from 2nd August next. But in some ways that would have been too late, because it would not have been able to operate in time for the Greater London Council elections. [HoN. MEMBERS: "Oh.") This was something that the G.L.C. Tory majority wanted. Indeed, they wished to send a deputation to me asking me that the redistribution should go through so that they might fight it on the Boundary Commission proposals. I was ready to accede to that, irrespective of the political consequences, but most of the Opposition in this House did not want that.

As regards the General Election, a number of procedural matters would have been required after the Bill had come into force on 2nd August next and, putting it at its lowest, it is possible that even the next General Election would not have been fought on the new boundaries. Therefore, the Government decided that there was no particular merit now in representing the Bill in order to put it through on the Parliament Act basis, because we could not have achieved the result that all the parties wanted in relation to the G.L.C., and possibly not in relation to the General Election either.

That was the decision of another place and it has compelled us in that sense to drop the Bill because it would not have been of any great value to the parties. But I hope no one is in doubt that the Government were ready and anxious to see that the Greater London seats were redistributed in accordance with the Boundary Commission proposals. The other place have used its power to prevent this happening.

431 Even as late as October, when we were debating the issue, the right hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) betrayed at least a half interest in putting through the redistribution in London. He at least dangled a fly in front of me. If I had thought that there was any disposition to follow it up, I would have been only too happy to swallow that fly because I had no difficulty in putting forward these proposals for redistribution. The local government boundaries had already been fixed.

The right hon. Gentleman is a very far-sighted man with a great capacity for combining an eloquent statement of principles with an earthy regard for electoral advantage in London, and I think that he might have detected what was denied to some of his colleagues, that perhaps the redistribution would not have been wholly unfavourable to the Conservative Party in London, or so I am told.

But that was not to be. They stood on principle. They said, "The whole Bill and nothing but the Bill; the whole order and nothing but the order." So far as I can make out, the Leader of the Opposition, whom we shall no doubt hear later, was not apparently so taken with the idea as the right hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames. The right hon. Gentleman has been abusing the Government on this question since 1948, when he has been in opposition. I do not know whether he has reminded himself of the adjectives he used then, but his eloquence in denunciation of the Government was just as vehement as it is today, and just as unjustified. I do not know why the Leader of the Opposition was not so taken with the idea. Perhaps he will tell us.

§ Mr. John Boyd-Carpenter(Kingston-upon-Thames)

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

§ Mr. Callaghan

Yes, when I have finished what I want to say. The right hon. Gentleman must not be impatient. There is plenty of time.

Whether the right hon. Gentleman has been influenced by the effects in Bexley I do not know. After all, he represents a London borough. He knows what impact it would have and he knows what the effect would have been in his own constituency. [Interruption.]

§ Mr. Speaker

Order. A certain amount of noise in the debate is acceptable, but not too much.

§ Mr. Callaghan

Far be it from me to complain. I was not exactly putting the situation in an unprovocative way.

The right hon. Gentleman would have been faced with the redistribution in his own constituency. He could, of course, have moved over and no doubt he would have tried to do so, although I did read somewhere about a determined lass who was certain to prevent him from doing so. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] I would not accuse the right hon. Gentleman of considering anything but the highest principles in this matter. Why should I? The party opposite could have had all the London seats—every one of them—if it had wanted them, without difficulty.

§ Mr. Heath

I say straight away that we want the whole of the English Order. Let the right hon. Gentleman advise the House to approve it and I shall be satisfied.

§ Mr. Callaghan

I am coming to the question about the whole loaf. The right hon. Gentleman could have had half a loaf if he had wanted it.

§ Mr. Boyd-Carpenter

Does it not follow from the substance of what the right hon. Gentleman said, clothed in a good deal of provocative dressing, that the real reason why there is not to be a redistribution in London is not as he suggested, the action of another place, but the decision of the Government not to use their powers to lay an Order affecting this issue and to use the majority which they intend to use to vote down their own Order?

§ Mr. Callaghan

That remark seems to be more material to a speech than to an interruption. [HON. MEMBERS: "Answer."] If hon. Members will wait they will hear the answer in due course.

The right hon. Gentleman is, in any case, quite wrong. The Bill, or indeed any separate Bill, would have enabled the London proposals to come into effect. When the right hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames showed his half interest in the matter I gave him what I hoped was a "come on" reply, but there has never been any attempt to try to translate those London proposals.

433 Having made clear that the Government were ready to see them implemented, despite the political consequences, it is important at this stage that I should make absolutely clear—because I find a small doubt about this in some constituencies in London that if the House decides to vote down these orders, the G.L.C. elections and the next General Election will be fought on the basis of the 1966 boundaries. This should be made absolutely clear so that there is no doubt about it. There can be no further attempt to try to alter those boundaries.

§ Mr. Jeremy Thorpe (Devon, North)

Knowing the right hon. Gentleman's wish that the G.L.C. reforms shall go through, are we to take it that he is advising his colleagues to vote in favour of the reform of the G.L.C. boundaries? Secondly—I am obliged to the right hon. Gentleman for allowing this intervention—do we take it that he is now for the first time laying all the Orders because he now realises that he would be in breach of the law if he did not?

§ Mr. Callaghan

No. The answer to the first part of the question is that my hon Friends have already demonstrated their support for reforming London by voting in favour of the Bill and that would have enabled the redistribution to take place at a time when the right hon. Gentleman, in conjunction with the Tories, was voting against it.

As regards the second part of the right hon. Gentleman's question, my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General will undoubtedly be dealing with this matter. [Interruption.] The right hon. Gentleman should try to follow the technicalities. It is not possible to separate out London by means of the Orders. It can only be done through the Bill which the right hon. Gentleman voted against.

§ Mr. Callaghan

I wish that the right hon. Gentleman would stop shaking his head and would listen. There are a number of constituencies which straddle the board—[Interruption.] Honestly, hon. Members opposite must be stupid. It cannot be done by way of Orders because there are a number of constituencies which straddle the border. Therefore, the procedure has to take the form of a separate Bill.

434 As regards being in breach of the law, that was certainly never the case. Indeed, when counsel, Mr. McWhirter, suggested that I was "bending" the law of the courts he withdrew the remark after a rebuke. Therefore, there is no suggestion of that. I remind the right hon. Gentle? man again that the House itself—[Interruption.]— I do not propose to be diverted too much—voted down the recommendation put forward by the right hon. and learned Member for St. Marylebone that I should introduce the Order as long ago as 19th June.

I come to the draft Orders—

§ Mr. Callaghan

I will not give way again at the moment. The right hon. Gentleman should lick his wounds a little longer before he comes to the Dispatch Box again.

§ Mr. Speaker

Order. If the Home Secretary does not give way, the right hon. Gentleman must resume his seat.

§ Mr. Callaghan

I would have no more confidence in the right hon. Gentleman's figures on this occasion than I did last time.

