House of Lords

Tuesday 16th November 2010 Lords Chamber

Tuesday, 16 November 2010.

14:30

Prayers—read by the Lord Bishop of Blackburn.

Royal Engagement

Tuesday 16th November 2010 Lords Chamber

Announcement

14:37

[The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Strathclyde)]

My Lords, I am delighted to be able to report to the House the announcement made by Clarence House this morning, which I am sure many of your Lordships will have already heard, of the engagement of Prince William to Miss Catherine Middleton. I understand that the wedding is due to take place in spring or summer of next year. I am sure that the House will wish to have an opportunity in due course to convey a more formal message to Her Majesty the Queen. In the mean time, your Lordships will, I know, wish to join me in conveying our heartfelt congratulations and every good wish to Prince William and Kate Middleton.

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for making that very brief Statement. I realise that there will be time in due course for official tributes but, for now, I just wish Prince William and Miss Kate Middleton the warmest and heartiest congratulations from these Benches also.

[Lord Alderdice]

My Lords, there are few things more exciting in life than watching a young couple make their public commitment to each other and step out in life together. We on these Benches very much wish to be associated with the words of the Leader of the House in congratulations and very good wishes to the young couple.

[The Lord Bishop of Blackburn]

My Lords, from this Bench I should like to express our great delight at this wonderful news. We wish His Royal Highness and Miss Kate Middleton our very best wishes and assure them of our prayers not only today but in the months to come.

[Baroness D'Souza]

My Lords, on behalf of the Cross-Benchers, I, too, would like to associate myself with the congratulations being offered. We also send our warmest good wishes to the happy couple.

Women: Deaths in Custody

Tuesday 16th November 2010 Lords Chamber

Question

14:39

Asked By

[Lord Sheldon]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they are taking to reduce the number of deaths of women in custody.

[Baroness Northover]

My Lords, any death in prison custody is tragic. The number and rate of self-inflicted deaths of women in custody has declined from a peak of 14 in 2003 to three in 2009. This year there has been one self-inflicted death in custody. We will continue to work hard to reduce this further by focusing on care planning for each individual woman in custody and by seeking to ensure that all agencies concerned work effectively together.

[Lord Sheldon]

I thank the noble Baroness for that reply, because it is rather useful. But is it not unacceptable that the female prison population has increased by 30 per cent over the past decade? In January 2009, there were 4,199 women in custody, one-third of whom had no previous convictions at all. According to the Corston review, there should be custody for women only for serious and violent crimes and for threats to the public. In the 10 years to December 2009, there were 69 self-inflicted deaths of women in prison. Women are often imprisoned for minor offences and the impact is on their children. What action are the Government taking to change this?

[Baroness Northover]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that question and for ensuring that we focus on this important issue. He is quite right: if you look at the sentencing pattern for women compared with that for men, you will find that we are a law-abiding sex, it seems. Although only 5 per cent of prisoners are women, they are in prison for lesser offences than are men. That, surely, is not how it should be. In many cases, those women are extremely vulnerable; there is a high incidence of mental illness, drug abuse, other substance abuse and so on. The noble Lord is also right that they usually have dependent children. The previous Government took the Corston report forward and sought to address this. We will be doing as much as we can to take that further forward. I point the noble Lord in the direction of the sentencing review that is shortly to come out.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, women prisoners are over three times more likely to inflict self-harm as their male counterparts and have higher levels of psychological distress than male prisoners. What will the coalition Government be doing to deal with this unacceptable situation and ensure that when women enter prison—and we hope that far fewer will do so in future—they are properly assessed for appropriate treatment?

[Baroness Northover]

My Lords, the noble Baroness is right; there are high levels of self-harming among women prisoners. I point her in the direction of my previous answer. The first thing is to address the disproportionate sentencing of women to prison, and I hope that that can be looked at in the context of the sentencing review. I hope that noble Lords, like the noble Baroness, will play a full part in looking at that and ensuring that it addresses the issue of self-harm. If we can divert women from prison, that will be very helpful. For those who are in prison, there has been a positive shift to address the issue, led partly by the moves of the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, to ensure that prisoners are covered by the National Health Service rather than by the Prison Medical Service. There is a mental health White Paper coming down the track from the Department of Health, and that too should help to address the issue.

[Baroness Linklater of Butterstone]

My Lords, given the high levels of social, psychiatric and emotional disorders among the women prison population, does the Minister agree that much more needs to be done to improve the training of prison officers and people on the front line who are dealing with these girls on a daily basis?

[Baroness Northover]

Yes, that is the case. Quite a lot of investment has gone into training prison officers; if I can find the page in my brief, I will find how many have been trained. I seem to remember that something like £600,000 has gone into supporting them and a large number of prison officers are now trained to look for the tell-tale signs. Clearly, though, that is still insufficient.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

The noble Baroness will be aware that one of the reasons for the encouraging reduction in the number of tragic deaths has been the enhancement of the health service provided by primary care trusts within the prison setting. Is she as concerned as I am that, as a result of the abolition of primary care trusts, the replacement GP consortia will not be in a position to provide the kind of enhanced services that we have seen introduced in the past few years?

[Baroness Northover]

I thank the noble Lord for that question. Looking after prisoners will come under the national commissioning board rather than the GP consortia. The board will work in conjunction with the GP consortia to deliver the best possible care to those in the locality, working with other specialists and the public health service, which will be much more locally based.

[Lord Bates]

My Lords, on a recent visit to Low Newton Prison, a women’s prison in Durham, I met the families of inmates who had been imprisoned for credit card fraud. Not wishing to diminish the seriousness of that crime, I just wonder whether it is right that we should separate women from their families, at a cost of £30,000 a year to the taxpayer, for credit card fraud, when they would be better placed back in their homes, working in the community and paying off their debts.

[Baroness Northover]

I agree with my noble friend. It is extremely important that in this kind of case we address the issue of rehabilitation and try to ensure that there is no reoffending rather than put people in prison. I hope that the sentencing review later in the year will help to address this kind of issue.

[The Lord Bishop of Liverpool]

My Lords, it is estimated that only 4 per cent of women prisoners need to be in prison for the public’s protection. Can the Minister confirm that figure?

[Baroness Northover]

I have not seen those specific figures but I have seen a lot of evidence indicating that there are far too many women in prison. The damaging effect on them and their families knows no bounds. It is therefore extremely important that this is urgently addressed.

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall]

My Lords, in view of the pressure that the prison budget is liable to come under, can the Minister say whether the sorts of useful interventions that come through education, and particularly the kind of education that comes through the arts organisations in prisons, will be protected? It has a particularly beneficial effect on the sort of prisoners she has been talking about.

[Baroness Northover]

The key thing is to cut reoffending and to rehabilitate. That is the best way to protect the public and to redirect those women to other things. All of these aspects will be looked at in terms of their efficacy.

Bovine Tuberculosis

Tuesday 16th November 2010 Lords Chamber

Question

14:48

Asked By

[Lord Krebs]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what scientific evidence they hold which supports their proposals for control of bovine tuberculosis.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Henley)]

My Lords, scientific evidence indicates that TB in cattle will not be eliminated without addressing transmission from badgers. The evidence used to estimate the impact of badger culling and vaccination on TB incidence in cattle is set out in our consultation document. For culling, much of the evidence comes from the randomised badger-culling trial, which was recommended by the noble Lord in 1997. For vaccination, it comes from laboratory and field studies.

[Lord Krebs]

I thank the Minister for that helpful Answer. As he has indicated, I declare an interest as the author of the 1997 report that led to the so-called randomised badger-culling trials, which were set up to test whether culling is an effective way of controlling TB in cattle. I ask the Minister two questions. First, does he agree with the estimate of his own officials that, based on the results of the randomised badger-culling trials, long-term intensive culling of badgers would lead to a 16 per cent reduction in the incidence of TB in cattle over nine years? Even this modest reduction, which would leave 84 per cent of the problem unaffected, would be achievable only with highly effective, large-scale, long-term culling. Otherwise, culling will make the problem worse. Secondly, does the Government’s Chief Scientific Adviser, Sir John Beddington, agree with the policy of culling?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, on the first question, I accept what the noble Lord has to say, but ongoing monitoring since the end of those trials indicates that the positive impacts on herd breakdowns within the culled areas have lasted for a considerable number of years after the culls have ended and that those areas have seen a reduction of some 28 per cent in the incidence of TB. So there is a considerable reduction. We have never said that culling is the sole answer. We have always made it clear that we believe that other measures will need to be taken and that we need to use every tool in the toolbox. As I made clear to the noble Lord in Written Answers earlier this year, we have consulted both the Government Chief Scientific Adviser, Sir John Beddington, and our own chief scientific adviser within the department.

[Baroness Browning]

My Lords, I was the Minister who set up the committee so ably taken forward by the noble Lord, Lord Krebs. Back in 1997, we recognised that bovine tuberculosis was out of control. It had spread down from the moors in the south-west peninsula and has since come south, right down almost to the coast across Devon, Cornwall and Somerset. It has also spread to Gloucestershire, has headed up to Herefordshire and is now up as far as Cumbria. Has my noble friend looked at the research work being carried out in the Republic of Ireland, particularly in East Offaly? Certainly, prior to setting up the inquiry into bovine tuberculosis, the then Government looked at how culling had been used in the Republic of Ireland. I hope that he will take that research work into account.

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that question. I assure her that we have looked at research carried out in all countries. It is clear that one cannot eradicate bovine TB without also addressing TB in the wild animal population. That seems clear from the evidence in all other countries. My noble friend is also right to emphasise to the House the importance of this issue. Last year more than 25,000 cattle had to be compulsorily slaughtered. We think that bovine TB is Britain’s biggest endemic animal health issue.

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe]

My Lords, in answer to the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, the Minister said that the Government had consulted the Chief Scientific Adviser. Can he say whether the Chief Scientific Adviser is in favour of, or opposed to, a cull?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I refer the noble Lord to the Written Answer that I gave some time ago which stated that he had been consulted, was aware of what we were doing and was happy with the consultation that was taking place. I make it clear that it is only a consultation that we are conducting on this matter at the moment.

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that any pilots that take place, whether they involve culling or vaccination or both, should have independent monitoring, data collection, analysis and assessment if they are to have credibility and be of use?

[Lord Henley]

The important thing to emphasise to my noble friend is the fact that we are at this stage only consulting on a badger control policy. Having consulted and taken advice, we then propose to issue licences to farmers and others who wish to cull and/or vaccinate badgers at their own expense. We will then look at the results of that process.

[Lord May of Oxford]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that while there remain uncertainties, two things are known: first, that in the initial several years after beginning to kill badgers in a defined region, things get worse; and, secondly, if culling is maintained over a large area year in and year out, control of bovine TB is possible to a degree but the balance of evidence suggests that the costs outweigh the benefits? Incidentally, I take it that I am clear that the answer he gave about the chief scientist being content with the consultation is that he does not agree. That seemed to be implied in the Minister’s reply.

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, that is not the case at all. I have made it clear that we have consulted the Chief Scientific Adviser and he is happy with the consultation. What we are talking about at this stage is a consultation. I also make it clear to the noble Lord that the scientific evidence is clear and suggests that an active badger culling carried out on a sufficient scale—I emphasise the words “sufficient scale”—in a widespread, co-ordinated and efficient way over a sustained period will reduce the incidence of bovine TB in cattle in high-incidence areas.

[Baroness Quin]

May I therefore ask the Minister, in view of his reply, whether there will be a cull or not, because there is confusion within the Government? At precisely the same time as the Minister of State was announcing to farmers that there was going to be a cull, the Secretary of State said that she would await the scientific evidence. Which is it?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, there is no confusion in the Government at all. We have made it quite clear that we are consulting on this issue. When we consult, we consult for those reasons. We do not consult, as the party opposite did, having already made up our minds.

Department of Health: Arm’s-length Bodies

Tuesday 16th November 2010 Lords Chamber

Question

14:55

Asked By

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what estimate they have made of the cost of organisational changes required to implement the proposals to reform the Department of Health’s non-departmental public bodies; and whether the cost will be allocated to that department’s budget.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Earl Howe)]

My Lords, the Government have announced that administration costs will reduce by a third in real terms across the health sector. This will impact on the Department of Health’s arm’s-length bodies. Currently, we cannot determine the exact costs, as they will be affected by how the reduction is distributed across the health sector and how much is met by levels of natural wastage. The department’s spending review settlement will meet these costs.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

I thank the noble Earl for that reply. He will, I am sure, have listened carefully to the debate last week on the Public Bodies Bill. He will have heard half a dozen of your Lordships raise concerns about two health bodies in particular—the Human Tissue Authority and the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority. Both have the schedule of Damocles hanging over them; both need independence and sensitivity; and both cost the public purse very little. Will the noble Earl now follow the precedent set by the noble Baroness, Lady Rawlings, when she announced during Questions last Thursday that Ofcom will not be scrapped and was being pulled from Schedule 7. Will he do the same for the Human Tissue Authority and the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, we will obviously have an opportunity to debate these matters in Committee on the Public Bodies Bill, but I would just make a couple of general points. There are clear synergies between some of the functions performed by the HFEA, the HTA and the Care Quality Commission—they all license treatment. In addition, there is significant read-across to the potential scope of a new research regulator. All political parties at the election were agreed that we have too many of these bodies—too many quangos—and we have to reduce the cost of administration across government as a whole. We can debate at greater length the merits, and perhaps demerits, of the Government’s proposals. I look forward to that debate.

[Baroness Hussein-Ece]

My Lords, will my noble friend give an assurance that the necessary functions of these bodies will continue and, importantly, will they be more accountable?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, the key point to make about our proposals around the HFEA and the HTA is that we are not proposing to change the functions or alter the provisions of the underlying statutes. All we are doing is proposing to transfer various functions in different directions. As for the independence of the advice, I see no reason at all why the current independence should not be maintained under the new arrangements.

[Baroness Deech]

My Lords, is the Minister aware that a pre-legislative scrutiny committee gave an opinion two or three years ago that there was not a read-across between the HTA and the HFEA and that they had different skill sets? It accepted evidence that there was no money to be saved and that there would be a considerable loss of experience and probably money in bringing the two together. Does the Minister agree that we cannot keep revisiting this issue, which has been so thoroughly looked at?

[Earl Howe]

They are different skill sets, but I am not aware that Parliament has visited these issues, let alone revisited them. As I said, we will have the opportunity to do that, but the proposals we have outlined will ensure that the teams that are currently involved in inspection activities will be kept together. I see no reason why they should not be.

[Lord Turnberg]

My Lords, perhaps I may ask the noble Earl about the Health Protection Agency. What advantages does he expect to come out of moving the HPA into the Department of Health?

[Earl Howe]

The advantages will come from collocating all aspects of public health in one place, including the Health Protection Agency. I emphasise that there will continue to be independent advice on health protection. We will have a clear line of sight in all public health matters from the Secretary of State right down the chain to local authorities and to public health programmes implemented on the ground. We do not have that at the moment.

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes]

Is the Minister aware that, in health services in general—and I apply this also to these bodies—there is a tendency that if someone leaves a post, it is kept unfilled? Will the Minister assure us that, instead of allowing that to happen on an unspecified basis, the Government will make sure that if a post is essential it is retained and not left simply because a person has given up their job?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, my noble friend makes a good point. We need to distinguish between posts that are administrative in nature, where we will see considerable reductions, as I have mentioned, and posts that relate to clinical activities. There is obviously a clear case for the latter posts to be advertised and filled where necessary.

[Baroness Thornton]

Will the Minister explain to the House why the Human Tissue Authority and the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority have been included in the Public Bodies Bill when some 28 other NDPBs—I apologise to the House for that—were listed on 14 October in the announcement made about quangos? Will the Minister also explain whether an impact assessment has been done on any or all of these bodies, and when we might see the results of that? How many people does he expect will be made redundant, and at what cost?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, the impact assessment will be published as soon as we know the size and shape of the costs involved. As I mentioned in my original Answer, we do not know that at the moment because we do not know about natural wastage, the grades of the people who will have to leave, and so on. The main reason why those two bodies have been included in the Bill is that our proposals, when we finalise them, will be very simple. As I have outlined, they will involve reparcelling the current functions of the bodies in different directions. That is not a difficult thing to do: it can be done very easily by secondary legislation.

Welfare Reform

Tuesday 16th November 2010 Lords Chamber

Question

15:02

Asked By

[Lord Christopher]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether their welfare proposals took account of the International Labour Organisation’s Convention 29 on forced labour.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Lord Freud)]

My Lords, I can confirm that the proposals in the White Paper Universal Credit: welfare that works are compatible with the United Kingdom’s obligations under the International Labour Organisation's Convention 29 on forced labour.

[Lord Christopher]

My Lords, I am obliged for the Answer, which does not take us a great deal further than it did last Thursday. I have two concerns. One is the obvious Question that I tabled, and the other is that what is proposed at the tail end of exercises with those who are on benefit is clearly without any constructive objective whatever. This is a fascinating document, written 80 years ago. It is an interesting social read. There are 33 articles and I will read just three lines.

[Noble Lords]

Yes, come on.

[Lord Christopher]

It is no good looking at something if you do not know what it is. The Forced Labour Convention states:

“For the purposes of this Convention the term forced or compulsory labour shall mean all work or service which is exacted from any person under the menace of any penalty and for which the said person has not offered himself voluntarily”.

I have been in touch with the ILO this morning and I believe that it is looking at the jurisprudence that has gone on in the past few years. Will the Minister explain how what they are doing meets that objective?

[Lord Freud]

The mandatory work activity is designed to help a small number of customers to get back into the labour market, with labour market disciplines. If the noble Lord is referring to the attitude of the ILO on the matter, ILO experts produced a report on it in 2007 in which they accepted that this kind of work to help people back into the workplace was acceptable.

[Lord Skelmersdale]

My Lords, may I take my noble friend a little further? Does not Article 2(2)(b) of ILO Convention 29 specifically exclude,

“any work or service which forms part of the normal civic obligations of the citizens of a fully self-governing country”?

Will not these provisions, once enacted, cover that point?

[Lord Freud]

I thank my noble friend for that question. As noble Lords will be aware, Convention 29 was originally designed with colonialism in mind and was then applied more generally. We do not think that the programmes that we are looking at apply in any way to ILO Convention 29 or, indeed, ILO Convention 105. Likewise, the Joint Committee on Human Rights looked at the European Convention on Human Rights in this context and found that these programmes do not apply.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Christopher has raised one of a number of interesting questions about the Government’s welfare proposals. Another relates to what the Minister said last Thursday on hardship payments. In response to my noble friend Lord McKenzie, he said:

“Hardship payments will be available, and the exact levels will have to be determined”.—[Official Report, 11/11/10; col. 330.]

However, in a move that the Child Poverty Action Groups says will be a retrograde step, the White Paper published on the same day says:

“We are considering replacing the current system of hardship payments with loans”.

Does the Minister regret that he was not more forthcoming on this controversial policy? I cannot believe that such a capable Minister would forget what was in his White Paper.

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, if I have forgotten what is in the White Paper, I stand reprimanded. In practice, we are looking to take elements of the hardship payments and the Social Fund generally and to localise them, including some of the loans. We are also looking at putting other elements into the universal credit. No hard decisions have yet been taken in this area. We are looking to finalise the restructuring of the Social Fund as we go into the next few weeks and introduce the Bill.

[Lord German]

My Lords, I am not surprised that the Minister has found that the ILO agreement suits the welfare reform proposals before us. However, does he agree that a symbol of a good welfare system is not how many people are locked and trapped within it but how many can be helped to get out of it? Is that not the reason why the welfare reform proposals are before us?

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for putting his finger right on the point of these proposals: this is a measure to help people back into work. I should point out that a very similar measure, the Work for your Benefit scheme introduced by the previous Administration, was looked at by the Human Rights Joint Committee in the light of Article 4 of the ECHR, and it was found that it in no way went against people’s human rights or constituted forced labour.

[Baroness Hollis of Heigham]

My Lords, the Minister mentioned the universal credit, which I and, I think, most of the House very much welcome. It will bring together half a dozen benefit payments into one. At the moment, as the noble Lord will know, some payments, such as tax credits, go to the mother, whereas others, such as JSA, may go to the father. How will the Minister ensure that with a universal credit mothers’ incomes are protected?

