REVIEW OF PARLIAMENTARY CONSTITUENCIES IN WILTSHIRE

PUBLIC ENQUIRY

SALISBURY GUILDHALL, TUESDAY 22ND JANUARY 2002

EVIDENCE OF ROBERT KEY, MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT
FOR THE COUNTY CONSTITUENCY OF SALISBURY

I do not wish to forfeit the privilege of representing a single one of the electors of this constituency. That was the burden of my letter to the Boundary Commission for England, dated 25th June 2001 (Representation 32), in which I recorded my great sadness and disbelief at the proposals made in this review.

However, we all have to accept the absolute inevitability of the restructuring of our constituencies by the Boundary Commission. Salisbury has the second largest electorate of any constituency in Wiltshire and is the twenty-third largest in terms of electorate out of all the constituencies in England. The Boundary Commission will, in the end, have its way and if we are forced to live with new boundaries, then it is only responsible to prioritize changes to produce the most logical division of Wiltshire into five constituencies, excluding Swindon.

In Salisbury, we take the long view of politics. In Henry III's Parliament of 1264, Salisbury was represented at Westminster by two burgesses. In the Parliament of 1295 the names of those burgesses are recorded for the first time. For Salisbury, there sat Richard Pynnok and John Braundston. In that Parliament in addition to two members for Salisbury, were two members for Wilton, two members for Old Sarum and two members for Downton. I believe there may also have been two members for Hindon though their names are not recorded. In addition to the burgesses of Wiltshire, there were two Knights of the County in Parliament. So there were certainly twenty-eight members of Parliament for Wiltshire. Wiltshire had more Members of Parliament than any other county. Yorkshire had twenty-four, Southampton County had twenty-two, Surrey had ten and Middlesex had two. How things change!

By 1832, before the Great Reform Act, the current Salisbury County Constituency was still represented by ten members. Under the Great Reform Act, Hindon, Downton and Old Sarum lost the right to elect members, Wilton was to elect one member and the County Constituency of Salisbury was to elect another. It was not until the beginning of the Twentieth Century that the number of MPs dropped to one, and the fact of the matter is, the boundary of Salisbury County Constituency changed fairly regularly through the Twentieth Century. In the run-up to the 1983 General Election, for example, I recall holding a joint meeting in Tisbury with the sitting Member for Westbury, Dennis Walters MP. Twenty years is a long time and it is with great sadness, and against my own wishes, that I see the Western wards of the constituency destined to move out of Salisbury County Constituency. At least the people will remain electors of Salisbury District Council.

Wylye and Till Valley look to Salisbury in every way and they have been part of this County Constituency for longer than anyone can remember. Anyone who cares to read that classic of the English countryside, "A Shepherd's Life - Impressions of the South Wiltshire Downs" - written by W H Hudson and published in 1921, cannot fail to be impressed by the affinity of the villages of the Till Valley with the cathedral city and market town of Salisbury. Long before the turnpikes and the railway and long before the War Department's presence in South Wiltshire, the people of the valleys on the southern side of Salisbury Plain looked south to the confluence of the five rivers at Salisbury, the natural focus of their communities.

Observe, for example, the photographs collected by Danny Howell in his 1988 book, "The Wylye Valley in Old Photographs".

See the picture of the Swan Inn at Wylye in 1920, accompanied by this text:

"At around 8.40 on the evening of Thursday 6th December 1923, while the Landlord, Frederick Johnson and his customers were discussing the election held that day, a fire broke out in a spare bedroom above the kitchen. Salisbury Fire Brigade were delayed by thick fog and didn't arrive until 10.35 pm, by which time it was too late".

Eighty years on,Till Valley and Wylye continue to look to Salisbury, their County Town, for their services and their life support. That is as natural as the flow of their two rivers from the Plain to the sea beyond Salisbury.

Similarly, the strength of the relationship between the villages of the Chalke Valley and Salisbury are beyond doubt. The Eighteenth Century writer John Aubrey relates that:

"Henry, Earle of Pembroke (1570-1601) instituted Salisbury Race, which has since continued very famous, and beneficial to the city… The shorter begins at a place called the Start, at the end of the edge of the north downe of the farme of Broad Chalke, and ends at the standing of the Hare-Warren, built by William Earle of Pembroke, and is four miles from the Start".

The Chalke Valley is the valley of the River Ebble. It used to be called Chalke Bourne. That famous son of Wiltshire, Ralph Whitlock, in his 1976 Batsford book on Wiltshire, wrote that "the villages of this valley are strung out like a rope of beads along the narrow valley of the Ebble". And the Ebble flows east towards New Sarum (Salisbury) not towards the southwest of the County.

One of the villages in the Chalke Valley is Stratford Tony - named for Ralf Toni, who was William the Conqueror's Standard Bearer at the Battle of Hastings and who was given the manor as part of his reward. The close-knit communities of the Chalke Valley owed feudal allegiance to their overlords in Wilton - after which the County of Wiltshire was named - thence to the Norman castle and Cathedral at Old Sarum.

The late Mr Monty Trethowan, in his history of Broad Chalke, relates that a freeman, Thomas Gawain, in return for certain services was entitled to "Christmas Day dinner at the Abbey of Wilton and afterwards he could go on drinking as long as he could see without candles." Also recorded is the story of Edith Braunce of Broad Chalke who, having been given four ewes and two skepps of bees by the church on condition that she supplied a one-pound candle every year, eloped with a man from Wilton taking the sheep and bees with her.The point I make is that down the centuries the people of the Chalke Valley have looked east to Salisbury, not west, in their life and daily dealings.

From an historical perspective it is inconceivable that Broad Chalke should not belong to the Salisbury County Constituency. There is a thousand years of history to prove it. As we start the Twenty-first Century, modern life continues to look from the Chalke Valley towards Salisbury. In matters of health, education, employment, transport and recreation - the people of the Chalke Valley flow with the river towards Salisbury. The high hills which surround the valley continue to act as a cultural as well as a physical barrier. As one distinguished farmer in the valley said to me very recently, "I've lived in this valley over seventy years and I hardly know where Westbury is. I've only ever been there a couple of times".

I could make as good a case, no doubt, for the retention of Tollard Royal with its medieval hunting links with the King's Palace at Clarendon outside Salisbury. I could make a strong case for Ansty and its links with the Knights Templar and their lands around Salisbury. The ancient and the modern castles at Wardour with their pre-Reformation links and their modern links through Tisbury to Salisbury defy the break with the status quo. I could certainly make the case for Bulford and Durrington in historic as well as the most modern, practical, military terms.

But I must not indulge myself. I know that I am more fortunate than any Member of Parliament. Not only do I represent one of the very first constituencies to emerge in the history of British democracy and home of an original Magna Carta (which I once held in my hands) but I was also privileged to spend my most formative childhood years amongst the people, the history and the landscape of South Wiltshire. To acknowledge the past and to defend the present earns us a stake in the future, too. To be sent to Westminster to speak on affairs of state is only part of the task. My duty is also to learn how the legislation of our British Parliament and the directives of the European Commission in Brussels touch the lives of the men, women and children of this constituency - and to seek representation and redress on their behalf. That role is more effective if the constituency is a coherent unit. Accordingly, I urge the Commission to ensure that the people of Till valley and Wylye and the people of the Chalke Valley continue to be part of the Salisbury County Constituency.

It is not in my nature to resist sensible reform. If it is the judgment of those charged with the care of our democracy that what is proposed is in the national interest, then, provided they will give due consideration to our requests, so be it.