For immediate release
The former Education & Employment Secretary, Home Secretary and Work & Pensions Secretary, Rt Hon David Blunkett MP, will condemn the Conservatives’ plans to slash the number of MPs and cut parliamentary representation for the poorest at the Yorkshire & The Humber regional Labour Party conference this weekend.
David Cameron has announced that the Conservatives plan to table an amendment to the Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill, to be debated in the House of Commons on Tuesday, to cut the number of MPs by 10%. He says that this would help “cut the cost of politics”.
Mr Blunkett will argue that this will result in the most disadvantaged communities in the country being left with fewer MPs – while the more populous, richer communities, will see their representation unchanged.
In his recent pamphlet, The Hidden Agenda: The True Face of Cameron’s Conservatives, Mr Blunkett noted that the Tories plan to allocate MPs to a given area based on the numbers on the electoral roll. Because in poorer communities, people are less likely to register to vote, this will inevitably mean a cut in the number of MPs representing those areas.
Speaking at the regional conference on Saturday 6 February, Mr Blunkett will say: “It is estimated that in the most deprived constituencies, there is an under-registration of between 10 and 20%. In my own constituency of Sheffield Brightside, we were probably somewhere around 12% down at the last boundary change. This meant that the city of Sheffield ‘lost’ half a seat in Parliament.
“The Conservatives are aiming to take 65 to 80 seats out of the House of Commons, and you don’t have to be an expert to see that those seats will come from the poorest areas because of the electoral registration numbers. The more affluent areas, the more widely-flung constituencies, will be over-represented in the Commons. Transient populations and disadvantaged areas will see their voice diminished.
“This is nothing less than a gerrymander of the electoral boundaries to give the Conservatives an advantage at the ballot box. If you don’t have access to vast reserves of money and assets and don’t live in a well-off area your voice would count for little under a Conservative Government.”
Mr Blunkett will say that this is the “greatest danger” arising out of the allowances scandal: “Disaffection and disgust with the political process will be used by the Conservatives to disempower those who need that process most of all.”
ENDS