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for that question. With regard to the wallet and purse issue, we are giving each household the option to decide who gets the universal credit. We are also exploring whether couples can decide to divide the credit between them. Again, that is a decision that we have to finalise.

Arrangement of Business

Tuesday 16th November 2010 Lords Chamber

Announcement

15:10

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, immediately after the debate on the Leader’s Group report, my noble friend Lord Marland will repeat a Statement on the Redfern inquiry.

Business of the House

Tuesday 16th November 2010 Lords Chamber

Motion on Standing Orders

15:11

Moved By

[Lord Strathclyde]

That Standing Order 46 (No two stages of a Bill to be taken on one day) be dispensed with on Monday 22 November and Wednesday 24 November to allow the Finance (No. 2) Bill and the Equitable Life (Payments) Bill to be taken through all their remaining stages on those days.

Motion agreed.

Business of the House

Tuesday 16th November 2010 Lords Chamber

Motion on Standing Orders

15:12

Moved By

[Lord Strathclyde]

That Standing Order 40 (Arrangement of the Order Paper) be dispensed with today to allow the adjourned debate on the second reading of the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill to be taken after the motion in the name of Lord Strathclyde.

Motion agreed.

Public Bodies Bill [HL]

Tuesday 16th November 2010 Lords Chamber

Order of Consideration Motion

15:13

Moved By

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

That it be an instruction to the Committee of the Whole House to which the Public Bodies Bill [HL] has been committed that they consider the Bill in the following order:

Clause 1, Schedule 1, Clause 2, Schedule 2, Clause 3, Schedule 3, Clause 4, Schedule 4, Clause 5, Schedule 5, Clause 6, Schedule 6, Clauses 7 to 11, Schedule 7, Clauses 12 to 31.

Motion agreed.

Interim Report: Leader's Group on Members Leaving the House

Tuesday 16th November 2010 Lords Chamber

Motion to Take Note

15:14

Moved By

[Lord Strathclyde]

That this House takes note of the Interim Report from the Leader’s Group on Members leaving the House (HL Paper 48).

[The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Strathclyde)]

My Lords, I am delighted to open this short debate today on the interim report of the Leader’s Group, which was chaired admirably by my noble friend Lord Hunt of Wirral. The group was established in July with the terms of reference,

“to identify options for allowing members to leave the House of Lords permanently”.

The group has consulted widely and today’s debate provides a further opportunity for consultation. I look forward this afternoon to hearing the views of those noble Lords who will be speaking and I am sure that other noble Lords who read the official record will write in with their views.

We should begin by rehearsing the context of today’s debate. Over some time, there have been comments by a number of noble Lords that they would like to find a way to leave the House, although not usually to surrender their title at the same time. In every Session since 2007, such comments have distilled around the House of Lords Reform Bill, a Private Member’s Bill first introduced as far back as 2007 by my noble friend Lord Steel of Aikwood. We have the inestimable pleasure of the Bill’s resurrection once again this Session. Although my noble friend is not down to speak in today’s debate, we have only to wait until 3 December when the Second Reading of the Bill is scheduled.

[Lord Steel of Aikwood]

The noble Lord does not need to wait until 3 December. I remind him that, in the days before we were locked together in unholy matrimony, as Leader of the Opposition he opposed my Bill, which included primary legislation on this very subject that is now recommended by the Hunt committee. Can I look forward to his support the week after next?

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, I say again what a pity it is that we will not hear the noble Lord’s full speech this afternoon. The luxury of being in opposition was that I could make these decisions on my own. As a member of the Cabinet there is a process to undergo, but I shall let him know well before 3 December whether the Government will support his Bill on this occasion. That was the first point of context—the debates that we had on my noble friend’s Bill.

The second point of context is that a system of leaving the House has existed since 1958 under the leave of absence scheme. When the scheme was introduced, Lord Home predicted that some hundreds of Peers would avail themselves of it. I hear the same forecasts today. When I took my seat in 1986, there were 1,096 Peers with Writs and 133—12 per cent—had taken leave of absence. That figure rose to 169—more than 15 per cent—in 1987-88. Today, 738 Members are eligible to sit and just 19—2.5 per cent—have taken leave of absence. Clearly, the reported tide of desire to leave the place is not being reflected in the leave of absence scheme. One question that we are all interested to explore is: what is the mystery ingredient that would translate the mere 19 on leave of absence into the hundreds that some have hoped for? After all, average daily attendance here this Session is 424, which is well over 300 fewer than our total number.

The third important context is the coalition agreement, which announced that the Government will publish a draft Bill for reform of your Lordships’ House. The draft Bill will be published in the new year and will be scrutinised—no doubt in some detail—by a Joint Committee of both Houses. The draft Bill will include plans for transition. I can give an undertaking to the House that we will be looking to see whether the fruits that ultimately emerge from the Leader’s Group and from this debate will help point us in the right direction for transitional arrangements. I very much hope that they will.

My noble friend Lord Hunt of Wirral and the other members of the Group are in the process of considering the options for reducing the current size of the House. Today’s debate gives noble Lords a further opportunity to add their views about what steps, if any, should be taken. The options fall into three broad categories, which are covered in the interim report. First, there are steps that could be taken by the House itself, without the need for legislation, to provide for retirement. While there may be some disadvantages to this approach, at least it could be done quickly. It would provide a means of retirement that many Members would like to see. The other two options would require legislation. One option would provide the legislative underpinning for permanent voluntary resignation. The other would involve an element of compulsion, which could involve, for example, Members being excluded on grounds of age or length of service or the holding of elections to determine which Members should remain in the House.

I should touch briefly on the subject of financial provision, simply in order to rule out any payment for retirement for the time being. In the current context it would simply not be understood by the British people.

Although the context is clear, today’s debate is not about wider reform. It is not even about the Government’s view on whether and how Members should be allowed, or made, to leave the House. Today’s debate is about consultation, about hearing the views of as many noble Lords as possible and about giving them the opportunity to respond to the options set out in the interim report. My noble friend Lord Hunt of Wirral and I look forward very much to hearing those contributions.

15:17

[Lord Desai]

My Lords, I welcome the debate. I did not testify to the Committee, but I believe that this is a very timely report.

One great problem that we always face is that, when we consider retirement or some other arrangement, we feel that we should wait for the big Bill that will reform the House of Lords as then all such problems will be settled. Although every now and then my hopes rise—they are about to rise again in the coming year—we cannot wait for the passage of a Bill for reform of your Lordships’ House. Even if a Bill comes before us sometime in the summer of next year, it will have to go through at least two rounds before the Government find the courage to use the Parliament Act 1949—which I very much doubt they will—so the status quo may continue, much to my regret. We will have to tackle the problem of the size of this House independently of the future reform of your Lordships’ House. For that reason, we ought to take this interim report very seriously and hope that the committee will come back with some more solid proposals.

I want to lay down a couple of principles. First, nobody should be compelled to go away, under any circumstances. We should have no scheme under which people feel coerced to leave your Lordships’ House, because we are a self-governing House and our principle of self-government also means respect for every Member of the House, regardless of what and how much they do. That principle has to be respected. Secondly, if we agree on a scheme, it should be non-discriminatory. It should not discriminate either on the ground of age, negatively, or on the ground of the number of years for which a person has been a Member or on the ground of non-activity. None of those criteria should be used, because they would be discriminatory and they would be resented.

I know that I am advocating a very mild, passive road, but I think it very important for the smooth working of your Lordships' House that we respect each other and let each person decide how much he or she will contribute to the House while they continue to be a Member. That leaves us with those who want to retire voluntarily and those who—we could mildly suggest this to them—have not been coming to your Lordships' House, who could perhaps be asked to consider that possibility.

We could suggest that, if people retire, they could continue to have access to the House’s facilities, which may be a point that they are worried about. If people could be allowed access to the facilities of the House, they may be willing to take retirement. Although they cannot attend your Lordships' House, they may be able to do other things, so that would be one way out. Perhaps a letter should go out to ask people whether they wish, for whatever reason, to take permanent leave of absence, as it were, to see what the response is.

There is an urgency to the matter, because the size of this House—including the number of working Members of this House—is getting beyond management. We are overcrowded. I know that we are only excluding people who do not come here any way, but sooner or later we will have to discuss other means of managing the size of the House much better on a day-to-day basis. However, that is for another day.

In the mean time, if we can get people voluntarily—almost gladly—to take leave of the House, that would be very welcome. I hope that we will make it non-discriminatory and will do it with as much dignity and respect for the Members of your Lordships' House as possible.

15:22

[Baroness Scott of Needham Market]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Desai, who has almost made my speech for me, but as a member of the working group, I wanted to add a few words about how I have approached this matter. I start by saying that it has been a pleasure to serve on the group. We are very ably chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Wirral, and have very good support from the staff here.

The group is working well together. We are committed to this House, to its work and to its Members, and we seek to arrive at a set of proposals which can command confidence and a broad base of support. We are considering the reduction of the size of this House as it is currently constituted. Although reform of this House is, in a way, the elephant in the room, we, like the noble Lord, Lord Desai, do not believe that this is a matter that can be left for resolution until that time.

There is no doubt from our consultation, both formal and informal, that there is an overwhelming view in this House that ways have to be found to allow Members to retire from this place. In some cases, this is expressed in humane terms: to give people who feel that they can no longer contribute a means of taking permanent leave of absence. The growing size of this House has led many Members to reflect on how its size can be made more manageable, encapsulated in a recent Sunday Times cartoon, which showed a tin of sardines, with one of them saying, “It is like the House of Lords in here”.

We have received more than 80 responses, but it is always difficult to know what to infer from the people who did not respond—whether their silence is an indication that they are happy with the size of the House. I think not; informal views, as well as those responses to the consultation, suggest not. There were many comments to the effect that there should be no further creation of peerages. With the new intake hotly tipped to be announced next week, that seems a forlorn hope. In any event, although there is an issue about the number of new Peers coming to this House, I do not think that any of us can really contemplate trying to pull up the drawbridge. If our main and enduring purpose here is to provide expertise, we have to ensure that the expertise is up to date.

Suggestions on how to deal with the issue can broadly be split into two categories. The first is what I call “compulsory redundancy”, although that is not a term I would use formally. There were suggestions that people over a certain age, or who had a certain length of service, or who fell under a qualifying attendance threshold could be disqualified. Some noble Lords thought we should have elections based on the precedent set by the hereditary Peers. Perhaps predictably, for each of those suggestions, there was a persuasive counterargument showing why it would not work.

The second set of suggestions favoured a more voluntary approach with provision for permanent leave of absence in which Members could retain not just their title but the ability to come into the House and use some of the facilities, as the outgoing hereditary Peers were able to do. Many Members took the view that realistically this is not an option that would be taken by large numbers of noble Lords—the point made very effectively by the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde. If the aim of the House is to reduce the numbers significantly, this option would probably have to be encouraged by agreeing a modest pension or a one-off compensatory payment based on recent attendance, although whether, in the current financial climate, it would be possible to match the reality with noble Lords’ expectations, I am not sure.

My definite preference is for a more voluntary approach. I believe it sits better with the ethos of this House to find its own solutions to the problem. Evolution has always worked better than revolution with regard to this House and might be more swiftly agreed than something more prescriptive. I hope noble Lords will give particular attention to the innovative suggestion of what we call “associate membership” of the House. This would be entirely voluntary and would enable noble Lords to continue to use the House facilities, retain membership of all-party parliamentary groups and be considered for Select Committee membership where their expertise would be useful to the House. Organisations such as the CPA and the IPU could decide whether Peers could continue membership of those groups. Associate members would be able to speak in debates. The main difference would be that they would not be able to participate in the legislative process. According to the House booklet, The Work of the Lords, legislation now takes up 55 per cent of our time. For the sake of space, if nothing else, I think that associate Peers would not be able to participate in Question Time.

I genuinely believe that this idea has much to commend it and would like to hear from other noble Lords. It is a way of reducing the overall size of the House in a way which keeps the expertise and is not unduly harsh on people who have given many years of active and loyal service to this House.

15:27

[Baroness D'Souza]

My Lords, I suspect that many of us are going to say almost exactly the same thing, perhaps using slightly different words. The final paragraphs in Appendix 2 of this welcome report contain the key message that any permanent leave from your Lordships' House would require primary legislation, which is, as we know, not an impossible task, but one that does not necessarily lend itself to speedy action, and speedy action may be what is needed.

A wider question has already been touched upon by the noble Lord, Lord Desai. It is familiar to all your Lordships. It is whether reforms, such as the ones suggested in this report, are to be abandoned in view of the radical reforms that we are promised. I am of the opinion that smaller reforms are urgent and desirable. The rationale for this is that whatever is contained in the Lords reform draft Bill that we are promised for the new year, there will have to be a transitional period. No one denies this, but the question is how long that period should be. Pro-election advocates say, with some irritation, that we have been deliberating House of Lords reform for at least 100 years and that it is high time that we got on with it. However, even they cannot deny that reforms, both radical and incremental, have been taking place. The 1958 Act and the 1999 Act have had a profound impact, and the House of Lords is a very different place because of them. Lesser reforms happen almost imperceptibly. They include changes in how business is handled, such as delaying powers, greater use of Grand Committee, more opportunities for shorter debates and the appointment of a Lord Speaker with the attendant outreach programme, which is having an exponential effect on educating the up-and-coming generation on what this House does. The perception that this is a House shrouded in outdated and outmoded conventions and in need of a thoroughgoing shake-up may not be entirely accurate.

The second point that should be made is that the way in which parliamentary democracy works in the UK is a result of hundreds of years of practice, trial and error, and change and reform. Each change has had to bed down and, in some cases, has been reversed. The essential point is that the unknown and unintended consequences of major changes to the unwritten constitution are only revealed over time.

What is needed is a combination of care and caution when tampering with the legislative process. Profound change over the past 50 years or so and the need for a decent transitional phase from one system to another persuade me that we should be looking not only at incremental reform, but at implementing such reforms as quickly as possible. A House of Lords with an efficient machinery within and without the Chamber that enables it to carry out its major functions better is what we must aim for.

This brings me back to the question of taking permanent leave of absence. I do not think that anyone would seriously disagree that this House is overwhelmingly full. As I have said, this is the largest second Chamber in the world, which makes us liable to ridicule and justifiable criticism on grounds of cost alone. Closer examination shows that perhaps one-third rarely, if ever, attends.

Broad estimates indicate that this House needs about 400 to 450 Members to service the committees as they currently exist, and to take account of the fact that this is a part-time job. We will have close on 800 Members by the end of this year and the political leaders wish to do something—hence this report from the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Wirral, and his team.

Several solutions are listed in the report and I should like to put forward three non-mutually exclusive suggestions that again have been adumbrated by previous speakers. First, primary legislation should be introduced to allow those who wish to take permanent leave to do so. The second would be to stop appointing new Peers of whatever grouping: just put a moratorium on the whole process. While one is at it, why not disassociate the conferring of a peerage with an automatic seat in this House? The third, as has already been said, would be to introduce different categories of Peers such as associate Peers. If we can agree that perception is important if not all, perhaps we could have a system of categories such as working Peers, regular attendees, non-working Peers such as those who attend, say, less than 10 per cent of the time, and retired Peers who have not attended at all, let us say, within the past 12 months, with, of course, suitable exceptions for those who have been temporarily infirm. Again, I have said in this House that more than 30 Cross-Bench Peers have not attended in the past two or three years. I would be extraordinarily happy to write to these people—sensitively, nicely and politely—to ask, “What’s up?”.

All the above, including, as has been said, associate Peers, could have varying degrees of access to the Library and Dining Rooms, and attend the Chamber, perhaps by sitting on the steps of the Throne but not by actively participating. This would be a start and would at least indicate to the sceptical public that not only is this House aware of the torrent of Members but that it is doing something about it. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Wirral, and all those on the committee for looking at this problem in such a constructive way and for allowing the maximum opportunity for consultation.

15:33

[The Lord Bishop of Blackburn]

My Lords, I wonder whether the experience of those who have occupied this Bench may be of some assistance as we consider this report. Bishops have compulsory retirement at the age of 70 and most Lords spiritual, while rarely going before the age of 65, usually retire between the ages of 65 and 69. This means that we work on a one-in one-out basis, so the size of the Bench remains static. This also means that we have a regular turnover on the Bench. In fact, within the past five years, with the exception of the most reverend Primates the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Archbishop of York, and the right reverend Prelates the Bishop of London and the Bishop of Winchester, all four of whom automatically take their place in your Lordships’ House on appointment, we have had a complete turnover on this Bench.

One downside is that time spent on the Bench may be quite short, depending on the age of the new Lord spiritual, who could have spent anything up to seven years or even more as a diocesan Bishop before joining your Lordships’ House. It is therefore not uncommon for a Lord spiritual to serve only a three or four-year term, and indeed for some considerably less before their retirement arrives. So it is worth noting that the same might apply to parts of your Lordships’ House if an upper age limit were installed that was too low.

While Bishops will do their utmost to attend this Chamber as frequently as possible, it has to be recognised that another downside of being a Bishop in active service is that time spent in this Chamber can be squeezed because of diocesan, regional and other national responsibilities. But a real positive in having serving Bishops means that membership is linked to an active occupation outside the Chamber. I know that there are others in an active occupation outside the Chamber, and it means that, certainly in our case and that of other noble Lords, the Member is in contact on practically a daily basis with a wide cross-section of the community. As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Lincoln, not in his place today, pointed out in his submission to the Leader’s Group:

“The difficulty with Life Peers must be that although they may have been appointed on the basis of their then current activities and abilities to represent certain interests and concerns, they continue to sit in the House long after those criteria are no longer being met”.

However, neither I nor my brother Bishop from Lincoln would want to say that all life Peers should stand down when they cease to hold the offices or exercise the roles on the basis of which they were appointed; certainly not. Indeed, very occasionally certain Bishops have been granted life peerages on retirement from their dioceses. They go on to contribute widely to the life and work of your Lordships’ House, and the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, is clearly a fine example of this.

I warm to the proposal of the noble Lord, Lord Steel, summarised in paragraph 13 of the report, that a voluntary permanent leave of absence be offered, which in effect amounts to leaving the House. If it is thought that to delay change again is unbearable and that an ever expanding number of Members of your Lordships’ House is beginning to look ridiculous in the eyes of the general public, one example from the Bishops’ Bench might be considered: a temporary cap on numbers entering the House, at least until possible further reform is in place. Until such time, could consideration be given to a one-in one-out policy on appointments? Again, to ensure that your Lordships’ House does not suffer from lack of turnover, could serious consideration be given to the proposals of the noble Lord, Lord Steel, on permanent leave of absence?

Finally, and again based on but not exclusive to the experience on this Bench, I hope that careful consideration will be given to the many benefits that can link membership of your Lordships’ House to an active occupation outside the Chamber.

15:40

[Lord Hunt of Wirral]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster for giving us this opportunity to debate a vital subject, and I should like to spend a few moments explaining why it is important. Like my noble friend Lady Scott of Needham Market, I and the other members of the Leader’s Group, all of whom are now present in the Chamber, are here primarily to listen. We shall meet tomorrow morning to go through each and every contribution that is made to the debate to ensure that we learn all the lessons that can be learnt from the points made.

First, I am acutely aware of how sensitive an issue this is for all noble Lords. When my noble friend the Leader of the House first asked me if I would chair the Leader’s Group and showed me the mission statement—to identify options for allowing Members to leave the House of Lords permanently—I was reminded of an impossible task I was once set by a previous Prime Minister, who said, “But, David, as a lawyer you can always explain the inexplicable”; I should have added, “and defend the indefensible”. I am grateful to all of your Lordships for the confidence and support you have been good enough to show me and my colleagues on the Leader’s Group in our taking on of this difficult task. I am also grateful for your willingness to share with us your experience and understanding of this House. I thank also the other members of the group for the wisdom, humour and openness which they have brought to our discussions.

In approaching our task of identifying the options for allowing Members to leave the House permanently, I have been unsure about whether we are being asked to find a short-term solution to a long-term problem or a long-term solution to a short-term problem—an issue to which the noble Lord, Lord Desai, has already referred—and, until the Deputy Prime Minister’s cross-party committee publishes its draft Bill, that will remain the case.