If the draft Order for England were to be approved, it would implement without modification the recommendations contained in the 1969 Report of the Boundary Commission for England. Article 2 of the draft Order substitutes the new constituencies recommended by the Boundary Commission for the old ones. Parts I and II of the schedule to the Order set out the contents of the existing and new constituencies respectively and state whether they are county or borough constituencies.

I ask the House to note this figure. Three hundred and sixty-seven existing constituencies would be abolished by Part I and 372 new constituencies would be created by Part II. Thus, the total number of constituencies in England would be increased from 511 to 516. In case hon. Members see a discrepancy between the figure of 367 existing constituencies to be abolished and the 346 mentioned in the Boundary Commission's report, I should explain that the draft 435 Order also deals with the 21 constituencies for which the Commission recommended no change in boundaries but recommended either new names or that they should be designated as borough constituencies.

The draft Order for Wales is in similar terms—

§ Lieut.-Commander S. L. C. Maydon (Wells)

May 1 raise one small point?

§ Mr. Callaghan

I have given way rather a lot. I wonder whether the hon. and gallant Member would care to hear me and if, by the end of my speech, I have not dealt with the point, perhaps he will ask again. I have a lot of material to put before the House.

The draft Order for Wales is in similar terms to the draft order for England. Part I of the Schedule would abolish 12 existing constituencies, which would be replaced by the 12 new constituencies in Part II of the Schedule. The boundaries of 11 constituences in Wales would be changed. The spelling of the name of one constituency would be altered. Llanelly, with a "y", would become Llanelli, with an "i".

In Northern Ireland, the boundaries of seven of the existing 12 constituencies would be altered.

To complete the figures, perhaps I should say that the draft Order for Scotland would provide for the boundaries of 46 of the existing 71 constituencies to be altered, although there would be no alteration in the total number of constituencies.

In all, including constituencies for which new names have been proposed and minor matters of that sort, the four draft Orders provide for 432 existing constituencies to be replaced by 437 new constituencies. Even with the qualifications which I have made and subtracting the tiny alterations which I have mentioned, this is a major upheaval of the parliamentary map, the like of which we have not experienced in our parliamentary history.

Now, let me explain the basis of the draft Order—

§ Mr. Callaghan

I hope that the hon. and gallant Member will allow me to 436 get on. I promise that I will give way before I finish if he feels that I have not dealt with his question.

Let me explain the basis of the draft Order for the English constituencies. There seems to have been a thread of misunderstanding running through these debates about the basis on which the Boundary Commissioners' work. Many commentators in the Press, and some hon. Members, discuss the issues of redistribution as though the Commissioners begin by taking each constituency as a separate unit, review its size and then decide whether wards or groups of electors should be added to it or subtracted from it to conform as near as possible to a common size throughout the country. That is not the way in which the Boundary Commissioners have approached their work. They do not begin their work by starting with the constituency as the unit and building up to the total number throughout the country.

Paragraph 45 of their report for England explains clearly the way in which they approach their task. They start from the basis of the geographical county. What they did was to take the 1965 electorate of each county—I emphasise the word because of its significance in relation to Redcliffe-Maud —and they divided the electorate by the 1965 electoral quota for the country as a whole, 58,759. This simple division gave them a number of seats to which the geographical county is entitled in theory. Only at that stage, having decided what is the quotient of seats for each county, do the Commissioners set about the task of reviewing individual constituencies within the geographical county boundary so as to finish up with the right number of seats in each county.

In other words, the unit is not the constituency, but the county. Perhaps I should emphasise at this point, to avoid misunderstanding, that when I refer to counties the Boundary Commissioners obviously include in the county not only the electorate in what we would call county constituencies, but also the electorate of the county borough constituencies.

Having done that, the Boundary Commissioners found in the case of a number of counties that there were anomalies. In some cases they pinpointed them. I wish to pick out four, because they are among 437 the more major anomalies: Durham, Lancashire, Northumberland and the West Riding of Yorkshire. In the case of the West Riding of Yorkshire—it is in the report; 1 am sure that hon. Members who do not have it will accept what I am saying—they said that they proposed to leave the county, which included the boroughs in the West Riding, with one more constituency than its theoretical entitlement under the quotient which I have illustrated rather than propose a radical redrawing of constituency boundaries in advance of any changes resulting from the Royal Commission's review of local government in England ". On page 42, the Commissioners refer to Lancashire. According to their theoretical quotient for each county, Lancashire has three more seats than the quota. They said, here again, that they felt it would be undesirable to embark upon a far-reaching redistribution in advance of any changes in local government boundaries resulting from the Royal Commission's review of local government in England.

The Commissioners said, at page 37 of their report, that the Durham county had two more seats than its theoretical quotient. Nevertheless, they proposed as little disturbance as possible whilst awaiting the result of the Royal Commission's review of local government in England. "[hey said much the same about Northumberland, which has one seat over quota according to the manner in which the Boundary Commissioners decide to do their work. This is not a new way of doing it. They have been doing it in this way for many years. There are, of course, other counties which 1 could quote in this connection and I will do so later.

Those four counties alone account between them for 134 constituencies. In each of those cases, the Boundary Commissioners have said that they do not propose to proceed on the basis of their theoretical quotient for the county as a whole because they prefer to wait for the report of the Royal Commission on Local Government. In these counties the Commissioners declined to undertake the redistribution.

I emphasise once again, and this is the kernel of the Government's case—let there be no doubt about it—that parliamentary constituency boundaries which would be altered drastically-430-odd 438 would be altered in some way or other if the orders were to go through—would have to have another major redistribution as soon as the orders went through. No one on the Opposition side has ever attempted to destroy that argument.

The Boundary Commissioners would have to do their work over again. Once the Redcliffe-Maud recommendations, or something like them, came into force, the Commissioners would have to fix their new theoretical quotient for each of the new so-called unitary areas, decide how many constituencies each unitary area, county or whatever its name would have, and then divide it into constituencies. No one in the House can pretend that that would not involve the redistribution of hundreds of seats. Let there be no doubt about that.

In discussing this matter, the right hon. and learned Member for St. Marylebone, while not accepting that there was some foundation for the Government's argument, said, in effect, "If we assume that there is some point in the Government's argument, why do not the Government at least deal with areas where Maud and the existing county boundaries coincide?" He quoted with approval an article from New Society, which stated that even if I relied upon the Maud Commission as a reason for not implementing the Boundary Commissioners' Report, nevertheless it would be fairly easy—New Society said that, not the right hon. and learned Gentleman—to isolate these cases and to implement some four-fifths of the recommendations which would probably not involve further upheavals.

If it were true, that would be a serious allegation. The right hon. and learned Gentleman thought that it was true. He said that the conclusion that four-fifths of the recommendations would not involve further upheavals coincided with the Opposition's assessment. That assessment was inaccurate, and I propose to tell the right hon. and learned Gentleman and the House in what way it was inaccurate. There is only one county used by the Boundary Commissioners for working out their entitlement to seats which will become a unit under the Maud Report without alteration, and that is Shropshire.

§ Lieut.-Commander Maydon

Why not deal with Shropshire?

