A joint Cornwall/Devon constituency?

Equal Seats or an Infringement into Cornwall?

Mebyon Kernow has hit out over the Coalition Governments plans to equalise constituency boundaries across Great Britain. Cllr Dick Cole says it is ‘unbelievable’ that there could potentially be a cross Tamar seat. Cllr Cole sees great value in maintaining the integrity of Cornwall – a valid opinion it must be said.

Under coalition plans constituency seat will be around 78,000 strong and there will be an overall reduction in the number of MPs nationally to 600.At face value this appears to be a highly positive move – in the House of Commons each MP can claim to represent the same number of people and it will equalise the weight of peoples votes. The plan will end the anomaly whereby MPs need significantly different numbers of votes to be elected.

What is unclear is if this will actually affect Cornwall to the extent the Dick Cole suggests. In part this is driven by a changed perception of the role of an MP. Constitutionally, an MP should not have to be involved in much case work – their role is to vote on matters in the House and not to deal with individual problems which the public sector is there to deal with.

Given this, a cross Tamer MP would not make too much of a difference. A cross ‘border’ (used ironically) seat would not change this too much, but would potentially diminish the amount of time that an MP would have to investigate ‘Cornish matters’.

But this would certainly not appease those who believe Cornwall should have its representation. Cllr Cole wishes to keep Cornwall as a ‘political unit’ – given the role of an MP this doesn’t seem to be needed.

This is not to say I dismiss the need for MPs to be local. A local link is something that all MPs (rightly) protect and gives them their basis of support. But, I pose the question, why would an MP with part of Devon in their patch not be able to reflect the view of Cornwall?

There are few problems in Cornwall that are not common to Devon. We already have a combined police force.

Cllr Cole continued his critique of the idea this month: he blogged the Councils commitment that ‘Cornwall should 'manage it’s [sic] own Local Enterprise Partnership rather than one which combines Cornwall with any other part of the mainland UK’. Fair enough, but I am unsure as to how the Council’s authority over Cornish matters will be challenged. The coalition proposal seeks to rebalance MPs and not Cllrs – meaning that the Council will not be asked to manage part of Devon.

Against desires to keep Cornwall ‘independent’ we must balance the national question of equal representation. In any case, until the Boundary Commission reports it is still a question of principle over practise.

My question to Cllr Cole is do you support in principle the plan to equalise representation?