However, it is clear that there is an immediate issue which has to be resolved. We are all conscious of the increasing difficulty at times of finding a seat in the Chamber; of the increasing difficulty of finding a slot for an Oral Question; and of the occasions when the length of a list of speakers means that the time available for individual speeches is inconveniently short. Put simply, to quote a very great person, we need to consider how to manage our increasing numbers,

“because we are too menny”.

The written submissions received by the group are as diverse and wide-ranging as I thought possible. I should have expected that from a collection of independent-minded parliamentarians. The common thread I detect is a sincere concern for the effective functioning of the second Chamber of the United Kingdom’s Parliament and for our reputation. It is that common thread which emboldens me to hope that we might be able to establish a consensus view. I think it is possible and, after listening to the Convenor of the Cross-Bench Peers, the noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, I sense that we are on the threshold of finding a range of solutions which might meet the approval of the House and enable us to take the initiative in reshaping the House for the better, whether fundamental reform should be achieved sooner or later.

Inevitably, as evidenced by the right reverend Prelate, the options proposed are influenced by our different experiences of the House and of life outside. Inevitably, some options are more realistic than others in terms of public policy. One objective of the Leader’s Group in giving in our interim report the range of options proposed was to remind everyone of the wide range of views on a single issue which it is possible for thoughtful and principled people to hold.

My noble friend Lady Scott and the noble Baroness the Convenor have just outlined the concept of the associate membership. A number of other Members have already raised it. We look forward to hearing any further views on that.

The objective of today's debate is to hear the views of your Lordships on the range of options which have so far been proposed and perhaps to identify any other possible solutions. I am grateful to my noble friend the Leader of the House for facilitating today's debate. There will be an opportunity for everyone to consider submitting further written comments to the group—we have put a deadline of 23 November on that.

Today’s debate is a further consultative exercise. The Convenor spoke of an immediate moratorium on new appointments to the House. I recognise that that may seem like a sensible move to some because of the need to manage our numbers, but it is not an idea which has very much attraction because the expertise and currency of your Lordships’ House have to be refreshed from time to time. To say to our political leaders that they will no longer have the opportunity to reinforce their troops, particularly when the political landscape changes substantially as it has done this year, would be a significant step which I would not want this House to take. I should mention to the Convenor that there is a view that we should separate the honour of a life peerage from the role of a Member of the upper House.

Let us all bring our collective wisdom and expertise to finding a solution to an intractable, but certainly not insoluble, problem.

[Lord Campbell of Alloway]

Perhaps I may ask my noble friend two very short questions. Whatever may be the option, is it not wholly essential that the due process by which any Member of this House has imposed a leave of absence should first be accepted by the House? Secondly, in respect of all our peerages, whether life peerages or hereditary peerages, ought not the approval of Her Majesty the Queen be sought as a matter of courtesy?

[Lord Hunt of Wirral]

The best and most direct answer to my noble friend on his two questions is that we will obviously report with our recommendations. If legislation were required, it would have to be debated in this Chamber and eventually have to go to the Sovereign for Royal Assent.

I sense that there is a wish to try to find a solution. If we can find that solution, we should take steps to bring it into force as soon as possible.

15:49

[Lord Alderdice]

My Lords, in following the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Wirral, I express on my own behalf—and, I am sure, on behalf of all Members of the House—our appreciation of the work that he and the small group of noble Lords mandated by the Leader of the House have already done, and the help that they have already tendered your Lordships’ House. Although he has indicated his optimism that a degree of consensus is arising, the very fact that we have this interim report and are having this debate suggests that we have not yet arrived at that consensus. I hope that after today his optimism will be fully justified, because it would be helpful. I have some doubt about it, not least because, in addressing this relatively limited issue of permanent retirement from your Lordships' House, another issue keeps getting folded in—the size of your Lordships' House.

There are a whole lot of contributory factors to the size of your Lordships' House. If we look at this proposal as the solution to the problem, we may be tempted not to move forward on something that is itself a reasonable proposition simply because it will not solve the wider problem—that being that a substantial number of new Peers continue to come in. Until we turn the tap down a little, if not off, simply working with the plug in at the other end will not necessarily provide a resolution.

I also have a certain scepticism, mirroring that of the Leader of the House, as to how far these changes in retirement will make a difference to the number of noble Lords who are active in the House. After all, if we simply ask those who are older or unable to be present or to participate in the work of the House to take retirement, it may reduce the overall numbers of the House, but it will make absolutely no difference to the number of noble Lords present at Question Time or to the crush that many noble Lords feel. Those who are not here then will still not be here. It will also make no difference in the main to the expense of running the House—although, in deference to the noble Baroness, I do not think that your Lordships' House, despite its size, is anything like the most expensive Second Chamber in the world. In fact, I suspect that it is substantially one of the cheapest. Dealing with the question of retirement will not make much difference to expense or to the number of noble Lords on the Benches during Question Time, but that does not mean that we should not move ahead with it for its own sake.

A lifetime commitment is increasingly unusual in today’s world. We heard an announcement today from the Leader of the House about what we very much look forward to and hope will be a lifetime commitment—that of the young prince and his belovèd. Lifetime commitments are a very rewarding thing when people can stick with them, but when I worked as a psychiatrist I became aware that there were an increasing number of divorces between elderly people, which had been rather unusual in the past. It became apparent that when couples had committed to each other when young, it was with the understanding—though not spoken at that early age—that they would not have to spend massive amounts of time with each other in the period of retirement. When they discovered that they would have 20, 30, 40 or more years together, all the time, undiluted in the course of retirement, it seemed a commitment that they had not intended to give in the first instance.

Similarly, with the improvements of medicine and all sorts of other things, there is an increased average life expectancy and an expectancy of productive, active years in your Lordships' House. But sadly, as will be an increasing problem for all of us in society, there is an increasing number of years that are not particularly productive. Those can be problem years for Members of your Lordships' House and their families as well as for commitments to loved ones and other sets of responsibilities. Many may, because of increasing physical or mental frailty, no longer feel able or be able to serve in your Lordships' House. It is appropriate to create a context in which it is possible for those who wish to, and in some cases perhaps should, for various reasons, to take permanent retirement from your Lordships' House. However, there is concern among some who would otherwise take retirement about some specific issues. First, there is sometimes a concern that if one left the House it would by a factor of one reduce the number of Members of one’s party. As the right reverend Prelate has observed, that may make an adverse difference, and colleagues may wish for a Member to stay when he or she may wish to go because it affects the number of votes—and sometimes these can be quite substantial. I therefore wonder whether there would be some value or assistance to your Lordships’ House if an understanding was reached, first, that there would be an overall broad limit on the number of its Members and, secondly, with due deference to the numbers in political parties relating to the votes in the last election, a principle previously enunciated, that when a Member took permanent retirement, it would in some way affect the number of nominations that came forward from the Prime Minister.

For a significant number of Peers—this is perhaps more true of some backgrounds rather than of others—the giving up of remunerative work for quite a number of years by Members of your Lordships’ House has left them substantially poorer than they might well otherwise have been. I will make one comparison, which I hope that noble Lords will kindly attribute to the strange background I come from rather than thinking it a proper comparison with your Lordships’ House. I remember discussing with a former member of the IRA the problems he was having after the ceasefire and the end of IRA activities. He said, “There is, you need to understand, no pension scheme for the IRA”. That is of course a wholly other circumstance, but there is no pension scheme for Members of your Lordships’ House and there are noble Lords who do not have substantial personal resources but who have, under command from Her Majesty and with a real and passionate commitment to their party and to the country, devoted themselves to your Lordships’ House. For some, the very modest expenses available are necessary for them or for their partner or family and they remain. It seems to me that that matter needs consideration.

The noble Lord the Leader of the House has said that no more money is available. However, I am not so sure that, in the country at large, the question of people who have given service having some modest recognition of that when they retire is quite such a difficult issue as some Members of your Lordships’ House think, particularly if it is linked to those who have had a certain minimum number of years of service and is related to the amount of service they have given in, perhaps, the last three years of their time. That may be an important issue. Mention has also been made of the considerable attachment that many noble Lords make to the House and to their colleagues. If there was some kind of arrangement allowing them to return to the House to engage with colleagues and use some of the facilities without being involved in any way with the process of legislation and scrutiny, that might well fulfil some of their own personal attachments but would leave a lower number of Members of the House.

There is and will be much more to say about this, but I simply caution, as I did earlier, that in considering this question we should not make the best the enemy of the good in the sense of trying to make this issue of retirement resolve all the other issues about the size of the House and the way it functions, then set it to the side because it simply does not accommodate all of those requirements. It has a purpose in itself and, if one made progress on that, there is nothing to say that the wider questions cannot be returned to at an early stage when we are clear about the proposals for your Lordships’ House, even before the end of this Parliament.

15:58

[Earl Ferrers]

My Lords, having listened to the remarkable contribution of my noble friend Lord Alderdice, it made me realise how complicated this whole issue really is. I am sure that my noble friend Lord Hunt of Wirral, who has shown today how conciliatory and understanding he is, has done a tremendous job with his committee to produce this interim report. However, I am not going to be very helpful for I am bound to say that I find the whole subject totally disagreeable.

We have all experienced some riveting debates in this House. I look back on the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act, which always sticks in my mind. Contributions were made to it by, for instance, the noble Lord, Lord Winston, the noble Lord, Lord Walton of Detchant, who I see is in his place, the noble Lord, Lord Patel, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Winchester. They have produced some of the most stimulating, intellectual and philosophical debates to which one could ever aspire to listen, everyone trying to find a way through a deeply difficult ethical subject. No other House, no other Chamber, in any other parliament in the world could produce that form of debate and one of that quality. Many people know this and acknowledge it.

But now what is going to happen? Reform of your Lordships’ House is being peddled around the political arena again, in an effort to find some so-called perfection. All that we have is going to be thrown to the birds if we are not careful. Now we are debating how your Lordships can leave your Lordships’ House when your Lordships have had enough—or, worse still, when others think that your Lordships have had enough. If I were not in this Chamber, I would suggest that we have all gone stark staring mad, but that might be considered to be somewhat inappropriate language for your Lordships so I will temper it by saying that I think that your Lordships may be misdirecting yourselves.

The fact is that anyone who is made a Peer is in receipt of a huge honour, one that is bestowed on them by the monarch. When your Lordships are made a Peer or inherit a peerage, the patent that each Peer receives says that he or she is elevated to,

“the state, degree, style, dignity and honour of Baron”—

or Earl—

“to have and to hold unto him for his life”.

Those are pretty clear and trenchant words. That is what the patent says, it is what the constitution says, and it is what each of your Lordships is bound by.

It is difficult to see how a Peer should henceforth be able to say, “I think I’ve had enough now. I should go off and do something else”. Frankly, I find the proposal little short of offensive. Even if we were—wrongly, in my mind—to allow Peers to go, how would you get them to go? The usual way, I suppose: offer them money. A thousand pounds? No, there would not be any takers there. Five thousand pounds? None there either. Fifty thousand pounds? Well, there might be a flicker of interest. But how can you be paid not to do that which you have not been paid to do in the first place? The public row would be something terrible. Can one imagine how the Daily Telegraph would love it, and would probably misdirect us all at the same time? Or would we have a Star Chamber, in which various Peers sat in judgment on their colleagues and said, “He’s past it, poor fellow. He’s over 80”? I suppose that at this point I should declare an interest. All I would say is that there is nothing wrong with being over 80.

If you say, “Get rid of those who don’t attend”, that is fine, but they are not the problem, as the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, said. If you say, “Get rid of those who don’t speak”, that is fine too—but they are not the problem either. It is the chattering classes who are the problem. Of course, there are too many people in the House; we have had to billow over to below the Bar. That is a pretty humiliating fact, but whose fault is it? It is the politicians’. That applies to the leaders of all the parties, including my own, and we have to live with that and realise that that is what has happened. They have made the absurd mistake of making too many Peers. That does not mean that we do not welcome each new Peer as he comes—of course we do—but it is a question of numbers.

They now say, “Help, help, we’ve got to do something about it”. People say, in that curiously absurd phrase, “Well, we are where we are and now we must proceed from here”. That is a way of saying, “We have made an appalling mess of things but let’s not refer to it. Let’s find a way out of the hole”. It seems pretty elementary: if your house is being flooded with water, first turn the hosepipe off. If you have too many Peers, the first thing to do is to stop making any more. But no—not under this arrangement. Another 50 or more are on their way, which will merely exacerbate the problem. I find that unbelievable. It is bringing your Lordships’ House into disrepute. Maybe it is the idea of some to make the House of Lords unworkable so that it has to be abolished and replaced with a senate. I do not know if that is what people intend, but let us be careful. If we are not careful, that is exactly what will happen.

As usual, it is the politicians who have mucked it up. You cannot continue to alter the constitution just because politicians have played fast and loose with the arrangements. I hesitate to say it but these absurdities never happened in the “good old days”. By the “good old days” I mean the very good “good old days”, before the Life Peerages Act 1958, which some of us remember, even though most of your Lordships were only in knee pants. Then there were arrangements such as the Salisbury/Addison rules, which enabled the House to get over the problems of the day. But along came a Labour Administration which got rid of practically all the hereditary Peers, the Law Lords and the Lord Chancellor. Some of us were ridiculed as silly old right-wingers when we said that if you start tinkering with the constitution in this way you do not know where it will end—and it is a fact.

There were around 1,200 Peers before the House of Lords Bill was passed. The number then dropped to 666; it has now got to 738 and rising. The result is that more than three-quarters of the Labour Peers who now sit in the House and more than half the whole House were made Peers under the Labour Administration. If we start messing around with the House again by inviting or allowing people to leave, with or without a cash handout, we will invite total ridicule. I am almost certain that we will also do so by allowing the House to be wholly elected. For reasons that we need not rehearse today, I am totally against that.

My noble friend Lord Taylor of Holbeach properly let the cat out of the bag last week. He was followed today by my noble friend Lord Strathclyde. My noble friend Lord Taylor said that it was the coalition Government’s aim to have a mostly elected but partially appointed House. I find that an astonishing announcement. It was never what the Conservative Party wanted. I suppose it is the pound of flesh that the Liberal Democrats extracted as part of forming the coalition. The Liberal Democrats, bless their hearts, have some very funny ideas. We may be bound together with them but they are a pretty arm’s-length body—to remind noble Lords of a phrase used by my noble and learned friend Lord Howe last week about quangos.

We should remind ourselves that your Lordships’ House stands high in the opinion of people and organisations. We are part of that. Do not let us destroy it further by allowing people to choose to buzz off when they feel like it. After all, there is leave of absence. I am bound to tell your Lordships that I think it is wrong even to consider this. It would be a constitutional disaster.

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton]

My Lords, before the noble Earl sits down, he referred during his very interesting speech to funny ideas. For the record, would he like to comment on the views that he held at the time of the Life Peerages Act about the role of women in your Lordships’ Chamber, and whether he has changed those views?

[Earl Ferrers]

My Lords, the noble Baroness has produced the old chestnut. I am bound to tell her that I was giving the views of a young man, and the views of young men are always wanted to be known, are they not? I gave the views that I held at that time, which is what I thought and what a number of other people thought. Of course, things have happened since then and I have changed my mind. Peers are allowed to change their mind; even coalition Governments can change their mind. I do not have any regrets about that and I do not have any regrets about saying it because, after all, the noble Baroness will remember that it is important to know what young people want; and I consider myself still to be in that category.

16:11

[Lady Saltoun of Abernethy]

My Lords, after the noble Earl’s speech there is not an awful lot left to be said.

What a ridiculous situation the coalition Government have got us into. First, they make 50 new Peers immediately on taking office—nearer 60, I believe—and the House has to sit early so that they may all be introduced before the Summer Recess. Next, they tell us that they are going to produce another 50 new Peers, I think before Christmas. Then they suddenly discover that there is no room in the Chamber for them to sit, so they set up a Leader’s Group to decide how to get rid of enough of the existing Peers to make room for the new boys. One does not need to be Einstein to have foreseen this farcical situation. If anyone thinks that enough Peers are going to absent themselves voluntarily, by taking leave of absence, to make an adequate impact on the seating problem—the bums on Benches problem—they must be living in cloud-cuckoo-land. Therefore, they are going to have to be sacked, and in order to sack Peers who sit here at the command of Her Majesty, as conveyed by their Writs, it will be necessary to pass primary legislation to which Her Majesty will have to assent. That has been confirmed by the Clerk of the Parliaments, and that will apply whatever grounds for sacking them are decided on.

I turn to the idea of paying Peers to go. The Freedom of Information Act is still with us—worse luck—and your Lordships may be quite certain that, the moment that the press get hold of a whisper about money being paid to Peers to go away and twiddle their thumbs at home, all hell will break loose. I wonder what sort of sum per Peer the advocates of this suggested piece of bribery had in mind. Any amount that I can envisage the Treasury being prepared to part with would be nothing but an insult to most Peers. Another issue for us hereditary Peers is that I do not see how any of us could decently accept a penny in view of how our friends and colleagues were sent packing in 1999. They were not offered a golden handshake and were treated pretty meanly as far as use of the facilities of the House was concerned. Of course, if I were to be offered a million pounds to go, I have to admit that I should be tempted, but I hope that I should resist.

Incidentally, it might have been a good idea to have one hereditary Peer on the Leader’s Group, but I do not suppose that it matters. I really am rather sorry for the group, which has been asked to perform a miracle and has produced a very readable report that says virtually that miracles are no longer available. What a mess this Government have got us into. I do not see any way out of it. Cancelling the next batch of new Peers would stop the situation getting worse, but it would not undo what has been done.

16:14

[Viscount Astor]

My Lords, there is no greater admirer of your Lordships' House than myself, but I think that it is agreed that the House has become too large. Perhaps I can remind your Lordships that this House is second only in size to the National People’s Congress of China, which has rather a greater number of citizens than the United Kingdom. According to my research, this House is the only second Chamber in any Commonwealth country that is nearly double the size of the first, so there clearly have to be some changes to our size.

The interim report of the group led by my noble friend Lord Hunt offers three main options. The first is an age limit, for which it is suggested that 75 might be the right age. That would get rid of about a third of your Lordships—some 250—and the size of the House would be about 500. On the face of it, that may be a sensible suggestion, but as we have heard from many of your Lordships—and as has been demonstrated by my noble friend Lord Ferrers—there are many in this House who are capable of giving virtuoso performances well beyond that age. However, a limit is certainly something that your Lordships must consider. On the second option, there is general agreement that a Peer who does not attend the House should not be allowed to remain. That must make sense. The third option is to consider length of service. To achieve a cut of about a third, the length of service would have to be 15 years. In my case, I would have overstayed my welcome by at least twice that amount—although some of your Lordships might therefore think that option to be a good idea.

However, whatever option is chosen—I perhaps prefer one defined by age—there should be transitional arrangements. We have heard from my noble friends on the Front Bench that there could be a form of grandfathering—so grandfathers, and even those who are not grandfathers, would be allowed to stay—which must make sense. However, we need to consider that, if High Court judges and right reverend Prelates have some age limit, such a limit must be sensible at least for any new Peers coming into this House.

My main point is that, if we do not come up with a sensible way forward, it will be imposed by another place. We cannot debate out or ignore reform. We know that something is coming. Unless we engage with the proposals, another place will insist on reform of this House that some of us will not want. As we know, the main political parties in their manifestos at the most recent election proposed a mainly elected second Chamber. That needs more debate. I am in favour of cutting down the number of your Lordships and having a proportion elected—perhaps based on Euro-constituencies, which I think would produce 76 elected Members—so as to allow us to move slowly in changing our constitution and to see whether the arrangements work.

While I do not think that there should be a moratorium on new Peers, I plead for some restraint on the numbers who are appointed to this House. If we have too many Peers, that will complicate how we take reform forward.

Finally, I thank my noble friend the Leader of the House for providing an opportunity for this debate and, in particular, for the fact that the debate is untimed. If there is one example of why debates in your Lordships' House need reform, it is the debate on reform of your Lordships’ House that took place on 11 October—for which I was unable to be here—when each speaker was allowed two minutes. The business managers for both the Government and the Opposition should be ashamed of that. I thank my noble friend for producing the report, which is welcome and should be taken seriously. I enter a plea that, if we do not work with another place to come up with sensible ideas for reform, those will be imposed on us without our having any input into what happens in the future.

16:14

[Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Viscount, Lord Astor, because I absolutely agree with him that if we do not do something ourselves, we will have change visited upon us. There has been an air of unreality in the debate so far.