§ Mr, Callaghan

I have promised that I will deal with the question, and I will do so. Shropshire contains four constituencies. The hon. and gallant Gentleman has been a Member for 24 years. He may well argue, "At least let the redistribution go ahead there". This is a serious argument to which the House has not listened, and I ask the House to listen to it today. Let me describe the consequences of an attempt to implement the Boundary Commissioners' recommendation for Shropshire, which becomes a complete unit under Redcliffe-Maud.

The boundaries of the county have been altered by the West Midland Counties Order of 1965, by which some areas of Shropshire were transferred to Staffordshire and others were transferred to Cheshire. Some parts of Staffordshire were transferred to Shropshire and parts of Worcestershire were transferred to Shropshire, too. If an order were made implementing solely the recommendations of the Commission for Shropshire, the parts of Shropshire which were transferred to Staffordshire and Cheshire in 1965 would not be included in any constituency at all, while the parts of Staffordshire and Worcestershire which have been transferred to Shropshire would be included in two constituencies.

We should be back to the plural voting system. I understand hon. Members opposite supporting that, but there is no reason why the rest of us should do so. To deal with Shropshire as recommended by the Commission it would also be necessary to look at the recommendations for Cheshire, Staffordshire and Worcestershire. And if one looks at those counties, it will be seen that other changes affecting their boundaries were made by the West Midland Counties Order of 1965 and that Gloucestershire. Leicestershire and Warwickshire would also be affected—seven counties in all.

That is not the end of the story. The West Midland Counties Order of 1965 also altered the boundary between Gloucestershire and Herefordshire, so that it would also be necessary to look at the Herefordshire constituency. Under the Maud proposals, Herefordshire would be contained entirely within a unitary area —it may be argued that we could deal with that—together with part of Worcestershire. The Boundary Commission envisaged two constituencies for Here 440 fordshire: Hereford itself would have 52,000 electors and the Leominster constituency would have about 39,000 electors.

But it is reasonable to suppose that if the Maud proposals were to be implemented, the Boundary Commission would want to examine the question of achieving more balanced electorates, possibly by including some areas now in Worcestershire which under the Maud proposals would be in Herefordshire. In any case, the recommendations of the Boundary Commission for Herefordshire could not be implemented on their own because the county boundaries with Gloucestershire and Worcestershire were altered by the West Midland Counties Order of 1965. Therefore, to deal with Herefordshire we should also have to deal with Gloucestershire and Worcestershire.

I could go on. It would not be possible to implement these parts of the recommendations of the Boundary Commission's Report on their own. This is a jigsaw puzzle which fits together and cannot be dealt with piecemeal—[HoN. MEMBERS: "Do it all."J—It is an obvious conclusion that it cannot be done piecemeal and the question is: why not do all of it? It follows from what I have said that in the absence of a Bill—and the Bill has been defeated—either we put the whole redistribution through or we do none at all. As far as I can see, it is not possible to select areas the boundaries of which do not have repercussions elsewhere. The orders do not lend themselves to partial implementation.

The second important conclusion which I wish to emphasise—I have emphasised it before, but it is necessary to press it home—arises from my descriptions of these counties which it could be argued are among those interfered with least by the Boundary Commission. Indeed, in one case there is no interference at all. But even from those counties, which are the most favourable I could take from the point of view of getting on with the redistribution, it is clear that the comprehensive reform of local government will inevitably require the parliamentary map to be completely redrawn again.

Discussions on local government reform are going ahead in accordance with the Government's intentions. We have all observed the handicaps in the way 441 of effective and efficient local government. All of us—including those most actively engaged in making the local government system work—know how urgent is the need to proceed with local government reform. This is not an academic matter which can be put on one side or thrust into a pigeon-hole and left for 10 years. If local government is to survive, no matter what form it takes then local government reform must proceed.

The Prime Minister said in the debate on the Address that a White Paper will be laid before the House giving the Government's conclusions about the main principles and the main structural changes which will form the basis of legislation. The four local authority associations in England are already hard at work on this. They have made their comments known on the Redcliffe-Maud Report. In addition, comments have been received from over 1,100 individual local authorities. Their conclusions, together with the comments of the main local authority associations, are in the process of being digested by officials and considered by Ministers.

After the White Paper has been published, which, as the Prime Minister said, will be in the New Year, there will follow during 1970 the consultations on local authority boundaries which become consequent upon the redistribution. All this will lead up to the process which I described on 14th October last of working towards legislation in the 1971-72 Session, which should normally begin in October, 1971. It is the Government's view that by 1972 the Boundary Commissioners will have sufficient information to begin work on the redistribution of parliamentary boundaries which will be necessary following this Bill.

There will be a fundamental redistribution. Would the right hon. and learned Gentleman tell me whether he disagrees with that? I do not see how he can disagree with it, but at least he should declare himself. Does he or does he not think that we can have a fundamental redistribution of local government structures and boundaries in this country without a fundamental parliamentary restructuring following, too? If he says that he does not agree, then his case is the stronger, but I know of no one who takes the view that a fundamental 442 parliamentary restructuring need not follow.

The Opposition are asking Parliament to implement changes now which will affect 346 constituencies, most of them in a major way, and are asking that Parliament should do this knowing full well that the task will have to be embarked on again, from the beginning, in three years' time. One cannot adapt one to the other. They will have to start from scratch once more. In the light of this fundamental reorganisation, it would be irresponsible for the Government to invite Parliament to agree to the orders which are before the House today which in themselves are the biggest parliamentary redistribution that has been seen since the Reform Act of 1832.

§ Lieut.-Commander Maydon

The Home Secretary explained at great length that it was not possible to deal with the problem piecemeal. On the whole, without examining the various areas, I accept what he said. Why, therefore, was it possible to attempt to deal in a Bill with certain areas of Greater London and some other constituencies? If it was possible to do that in a Bill, why is it not possible today to table separate Orders for those areas?

§ Mr. Callaghan

The answer, if I understand the question aright, is that the local government boundaries have been settled for London, and there is no major change of which I know for London.

§ Lieut.-Commander Maydon

And some other constituencies.

§ Mr. Callaghan

I agree with the hon. and gallant Gentleman that it would involve some other constituencies.

I will deal, first, with London, because it was hoped that it would have been possible, if there had been agreement, to get London through on the new basis. We would then have known whether the Boundary Commissioners in two or three years' time would need to embark on another fundamental reorganisation. As regards other areas, I have been into this matter with some care and I have given two illustrations this afternoon. I hope that the hon. and gallant Gentleman will take it from me that it is such a jigsaw that we could not have extracted any 443 particular areas without there being repercussions on other areas.

§ Lieut.-Commander Maydon

It was done in the Bill.

§ Mr. Callaghan

It was done for a limited group of constituencies in the Bill. Other constituencies were not affected. All we were doing in the Bill in the case of, for example, the constituency of the hon. Member for Horsham (Mr. Hordern) was to divide it in two. We were not affecting any constituency boundary outside his own. We were asking the Boundary Commission to draw another boundary inside the hon. Member's own constituency. That is the reason that it was possible to include some of those constituencies in the Bill if they did not affect contiguous constituencies.

§ Mr. Peter Hordern (Horsham)

Surely it would have been possible to have accepted the original proposals of the Boundary Commission that the whole of West Sussex should comprise four constituencies—Chichester, Worthing, Arundel and Shoreham, and my own? Two of those constituencies were not affected at all by the Maud proposals, but the two constituencies which the Home Secretary suggested should be divided were my own and that of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Arundel and Shoreham (Captain Kirby), both of which are vitally affected by Maud. Does that not destroy the right hon. Gentleman's case?

§ Mr. Callaghan

The hon. Gentleman has answered his own point. He knows as well as I that Redcliffe-Maud proposed a fundamentally different organisation for Sussex. I do not remember the exact details, but it is substantially different as between East and West Sussex. The hon. Member's constituency is clearly one of the areas where the Boundary Commissioners would start again. One of the areas looked at by Maud was Brighton and part of East Sussex—I believe they called it Mid-Sussex. They would have to fix the quotient—[Interruption.] I beg hon. Gentlemen opposite to try to understand this. I see little signs of it so far on the Opposition Front Bench. They would have to start to fix the new theoretical quotient for the new unitary area and start again. The hon. Member 444 has no more idea than I have about what sort of constituency would emerge from that particular reconsideration. That is the answer to his question.

§ Mr. Callaghan

I ask the hon. Member to excuse me. I have given way a good deal and I still have much material left. I will not argue with the hon. Gentleman, since that is not the purpose of intervention.

I wish to say a word about Wales. Here, the Government's view was fully explained in our debate last Session. On the basis of the proposals contained in the White Paper "Local Government in Wales", 19 out of the 36 proposed constituencies would contain a part of more than one proposed new county district. The Boundary Commission for Wales, in paragraph 20 of its report, says that at the outset of its review it calculated theoretical entitlements for each Welsh county and Monmouthshire. The result of its calculations appears in the table on page 6 of its report, and in paragraph 21 it indicates that these theoretical entitlements served as one of their main guides.

However, the proposals for local government reorganisation in Wales on which there have been consultations with the local authorities and their associations would provide for six new counties, but only one of these new counties, Powys, would contain complete existing counties. The other five would each contain part of an existing county.

But even if a new county of Powys was to be constituted from the existing counties of Montgomeryshire, Radnorshire and Breconshire, I venture to suggest that the Boundary Commission would wish to examine whether it would not be possible to divide the whole area into two constituencies with more even electorates than those proposed in its report. It leaves the Brecon and Radnor constituency and the Montgomery constituency unchanged at present, with electorates of nearly 50,000 and 30,000 respectively. As regards the Commission's recommendations in respect of Cardiff, Newport and Swansea, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales is proposing a further review of the geographical counties of Glamorgan and Monmouth to see whether a satisfactory pattern can be worked out which would 445 avoid the continued division between these county boroughs and administrative counties. That is a further reason for not altering constituency boundaries now, though for personal reasons I might wish they were.

The Government's conclusion in respect of Wales is that an alteration of constituency boundaries now based on existing local government boundaries would as in the case of England have to be followed by yet a further major alteration as soon as new local government boundaries have been settled. In those circumstances, I cannot advise the House to approve the draft Order for Wales.

As regards Northern Ireland, the main effect of the recommendations would be that three of the four Belfast constituencies would be extended so as to include areas outside Belfast. The purpose of this recommendation is to reduce the high electorates in the South Antrim and North Down constituencies. For the same purpose some areas would also be transferred from the South Antrim to the North Antrim constituency.

I examined these recommendations most carefully in the light of the proposals of the Northern Ireland Government for reshaping local government which were contained in their White Paper published in July. I came to the conclusion that the recommendations of the Boundary Commission could not be reconciled with the local government proposals for 17 unitary authorities in Northern Ireland. Twelve of the new areas would be divided between the recommended constituencies; the boundaries of the recommended Belfast, North constituency would be the only ones which would not depart from the principle of observing local government boundaries.

The communiqué published on 13th October following my recent visit indicated that the Northern Ireland Government were setting up a review body to reassess the proposals for local government administration in consequence of decisions taken by them in relation to responsibility for housing. My advice to the House is that, as there is to be a further review, we should not approve the draft Order for Northern Ireland. But when the new local government boundaries in Northern Ireland 446 have been settled—and I hope that this will be considered as a matter of some urgency since I regard it as important—the Boundary Commission should look again at constituency boundaries and make recommendations based on the new local government structure. In the meantime, it is my view that the major alterations proposed in the Boundary Commission's report should not be implemented.

I have explained at some length why the three draft Orders which fall within my responsibility should not, in the Government's view, be approved. If the House accepts that advice, then the next election will be fought on the basis of existing constituency boundaries. That is the practical aspect of the matter, and I have no doubt that the course proposed by the Government is sensible in the circumstances in which we find ourselves in connection with local government reorganisation. But the Opposition have tried to erect another argument by saying that there is a constitutional or moral obligation to see that any recommendations put forward by the Boundary Commissioners are implemented, irrespective of any other considerations, apparently. Once they have said it, we have to translate it into orders with the force of law, regardless of whether the recommendations of the Boundary Commissioners have been outdistanced by time, may have been made irrelevant by other events or may be seen to have become obsolete because of other events which will take place.

Nevertheless, the Opposition say that the Government should not mind whether they are irrelevant or obsolete and that we as the House of Commons have still to implement them—[Interruption.] Yes, that is the argument. The right hon. Member for Enfield, West (Mr. lain Macleod), who is an excellent parliamentarian, sees what is coming. It may be that he would never have used the argument, but some of his colleagues, who are perhaps less far seeing than he, have used it.

§ Mr. J. T. Price(West Houghton)

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

§ Mr. Callaghan

I have given way a number of times to hon. Members opposite, so perhaps it is only fair that I should give way to one of my hon. Friends.

§ Mr. J. T. Price

If the idea prevails in any part of the House—and evidently it prevails among hon. Members opposite —that, however illogical or wrong-headed may be the proposals emerging from an outside body, albeit an eminent body like the Boundary Commission, this House should automatically rubber-stamp and approve them, surely that is a transference of sovereignty from this place, to which I for one have the strongest objection. Is not the very existence of a permanent Boundary Commission in itself a threat to the continued sovereignty of this House? If we have reached the stage when this kind of massive intervention in the political map of the country is to be settled outside this House, ought we not to reconsider the system with a view to setting up an ad hoc committee to deal with the grosser disparities in boundaries when necessary?

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harry Gourlay)

Order. The hon. Gentleman's intervention is far too long.

§ Mr. Callaghan

I appreciate my hon. Friend's help on this matter, and I am grateful to him. He is demonstrating that it is arrant nonsense to assume that the Boundary Commissioners' reports must be accepted, irrespective of the time, nature and obsolescence of their recommendations.

Let us look at the terms of the Act of 1949. By Section 3(4) the draft orders are subject to approval by a Resolution of each House. What, then, is the purpose of such a provision if the draft orders must, in the view of the Opposition, be approved at all costs and in any circumstances? If that is their view, why bring the matter before Parliament at all?