I should like to start by looking at this issue the other way round. I am absolutely certain, although my experience is not as great as some, that this House has a valid and crucial role in the constitutional and political life of our country. I am also persuaded that, come 5 May 2015, it will be significantly changed. Other noble Lords may take a different view. Longer-serving noble Lords have said to me, “We’ve heard all that before. We can sit tight and do nothing and wait and see what happens”. I think that we should be much more practical and pragmatic, and think carefully about what the nation would expect from this institution come May 2015. I will answer that question by saying that by then the size will need to be reduced. There is a case for an institutional size for the House of Lords of between 400 and 450 Members. It would have a purpose and would do its job more efficiently. The question is how to get from where we are now to 5 May 2015 and to a position where we can withstand what might be coming in our direction from the House of Commons or wherever.

I will make one other broad point. I spent a lot of time working happily on the House of Commons Commission in my previous existence. It seemed that there was more of an institutional determination of what was in the House of Commons' interests among the professional staff and the Members who were appointed to the Commons Commission to work with the Speaker. I may be wrong—my experience is not as great as that of some other noble Lords—but I get a strong sense that no one in the House of Lords thinks about the House as an institution. The business managers do this in part through the usual channels. Obviously, the Leader of the House does it, but he has other considerations to bear in mind. We need to think about giving someone—perhaps the Woolsack or some other mechanism—a unique responsibility and duty to go to bed at night and get up in the morning thinking about what is in the House of Lords' collective institutional interests. That is absent, and that makes debates such as this much more difficult.

This committee has done excellent work. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, is a very serious politician for whom I have enormous respect. However, he has been given a very difficult job. Someone has to come up with recommendations that we can vote on and agree, otherwise nothing will happen. If nothing happens, by 2015 something very unpleasant may be visited on us. I invite noble Lords to contemplate grafting grandfathering on to electing a third of the Chamber, and to contemplate what that would look like. We would start with 730, although by that time it will be 800, probably more—and then we would elect a third on top of that. One could go out on to the highways and byways of the United Kingdom and try to explain how that makes sense. I would not like to try that, because I do not think that it makes any sense whatever. The good thing about the coalition agreement and the changes that are being made is that we know that we have a five-year period in which to start thinking carefully about this. It does not make the decisions any easier, but we know the timeframe. We must make use of that time.

I always enjoy the virtuoso performances of the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, but he recommends doing nothing—and doing nothing is dangerous. I invite noble Lords who do not believe me to talk to some of the staff. Ten days ago, I witnessed some of the custodians downstairs trying to deal with people coming in through a Peers’ entrance. Many noble Lords do not, as they should, give notice of the fact that they have guests. Sometimes the guests come in big numbers. When new Members come in, it is a natural thing to want to bring in guests and show them round. That is important and I make no complaint about it. However, the system that we have down there was designed for a much smaller House, where people were much closer to one another and Members were much better known to the staff who protect us. I make clear that on this occasion there were no complaints, but the staff were overwhelmed. I do not know whether anyone has ever asked them whether in their heart of hearts they believe that they can give us the level of protection to which they have always aspired, but I think that a House of this size makes that impossible. Therefore, if this is to be done properly, serious new security arrangements, for example, will have to be organised. I could give lots of other examples of what would really need to be done if you were going to be thirled to a House as big as this, and it is not just a question of accommodation—Oral Questions would be the least of your problems. I think that we should also take the staff into consideration.

I have the great privilege of being the chairman of the Information Committee. I am still quite new at it but I enjoy the work and, with colleagues, I am responsible for looking after the Library. For the first time I am looking at graphs relating to usage that are all exponential. I can tell noble Lords about costs per Member and I can tell them how many Members are active. The answer is 420. They make proper requests for information at the Library and they receive a service. However, that service will be diluted. If we leave things as they are until 2015, noble Lords can forget the levels of service that they have enjoyed in the past unless we move to digital support mechanisms, although I know that some colleagues are not as comfortable about that as others.

Therefore, if we do nothing, we will walk blindfold into a situation in which we will be behind the curve when this tsunami of change occurs. It is only my view that such change will happen and other noble Lords may have a different view about it, but even those who do not think that it will happen will have to admit that there is a risk that serious change will come in our direction and, if we do not get ahead of the curve, we will deserve all we get.

I want to say two other things. First, I believe that using age as a basis for any change would be discriminatory. I would want to see a House that reflected the population of the country, and the fact is that people are living longer. We must not forget that, and I would want people here, as already happens, making sure that that point of view is available when important policy-making occurs. If the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and his committee decided to investigate the matter and to give people commissions to look into the issue, we could with a little ingenuity—I promise your Lordships that there are mechanisms, skills and procedures available—arrive at an index of activity that demonstrated whether people were contributing substantially to the work of the House. For my money, I think that we should certainly consider moving in that direction, and I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, will look at that seriously. I would be very happy, working with the staff in the Library and others, to assist in that process if, as I hope, his committee deemed it a sensible thing to do.

My second point is that you have to be realistic about asking people to relinquish their roles here. Why would anyone in their right mind want to leave this place? We are looked after, it is comfortable, it is collegiate and it is warm in the winter. What is not to like about the House of Lords? It is a wonderful place to be, and anyone who wants to leave it must be off their trolley. Therefore, I think that one has to be practical, and I make an offer to the noble Lord, Lord Hunt.

I think that it is possible—the skills are available to us within the House—to work out the marginal cost of Members’ use of the Library and so on. There are businesses all over the country that do that kind of thing. They carry out cost-benefit analyses of how, if you reduce your staff load over the distance, you save money. It is an invest-to-save policy. There are distinguished civil servants among our number who have been doing that for years. Therefore, there is a value-for-money case to be made—the figure arrived at might not be £50,000 but it might be significant—for saying that between now and 2015, for argument’s sake, some of the institution’s resources would be freed up, and that we should encourage some of our colleagues to consider what would be a rather grand redundancy package. I certainly think that that work has to be done. I do not know whether the figure would come out right; I do not know that many would take the money even if they were offered it. We have heard that some colleagues would not go for £1 million—I would seriously think about £1 million. Figures can be established and worked on, and I would be perfectly prepared to go into the high streets of the United Kingdom and say, “In the interests of the institution”—

[Lady Saltoun of Abernethy]

Has the noble Lord considered what the press would say if any Peer were given a penny to leave this place?

[Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope]

Yes, I have thought about that. It is an important question, but there are commercial and business standards for reducing workloads that are long-term cost-effective to an institution. I would be brutal and say that the needs of the institution are such that we have to change the system of introducing new Members—whether by elections or otherwise is a debate for another day. The figure could be worked out and justified by saying how we arrived at the per head offer. It would not be age discriminatory as that would be indefensible.

My plea to the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, is that we must do something about this, although I know that it is not for his committee to decide. He must come to a conclusion and make a recommendation. I hope that he will think seriously about the practical approach that I have suggested. I know that I may be in a minority, but if he does not do that, the danger is that we will stagger on to 2015, which is not in the long-term interests of this institution. I am convinced about that.

[Lord Grenfell]

We are all agreed that we need to do something about the size of the House, but I am having difficulty in following the noble Lord’s logic. His party is a driving force behind the movement for the abolition of the House of Lords as early as possible, so why is he saying that we must do something now to reduce its size when his party’s policy is to abolish it? I am not sure about the logic of his plea to do something immediately. That also applies to what the noble Viscount, Lord Astor, said. Why the hurry to do something immediately if your intention is to abolish the House, which would take care of the problem?

[Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope]

The Liberal Democrat policy might be slightly out of date, but I thought that we were in favour of a substantially elected House, which is a long way short of abolition. Maybe the noble Lord knows more about it than I do. I am making a practical suggestion; I am not making any value judgments. I am giving a practical reaction to what I think will come from the House of Commons in the next five years.

16:33

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Hunt of Wirral on his report, and indeed his committee on producing a number of options. People have been critical and said to me that this report should have come up with much more definitive proposals. I do not agree with that at all; I think that it lays out all the options that are open to us. They are all unpalatable; we have to choose the least unpalatable of them.

We have to ask: why are we in this position? There is no doubt that the previous Labour Government seemed to be committed to an elected House, yet they were determined to stuff this House like a Strasbourg goose with Peers. We have now reached the point, as has been pointed out, of becoming an object of ridicule. The problem must be addressed. If it is not, the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, is right that it will be addressed for us. It is our duty to try to grip this.

I am confused by our new coalition, which has come up with a rather strange formula that somehow the results of the election should be represented in this House. As the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, has pointed out before now, this is the first time that the Government have a majority over the Opposition in this House, so I do not know why it is necessary to put in so many extra Members. We now have a Government who are more committed to an elected House—I totally oppose that and believe in an appointed one—than any previous Government have been.

We have to ask the Liberal Democrats, as our coalition partners, why they are particularly keen on an elected House and are, at the same time, putting forward many of their friends and supporters to become new Members of this House—they thereby exacerbate the problem that we shall face should we get an elected House. I know that my noble friend Lord Tyler follows me in this debate; perhaps he would explain to the House what seems to me to be that conflict of interests. I know it is irresistible if one has the opportunity to bring one’s friends in here, but one has to look at the constitutional implications of what one is doing.

We have to look at how we can reduce the numbers. I shall start with what I am totally against—I do not think that some form of compulsory retirement of those who are too old is the answer. I think that a judgment based upon what age people are is an arbitrary one. There are certain Members of this House who are completely ineffectual and are quite young and there are other Members of this House who are quite ancient and extremely effective, and I think that we would miss them desperately if we produce some arbitrary age limit by which we pick them out. I think that length of service is equally arbitrary and should be discarded as an option as well.

I agree with my noble friend Lord Strathclyde that voluntary retirement is a wonderful idea, but without massive financial inducements I do not think we are going to see serious numbers leaving voluntarily, so we need to start looking at other options. I originally put down that I thought that a moratorium on new Members would be a good idea; I certainly accept, like my noble friend Lord Astor, that perhaps some restraint should be made on the number coming in. It is absurd that one of the problems has been caused by this new Government in terms of the enormous influx that we have seen and, indeed, having another 50 to come.

When we consider what we should do to address the problem of numbers, I come down to the least of all evils and that is a form of election, very similar to that which was carried out by the hereditaries to reduce their numbers. To talk in round figures, if a party has 200 Members here and it is thought to be right to reduce numbers in the House overall by 25 per cent, then they would vote for the 150 they felt should stay. Noble Lords would make a number of considerations in that election as to the contribution people have made—the amount that they attend the House, or whatever—but who is better to judge who should stay and who should go than our fellow Members within our parties, or, indeed, on the Cross Benches, where they would have to do the same thing? This would have the advantage of removing from the Executive the odium of making arbitrary decisions about who should go and who should stay, which commends it in many ways.

I do not believe, unfortunately, that we can entertain the idea of compensation in any form. The noble Lady, Lady Saltoun, is absolutely right; it would be totally unacceptable to public opinion if we were to pay people for no longer being here. It is very sad that that is the case, because people being forced to leave this House would undoubtedly suffer financial hardship, but I am afraid that that is just the way of the world: it is very tough, but in the times of economic hardship in which we are now living, it would be completely unacceptable to pay people for having left this House.

We have to address this problem, we have to do it ourselves and we do not have the option of waiting for legislation to come along at some later date. This problem has to be gripped and it has to be gripped now.

16:38

[Lord Tyler]

My Lords, I am very tempted to follow my noble friend and try to explain the massive underrepresentation of our party in the past, particularly when the leader of his party refused to make appointments from our Benches. As I understand it, all our new recruits have already committed themselves to vote for substantial radical reform when they come here, which is a step in the right direction.

I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and his colleagues, because it is a very good report. It has the advantage of brevity, which is not always the case in your Lordships’ House, and I confess that I have changed my mind as a result of his and his colleagues’ persuasion. I thought that we had a relatively simple issue here, and that as long as we avoided either excessive financial remuneration for those leaving or some enormously bureaucratic IPSA-like machinery, we could find some way through. I am not sure that that is the case.

I also thought that the key issue was the disentangling of the honours system from service in Parliament. I think that that is a critical issue. As the noble Baroness the Convener of the Cross Benches said, we must face up to that as soon as we can. Whether we have to wait for the wholesale reform that I will come to in a minute, I am not so sure, but I am persuaded by the report that the issue is a great deal more complex.

However, I am also persuaded, as is my noble friend Lord Kirkwood, that if we have to wait for the full reform package, which I estimate can come as a Bill—not a draft Bill—only in the Queen’s Speech of May 2012, we must do something earlier than that. There must be an interim solution. That is why the report is so helpful. It has caused me to react in two distinct ways—which are, potentially, I have to say, in conflict.

First, noble Lords may have examined table 3 on page 11. I am staggered that in Session 2009-10, 79 Members of your Lordships' House did not attend on one single day. As I understand it, that does not include those who had taken leave of absence; 79 Members who thought that they still were active Members of the House never attended on a single day. Why should the taxpayer pay for them to continue to stay away? That would be totally illogical. As my noble friend Lord Alderdice has already said, they are not here, so there is no point in paying them to stay away; nor, if we now introduce new qualifications, should we encourage them to come, because that would make the situation even worse.

Why should any taxpayer feel confidence about recompensing those who simply turn up to claim their allowance?

[Lord Desai]

I am somewhat lost. A person who does not come here does not get paid anything and does not cost anything. What is the problem?

[Lord Tyler]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Desai, has misunderstood me. I was suggesting that it would be wrong to pay them not to come in future, because they are not here anyway. That is all I am saying. I think that the noble Lord made a similar point earlier, and I am very sorry if he misunderstood me.

Why should we now recompense people who, frankly, turn up only to draw that allowance—who do not make a contribution, do not speak, do not ask Questions and perhaps only occasionally vote as the Whips tell them? That is not a real contribution to the work of your Lordships' House. Occasionally, I hear Peers say that we can take credit for being unsalaried. As has already been said, if you are not salaried, surely that precludes any redundancy payment or pension payment, by definition.

I was struck by the contribution of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Blackburn. We should consider very carefully taking a leaf out of the Bishops’ book. The idea of one in, one out, is admirable. Whether the different party groups and the Cross-Benchers would find that acceptable I do not know. As I understand it, when those on the Bishops’ Bench take retirement on an orderly basis, they do not get any golden goodbyes.

Incidentally, it is important to think for a moment about why the Bishops are here. They are not here to be the conscience of the nation; they are here because their ecclesiastical ancestors had to be in the counsels of the monarch of the time because they were hugely important landowners—feudal barons. They were important at Magna Carta. It was important to have them on your side if you wanted to go to war because they had a lot of money.

I am told on good authority that in medieval, feudal times, there were more Lords Spiritual than Lords Temporal, including abbots and abbesses. The first women in the English Parliament were pre-Reformation abbesses. That was nothing to do with the conscience of the nation, and predated the established church. I may be misled; I am a historian rather than a politician really, underneath, but perhaps there is a Henry VIII lesson for us here. If there is a political and practical imperative, that will have to take precedence over every other consideration. That is why my noble friend is so right: we simply cannot wait to have a new solution imposed upon us.

I did not think that I would ever say this, but I have to echo the words of the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers—that is something new for me. I thought he was absolutely right. If I were really devious—and, of course, I am not—I would support the most absurd, ludicrously generous retirement package for those who cannot be tempted to go otherwise because it would undoubtedly increase and harden the public’s support for reform of your Lordships' House, which I believe in. That seems to me to be the right answer. If we want to get this on the road, let us be ludicrously generous because that will increase the public’s support for real reforms, but I do not think that is what is here.

[Earl Ferrers]

My Lords, the noble Lord was kind enough to say that he agrees with something that I said, but he came to the most astonishing conclusion. Can he tell me how what I said made him come to that stupid conclusion?

[Lord Tyler]

My Lords, the noble Earl should take credit for persuading me, as he has this afternoon. He said that the public would never wear a really generous package to persuade people to retire. That has been echoed by other noble Lords. I believe he is right, but my view is that if we were to go down that track, it would simply increase pressure for the real reform package that I hope will come in due course.

I come to my conclusion. I believe that we are living in a fool’s paradise if we really think there is a huge reservoir of public enthusiasm for your Lordships' House in its present form, just because the other place is so unpopular. Therefore, we have a risk ahead of us. If we were to introduce such a generous new regime to persuade people to retire in the interim period, it would damage the reputation of this House. If this issue is addressed with the usual mixture—which we have had this week—of self-satisfaction and isolation from public opinion by some Members, the public will say, “Roll on reform” and amen to that.

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton]

My Lords, can the noble Lord correct what may have led to a misunderstanding on my part? He appeared to be advocating a system of removing people, or people going from your Lordships' House, on the basis of how often they have spoken or intervened at Questions. As a former Whip, it rather filled me with terror to think that those reading it could think that their way of guaranteeing their place in future would be related to how often they spoke from now on. Would he like to correct that quickly?

[Lord Tyler]

The noble Baroness makes a very fair point. If I had had a bit more time—and I am conscious that there is a very important debate to follow—I would have said that I had a great deal of sympathy with the point made by my noble friend Lord Hamilton of Epsom. There is a good case for the one in, one out idea that the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Blackburn referred to, and there is a good case for the party groups and Cross-Benchers deciding, as was the case with the hereditaries, who should go. That is probably going to be the best way forward. As I hope I have indicated, I think a very generous financial package would be discriminatory, an age would be discriminatory and trying to make the package dependent on a certain level of activity in the House is, for the reasons the noble Baroness said, also going to be most ineffective. I have much more sympathy with my noble friend. That will surprise him too.

16:49

[Lord Walton of Detchant]

My Lords, my contribution will be comparatively brief because I am just recovering from a severe cold and I have a slightly troublesome cough that may well interrupt what I am saying.

More than 21 years ago, in 1989, I received a life peerage in the Birthday Honours List. I accepted it with great pleasure and pride. I regarded it as an outstanding honour. For someone whose father had been a primary school head teacher in a mining village in Durham county and whose grandfather was a miner, in my youth I could never have contemplated such a possibility. That honour and sense of pride has stayed with me through all the 21 years and more in which I have served in your Lordships’ House.

I was grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, for commenting on my contributions to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill. I have had many wonderful experiences in this House. On behalf of your Lordships’ Select Committee on Science and Technology, I chaired inquiries into international investment in UK science, into research in the National Health Service and on complementary and alternative medicine. I take pride in the fact that the reports of those inquiries in every respect had a significant influence on government policy, as did the ad hoc Select Committee on Medical Ethics, which I chaired from 1990. It has been an immense challenge and a wonderful experience to be a Member of your Lordships’ House over the past 21 years.

However, when I read this splendid report, on whose production I must congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and his colleagues, the possibility—I say no more than the possibility—of an honourable retirement began to have its attractions. I know that with passing years it is possible for one to take leave of absence, but one can still withdraw that leave of absence. On leave of absence, you are still, nevertheless, a Member of the House. I regard my Writ of Summons by which I have a peerage for life as something that I treasure and greatly enjoy.

The noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, made a most wonderful and entertaining, if slightly iconoclastic, speech—he always entertains and adorns the House and is well worth listening to—but the point that I want to make relates to what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, whom I often see travelling down on the train from the Scottish Borders. Now that I am in my 89th year, the prospect of getting up at 5.45 am, driving 15 miles in the dark and in winter weather to the station at Berwick-upon-Tweed, travelling on a four-hour train journey to London to come to your Lordships’ House and then having a return journey with another 15 miles drive at the other end begins to be—how shall I put it?—just a little irksome at times. For that reason, the idea of a possible honourable retirement—I stress, an honourable retirement—from your Lordships’ House carries certain attractions.

If the committee or working party or Leader’s Group comes out with a final report that makes such a retirement a possible option for Peers, in the fullness of time—I am not prepared to say how long—I would be prepared seriously to consider it. However, that would be on three conditions. First, I trust that, if an honourable retirement were possible, there would be no question of my relinquishing my title. If I relinquished my title, I can imagine the views of my friends and colleagues in the community in which I live. They would assume that in losing the title I had committed some serious misdemeanour, which is a matter that I would not be prepared to consider.