The proper view is that Parliament is supreme in this matter. It was always intended to be supreme under the 1944 Act, and it should be supreme now in the conduct of its affairs. It must be free to deal with this issue in the manner that it thinks best according to the circumstances in which the Boundary Commissioners' reports have been presented. There is no provision which binds Parliament to the approval of these draft orders, nor has it been the intention of previous Governments that it should do so.

My hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Michael Foot) has quoted a 448 letter or statement on this matter from a former Home Secretary, Gwilym Lloyd George. It was never the intention. The Opposition cannot take this view, although it has been argued by hon. Gentlemen opposite on many occasions. The House is free to do what it thinks fit on this matter, and that is what I hope that it will do when it comes to the Vote tonight.

As to their Lordships, do they think for one moment that, because they have rejected the legislation passed by this House last Session, we are obliged in the light of the views expressed by them to come to an entirely different conclusion now that draft Orders are before us? Some of my hon. Friends have expressed surprise and indignation at the action of another place in wrecking the Bill. I can understand and share their indignation, but there is no occasion for surprise.

The right hon. Member for Bexley (Mr. Heath) has made much of the point that he did not instruct their Lordships what to do about the Bill and did not tell them what their duty was. He had no need to. When the interests of the Tory Party are at stake, we all know that their Lordships will always rally to his support. It is a very convenient matter for him when the high principles of his party and his own interests coincide—

§ Mr. Geoffrey Rippon (Hexham)

Rubbish.

§ Mr. Callaghan

I hear that the right hon. and learned Member for Hexham (Mr. Rippon) is in good voice again. Why does not he stand and say what he wishes to say?

§ Mr. Rippon

What the right hon. Gentleman is saying bears no relation to what happened. What views has he about the Bishop of Southwark, the Liberal peers and the independent peers, all of whom rightly condemned the Government?

§ Mr. Callaghan

I am grateful to the right hon. and learned Gentleman for not throwing anything at me on this occasion. The fact is that the great majority of hereditary peers always stand by the Tory Party. They have always intervened. The Liberal Party has suffered from it. One cannot find an illustration where the Tory peers have 449 not intervened on behalf of the Tory Party in this House—Vnterruption.]

I will not go back too far into history, but I am sure that the right hon. Member for Devon, North (Mr. Thorpe) will remember the occasion when the Liberal Party introduced a Measure which would practically have given manhood suffrage. The result was that their Lordships threw it out, and the poor Liberal Government of the day had to reintroduce it with the promise that they would redistribute the boundaries to offset the effects of manhood suffrage.

§ Mr. Thorpe

I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman wants to be fair to the Conservative peers and that he would like to pay tribute to them for having had more Conservative peers go into the Lobby to vote in favour of his "Kenya Asian" Bill than he was able to persuade his own Labour colleagues.

§ Mr. Callaghan

That is a singularly ungracious remark, in view of the fact that I was trying to help the right hon. Gentleman. He was not here yesterday when we debated that matter. If he had been, he would have heard what I had to say about it. However, it would not be relevant to go over it again now.

To continue to come to his assistance, I do not know whether he remembers, but there were three occasions when a Liberal Government introduced Bills to abolish plural voting, which was a very profitable Conservative custom. A man voted as a resident and had separate votes for each business premises that he occupied. The Government fought for this in the sacred name of one man, one vote, one value, and the Conservatives threw out the Government's Bill on three separate occasions.

In 1928, they extended it, when they introduced an even more pleasurable custom. In giving votes to women, the Tory Party of the day, with every help and support from their Lordships, decided not only that women should have the vote but that women whose husbands had business premises should be able to get an extra vote because of those business premises. If a man had six business premises—and there was one case where there were 18—not only did he have a series of votes, but so did his wife.

I come now to a period when some hon. Members present were in the House. 450 When we tried to abolish this custom, the Tories voted against it. There are hon. Members in this House today who voted against the removal of that provision. It is not surprising that I am not willing to take lessons in this subject from hon. Members opposite.

I come up to date. I well remember the deep sense of injustice and injury expressed by right hon. and hon. Members opposite when we brought forward a Motion to abolish the City of London as a separate constituency. I am sure that some of my hon. Friends will remember the habit that some of the more junior Members will not know. We used to sit there on Queen's Speech day and watch dignified hon. Gentlemen attired in top hats, frock coats and expensive watch-chains from the City of London take their two seats on the Government Front Bench to show how important the City of London was in running the democracy of the country.

What did the Tory Party do when we wanted to remove this anomaly? How many electors did they have? There are 18,000 electors in Birmingham, Ladywood now. But they were 10,000 electors not for one Member, but for two Members-5,000 electors. But right hon. and hon. Gentlemen voted against its removal. The right hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames voted against its removal. So did the hon. and gallant baronet the Member for Knutsford (Sir W. Bromley-Davenport), who, I am sorry to see, is to leave the service of the House.

§ Lieut.-Colonel Sir Walter Bromley-Davenport (Knutsford)

Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that, much as I may wish—something may happen; I do not know—I am not a baronet; I am a knight.

§ Mr. Callaghan

I apologise. Quite clearly, the hon. and gallant Gentleman has not had his deserts. If I can do anything for him during the months that lie ahead I will. I only want to say how truly sorry I am to see an old colleague from 1945 announcing his retirement from this House. We have enjoyed having him here. We know that behind that facade there is a shrewd brain—even though he does not always show it to us.

I could go over the history of the university seats—[Interruption.] Why 451 should we turn the knife in their wounds too much? But some hon. Gentlemen opposite, who have been preaching to us about the Ladywoods of this world, have for years been voting to keep the business vote, the spouse's business vote, the plural vote, and to ensure that non-residents in the City of London should have two Members in this House.

§ Mr. J. T. Price

Gerrymandering.

§ Mr. Callaghan

Gerrymandering! They would not even dare mention the word.

Now the up-to-date position. In quite recent times the Conservative Party has had the benefit of a large difference in size between the country constituencies, which have traditionally favoured it, and the urban seats. At one stage it was 6,000, but it reduced to 2,000. The result, according to independent experts who have examined this matter, has been that 2 per cent. fewer votes for the Conservative Party would win it the same number of seats as the Labour Party. The Conservatives have profited by it without demur for years.

I am told about gerrymandering. notice Mr. David Butler's conclusion, where he says: But if Mr. Callaghan had implemented the full proposals of the Boundary Commissioners he would have been restoring to the electoral system something of the anti-Labour bias it once had. Either on the existing boundaries or on Mr. Callaghan's limited proposals, I would bet that if the popular votes in the next Election are divided equally between the two major Parties the Conservatives will have a majority in seats. If the Boundary Commission proposals were carried out in full it is quite clear that the Conservatives would be assured of a Parliamentary majority even if Labour had I per cent. more of the popular vote. Is not that the reason for their objection?—[HON. MEMBERS: "No."] They are not interested in arguments about Redcliffe-Maud. They do not mind if the parliamentary constituencies have to be torn up twice in three or four years. All that is a matter of indifference. They hope to see a situation in which, by getting less votes, they can win the election. That is all that they are interested in and that is, frankly, what the whole basis of their opposition to this particular matter has been about.