Secondly, I hope that we would have the opportunity of what are often referred to as club rights; that is, the right to a limited return to the House, as with the hereditary Peers, to entertain friends and family from time to time to lunch and to show them around the Chamber and the House of Commons. Today, I showed around one daughter, two granddaughters with their husbands and five of my seven great-grandchildren. I gave them lunch. It would be a pleasure to bring them back in a few years’ time to see them as they grow up and to see how much they remember of the visit today. Club rights are important.

I know that several Members have spoken about financial questions, which are very tricky. They are sensitive and extremely difficult. As the Leader said, the public at large would not be at all enamoured of an idea whereby substantial payments on retirement were introduced. However, paragraph 39 of the report suggests:

“Most respondents suggested that any financial provision should be cost-neutral (that is, that it should pay out no more than a member might otherwise have expected to claim in expenses, on the basis of past patterns of attendance) and that it should be available only to those who had been regular contributors to the work of the House”.

There is a case for considering a modest retirement gratuity based upon years of service, and I hope very much that the group will consider this matter when it comes to produce its final report.

The other point that I would like to make is that I trust there will be no suggestion—not even a hint—of compulsion. When I chaired the House of Lords Select Committee on Medical Ethics, I recall that one of the reasons that we decided not to recommend the legislation of euthanasia was because elderly and vulnerable people might feel under unremitting pressure through feeling that they were a burden on their families or that others regarded them as ancient and no longer worthy of staying alive. They might then be pushed into accepting euthanasia. All I wish to say in ending my contribution is that, if honourable retirement comes about as a possibility, I trust that none of us elderly Peers who are regular attenders here would be likely to meet colleagues who say, “What, are you still here?”.

16:56

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts]

My Lords, perhaps I may add my congratulations to my noble friend Lord Hunt and the members of his committee on their very clear report which, as other noble Lords have said, is commendably brief and to the point. It contains a great deal of factual material from which no doubt each of us can find evidence to support our particular views or prejudices as the case may be. My particular view or prejudice concerns, first, the reputation of the House; secondly, the effectiveness of the House; and, to a much lesser extent, the number of Members of the House. I say that because, as many noble Lords have pointed out, the answer to that lies not here but with the activities of the party leadership.

I know that the House has important Second Reading business to conclude after this debate, so I will cut straight to the chase, and if the need for brevity makes me sound unusually brutal, I hope that noble Lords will forgive me. First, I entirely support the point made by my noble friend Lord Astor about the need for the self-regulatory framework to be followed. It is consonant with the way in which we have operated ourselves in the past and it enables us to keep control of our destiny. I strongly support that point of view.

That having been said, put simply, I am firmly of the view that there should be a compulsory retirement age for membership of your Lordships’ House. In my commercial experience, it is a hard and unpleasant but inevitable fact that mental agility and performance decline with age. The point and the rate of decline may vary, but decline there is, and it is difficult to argue that the list of compulsory retirement ages set out in paragraph 19 of the report is based entirely on prejudice against age. It is not, it is based on experience. There are additional examples not given by my noble friend. When the directors of public companies reach the age of 70, they are subject to compulsory annual re-election. Of course I accept that there will be hard cases and exceptions to the rule, but the outside world has found a compulsory retirement age to be of value, and I argue that your Lordships’ House cannot be an exception. For we are not just responsible for helping to run a company, a court or an ecclesiastical see, we are participating in the governance of our country, for which there can be no higher responsibility. Therefore the dignity of the House demands that each of us shuffles off the stage before we start dribbling into our All-Bran.

As to age, it seems to me that the age of 80 is pretty satisfactory, but if it is not to be 80, I would say 75 rather than 85. But I am afraid that I would go further because, like the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, I find it astonishing that, according to table 3 in the report, each year between 40 and 80 of our colleagues find it impossible to attend the House at all and take no part in our proceedings. I argued in my letter to my noble friend’s committee that there is a need for a cross-party committee to address what I call lack of interest. If noble Lords are inclined to ask me how I would define that, I have no precise answer, but I would reply that you will know it when you see it. Flexibility will be needed, of course. A hard definition would not address cases of, say, a noble Lord or noble Baroness who has been ill and perforce has been away for some time. But at root there needs to be an element of the famous phrase, “Use it or lose it”. If I were a director of a company and for 12 months one of my fellow directors did not turn up to any board meetings, I would ask the chairman exactly what role my fellow director was playing in the governance of the company. Again I would argue, particularly at the present time and given the cynicism among the public about Parliament and what goes on here, that the dignity and the reputation of the House demand it.

The process must be conducted with absolute dignity. The noble Lord, Lord Walton of Detchant, said much of what I want to say. It is not in our power to refuse club rights or the right to sit on the steps of the Throne: in effect, to refuse anything except the right to speak and vote in the House and its committees.

My noble friend Lord Hamilton put his finger on the issue of a financial settlement when he said that that would not be possible in the present circumstances. However, if in future years the financial sun rises a little, the proposals made by my noble friend Lord Alderdice may be worth revisiting. I accept the danger of this leading to nominal attendance and box ticking, but I argue that that risk is far less than the risk of doing nothing.

I take part in the Lord Speaker’s outreach programme, an excellent innovation, and I never fail to learn from my visits to schools. In one sense, the classes are like a mirror in which one can see a reflection of oneself and this great institution, often with slightly uncomfortable results. For the information of noble Lords who wish to see how we are seen, the most frequently remarked upon website is TheyWorkForYou.com. Many A-level students go there to see how we, in our individual ways, are performing our roles as members of the legislature of the United Kingdom. While one should not be guided only by the views of 18 year-olds, it is not easy to argue the case that the laws of our land can be made, in part, by men and women of very great age whose attendance at Parliament can be spasmodic to say the least. My private view is that unless the House grasps this issue, there is a danger of a press campaign, which could rapidly run out of control, to the detriment of all this House stands for and the reputation of the many Members who give so freely of their time.

17:03

[Lord Graham of Edmonton]

My Lords, it is a joy and a pleasure to follow the noble Lord. I apologise to the House because I had to leave the Chamber for a period during the debate and so have not heard everyone. However, everyone I have heard said something to commend itself to me. It is not a black and white issue. In producing the report, the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and his committee must have felt that it was like treading on eggshells when trying to avoid people taking offence at some of the suggestions.

When I entered the House in 1983 there were 1,200 Members. I do not possess information about the assiduity of those people—how they applied themselves to doing the job—but clearly, although the House was large, its make-up ensured that it governed itself. The nature of the House today has radically altered from what it was 30 years ago. There are far more, to use a clumsy phrase, “working Peers” now, or Peers who look upon their membership of this place not only as an honour and a pleasure but as a duty.

I come to this issue on the basis that if we do not take a decision ourselves, someone else will take the decision for us. This has been said more than once. At the same time, I am not galvanised into saying that we have to do this by 1 April or even 1 September next year. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, whom I deeply respect from 20 years’ experience in the House, would be wise to prepare the ground carefully before we take major steps.

The group should take on board the views of Members of this House before coming to its own view. We need to find out, for instance, how many people who are not vocal but who have an interest would be prepared to leave the House with what has clumsily been called a “package of honour”. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Walton, for drawing attention to paragraph 36 of the report, which in effect states that the group needs to take into account the view of those who would wish some recompense for leaving. If the average number of days on which the House sits is 150, and the average attendance is 120 days at £300 a day, a Member is entitled to claim £36,000. He would forgo that if he was no longer a Member. A calculation has to be made as to how one weighs that kind of consideration.

Of course, a variety of circumstances exists around the House. Some people have good pensions; others do not. There are people for whom coming here provides only a second or third income, but the nexus of money plays a part. If there is to be no element of compulsion in leaving the House, there has to be some incentive. I have not spoken to all my colleagues, but I have a strong suspicion that many, like me, fought very hard to get into this place and will find it particularly hard to leave with a thank you. That is not being mercenary, and I shall not talk about the figures.

Age is important in the make-up of the House; I am not saying that it should be a criterion but it is important. When I first came into the House, four of my colleagues on the Labour Benches—Manny Shinwell, Douglas Houghton, Fenner Brockway and Philip Noel-Baker—were well into their nineties. Manny Shinwell rose to his feet on his 100th birthday and made a marvellous and entertaining intervention. We have just celebrated the birthday of the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, who is 96 and attends every day. We know that he has physical problems, but he is as sharp as a tack. He speaks his mind and he votes—always the right way. He is steeped in it.

I have no hang-ups about age, but people are old and getting older, and because of the call of their party—this goes for Members on all sides—and their love of this place, they drag themselves here when they would be much better off at home. When the group makes up its mind, it should bear in mind the offer of the incentive. Some have said that the public will never wear it. What they really mean is that the press will never wear it. If the figures are correct, and some Members have to give up or gainsay £36,000 a year for—let us say—four or five years, there has to be some quid pro quo, or many quids pro quo. I am quite relaxed and content. I hope that I am here until I die; I hope that I am here for as long as I want to be. As long as I am able to get here and make a contribution, I am happy.

On the question of a contribution, I have been as disgusted as everyone else in the House that the record shows that a number of colleagues—I think it was 79 or 80—do not attend at all. If that figure is broken down, I think we will see that it involves people on all Benches, not just one. People like that should be excluded from any inducement to leave, although we should take into account the non-attendance of those who have domestic responsibilities; we have to be a bit tolerant of that. We have to sell the package produced by the committee not only to the House but to noble Lords’ families and friends. I think the phrase, “an honourable settlement”, was used. We need something that is seen in general by the public to be worthy of this place.

Anyone who has been here as long as I have—and I have been here for nearly 30 years, and 10 years in the other place—will respect the institution. This is not a party issue, but an issue in which all parties are involved. I picked up from one or two contributions the suggestion that parties should have some say in how to reduce the number. If we have 750 Members at the moment, which in a few days will be up to 800, and we want to get that down to 400 or 450, there has to be an incentive to people to leave voluntarily. That is not a dirty word; it is a sensible way in which to meet the problem—and there is a problem because, with the number of incoming Members after the election, conditions are becoming if not intolerable then worse and worse. So on practical grounds there is a case for doing that. I know that this issue is all wrapped up in forthcoming consideration of the legislation, but, so far as I am concerned, the committee would be wise to be as broad as it can in its final recommendations. Before it makes them, however, it should trawl the options by questionnaire. We have those options in writing, but the committee should put a bit of flesh on their bones and consider them.

We are indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and I rest my case.

17:12

[Lord Waddington]

My Lords, it has been a fascinating debate. All sorts of views have been expressed, but there is one thing on which we can all agree—that the House is too big. I am not saying that its size prevents it doing its job properly. Obviously not. But I am saying that it could still do its job properly if it was half the size and that, as a matter of principle and common sense, this House should be smaller, not bigger, than the House of Commons, whose Members have to represent constituents. But while the House of Commons is coming down in size, this House is growing. Unless something is done, it will grow with each succeeding year.

This continual growth is an inevitable consequence of our being a nominated rather than an elected Chamber, because after every general election resulting in a change of Government, there must be an influx of new Peers if only to correct the party balance and give the new Government reasonable representation. We are not here today to discuss the respective merits of a nominated or elected House, although, clearly, after a transitional period, a wholly elected House would present no numbers problem. But we are here surely to recognise that, if we remain a nominated House, the size of the House and the cost of running it will go up and up and the public’s blood pressure will go up correspondingly. Those who wish the present set-up to continue had better try to do something about it; otherwise those who do not wish to see the present set-up continue will be rubbing their hands, because they will see us sow the seeds of our own destruction.

One thing could be done at once. It would not reduce the size of the House but would make a modest contribution towards limiting its future growth. Legislation could and, in my view, should be introduced to alter the terms on which new Peers are appointed. They, or some of them, could be appointed without the right to sit in the Lords. That was hinted at as a possibility by the noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza. They, or some of them, could be appointed with the right to sit if, and only if, a vacancy occurred when, as a result of deaths, the membership of the place fell below a cap set by legislation. The right reverend Prelate hinted at that. I then wonder whether various devices could be used to stop incoming Governments being able to use the excuse that they had to pack the place with new Peers just to give themselves proper representation. For instance, an outgoing Government could say that a number of their Members, while keeping their right to attend, would happily give up their right to vote. I am sure that there would be no shortage of volunteers. Sensible arrangements like this could do an awful lot to ease the pressure.

In my view, we have to think up ingenious schemes like that because the only real alternative—compulsory retirement on age or other grounds—would be fraught with difficulties and dangers and, in some cases at least, cause real unfairness. Let us be clear: it might be thought right to deprive a long-standing non-attender of the right to sit or, as suggested in the Steel Bill, to deem that he has taken permanent leave of absence. Surely, it would be another thing entirely to remove from the House a person granted a peerage for life by Her Majesty when he or she is willing and able to continue carrying out the duties of that office. To do so would, in my view, be nothing less than a constitutional enormity. I also wish to point out that it would be unfair to the House, because it is very difficult to think of any cull that would not sweep up and out of the House the useful with the not so useful: the elderly statesman along with the Peer of declining powers; the Peer who only comes to draw his allowance along with the Peer who comes rarely but, when he does, speaks on a subject on which he is the acknowledged expert.

I simply cannot imagine that my noble friend Lord Tyler would really like that outcome, although it would be the result of what he suggests. I really do not think that my noble friend Lord Hodgson would want that outcome, yet it is what he is suggesting. No: compulsory retirement could also, incidentally, result in actions in the courts, but whether or not that is a real possibility, it would be quite wrong to deprive an individual of the right to sit here, whether on grounds of age, limited attendance or, least of all, because in all-party arrangements to reduce numbers proportionately, he has lost a party beauty contest. I really part company with my noble friend Lord Hamilton here; that is the biggest nonsense of all. To have compulsory retirement and then make it the result of a party beauty contest is the biggest nonsense one can possibly imagine.

As for voluntary retirement, I am sure we can all agree that legislation to provide for this would be entirely proper and that there could be nothing wrong at all in the powers that be trying to persuade people to go voluntarily. In my view, however, such persuasion would not be very successful—I share my noble friend Lord Kirkwood’s views on that—and it was for that reason that I wrote to that group suggesting some modest financial incentive.

Obviously my noble friend Lord Alderdice is thinking along those lines as well, but I have to disappoint him: I have changed my mind, like the Deputy Prime Minister. Originally, I thought of only a modest payment, not more than the equivalent of what an individual had drawn in allowances in the previous year, and I concluded that at the present time, of all times, it would be quite impossible to persuade the public that compensation, even at that modest level, would be appropriate. In short, such payments would be much more effective in inflaming the public than in persuading colleagues to go.

So, no compulsory retirement; no offers of compensation; legislation to provide for voluntary retirement; arrangements between the parties to change the party balance by some Peers, after an election, giving up the right to vote; and, most important of all, a change in the law so that becoming a life Peer does not necessarily carry with it the right to sit in this House—that is my modest contribution to a difficult problem. I close by thanking my noble friend Lord Hunt and his colleagues for all the work that they are doing on this matter.

17:21

[Lord Cobbold]

My Lords, may I intervene in the gap? I apologise for not being here at the beginning of this debate but, having listened to the very able contributions from all sides, I wanted to stress my strong belief that a fixed period of service is the best way to move forward and that a figure of 20 years is probably right, although it could be less—perhaps 15. That idea is better than the limit by age.

17:22

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to wind up from the opposition Benches on this interesting debate. Today’s debate has acted as a trailer for the Private Member’s Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Steel, on 3 December, which we are all looking forward to hearing the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, respond to—although I am not sure that he quite shares that anticipation. I say to him that it was a great pity that his party would not agree to the sensible provisions in the Constitutional Renewal Bill just before the election; it would have allowed retirement from your Lordships’ House.

I have had the pleasure of being a member of the Leader’s Group. I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Wirral, for his chairmanship, which is of the highest order. As we have seen, there are, like many things in your Lordships’ House, many different views among noble Lords in relation to potential retirement options. That has been seen in the evidence from the 80 or so responses that the group has received, it has been seen in this debate and no doubt it will be seen if substantive proposals are put forward to your Lordships’ House.

We have heard some interesting contributions today. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Blackburn spoke about the “one in, one out” principle, a model which, although fascinating to your Lordships, many noble Lords are not entirely convinced of, though I detected some enthusiasm from the usual channels around the House. My noble friend Lord Graham and the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, made some interesting points about Members’ expectations and the potential of financial inducements. That would be difficult, though, not only at the current time but at any time, although we await the response of the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, on that point, notwithstanding the lack of hope and expectation that he gave on that question in his introductory remarks.

The noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, referred to the extraordinary debate on the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority and the agreement, after a seven-hour debate, to extend the purposes for research that the authority could give. I was the Minister during that debate and I well remember the extraordinary quality of contributions, not least from the noble Lord, Lord Walton of Detchant, who played an absolutely critical role in the discussions.

The noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, also recalled what he described as the good old days before the Life Peerages Act. I have to say that one or two of us here are quite well disposed towards that Act, as indeed we are to the noble Earl. He and my noble friend Lord Strabolgi offer wonderful examples of the contributions that Members who have many years’ experience in your Lordships’ House can make. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Waddington, that they illustrate the problem of simply picking one option, such as an age of retirement. They show that what might, on the face of it, be a simple, straightforward approach comes with many difficulties.

The question of retirement from your Lordships’ House is a very sensitive matter. If the House is to come to a view on this, it must be involved in discussion and eventual decision. That is why this debate is important. I hope that noble Lords will reflect on the encouragement that the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Wirral, has given Members to continue to provide evidence and submissions to the group. I noted that my noble friend Lord Graham suggested the development of a questionnaire, which no doubt members of the group will want to consider.

Before we come to consider the retirement options, we need to reflect on the purpose of this second Chamber. Our debate has, to an extent, wandered somewhat wider than the question of retirement. It is somewhat ironic that the Leader of the House, though genuinely concerned about the size of your Lordships’ House, is shortly to welcome another 50 or so new Members to it. I ask the noble Lord to address this matter. Could it be that he is rather more concerned to ensure that the Government win every Division that takes place in your Lordships’ House than about the size of the membership? If that is the intention, it clearly undermines the ability of the House of Lords to be a revising Chamber. If a Government cannot be defeated and do not fear defeat, how can this possibly be an effective revising Chamber? I say to the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, that that is of much more concern to the public than the size of the Chamber.

The noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, made some interesting points but it seems unlikely that the House would agree to mandatory retirement in the absence of a full reform package. I favour a voluntary approach, on which the group has come up with some useful ideas. I particularly commend the idea of voluntary retirement, which the noble Lord, Lord Walton, spoke about, or the associate membership advocated by the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Needham Market. I hope we can make that associate membership as attractive as possible. It might embrace the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Waddington, which one can trace back to the 1960s and the intention then to place hereditary Peers in a category of non-voting membership whereby they would none the less be allowed to speak in debates. There are some excellent examples of how we might deal with that issue.

Of course, the proposals are mainly aimed at non-attenders or infrequent attenders, of which we have many. Noble Lords have referred to the 79 Members who were unable to attend one day of your Lordships’ House in the 2009-10 Session. A further 68 attended between one day and less than 10 per cent of the sittings. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, would say that that does not really deal with the problem of space and facilities, as the Members in that category make very few demands on the space and facilities. However, it would be a start and might get our number down to about 600, so such a proposal is well worth pursuing.

A number of noble Lords have suggested that we go further. I am sure that when they come to substantive reform of your Lordships' House, the Government might be tempted to go for a cap on numbers and a cull of current Members in order to meet that cap. That clearly is one of the options being considered and is a sort of development of the right reverend Prelate’s “one in, one out” proposal. However, I urge the Government to exercise caution in going down that route. Noble Lords have referred to the election of the hereditary Peers as a result of the 1999 Act to reform your Lordships' House. However, we should recall that the original intention was that no hereditary Peers would go forth into the new House, so in a sense the election was a reprieve for many hereditary Peers. That election took place in very quick time indeed, but even then one observed certain hereditary Peers changing parties and positioning themselves in order to get elected. When the draft Bill is published—its publication date is moving from December to January to February, but let us say that it will be published early next year—and if it contains proposals for a cap and a cull, one has to think that we will probably be in for a four-year period of electioneering among the current Members to enable them to go forth into the new House. I invite the House to think of the dynamics of that situation. Many of us have been involved in political life for many years and know of the benign influence of the usual channels. Some of us have even come across slates. Life would be almost intolerable if it were known that, in around April 2015, there would be an election to decide which current Members would go forward into the new situation. Indeed, I suspect that it would make FIFA’s approach to the choice of a World Cup venue appear utterly exemplary.