I have had to listen to a great deal of claptrap and humbug from the Opposi- 452 tion—[Interruption.] No one yet, unless the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition does so this afternoon, has attempted to answer the argument of the Redcliffe-Maud proposals and no one yet has attempted to answer the fact that there will have to be two parliamentary redistributions—[Interruption]

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker

Order. It is the custom of the House to hear debates in reasonable silence.

§ Mr. Callaghan

I do not blame the public schools for this. No one yet from the Opposition has taken up the Redcliffe-Maud case. I invite the right hon. Gentleman to tell us this afternoon whether he really believes that the constituencies should be subjected to two radical changes of a more fundamental character than we have ever had in our parliamentary history within three to four years. The right hon. Gentleman should answer that question, and he should also tell us whether he believes that the Redcliffe-Maud proposals, not in exact detail but in broad outline, should form the structure of local government reorganisation.

In the light of the Tory Party's record in this matter, which stretches back over a century, and having been accused, as I have, of pretty well every sin in the calendar, may I say that if I wanted to take lessons in how to combine hypocrisy with high-flown sentiments I should turn to the Tory Party.

§ Mr. Edward Heath (Bexley)

The Home Secretary has just made a speech which even his best friend—and I doubt whether the hon. Member for Westhoughton (Mr. J. T. Price) is that—would tell him was lamentable. Those who have been watching the faces of his hon. Friends behind him have seen that, and seldom have I seen the face of the Leader of the House so smug as he saw his discomfiture.

§ The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Fred Peart)

I do not mind the Leader of the Opposition making a hard political point, but that was a terribly unfair statement, and he knows it. My right hon. Friend made a jolly good speech.

§ Mr. Heath

I do not wish to embarrass the Leader of the House. Perhaps he will send for his Deputy.

The speech, as a whole, was as shoddy as the proposal recommended by the Home Secretary. To think that at the beginning the right hon. Gentleman mentioned the Government's principle. No wonder the Prime Minister left the Chamber as rapidly as he could when he heard that from the Home Secretary.

The Home Secretary's speech has raised two major points, with both of which I propose to deal in detail. I could not help noticing that the Home Secretary's speech was preceded by—roughly an hour ago—and ended with matters concerning Northern Ireland. To my mind this has highlighted the extraordinary weakness and, indeed, the duplicity of the Home Secretary, that he should tell Northern Ireland, where we understand that so many of the problems arise from boundary troubles and discrimination of various kinds, that it should set up a boundary commission. To do what? So that the Government can vote down its recommendations? Is that what the right hon. Gentleman is going to do?

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker

Order. If the right hon. Gentleman who has the Floor does not give way the hon. Member must resume his seat.

§ Mr. Heath

The hon. Member for Manchester, Blackley (Mr. Rose) is not the Member for Northern Ireland, whatever he may think.

At the end of his speech the Home Secretary revealed the real reason why he is behaving in this shabby fashion and why the Government are rejecting the recommendations of the Boundary Commission. The right hon. Gentleman believes that the recommendations have an in-built bias against his own party. This is the real reason, and that has emerged without any shadow of doubt.

Any question of the Redcliffe-Maud Commission is a cover story. What really 454 lies behind this is the right hon. Gentleman's appreciation of the position. It was revealed in the correspondence in The Times by his hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Michael Foot), and stated there quite plainly. Whereas his hon. Friend has no responsibility for matters concerning the implementation of the law of this House, or for reforming it, the Home Secretary has. If he believes this to be an unfair law, why has he taken no action about it for the past five years? If he is criticising the Boundary Commission for the way that it has carried out its obligations under the law, why has he not the honesty to come to the House and to the country and say that his criticisms are really of the Boundary Commission? If his criticism is of the law, his duty is to put proposals before the House to change it. If his criticisms are of the Commission, he should have the guts to stand up and say so.

The House is accustomed to a Government who sometimes come along and withdraw an unpopular Order. The House is accustomed, on rare occasions, to a Government being defeated and abandoning an order. Sometimes a Government has been defeated on an Order and has come back to the House and insisted that that Order be carried. We can all recollect examples of that. What is unique about today's debate is that this is the first occasion in our parliamentary history, as far as I, or the Government's representatives, or anybody else, can trace through the Journal Office, on which a Minister has come to the House, laid affirmative Resolutions before it, and immediately advised the House to reject those very Orders. That has never happened in our parliamentary history.

The three Motions are unique in substance in rejecting four years' work by independent Boundary Commissions and rejecting changes affecting, as the right hon. Gentleman said, more than 400 constituencies. They are unique in form in that the Home Secretary is rejecting Orders which he has laid. They are unique in the brazen effrontery with which the right hon. Gentleman overthrows the established means of demarcating boundaries in our parliamentary democracy. They are unique in modern times in the shameless demonstration, as the right hon. Gentleman has admitted at the end of his

455 speech, of Government manipulation for seats for their own advantage. The House has been brought today to the end of this shameful road.

The right hon. Gentleman has added nothing to the arguments which have gone on for the past few months, for the simple reason that there is nothing to add. If the explanations which the right hon. Gentleman gave of the position regarding particular constituencies had been made in the context of Orders which had been laid, with amendments proposed by himself, which is specifically allowed for under the law, that would have been a comprehensible contribution to the debate in the House. But, as the right hon. Gentleman has not laid Orders to be carried with amendments, nothing has been added to our knowledge. The right hon. Gentleman's real conclusion was that this matter cannot be dealt with piecemeal. With that we agree, and what that really did was to defeat the major part of his argument for the Bill that he put before the House.

The second point which emerged, and which is of the greatest importance, is that the right hon. Gentleman showed by the examples that he gave that he did not seem to appreciate that the Commission took into account in its recommendations the factors of the present situation. It did precisely that in the counties which the right hon. Gentleman described to us. This therefore makes our point, and is the main reason why all these recommendations ought to be implemented under these Orders.

There has seldom been a larger red herring dragged across the Floor of the House than there was when the right hon. Gentleman accused us of saying that no matter how irrelevant, how out of date, and how misconstructed these recommendations were, this House had to pass them without amendment or debate. Nothing could be further from the truth, and nobody has argued that. The Home Secretary has only to look at what Major Gwilym Lloyd George did in 1954. He laid the Orders before the House without amendment because he believed that that was the right thing to do and that it was the least controversial thing to do, but that did not stop the House debating them. As a Whip, 456 I remember how at night, and through the night, we debated individual constituencies, and how every hon. Member had an opportunity of debating his own problems and his own constituency.—[HoN. MEMBERS: "What about the Whips?"J —I shall deal later with the question of the Whips, because those who wanted to vote in their own way were able to do so, but that is not going to happen with hon. Gentlemen opposite.

Nobody can argue that these recommendations are irrelevant, or out of date, or that the wrong processes have been used in reaching the conclusions. All the inquiries have been held. The Commission has adhered to the regulations, and the Home Secretary has not challenged that. These are relevant recommendations, and they are up to date. They have been brought about through the proper constitutional processes, and that therefore defeats the right hon. Gentleman's argument, and is the reason why we believe that they should be carried.

Even allowing for the bumbling nature of the right hon. Gentleman's speech, there was a remarkable passage in it. He blamed the House of Lords for what had gone on. Peers of all parties and none, some from his own party, wholeheartedly condemned the right hon. Gentleman and the Government for what they were doing. The Amendments to the Bill were carried by a majority which would have defeated the Government even if no hereditary peers of any party had voted. The right hon. Gentleman does not appear to have realised that what happened in the House of Lords was the best demonstration of what would have happened in a reformed House if he had had the courage to carry through his own proposals. There would have been a vote of life peers, of cross-benchers, and of some bishops, and the Government would still have been defeated, because their general view was that the Government's Bill and the Government's action was unjustifiable.

What did the House of Lords do? It gave the Government a chance to carry out their constitutional obligation. The Government have had the opportunity of doing that, but what have they done? They have rejected it. It is the Government who have rejected the path of 457 rectitude, not the House of Lords, and this the Home Secretary must realise.

If the Government are dissatisfied with what has gone on in the other House, they have their remedy. Their remedy is to use the Parliament Act. If they had done so, if they believed in their own Bill, instead of trying to find a way of dishing the Commission, this would have allowed a General Election to be held on their proposals from next September onwards. There is no doubt about that. There could have been a General Election from next September onwards on what the Government themselves say they believe to be right. But they have not even had the courage to carry through their own proposals in another place. Alternatively, they could have gone further and attempted to remove the powers of the other House if they thought that they were so unsatisfactory in their usage of them. But again the Government have not dared to do that.

The Home Secretary's duty has been clear from the beginning, namely, to lay the Commission's Report, accompanied by orders, before the House, with an explanation of any Amendments which he —or the Government themselves—wished to put forward. That is the constitutional position, and there is no doubt about it.

The Home Secretary says that we have to do all or nothing. With that I agree. The difference between us is that the right hon. Gentleman proposes to do nothing, whereas we believe that the orders should be carried through with whatever Amendments he proposes. He should explain them, and the House should then debate them and take its decision upon them. It is clearly laid down in the Act, but it is the one procedure that the Home Secretary has not followed. He has turned and twisted in every way to avoid it. He produces a Bill and hopes to get an indemnity; the Clauses are quickly closured by the Patronage Secretary; the Guillotine is applied; he tries putting forward Amendments to Lords Amendments and they all fail. Finally, when he is taken to the courts by a citizen, he is forced to carry out his statutory duties. Today, having carried out his statutory duty of laying them, he repudiates these very Orders.

Whatever the Home Secretary may now say everybody in this House knows 458 that when the Acts which have been consolidated were passed it was not the intention of Parliament that Orders should be laid only to be repudiated by the Home Secretary. That is neither the form nor the spirit of the Act, nor the wish of the Parliaments which have passed them. But even in the form in which the Home Secretary has now laid them right hon. and hon. Members are denied all possibility of individual decision. If the right hon. Gentleman will look up the speech made by the late Chuter Ede—when he was Home Secretary—in respect of the 1949 orders, he will see that Mr. Chuter Ede explained to the House that he had gone to great lengths to lay the Orders individually where possible and in groups where other constituencies were affected by individual constituencies, precisely so that hon. Members could take a decision on their own constituencies in the context of the other constituencies which were involved.

The Home Secretary, in laying these Orders and advising the House to reject them, has not even carried out that duty, which his predecessor said he believed to be essential to the operation of the Act. We can understand why. Any attempt by hon. Members opposite to express their views about their own constituencies, let alone follow such an expression of views by a vote, would get short shrift from the Patronage Secretary. He would lay on a three-line Whip as thick as he can lay it—and no one can ever accuse the Patronage Secretary of any subtlety. He uses the bludgeon. What would happen to the defaulters? There would be letters to the National Executive and the executives of the constituencies affected saying that the dog licences from the master were being withdrawn.

One brave spirit—the hon. Member for Lewisham, West (Mr. Dickens) has expressed the view that what the Government are doing cannot be justified. If he speaks in that way tonight and follows his voice with his vote we shall respect him for it. I hope that he agrees that this is politically and morally wrong, and that it is against the traditions of the House and the interests of democracy. I hope that he will not confine himself solely to arguing that the consequences of doing these things would still further tarnish the shop-soiled image of the Labour Party.

459 In 1966 the Home Secretary asked us to wind up the Boundary Commission. As he has said, we disagreed, and we did so for reasons closely connected with the arguments put forward in the Redcliffe-Maud Report. They were constitutional reasons. The first was that the period set for the Boundary Commission was from 10 to 15 years and it was apparent that by the time it had completed its work and we had been able to take action on it 15 years would have passed. Secondly, there were practical reasons, because of what was happening in the constituencies and because we realised that if we were to base a hope of future action on the RedcliffeMaud Report it would take not 15 years but nearer 25 years under the 1954 arrangements. These are practical as well as constitutional points.

I do not want to go into details of constituencies; they are well known to the House. But ever since 1966 Her Majesty's Government have been determined to use the Redcliffe-Maud Commission as a justification for not implementing whatever reports were produced by the Boundary Commission. That is clear from the proposition that they put to us and from the way in which they have behaved since. At Question Time the Prime Minister has been constantly asked about this, and we have had the usual dissimulating replies. The Government therefore brought forward their own limited proposals, cooked up by themselves without discussion with anybody else. The only argument of consequence produced by the Home Secretary is that the implementation of the Redcliffe-Maud proposals would mean very quick changes. We all dislike changes of this kind. That was why, in the discussions in 1954, the point was made strongly that a period of from five to seven years was too short, and the Conservative Government accordingly changed the law to make the period from 10 to 15 years. I dislike such changes myself.

My constituency is affected, because it is divided into three, and the constituencies of my right hon. Friends the Members for Enfield, West (Mr. Iain Macleod) and Mitcham (Mr. R. Carr) are affected—no doubt the Prime Minister noted that fact—but I accept that when the Boundary Commission makes a recommendation of this kind, based on

460 the best evidence and procedures, these facts, which affect hon. Members including myself, should be accepted in the general interests of the structure of our democracy.

I now come to the specific point raised by the Home Secretary. I do not believe that any realistic person looking at the structure of local government and the work required to be done by the Boundary Commission in four years would believe that the Redcliffe-Maud recommendations can go through the process of proper consultation and then discussion and decision by the Government, and then translation into draft legislation; that they could be brought before the House, which could then agree upon the boundaries, and that at the same Ome the Boundary Commission could do its work in order to have a new situation in the time which the Home Secretary described.