I agree with the noble Viscount, Lord Astor, that we need to address the inevitable changes coming to the second Chamber and that we need to work with the other place. As an advocate of reform, I have always felt, though, that the successful passage of a reform Bill would be influenced by the generosity of any transition package put forward. Therefore, I would argue for a decent length of time to be allowed for as regards existing Members going forward into the new situation. That is what I have always understood the term “grandparenting” to mean. The problem is that I do not think that the members of the coalition who wrote that part of the agreement understood it in that way. Legislation that has gone through this House over the past 20 or 30 years is clear that grandparenting means that experienced members of a profession who go forward into a new situation where they are subjected to regulation continue as members of that profession. That suggests to me that active Members of your Lordships' House should go forward into the transition period. Therefore, I caution the Government against adopting any arbitrary approach to culling the number of Members in your Lordships' House. I think that it would be much better, particularly in the next year or so, for us to concentrate on a voluntary approach.

The noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Wirral, in his excellent leadership of this group, has shown the way in which that might be done. I very much hope that we enjoy the support of your Lordships' House in taking some of those proposals forward.

17:35

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, what a fascinating, good natured and good humoured debate this has been. Noble Lords have dealt with this extremely interesting subject that affects all of us with great sensitivity, which is what it requires. This is my opportunity to respond to it. Like the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, I will not give the Government’s view, any more than he gave the Opposition’s view, as this is still a consultative process and, clearly, we have not made up our minds on what we should do about retirement from this House or about a longer-term transition under a reform process. However, as I said earlier, a Bill will be published early in the new year, which will, no doubt, allow us the opportunity to examine these issues.

As for the Bill of my noble friend Lord Steel, which we are to debate on 3 December, the response that will be given from this Dispatch Box will not be my response but will reflect the carefully considered view of the Government on the merits of my noble friend’s case. I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, questioned the need to have new Peers. Other speakers in the debate admirably made the case for needing new Peers. We need to freshen up our numbers from time to time and we will be doing that very soon. If the only motivation for doing that is to allow the Government to win more Divisions, we would not be giving the Labour Party any extra Members at all. I can confirm that the Labour Party is currently the largest party group in the House of Lords, and after the new Peers enter the House it will still be the largest single party in the House of Lords. Even the coalition is still a minority and will continue to be a minority in the House as a whole.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

The fact is that if one takes into account the, shall we kindly say, limited voting of the Cross Benches—

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

I am afraid that is the case. If we take that into account, then the coalition Government have a practical majority in your Lordships' House. Over the years this House has developed a wonderful reputation as a revising Chamber. However, with the greatest respect, if the House is not able to cause the Government to think again, how on earth can it be a revising Chamber?

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, I assure the noble Lord that I have absolutely no doubt that in the rest of this long Session the Government will be defeated on many occasions, not least with the support of Members of my own party and, indeed, of the coalition. As the noble Lord rightly says, this is a revising Chamber and we have all been here for long enough to know that that is exactly what happens.

I said that this has been an interesting debate and it has. Perhaps one of the most entertaining speeches was that of my noble friend Lord Ferrers. Those who heard it were not surprised to hear a vintage speech. If we ever have an age limit, it should be a movable one which should always be set at a year older than the age of my noble friend. I noted that the noble Baroness, Lady Farrington of Ribbleton, jumped up and reminded my noble friend of his views on women Peers in the 1950s. As we would expect, he dealt with that in a very gentlemanly way. However, he ought to remind the noble Baroness that in the House of Commons the party that voted against the introduction of women Peers was the Labour Party. The noble Baroness has cause to be glad that her party lost that vote in the 1950s. My noble friend Lord Ferrers said that we should blame politicians for the state that we are in, but we are where we are and we must go on.

[Noble Lords]

Ha!

[Lord Strathclyde]

I was also grateful to my noble friend Lord Alderdice. I am not sure whether he is a good Peer because he is a psychiatrist, or whether he is a good psychiatrist because of all his experiences that he has built up in the House of Lords. Whichever it is, his contribution was extremely helpful and he accepted the case—as many who spoke did—that we need to reduce the size of this House. There is a problem we need to look at. If it was easy, we would have got to the solution a long time ago and I would not have needed to ask my noble friend Lord Hunt of Wirral to sort this out, but I must say that after today’s debate I am very glad that I did. He is going to have a bit more work to do.

In his interim report, my noble friend cleared out some of the undergrowth. The next stage is to perhaps prune up one or two options to take forward. There was some consensus on the fact that the House was too big, but there was not overwhelming consensus on anything else, although some Peers felt more strongly about some things than others. I thought it was useful that the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Blackburn spoke, because he said that the age limit on the Bishops worked very well. There is a time limit for Bishops, which works well and there is a system of one in, one out. Our problem is that we want to get to a lower number overall before we start a system of one in, one out.

On the question of money, there was some support for financial provision, but one or two Peers were wholly opposed. The public mood—or perhaps the press mood—is not with us at the moment, but that may change over time. It depends on how long this process will take and the business case that could be made.

Apart from my noble friend Lord Hodgson, who spoke bravely on the subject, there was not much demand for compulsion through the arbitrary nature of an age limit. Likewise, I join many Peers who said that dealing with those who do not attend does not really deal with the more fundamental problem. I feel very strongly that there are some Peers who come to this House very occasionally, but make very eminent contributions which are worth a little more than those of some of our noble colleagues who like to speak every week on many different subjects. I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Ferrers for introducing me to the concept of the chattering classes in the House of Lords. Of course he is right. We are in this post-election phase whereby in the House of Commons there is a clear change of numbers. In the House of Lords, there is also a clear change of numbers, but it is very often as a result of those who were in another place coming here. They bring with them some of their habits from another place and they are all very keen to demonstrate that they have a lot to say. Many on all sides of the House do that. We are in a period of assimilation, and I suspect that in the next six or 12 months we will find that the incidence of participation will reduce. I certainly hope so, if that does not sound too much like the usual channels speaking.

My noble friends Lord Astor, Lord Hamilton of Epsom and Lord Tyler said, among other things, that we need to prepare for change and to do something, and some of them felt that the proposal that Peers should be elected out—the culling that the noble Lord from the Opposition mentioned—was a blunt instrument, which it is, of course. We have been through the process 11 years ago, it is well precedented and we have seen how it would work. But my noble friend Lord Waddington said that he would be wholly opposed to a party slate—a beauty parade with all the difficulties that that would bring in. What was interesting about the original hereditary Peers’ election was that many of them chose at that time to retire and not to stand in the election. There are those who believe that if we had a system of compulsory retirement through election which may be set at about 10 per cent or 15 per cent, quite a lot of Peers would be prepared to take that opportunity. I do not know, but perhaps that is something my noble friend could explore.

My noble friend Lord Kirkwood and the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, asked, in slightly different ways: why would anyone want to leave this House? The noble Lord, Lord Graham, said that he did not want to leave until he absolutely had to and had no choice in the matter, because by that time he would be dead—which would be a great sadness to us all, because I have known him for a great deal of time and I always enjoy what he says.

We have given my noble friend Lord Hunt of Wirral a problem and an opportunity. The problem is that there is not a great deal of clarity in what has come out of this afternoon. The opportunity is that everyone wishes for something to be done and for him to come up with a proposal. I am extremely grateful to him and his committee for the way that they have approached the subject with tremendous skill and sensitivity. We are always being urged to seek a consensus. He has certainly done so, I wish him well in his endeavours and I hope that he will be able to produce a final report relatively shortly.

Motion agreed.

Redfern Inquiry

Tuesday 16th November 2010 Lords Chamber

Statement

17:46

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Lord Marland)]

My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall now repeat a Statement made in the other place by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change. The Statement is as follows:

“Mr Speaker, today I am publishing the report of the Redfern inquiry, which was established in 2007 to investigate the processes and practices surrounding the analysis of human tissue that was carried out in UK nuclear facilities from 1955 to 1992.

The inquiry examined the circumstances in which organs or tissue were removed from individuals at NHS or other facilities, and sent to be analysed at nuclear laboratory establishments.

To lose a family member is tragic. To find out, sometimes decades later, that tissue had been taken without consent, is an unimaginable distress. That knowledge is a burden no-one should have to bear.

There is no time limit on grief, or on apologies. I would like to take this opportunity to express my heartfelt regret and to apologise to the families and relatives of those involved. I hope that the publication of today’s report goes some way toward providing the closure that they deserve.

The events described in the inquiry should never have happened in the first place. We have learnt the lessons of the past. The law on human tissue has been reviewed and there is now a rigorous regulatory system in place, in which both the public and professionals have confidence.

I would like to thank the chairman of the inquiry, Mr Michael Redfern QC, for conducting the investigation. The inquiry has also benefited from the support of the nuclear industry and other key stakeholders, who have co-operated fully.

The inquiry was established to investigate the circumstances in which organs were removed from individuals and were sent to and analysed at Sellafield. However, as evidence came to light of similar work carried out at other sites and of studies involving non-nuclear workers, Mr Redfern was asked to make these additional cases part of his inquiry.

It was initially sponsored by the Department of Trade and Industry, which at the time had responsibility for energy policy. The Department of Health became co-sponsors when the terms of reference were expanded to allow the inquiry to access relevant NHS information and to investigate the part played by hospitals in which the post mortem examinations had been conducted. Although not a sponsor of the inquiry, the Ministry of Justice also has an interest in the inquiry’s findings and recommendations in respect of the coroner’s role.

The report highlights unacceptable working practices within the nuclear industry, National Health Service pathology services and the coronial service, and concludes that families’ views were not always obtained as required under the Human Tissue Act 1961. It acknowledges that these events occurred a number of decades ago, and puts them within the context of the times and current practice. Many of the issues raised by the inquiry have since been addressed by changes to the law, including the Human Tissue Act 2004.

The inquiry found that organs from 64 former Sellafield workers were removed by pathologists and taken for analysis at Sellafield between 1960 and 1991. In addition, organs taken from 12 workers at other nuclear sites were analysed at, or at the request of, Sellafield, giving a total cohort of 76. The inquiry also found evidence of other individuals whose organs were analysed at Sellafield.

The report finds that there was a lack of ethical consideration of the implications of the work the industry was doing; that there was limited supervision undertaken; and that relationships between pathologists, coroners and the Sellafield medical officers became too close.

The inquiry has found that organs from a small number of former Ministry of Defence employees were also removed for analysis. It has been difficult to establish the legality of a minority of these removals. Also, during the 1950s and 1960s, the Medical Research Council oversaw research measuring levels of Strontium-90 in human bone obtained at post mortem. It was a national survey involving more than 6,000 people, mostly children, and was not linked to former nuclear workers.

The inquiry also considered work undertaken by the National Radiological Protection Board across its entire remit. The inquiry found that families’ views about organ retention were not always sought, and that very few families knew that organs were taken for analysis. Research using human tissue at that time was carried out under different legislation, and within a culture that took an approach to these matters very different from our approach today. That is not to diminish the distress and suffering caused to families by the events of the past. However, we have learnt from the mistakes of the past, and we now have in place the legislative and regulatory framework that makes consent the fundamental principle underpinning the lawful retention and use of body parts, organs and tissue from the living or the deceased for such purposes.

My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Health and I welcome the recognition given by the inquiry to the changes in the law, and the associated regulatory framework relating to the taking, use and storage of human tissue, that has been put in place since the events leading up to this inquiry.

Since the Human Tissue Act 2004 came into force, we have seen the development of robust regulation which focuses on compliance through the provision of expert advice and guidance—and where regulatory action is taken if standards are not met.

My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Justice has the principal interest in the findings of the inquiry relating to the role of coroners. His department is responsible for coronial law and policy, but as coroners are independent judicial office holders, it does not monitor how they carry out their functions in individual cases unless specific complaints are made.

Communication between families, coroners and pathologists was, and still is, vitally important. Changes to the Coroners Rules 1984, introduced alongside the human tissue legislation, are aimed at ensuring that families’ wishes about what happens to organs and tissues retained after a post mortem examination can be properly established and acted upon. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Justice also intends to take forward several provisions in the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 which address other problems Mr Redfern identifies, and which also aim to prevent any recurrence of the events that led to the establishment of his inquiry.

Although the Government are not proceeding with the role of chief coroner, we intend to transfer many of the intended leadership functions of the post to the Lord Chancellor, or possibly the senior judiciary. There will be higher standards when commissioning post-mortem examinations, and in the way coroners communicate with bereaved families. There will be more effective operational delivery and an end to rigid geographical boundary restrictions. Training of coroners and their staff will be maintained and improved, and coroners’ work will be more transparent, so that unacceptable practices can be avoided or challenged and deficiencies tackled. We are also considering introducing the new, more accountable system for appointing coroners and their deputies enabled by the 2009 Act.

The inquiry has sought and received assurances from all of the key nuclear industry stakeholders that the practice of retaining organs or tissue at autopsy has ceased. I hope that the families of those involved can take some comfort from the knowledge that the practices that this inquiry examined simply would not be permissible today.

I commend this Statement to the House”.

My Lords, that concludes the Statement.

17:56

[Baroness Smith of Basildon]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for repeating the Statement today. On behalf of these Benches, I concur with his expressions of regret and apology to the families. The grief and shock that they experienced, in so many cases years after the death of their loved one, was compounded by not knowing the full facts or reasons why. I hope that they will now be confident that this report has done all that is possible to address the issues.

I also join the Minister in his appreciation and thanks for the work that Michael Redfern QC and his team undertook. The issue has been both complex and sensitive, and it is right that there has been an inquiry of this depth, level and seriousness. I have had only a short time to go through this very thorough piece of work, but it is clear that it is of the highest standard. The nuclear industry will want to make its own comments, but I note and welcome that it fully co-operated with the inquiry.

As the Minister said, the report was initially into the fact that tissue was taken from 65 individuals who died between November 1962 and August 1991 and had worked in the nuclear industry, but it was later extended. When this came to light, it was not clear that permission had ever been granted by the next of kin, and in most cases it appeared to have been authorised at the request of the coroner. Because of the length of time it had taken for this to come to light, and the lack of information, Alistair Darling, who was then Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, asked Michael Redfern to undertake an independent investigation, which was expanded to take into account other relevant incidents.

It is clear, as was said in the Statement, that this was a different era with different standards, and that lessons have been learnt from the past. However, that cannot excuse the fact that the report makes it clear that it was “profound ignorance” of the law that led to organs and tissues being removed, in breach of the Human Tissue Act 1961—although it must be relevant that at that time there was no independent regulatory authority. There was a clear failure of leadership, as the report identifies.

I have five questions for the Minister and his colleagues. Given the seriousness of the report, I am pleased to see so many Ministers in the Chamber today, because this cuts across different departments. First, is the Minister satisfied that the inquiry was able to look at the full extent of the issue, and that such practices do not exist at all today? Secondly, what discussions have the Government had, and what discussions do they plan to have, with the professions concerned to ensure not only that there are robust procedures in place, but that these are effectively monitored?

Thirdly, Michael Redfern comments that changes in the law—the Human Tissue Act 2004 and the Coroners (Amendment) Rules 2005—have addressed many of the concerns. That is welcome. The Minister will recall that the Human Tissue Act 2004 was brought in following the Alder Hey inquiry, which was also chaired by Michael Redfern QC. The fundamental principle of the Human Tissue Act 2004 was that of consent. It established the Human Tissue Authority as the independent public watchdog in this area. Only last month it was able to report an increase in public and professional confidence in human tissue regulation, which is welcome. One of its great strengths is its independence from government. It would help the House if the Minister would explain why the Government now propose to abolish the Human Tissue Authority, and whether in the light of this report they will reconsider their plans.

Fourthly, I know that the Minister is confident that the Coroners (Amendment) Rules 2005 addressed the concerns raised, and that he understands the issues that led to the Coroners and Justice Act 2009. This Act addressed the issue of leadership through changes in the system, including the appointment of a chief coroner with responsibility for ensuring good leadership, training the network of coroners and running the Appeals Service. Although the appointment of a highly respected and very distinguished judge was initially made, the Government now propose to abolish this post as well, as was acknowledged in the Statement. Have the Government discussed these proposals with Michael Redfern following his report?

I hear what the Government say about the 2009 Act. However, if the intention is to bring the responsibilities of the chief coroner in-house, as it were, into the Ministry of Justice, do the Minister and his ministerial colleagues really feel that this will provide the reassurance that the public and the families concerned deserve? If the Government are to seek someone from the senior judiciary, why not just confirm the appointment of the senior judge who was previously appointed to the post of chief coroner? I appreciate that the noble Lord may not be able to respond to that point today but I hope that he will take it back and discuss it with his ministerial colleagues across government. It is an extremely important issue. We want to ensure that there is public and professional confidence in the system, so I hope that he will ask his colleagues to reconsider the point.

Finally, the Government have shown appropriate sensitivity in contacting and briefing the families concerned and in making the report available to them. I also understand and welcome the fact that Michael Redfern will be meeting them today.

I understand, too, that a freephone helpline has been established. Perhaps I may make what may seem, but is not, a trivial point. Many mobile phone users cannot access freephone numbers, so I ask the Minister to ensure that the helpline is also available free to mobile phone users.

Once again, we are all very grateful for and appreciate the work and commitment of Michael Redfern QC and his team. I hope that the Minister and his colleagues will take on board our concerns and ensure that other actions that we take through the Public Bodies Bill do not diminish the important and welcome progress that has been made in this area.

18:02

[Lord Marland]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for her questions, which get to the heart of this tragic and very unsatisfactory matter. Clearly, we have met Michael Redfern QC. We have been briefed by him about the outcome of this report and have looked very closely at the potential shortcomings. As the noble Baroness said, he is comfortable and satisfied that the Human Tissue Act 2004 addresses most of the problems. He has made various comments about the role of coroners, and I shall come to those in a minute.

For the sake of confirmation, as I said in the Statement, we have had absolute assurances from stakeholders that events such as this should not happen again. This inquiry has obviously highlighted and profiled the importance of the situation. I am told that the Human Tissue Authority is a matter for the Department of Health but I can say that we recognise the importance of the authority’s functions. We propose to reallocate those functions to the Care Quality Commission and, if we so decide, to have a new research regulator. That is the department’s response to this situation.

I turn to the appointment of the chief coroner and the need to change the coronial system and make the fundamental changes that are required in accountability. As I said earlier, these are independent judicial officeholders and, when they retire, they are no longer accountable. We have to make them accountable and make changes that bring about greater accountability and stronger lines of direction. Therefore, the Ministry of Justice has decided that, for the moment, the coronial service will report directly to the Lord Chancellor or a Judiciary Minister—a situation that can be reviewed. In addition, there will be a new charter for the bereaved. There is about to be consultation on that and it should be published in the new year.

I am very grateful for the noble Baroness’s comments about the helpline. I am afraid that I cannot comment on whether it can be reached on a mobile phone but I will look into the matter and take on board her excellent point.

18:05

[Baroness Parminter]

My Lords, my thoughts and prayers are with the families and surviving relatives of those involved as they hear the results of the inquiry today. It will clearly come as some consolation that these appalling practices, including the disposal of body parts, are no longer legal. We have indeed moved on in practices and procedures and the ethical framework that governs such decisions. However, my question is: has the nuclear industry moved on? One of the key points of the inquiry’s remit was to identify the purpose for which these body parts and tissues were removed, as well as the conclusions of the research. Can the Minister inform the House whether the nuclear industry will communicate to the families involved the value of and conclusions from that research, giving them the respect that they deserve and helping to end the culture of secrecy which pervades the nuclear industry?

[Lord Marland]

I think I can assure the noble Baroness that the nuclear industry has moved on. There is deep sympathy within the community surrounding these awful events, and that has been manifested through the full co-operation shown by Sellafield and the boards represented there, together with their support for the inquiry, as I referenced earlier. It is important that the families involved are given all the support that they need at what is a very grim time for them, and it is incumbent on the authorities at Sellafield to show them due respect in that regard.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

My Lords, I recognise that mistakes were made and that many families were distressed, but is it not true that the removal of organs was hugely beneficial to science, particularly in the assessment and examination of medical conditions? One hopes that, in their distress, the families will at least recognise that many developments have arisen from the research into those organs. Finally, on what is perhaps a more delicate matter, can we be assured that the announcement today will not lead to a spate of applications for compensation by any of those who may feel that they are owed some kind of recompense?