I do not know anybody who believes that that is a realistic view of the situation. I do not believe that that process could be gone through in four years of Boundary Commission work even if the work was started directly the proposals of the Government were known, without waiting for the House to validate them—in time to have a General Election in 1975 on the new boundaries. If there is an election in 1970, which is obviously a possibility, the following election could be in 1975 and if we are still on the 1954 register by 1975 it means that we will have been on that same register for more than 25 years, covering six General Elections. That is the basic situation which the Home Secretary will not face.

There is now an additional danger confronting us. I had better explain it now. The Home Secretary has given the impression today that he and his colleagues are attempting to bulldoze through both local authorities and Parliament proposals for local government reform sufficiently quickly to give an air of verisimilitude to the statements that he has made about the work of the next Boundary Commission. I suggest that any changes in local government of the magnitude suggested by Maud—without going into the rights and wrongs of them —are changes which require full and detailed consultation with local authorities. They are not matters which can 461 be rushed through overnight. I saw in The Guardian today—a newspaper which is not entirely friendly to my party—a statement from the right hon. Gentleman's hon. Friend from High Peak (Mr. Peter M. Jackson), who said that he has had a much larger postbag about the Maud proposals for his own constituency than about any other matter. That is an indication, from his own side, of the interest which is taken in Maud and local government reform.

The right hon. Gentleman suggested that I was not concerned with it. I am deeply concerned with it, and it is because I am deeply concerned and want to see a proper reform of local government brought about that I believe there must be sufficient time for local government consultation. This is not a reason for delay, but if we try to take short cuts in these affairs they will take longer in the end. I should have thought that the Home Secretary, with his experience, would recognise that.

Very well then. This is the difference between us, that I do not believe that the job of local government reform can be done properly and the Boundary Commission can do its next job properly in time to have a register ready for a 1975 election, which we must accept is a reasonable probability. In this situation, I say quite bluntly that I believe that the Government's job was to say that these Boundary Commission recommendations should be implemented, with whatever amendments they wanted to make over particular points which occurred to them in discussions, and that we should then accept that it will take roughly 10 years before there is a General Election on a new register based on new local government boundaries. This seems to me to be the realistic appreciation of the processes of Government both inside and outside the House. The Home Secretary asked me for my views on that and I have given them to him very frankly.

Of course, one would have thought that we should hear one forthright, passionate and persuasive voice raised on the other side against this chicanery shown by the Government, and that is the voice of the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale. He is always in the forefront of a fight against undemocratic practices, 462 wherever they raise their heads in any country whose Government he dislikes—[Laughter.] Perhaps that is the secret: "Government he dislikes". He must have been greatly torn in his position below the Gangway when he saw what was happening above the Gangway, but it is extraordinary how nearing a General Election somehow brings him to overcome this gap between him and his right hon. Friends.

Indeed, he goes further. In his correspondence to The Times he challenges the whole basis of the Boundary Commission. I have not noticed him, week by week, pressing for changes in the legislation governing the Boundary Commission. He has not presented Ten-Minute Rule Bills on the subject. The truth of his situation at the moment—no doubt he will seek to speak later on—is that he does not want to soil his hands with the Government's gerrymandering. I give him full credit for that and I understand it, but how can he get out of this position? The way is to go to the root of the whole thing. It is essential for him to prove that the constitutional basis on which the Government are working has been forced upon them against their will by previous legislation which is unjustifiable, because Mr. David Butler says so. That is really the basis of his argument.

So if there is no constitutional justification for what the Government do, he can be in the clear. Where there is no legitimacy, there can be no illegitimacy. Where there is no valid constitutional position, nothing can be unconstitutional. So, his intellectual processes having completed their vicious circle, his conscience is clear. That is the happy way in which the hon. Gentleman can get himself out of his particular intellectual dilemma and still support his right hon. Friends on the Front Bench in gerrymandering.

It was not the hon. Member, as we might have expected, who brought the Home Secretary to account; it was a citizen in the courts. How humiliating that the Home Secretary, the custodian of law and order in this country, had to be taken to the courts! He was forced to give an undertaking to carry out his responsibility which Parliament has placed on him—forced, indeed, to keep his own law.

463 What about the Law Officers, who must have advised him in these matters? I am not referring to the Solicitor-General, who is not present today, because he would not have been given a sight of anything so important as a boundary redistribution. I am referring to the Attorney-General. Is he the one who has been using his experience of constitution-making overseas, in which he has been prominent lately, to advise the Home Secretary on how to abuse his position?

In the courts, on the Home Secretary's behalf, the Attorney-General immediately offers an ex-gratin payment. Those of us who have sometimes dealt with the case of a constituent who, without being able to claim under the law, has at any rate been known to suffer an injustice or a grievance and have fought the Treasury, perhaps when the Home Secretary was Chancellor, to try to get some small ex-gratia payment, know the length of time that we have fought and the difficulties we have had and the correspondence which we have gone through. So often such a case fails. Not a bit of that for the Attorney-General. He says, "The Home Secretary is in difficulties—get him out—ex-gratia payments —let us hope the whole thing is wiped out."

What I want to know is, why should the tax-paying elector be forced to make an ex-gratia payment for getting the Home Secretary out of his difficulties because he will not carry out his obligations to the tax-paying public? Perhaps the Attorney-General will tell us tonight. Or perhaps he would like to take another approach. Suppose that he and the Home Secretary were to say that the Home Secretary was responsible for the failure to carry out his duties and that the Attorney-General advised him that that was what he should do. Perhaps the Home Secretary and the Attorney-General would like to make the ex-gratia payment out of their own pockets.

This is an appalling day for the Government. It is a shameful one for hon. Members opposite, though if there are some hon. Members over there tonight who are unhappy about this, we shall respect them if they show it. But it is also a bad day for the House of Commons and for Parliament. When a Min 464 ister and a Government stoop to these depths, it is not only the Minister and the Government who demean themselves. The House of Commons and Parliament, and, indeed, democracy in this country are demeaned likewise.

In three months, the new register comes into operation and for the first time it will include young people aged from 18 to 21. We are told that there will be 51 million young people voting for the first time at the next election. The Labour Party has been very keen to send this message to them:

"When it comes down to it, aren't Labour's ideals yours as well?"

Perhaps "when it comes down to it" was to right phrase to use.

We have seen promises hastily given and lightly abandoned, solemn pledges just as easily discarded, London borough elections postponed for a year because they thought that it would suit their own purpose—but in fact they fared worse—constituencies left unrepresented for a longer time than ever before in British Parliamentary history, constituencies now in which dubious decisions are reached behind Labour Party closed doors—[Interruption.]—and now Parliament —[Interruption.]—I am not blaming the hon. Member for Ireland—and now Parliament turned into a mockery—

§ Mr. Rose

On a point of order. The right hon. Gentleman persists in calling me the Member for Ireland. I happen to be the hon. Member for Blackley. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman, if he had the decency to give way, would listen to a serious point.

§ Mr. Heath

I readily accept that, and I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has now dissociated himself entirely from Northern Ireland—

§ Mr. Heath

And now Parliament itself has been turned into a—

§ Mr. Andrew Faulds