[Lord Marland]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, for his question. Of course, no one knows that community better than he does, having served it for many years as a Member of Parliament. This episode took place many years ago and attitudes have changed. We have to respect that fact and respond accordingly. We understand that at the moment there is no attempt by any of the families to seek compensation, and our legal information is that that would be difficult to provide.

[Baroness Thornton]

My Lords, I invite the Minister to congratulate the GMB trade union on its role in this matter, because it was that union’s campaigning work right at the beginning that championed the rights of bereaved families within the nuclear industry. Related to that matter, perhaps I may raise with the Minister the fact that the Health Protection Agency, which provides the scientific base for safety within the nuclear industry, is another body threatened with abolition by his Government. Again, the trade unions have expressed grave concerns about that, as it is an industry in which safety is very important. Therefore, I seek the Minister’s reassurance that workers within this industry will continue to benefit from the highest standards of safety.

[Lord Marland]

The noble Baroness is right that any organisation that seeks justice and honour for this awful thing deserves our support, congratulations and thanks. As to her comment on the Health Protection Agency, she is right that it is being abolished. Much more importantly, we will now have a direct relationship to the Department of Health and the ministerial running of it. That highlights its importance but it takes away a layer of management so that we can be directly involved in this particular case.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Tuesday 16th November 2010 Lords Chamber

Second Reading (2nd Day)

18:10

[Baroness Henig]

My Lords, in rising to speak on day 2 of the Bill, first, I express my personal gratitude to the business managers of the House for finding myself speaking at this relatively civilised hour rather than, as the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, had to do yesterday evening, trying to hold the House’s attention at half an hour past midnight.

The debate so far has been wide-ranging and thoughtful, with noble Lords on all sides showing their passion for and commitment to our constitution and its future evolution. I do not propose to comment on Part 1 of the Bill, about which many noble Lords spoke so eloquently last night, but I want to express my strong agreement with the proposition that, in practice, we have two distinct Bills before us, which should have been considered separately and sequentially. While I appreciate the desire to hold an early referendum on the parliamentary voting system, there is far less justification for rushing through the proposals in Part 2 on the proposed reduction in the number of MPs and the mathematical equalisation of the numbers in each constituency—or at least of those names included on electoral registers.

Few speakers last night dissented from the proposition that this Bill—certainly Part 2—should have been subject to pre-legislative scrutiny, when many of the questions that Ministers have been struggling to answer could have been considered at greater length. We were reminded yesterday that the Leader of the House strongly favours pre-legislative scrutiny, but not apparently for this important constitutional Bill because, as he explained rather lamely, it has come forward too early in the parliamentary Session. Of course, had there been two Bills, with one following the other, this would not have been a problem at all. The indecent rush to redraw 600 constituency boundaries in the next three years has created the problem.

We are further led to believe that action has to be taken urgently to create greater equality. Cynics among us have rather seen the strong temptation of political gain. There is nothing new in promoting constitutional change in the hope of political gain. Indeed, 19th century historians can point to many precedents for that, but they would also agree with last night’s sage observation from the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, that constitutional change to secure party advantage often fails to deliver what was anticipated because the unexpected has a habit of happening instead.

Noble Lords opposite claim to want more transparency in policy-making, greater accountability and the transfer of power to local communities. These are all noble sentiments and admirable principles, but the Bills that are coming before this House do not reflect them very noticeably—indeed, quite the contrary in Part 2 of this Bill. The Government have decided on a rigid methodology to divide up the country into parliamentary constituencies and local people will lose the opportunity they have hitherto enjoyed to make representations in person to Boundary Commission public inquiries, to which they could put their views on where boundaries should be drawn and which local wards should be included or left out.

The noble Lord, Lord Baker, who is not in his place, yesterday welcomed the proposal to drop local inquiries, but I have to tell the House that I deplore that proposal. We know from the Boundary Commission’s report of 2007 that about two-thirds of local inquiries led to changes to the original recommendations of the Boundary Commission and that it saw great value in those challenges. Yes, it is true that, in the Deputy Prime Minister’s words, the review process is “lengthy and time consuming”, but it fulfils a vital local function. What is at stake here is local identity and the need for local communities to feel that the different layers of district, county and parliamentary representation have some organic connection. There needs to be some sense to such boundaries to enable people to access services and advice at the appropriate level. Individuals and organisations will still be able to make representations in writing but not face to face with members of the Boundary Commission.

I have to tell the House that in my part of north Lancashire, where parliamentary boundaries have changed quite a bit over the past 20 years, there have been a number of high profile public inquiries during which feelings ran very high. Not everyone secured the changes that they wanted—indeed, few people did—but the debates strengthened local democracy and spread political awareness. At a time when turnout at parliamentary elections is not that high, especially among younger voters, we should be combating political apathy and alienation rather than closing the door to legitimate local debate about topics on which people have strong opinions. I am worried that this proposal is reinforcing a view that people at grass-roots level are being excluded from important decision-making and that their input is not welcomed. I do not believe that we should be putting out such a message in the present political climate.

Public inquiries are being abolished to save time so that boundary changes can be rushed through in the next three years. The resulting upheaval and administrative change will be profoundly disruptive. Everyone agrees on that. The review will leave few, if any, constituencies unaltered, it will cut across long-established local communities and it will divide wards and create patchwork constituencies with little common identity. I listened with interest yesterday to noble Lords from Cornwall spelling out how Cornish people would never willingly be joined with those from Devon across the River Tamar. I noted the contribution of the noble Lord opposite explaining why the Isle of Wight should not have its identity diluted in any way. I tell the House that those examples pale into insignificance beside the situation in my part of the world, where Lancastrians will be dragged kicking and screaming into predominantly Yorkshire constituencies, and where protesting Yorkshire minorities will find themselves imprisoned in Lancashire citadels. People in east Lancashire are still fighting county boundary battles of many decades, if not centuries ago. Are we seriously suggesting that we are now going to unleash a 21st century war of the roses?

[Lord Rennard]

Will the noble Baroness accept that that already happens in the case of Saddleworth, which we know is part of Yorkshire but is attached to Oldham? Under the Bill, the Boundary Commission will be expected to follow as a guideline the European parliamentary regional constituencies, which by and large would prevent Yorkshire and Lancashire constituencies being brought together.

[Baroness Henig]

I understand that, given that numerical considerations will be paramount in the Boundary Commission’s decisions, what I am describing is very possible. I fear that we will create more anomalies, not reduce them.

All sides of the House have agreed that to proceed at such break-neck speed, and to compound that by insisting that a tolerance of only 5 per cent greater or smaller than the average constituency size should take precedence over all other factors to be considered, is to court disaster. The proposals will cut links between MPs and their constituencies and further alienate voters. I was struck by the evidence that the Political and Constitutional Reform Select Committee in the other place received from Democratic Audit, which argued that, if the figure of 10 per cent had been adopted, county boundaries, community identity and the practicality of representation could all have been taken into account. Indeed, the previous constituency review found that nearly 90 per cent of constituencies were within 10 per cent of what they should be. That caused the electoral systems expert Lewis Baston to ask whether it was worth the disruption that the adoption of 5 per cent would assuredly produce. That is exactly the sort of question that pre-legislative scrutiny would have explored in a very helpful way. I hope that the figure will be the subject of an amendment in Committee.

Just as the 5 per cent figure is arbitrary, so is the figure of 600 constituencies. Where has that come from? Such a figure is not in the election manifesto of either coalition party but is, as the Leader of the House told us yesterday, “a nice, round figure”. I can see that response being analysed and dissected to destruction in the future by constitutional historians puzzling over the motivation for this proposal.

One thing that I do know is that the burden of work on MPs has grown enormously over the past 40 to 50 years, while the number of MPs has scarcely grown—up by 3 per cent at most—over the same period. Whereas each MP had around 66,000 constituents at the end of the last war, each MP now has close to 96,000 constituents and informed estimates suggest that the number will increase to 105,000 by 2015. I know how hard the average MP works. I know how difficult it is for MPs to keep up with the ever-increasing flow, or tide, of e-mails, calls, letters and surgeries. To increase that burden yet further by cutting the number of constituencies without reviewing the workload or role of MPs—while at the same time increasing the size of the House of Lords to more than 800 Members—reveals pretty blatantly to me that there are no great constitutional principles involved in the Bill. As far as I can discern, there are only the rather basic political calculations that some noble Lords referred to yesterday.

Some apologists for the coalition have deployed the argument that other countries have fewer elected representatives, but such an argument considers only the national level, which is only one part of the picture. Countries such as France, Germany and the United States have many more elected representatives at local or town level and at regional or state level than we have in the United Kingdom. If you look at our councillor numbers and the number of MPs relative to population, we lag far behind other comparable democracies. Cutting the number of MPs to 600 would make the disparity worse.

I am aware that there was a debate in the other place about whether ministerial posts should be reduced along with the number of MPs because, otherwise, the effect of the Bill would be to reduce the influence of Parliament in holding the Executive to account. That is clearly very worrying. However, I do not want to comment further on that aspect of the proposed changes, because my final point relates to the large number of people—estimated at more than 3 million—whose names will not be on this year’s electoral register. We know that many young people, in particular those between the ages of 18 to 25, are missing from the register because they move fairly frequently around the country. That is certainly a big issue in my part of the world. To ignore that factor and to press ahead on the basis of registers that are, in some areas, seriously incomplete is, to my mind, totally unsatisfactory. Why not wait until a much clearer picture of population distribution after next year’s census enables the Boundary Commission to do a more thorough and accurate job? That would be a principled approach, but I suppose that it would not meet the political objectives of the coalition.

In conclusion, this is a bad Bill that will have profound constitutional effects. I would like to believe that the Bill will be thoroughly revised as a result of the renowned detailed scrutiny of noble Lords in this Chamber. The Bill certainly deserves to be revised in a number of important respects. However, I fear that the operation of the coalition Government in this Chamber may seriously undermine the capacity of this House to operate as an effective revising Chamber. I very much hope that I am wrong and that my fears in this regard will prove to be unfounded.

18:24

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

My Lords, the coalition kids are trashing Parliament. They are trashing everything else, after all—schools, humanities teaching in universities, the arts and the heritage, general practitioners, social housing, the Armed Forces, the police, the Civil Service, local government—so why should we expect Parliament to be spared? It is not that I think they mean to vandalise the national life; I acquit them of ill will. If it does not seem too patronising, I think the problem is lack of judgment. The Deputy Prime Minister said at Second Reading of the Bill in another place:

“We promised a new politics”.—[Official Report, Commons, 6/9/10; col. 44.]

A new politics, my Lords. I have to say that I detect a certain cockiness and callowness in that. At any rate, it is an excessively simple view that, because Members of Parliament were disgraced and the deficit needs to be cut, it is appropriate to cut the number of MPs by 50 and to save £12 million by doing so. No other justification has been offered for the reduction in the size of the House of Commons.

The coalition kids’ overconfidence and impetuosity has led Ministers into evident errors. A number of things that the Deputy Prime Minister said to the House of Commons were simply wrong. He was wrong to contend that the policy would save £12 million. If you take into account the cost of supporting Members of Parliament to serve larger constituencies and the enormous cost of a total upheaval in 2013 and of five-yearly boundary reviews thereafter, clearly the costs heavily outweigh any small savings that may be achieved by reducing the number of Members of Parliament by 50. He was wrong to say that the number of Members of Parliament had crept up over the years. He was wrong to say that local inquiries had had little impact, as noble Lords have already pointed out. He was wrong to assert that, with equal constituencies and the alternative vote, all votes would be of equal value. Under the alternative vote, general elections will still be decided in marginal seats. Tight contests will be determined by the third, fourth and fifth preferences of UKIP and BNP voters. Their votes will count more than the first preferences of supporters of the major parties.

Worse than errors of fact is confused thinking. The Deputy Prime Minister said at Second Reading that people must see us taking action to restore trust, including,

“ensuring that politics is transparent”.—[Official Report, Commons, 6/9/10; col. 34.]

The alternative vote is a uniquely opaque electoral system; it is impossible to foresee the consequences of the second, third, fourth and fifth preferences and so forth—the residual preferences of supporters of residual parties. It would be more rational and safer to hold elections by lottery, it seems to me, than by election under the alternative vote system.

Worse than confusion is poor judgment. To hand power to extreme parties in marginal seats is surely profoundly unwise. To subordinate every other important consideration to arithmetical equality in redrawing constituency boundaries, to discount the factors of geography, history, identity, continuity and to ignore the significance of local government boundaries is surely very unwise indeed. Is this a worthwhile new politics? How is anybody to make sense of this in relation to the Government’s ambitions for a big society and a new localism?

My noble friends Lord Touhig and Lord Elystan-Morgan spoke powerfully about the damaging impact on Wales of enlarging the size of constituencies. To reduce the parliamentary representation of Wales by 25 per cent at a time when there are also going to be Assembly elections and when a referendum is anticipated on the powers of the Assembly is surely in effect an invitation to the people of Wales to withdraw from engagement with the United Kingdom.

I had the honour to represent Newport in the House of Commons. Newport is a city with a long history, of which its people are very proud. It has been a settlement since Roman times, it was the home of Chartism, it was a significant port and it has been a major centre of steel manufacturing. Newportonians are intensely conscious of their local identity and the special character of their city. Before then, I had the privilege and happiness to represent Stratford-upon-Avon and South Warwickshire in the House of Commons: a rural constituency, equally forged by history and embraced by county boundaries that differentiate Warwickshire from Northamptonshire, Worcestershire, Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire. Wise politicians do not meddle with these realities and attachments; they do not transgress these boundaries for a theory; they understand that you cannot rally hearts and minds through an arithmetical formula.

Many of the mistakes that we make in public policy arise, it seems to me, from the fact that politicians, officials and, indeed, members of boundary commissions suffer from the characteristic handicap of our neophiliac age—they know no history. For them, it is always year zero; they lack understanding and respect for institutions and what others hold dear.

The Deputy Prime Minister asks us to measure the reforms that he proposes against the standard of 1832. As I understand it, it was the Great Reform Act that first constructed the concept of the constituency based on locality, to which its MP or MPs were accountable. The new manufacturing cities such as Manchester—I speak with diffidence on Lancashire in the presence of the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, but not in the presence of the noble Baroness, Lady Farrington, who is no longer in her place—wanted to have their own Members of Parliament to speak to their concerns. Mancunians were not satisfied to be represented by the county Members of Parliament for Lancashire. Equally, rural Lancashire wanted Manchester and the new cotton towns to have their own Members of Parliament to stop urban votes swamping rural votes and confusing issues and representation. The 1832 Act redistributed seats from rotten boroughs to new towns and cities and enlarged the boundaries of small constituencies so that each seat represented a community and its interests. The view was held that when MPs spoke for defined constituencies with shared interests and a common sense of place, Parliament could better clarify the issues and come to decisions. The removal of the rotten boroughs, which had been tools of patronage, strengthened Parliament against the Executive.

The Municipal Corporations Act 1835 built on the foundations that the 1832 Act laid down. Under that legislation, communities could petition for incorporation as entities of local government. That process produced a map of local government that was erratic, anomalous and untidy but which accurately and authentically expressed people's sense of place and identity. That structure of local government lasted well over a century.

The Deputy Prime Minister's reforms move in the opposite direction to the reforms of 1832. They destroy the expression of community and identity in parliamentary representation, and they advantage the Executive against Parliament. Abraham Lincoln said:

“I like to see a man proud of the place in which he lives”.

Any Government so insensitive as to offend people's pride in the place in which they live are acting to alienate people from the political process. This is being done in the name of restoring trust in politics.

It is also unwise for the Government to create constant instability. Just as Parliament is convalescing from the horrors of recent years, everything is to be uprooted and torn up again in 2013. New local parties will have to be formed in short order before the next election. There will be candidate selections, bitterly contested, no doubt, between those people who regard themselves as the heirs to the previous constituencies. Every five years thereafter there will be traumatic discontinuities both for constituencies and from Parliament to Parliament.

The Government are further weakening Parliament in the name of restoring trust. There will be no reduction in the number of Ministers commensurate with the reduction in the number of Members of Parliament. This Administration are larger than any that we have ever had before. There are 95 Ministers. That is five more than there were in the previous Government, and 12 more than there were in the Administration of Margaret Thatcher in 1983 when I first came into the House of Commons. Since then, of course, there has been devolution, so there should be a need for fewer departmental Ministers. The category of Ministers that has most increased in number is, of course, the Whips.

Government patronage is growing. The reduction in the number of Back-Bench Members of Parliament will enfeeble what is already an all too feeble capacity of the House of Commons to hold the Government to account. What is being done is in plain contradiction of the commitment in the Tory manifesto to a,

“sweeping … redistribution of power … from the government to parliament”.

The way in which the Government have handled the Bill so far in Parliament demonstrates an unreconstructed attitude on the part of the Executive to Parliament. Major constitutional legislation was programmed in the House of Commons. Twenty years ago, that would have been unthinkable. Remember the debates that we had, for example, on the Maastricht treaty. Clauses 3 to 6 on very important matters—the conduct of the referendum, combining polls, and the rules about media coverage—and Clause 11, on the number and distribution of seats, were entirely undiscussed in the other place in Committee or on Report. If the House of Commons is so effete and supine as to tolerate that, it is clearly the responsibility of this House to scrutinise the Bill with great rigour and to amend it in the many respects in which it is deficient.

All Governments should be humble in the face of their responsibilities, exercise a decent restraint in the use of the huge powers that our system of parliamentary government confers on them, and respect the views of others. This applies particularly in the case of a coalition Government, neither of whose parties won the election and who have no mandate for their policies.

Too many of the reflexes of Ministers and too many of the measures that they have brought in show disrespect for Parliament. We saw it in the Local Government Bill, where Ministers were content to exploit for their political convenience a decision by a judge to override a previous decision by Parliament. We saw it in the resistance to refer to the Examiners both that Bill and this Bill yesterday. We saw it shortly after the formation of the new Government in the attempt to rig future votes of confidence. When we come to scrutinise the fixed-term Parliaments Bill, we shall be on the lookout for further such chicanery. We have seen it in the Public Bodies Bill, which confers massive Henry VIII powers on the Government. Your Lordships’ Select Committee on the Constitution has excoriated that measure. We see it in the packing of this House to stack up a majority, destroying the character and value of this House and undermining our capacity as a revising Chamber.

Reform of the electoral system is massively important. I happen to believe that it is right and timely that people should be given the opportunity to choose a new electoral system. There is a crisis of alienation from our politics. Far too many voters across the country feel that their votes at elections make no difference. The choices offered to them should include the single transferable vote—a proportional electoral system. The Deputy Prime Minister said on Second Reading that,

“it is vital to our political system as a whole that they are considered to be legitimate and fair”.—[Official Report, Commons, 6/9/10; col. 34.].

Why are people to be offered AV but not STV? After all, the commission chaired by Lord Jenkins found that AV was even more disproportionate than first past the post. The reason the Deputy Prime Minister gave when challenged on that was feeble. He said:

“For the sake of simplicity, however, it is better to present people with a simple yes or no alternative”.—[Official Report, Commons, 6/9/10; col. 41.].

However, he could have got STV on the ballot paper. The noble Lord, Lord Rennard, said yesterday that that was not practical politics, but the Liberal Democrats were extremely powerful at that moment. It was only with Liberal Democratic help that the Conservatives could form a Government, just as now only the Liberal Democrats—and not, for example, the National Union of Students or the PCS—can bring down this Government. The Liberal Democrats are happy to condone and tolerate the economic recklessness of this Government, their casual cruelties, for what? For a referendum on AV. What scale of values is that?

Constitutional reform should be embarked on not hastily, not casually but with the greatest care and sensitivity. Ministers should recognise that the constitution is intricate and its parts interdependent. The future of both Houses needs to be considered together. The future of central and local government needs to be considered together. There should be no taint of exploitation for party advantage and no suspicion of gerrymander, as there is with the Bill. There should be no rush towards deadlines contrived for political convenience. The case should be made on the basis of a full laying out of the facts and of honest, sustained debate. Genuine consultation should lead to compromise and the building of consensus.

There must be consensus. That is why it is essential that there is a threshold for the vote on AV in the referendum. It is quite unacceptable that major change should be introduced on the basis of low turnout by an electorate who are ill informed, through no fault of their own because they have not had time to inform themselves on the matter, and no doubt disgruntled and unhappy with the policies of the Government. It is a reform that is not supported by a substantial consensus.

Nor should the vote in the referendum be confused with other votes in elections held on 5 May. The Electoral Commission was robust when it responded to Tony Blair as Prime Minister when he was minded to hold a referendum on the introduction of the euro at the same time as Scottish and Welsh elections in 2003. It said that combining an election and a referendum could,

“have a distorting effect on the conduct and outcome of both polls”.

Whatever its views now, it was right then.

The Bill provides for change to the electoral system, change to the nature of our constituencies, change to the number of MPs, change to the relationship between MPs and constituents, and change to the relationship between the Executive and Parliament. Those of us who honour and cherish the Parliament of the United Kingdom—while always, I hope, being ready to accept duly considered, timely, gradual reform—will relentlessly oppose careless, improper, damaging constitutional change, as threatened in the Bill.

[Lord Roberts of Llandudno]

Is the noble Lord really rejecting the Labour Party manifesto and its commitment to a referendum on AV? He would be far happier if there was STV in the UK.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

For the reasons I have given, I do not think it is a good idea to hold a referendum on AV; nor did I think so then. I would be deeply hesitant about moving from first past the post, but given what has happened to public attitudes to politics and Parliament in this country, I believe it is appropriate that people should now be given the choice, the opportunity, to switch to a different electoral system.

18:39

[Lord Turnberg]

My Lords, whenever I have spoken in your Lordships' House I have tended to concentrate on medical and health matters, so this Bill is somewhat outside my comfort zone. It is clear that I am not an ex-Member of Parliament, and as this Bill is rather political I have to tread rather carefully. I am afraid that some of what I have to say may sound a little familiar, but I am so disturbed by some aspects of the Bill that I feel I must just express my dismay. Other noble Lords have spoken, sometimes at length, about many of its defects, but I want to say just a few words about one particular aspect that I feel strongly about: the way in which it is proposed to change the constituency boundaries with little or no consultation with anyone. I have nothing against changing them if that is deemed necessary, but to do it in a way that is so clearly undemocratic and unfair is unacceptable.

The new boundaries are to be set by central diktat based entirely on population numbers, but only on the part of the population that is registered to vote and ignoring the 6 or 7 per cent who are not registered, largely the young, the poor and the ethnic minorities. They will not count in the way boundaries are redrawn and this will, of course, disproportionately affect inner-city population counts. However, that is not the worst of it. The boundaries are to be drawn without any regard to local geographic features—rivers, mountains and other natural divisions—and across all sorts of county and council ward boundaries. However, much the most important thing is that they are to be redrawn without any local community input whatever. There will be minimal possibilities for adjustments, no public inquiries, no local consultation and no local appeal. Where is the big society in any of this? It is more like big brother.

The other day, the right honourable Kenneth Clarke was speaking at Runnymede, home of the Magna Carta, and extolling the virtues of a Government, his Government, that give power and responsibility back to the people. Where is there any hint here that the people will have any say in the boundaries that define their own communities? The Bill seems to me to be undemocratic and politically driven, and I sincerely hope that the coalition Government will think again. If they do not, I shall oppose at least this aspect of it as strongly as I can, even though I know that my politically naive voice may be hardly heard.

18:43

[Lord Maples]

My Lords, if the noble Lord was speaking on medical matters, I would be very reluctant to tangle with him in argument, but I think that some of the doubts he expressed about the Bill are simply not right. The new boundaries will not be set by central diktat but by the Boundary Commission that has a long history of independence from political parties and will have to take account of what people make as local representations. I have been to several public inquiries over boundary changes, and everybody who has been to them knows that the only people who bother to turn up are political parties wrapping up self-interest in high principle and trying to get boundary changes that suit them. The Boundary Commission can receive representations, it has longer to consider them and geographical features are one of the things that it can expressly take into account.

The Bill corrects a fundamental unfairness in the discrepancies between the sizes of constituencies. It is that that I want to address. I realise that the first part of the Bill dealing with the alternative vote on the referendum is a price that is being paid for coalition government. It is very important to the Liberal Democrats. I am perfectly happy that there should be a referendum. I will vote no in it because I think that the present system is much better, and I am slightly surprised that the Liberal Democrats are satisfied with this because I do not think it will do much for them. I suspect that the big party—Labour or Conservative—that is doing well will do even better under AV.

I want to talk about the second part of the Bill. I have some form on this because almost exactly five years ago I introduced a Ten Minute Rule Bill in another place to achieve the objectives of this Bill. It was called:

“A Bill to equalise of the size of parliamentary constituencies”.

I wanted to call it “A Bill to abolish rotten boroughs”—but the Clerks would not let me—because that is what we have. The smallest constituency at that time had 21,169 voters and the MP was elected with 6,200 votes; the largest constituency had 107,000 voters, five times as many, and the MP had to get 32,700 votes to get elected. There are massive discrepancies that on the whole work to the advantage of the Labour Party, which is why there has been so much special pleading from it in this debate. Although it has managed, quite cleverly, to wrap it up as high principle, I am afraid that special pleading is what it is.

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Lord Maples]

The average size of a constituency at that time was 68,000 voters, but 440 of them were more than 5 per cent away from that average and 240 were more than 10 per cent away. This is massively unfair, and it is demonstrated in the majorities that the two main parties have to get to win an election. If Labour got 32 per cent of the vote and the Conservatives 29 per cent, there would be a Labour majority of 10 seats in the House of Commons; if the Conservatives got 32 per cent of the vote and Labour got 29 per cent, there would be 280 Labour MPs and 231 Conservatives. The Conservatives have to get 40 per cent of the vote to get an overall majority, but all Labour has to get is 32 per cent, and it is all a direct result of the 1986 Act under which boundaries have been drawn. If the 2010 election result were reversed and the Conservatives had got 29 per cent and Labour 36 per cent, Labour would have got 363 seats, and the Conservatives 171, whereas we know what happened: we got 306 and Labour got 258. A hung Parliament, as opposed to an overall Labour majority of somewhere in the region of 80, is the discrepancy that these constituency sizes produce.

Let us look at some of the causes of that discrepancy. The biggest is Wales, and that is where the most eloquent special pleading has come from as, I suppose, one would expect from former Welsh MPs, but why should a Welsh seat be so much smaller than an English one? The Welsh quota is 55,000, but in England it is 70,000. Why should there be 40 seats in Wales when what it would get if it had the same quota as England is 32 seats? The Act under which the Boundary Commission draws boundaries does not require there to be 40 seats; it requires there to be 35, but for some reason Wales has 40. If there are parts of the United Kingdom that are not justified in being overrepresented, they are surely those with their own elected Assembly. The worst case in that respect is Scotland, although the discrepancy there was corrected in the Scotland Act, but there is still a discrepancy of two seats in Scotland, eight in Wales and a couple in Northern Ireland.

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

As the noble Lord knows, we support the idea of equalisation. He is blithely saying that all these discrepancies are caused by different sizes of constituencies. To what extent does he believe it is caused by different sizes of constituencies and to what extent does he believe it is caused by differential turnout in constituencies? I think the House would like to know where the split between the two comes.

[Lord Maples]

I prefer to make my own speech, and that is not a subject that I want to deal with. This Bill is about boundaries, not about increasing turnouts. A large part of the cause is the difference in the size of constituencies. It is not, I agree, the only cause. Differential turnout and the stacking up of votes in safe seats is certainly part of it, but the differential size of constituencies is part of it, and it is demonstrated by some of the figures I have just given.

[Lord Wills]

I am very grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. He has been very generous with his time. To what extent does he think these differences are attributable to underregistration?

[Lord Maples]

I think that it is undoubtedly a problem, and it is particularly so with young people, but it is much easier now to register than it has been for a very long time. When I first got involved in elected politics, the registers were changed, I think, only once a year in the spring before local government elections. They are now updated every month, so it is perhaps up to all elected politicians of all political parties to encourage people to register. There is no bar to them doing so, and it has never been easier.

As I have said, Wales is over-represented. We have had quite a lot of former Members of Parliament in their speeches saying how some constituencies are much more difficult to work with than others. But in my experience—having represented two constituencies, one of which I represented not at the same time but in common with the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, and the other was Lewisham West in London—they could not be more different. One was three square miles of concrete and the other was, I think, 600 square miles of south Warwickshire farmland with the town of Stratford-on-Avon in the middle. Each presented its own problems and difficulties. There were certainly more people with social problems and more immigration and housing cases in Lewisham. But a constituency such as Stratford-on-Avon has a very articulate electorate who write lengthy letters to their Member of Parliament demanding their opinions about this and that. When they decide to get a local campaign going about something, they are incredibly well organised.

Lewisham did not have an identity with Lewisham: it was just three square miles of south-east London. I do not think that many people knew which borough they lived in. As the noble Lord will know, in south Warwickshire, the historic town of Stratford-on-Avon represents about one-quarter of the electorate. There are 132 villages and parishes. A big issue in one part of the constituency can be absolutely irrelevant in another part. If, as has recently happened, the eastern part of our old constituency is hived off into a new one, I do not think that those people will feel that a great historical link has been broken.

In Scotland, the discrepancy was largely represented in the Scotland Act, but there are still two extra seats. There are 59 seats when there should be 57. In Northern Ireland, the quota is 16 to 18 seats, and it has got 18. As a result the average constituency size in Northern Ireland is 10 per cent less than it would be in England.

What gives rise to the discrepancies between English seats? The first is population shift. People are moving on the whole out of old inner city areas to new suburban areas. That is happening the whole time, but because of the nature of the way in which the Boundary Commission works, it uses old registers. The recent election was fought on, I think, the 2000 or 2001 registers. At the time when I moved my Ten Minute Rule Bill, Banbury was 19,000 voters over the average and Sheffield Brightside was 19,000 under. At the last election, on the new boundaries on which the election was fought, that discrepancy was already being repeated. Banbury was 9,000 over the average and Sheffield Brightside was 9,000 under. Therefore, one of the faults of this Bill—one of the few faults I say to my noble friend the Leader of the House—on which I might try to move an amendment is that the Boundary Commission should have the right to look forward at potential population changes that are known about because of housing and population movement. Otherwise, the figures will be out of date before they start.

Secondly, the Boundary Commission cannot cross county and local government boundaries, which is a small price to pay for fairness. But it is illustrated again in Warwickshire where for all the time when I was a Member of Parliament we were entitled to 5.45 seats on the quota, so we got five seats. On the last boundary review, it went up by 0.07 per cent to 5.52 and we got six seats. That is nonsense. There was no difficulty in managing a constituency the size of Stratford-on-Avon. There was no need for that extra seat. But it is this ratchet in the way that the Boundary Commission works which produces an ever larger pool. The basing of electoral boundaries on electoral registers which are already many years out of date is part of the problem.

My Bill, which was introduced five years ago, sought to have a maximum 5 per cent discrepancy from the average, which I am delighted to see that this Bill has; that the rules should be the same for the whole of the United Kingdom; that the Boundary Commission should be able to cross local government boundaries; and that there should be reviews every four years, which is what I wanted, but five years would be fine if we are going to have five-year Parliaments.

Those noble Lords who talked about the disruption that this will cause are wrong. This review will be big, but after that a small review every four or five years will cause much smaller changes than a big review every 12 or 15 years, which is what we have at present, with wholesale changes of constituencies such as we saw at this election. I would like to see the use of projected population figures.

I am absolutely unconvinced about the special case for the two Scottish Highland seats. They are so much smaller than the average. I am sure that there are geographical difficulties in working in those constituencies, but there are difficulties in other seats that I am sure they do not have. I expect that they do not have huge immigration problems to deal with.

Lord Wills: My Lords—

Lord Maples: I have given way to the noble Lord once and I do not think that I will do so again. They do not have many of the problems the others seats have, such as a large seat like I had. The case for those to be so far below the quota—I think that in the case of one of them there are 22,000 voters and in the other 33,000—is very difficult to justify. If they are to have special representation for their position within Scotland, those two seats should come out of the Scottish quota and not the United Kingdom quota.

On the 2010 election, which, as I say, was based on electoral registers which were already 10 years out of date, only 218 seats were within this 5 per cent band. There were 161 between 5 per cent and 10 per cent; more than 200 between 10 per cent and 20 per cent; and 60 were more than 20 per cent out. Of those, 59 were too small, and one, the Isle of Wight, was too large. Of those 60 seats, 45 were in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The Isle of Wight was the only one that was too big.

There has been a lot of argument about whether this is party political and what the advantage is. I believe that it will correct a massive unfairness in favour of the Labour Party. But of the 10 seats that are too small at the moment, only two are Conservative, three are Labour, two are Liberal Democrat and three are held by nationalists. Of the 10 that are too large, four are held by the Conservatives and six are held by Labour. One has to be slightly careful about calling where party advantage lies in all of this.

This Bill will implement that maximum 5 per cent discrepancy and reduce the House of Commons to 600, with which I have no problem at all. It could easily be reduced to 550 at an election after that, but it needs a bit of time to do that. I agree with those noble Lords who have said that that requires a reduction in the size of the Executive as well. If the House of Commons were to be reduced much below 600, an Executive of 95 in the House of Commons would be far too dominant.

I agree completely with the five-yearly reviews, crossing local government boundaries and removing the massive distortion in favour of Wales. But the Bill still looks backwards. In five years’ time, the election will be based on registers that will by then be four and a half years out of date. In the long run, 600 Members of Parliament will be too many. I do not agree with the exemptions for Orkney and Shetland, and the Western Isles. I will not attempt to pronounce the Scottish name of the constituency. I agree with reducing the size of the Executive in the House of Commons.

But the idea, as the opposition spokesman in the House of Commons said, that this Bill is gerrymandering is simply standing the truth on its head. The truth is that the current system contains a massive unfairness in favour of the Labour Party, which is unwilling to see that change and is wrapping up self-interest as high principle in a very hypocritical way.

18:57

Baroness Nye: My Lords, this Bill is in two parts so it is perhaps fitting that Second Reading should end up being in two parts as well. Last night’s debate contained many thoughtful contributions and I found myself agreeing with a great deal of what was said from all sides of the House. I was a little concerned that supporters of the Bill had decided not to speak, but I am relieved that the noble Lord, Lord Maples, has risen to the occasion.

There are many aspects of this Bill, so I will concentrate on Part 2, which deals with the reduction in the size of constituencies. From the debate that we have had so far, I believe that it is recognised on all sides of your Lordships’ House that there is an urgent need to restore trust and confidence in our Parliament and our elected representatives. But that urgency should not mean that we rush headlong into change without proper scrutiny, consultation or safeguards in place. Our democracy is worth rather more than that.

We need to remember that what is proposed in this Bill was not put before the electorate at the last election by either the Conservative Party or the Liberal Democrats. It is the result of an agreement which has been subsequently cobbled together between the two parties that make up the coalition Government. The coalition cannot claim that this Bill has been sanctioned by the electorate.

As we all know, the Liberals Democrats’ manifesto argued in favour of the single transferable vote, with the number of MPs in the House of Commons being reduced to just over 500. The Conservative Party wanted to retain the first past the post system, while reducing the number of MPs by 10 per cent across the board, with no exceptions. They wanted to equalise the size of constituencies in all parts of the country. There was no common ground between the reform plans presented to the electorate by the two parties which have formed the coalition. Now we are presented with this Bill, which has an arbitrary number of 600 elected Members of Parliament and a referendum on AV. This Bill represents the glue that keeps the coalition Government together.

As has been said by many noble Lords, the Government intend to reduce the size of the other place, while leaving the number of government Ministers unchanged. This will automatically reduce the number of Back-Bench MPs available to scrutinise the actions of an ever-larger Executive.

Professor Anthony King, one of our leading constitutional academics, wrote on Sunday that this is a very bad idea which will enfeeble Parliament and further reduce its ability to hold the Executive to account. Yet the coalition has pledged to strengthen Parliament's role relative to Ministers. It has not taken them very long to introduce a Bill which will do exactly the opposite. Not only does it have no legitimacy from the electorate, but it was not even mentioned in the coalition agreement. That merely said that the Bill would make provision,

“for the creation of fewer and more equal sized constituencies”,

so at that point there was still an opportunity for the coalition Government to present a Bill that would allow the Boundary Commission to undertake a far-reaching review of every constituency in the land in a way that would restore trust and confidence in the political process. I should remind the House that my own party’s election manifesto promised to introduce a non-partisan parliamentary boundary review to examine the rules for constructing parliamentary constituencies. I believe that that would have been a fairer way of redrawing the political landscape. Alas, however, that opportunity was not taken.

The arbitrary number of 600 seats has been plucked out of the air because, as the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, said yesterday, it is a nice round figure. I point out to him that 500 is also a nice round figure and has the merit of having been in the manifesto of one party to the coalition. I hope that when the Minister winds up, he has managed to come up with a better rationale for that figure.

What is even worse is that the review is to be concluded in a timeframe that is many years shorter than would usually be spent on such a critical matter. How is this to be achieved? It will be done by abolishing all public inquiries into Boundary Commission proposals, so there will be no mechanism for local people to object to the constituency boundaries that will reshape their political lives. The coalition Government are showing scant respect for people’s feelings about their communities. In Britain, we have a long established and open democratic process for the redrawing of political boundaries. We have developed this open process for a very good reason. It builds public acceptance of what could otherwise be a very contentious and divisive matter. It does this by allowing local residents to object, by requiring the Boundary Commission to respond and, crucially, by permitting a further and final round of public discussion.

I take the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, who is not in his place at the moment, that there is a dilemma here. On the one hand, people like the simplicity of the notion of equal-sized constituencies, but on the other, they would be happier with a lower or higher level of representation than proposed if it better maintains their feeling of local identity. Communities will not have their trust and confidence restored in Parliament if their ability to influence decisions at the local level is taken away. If the new equalisation rules are drawn as tightly as proposed, it will mean that the new constituencies will cross county, metropolitan and ward boundaries. There is a real danger that with this rushed approach and minimal consultation, the public will come to doubt the independence and objectivity of the Boundary Commission itself, and that cannot be in anyone’s long-term interests.

Your Lordships’ House should take account of the fact that this Bill is not just a routine matter. It will bring with it an historic change in the size of the other place that would enfeeble Parliament’s ability to hold the Executive to account and bring about a fundamental change in the way in which we have always drawn our constituency boundaries in this country. The greater the change, the greater the need for accountability, so why abolish local inquiries? It is true that inquiries sometimes take an inordinate time to complete, but surely it would be far better to find ways of speeding up the process while safeguarding the rights of local communities to influence the outcome.

As we know, the Bill restricts the size of the electorate in each constituency to within 5 per cent of the electoral quota. But as has been said, this simple mathematical equation will be based on an electoral register that is out of date—a register that does not take account of the 3.5 million people across England and Wales who are eligible but missing, according to the Electoral Commission. Who and where are these missing voters? They are predominantly young, from black and minority-ethnic communities, and living in rented accommodation in metropolitan and coastal areas. Why is the coalition so eager to reduce the representation of this group of people? These people exist even if they are not on the register and have problems that have to be dealt with. After all, a census is planned for next year, as my noble friend Lady Henig pointed out. Instead of rushing headlong into these changes to our political landscape, why not wait until we have the data we need to make them both fair and legitimate?

When registration levels can vary so widely from constituency to constituency, why can the Boundary Commission not be given more leeway than the 5 per cent that this Bill envisages? Surely 10 per cent would mean less cross-boundary and geographical problems arising.

In conclusion, I would like to ask the Minister why he is proposing to abolish local inquiries when we all agree, and I quote, that:

“Localism brings people closer to political power and gives them control over their own communities”.

Those are not my words, but those of the Minister’s right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I quote again, this time from another of the noble Lord’s colleagues in the other place, that,

“if this reform is to carry weight and legitimacy, it must be seen to be fair to all parties, not to the naked advantage of one party”.

That is absolutely right, and perhaps it is why the coalition Government are not giving a coherent explanation of the arbitrary 600-seat proposal.

The other day I was trying to find out what the big society meant, and I read an article which contained these words:

“When one-size-fits-all solutions are dispensed from the centre, it’s not surprising they so often fail local communities”.

They are the words of the Prime Minister in 2009. I do not frequently agree with the Prime Minister, but I think they are words that we should keep to the forefront as we continue to debate this Bill.

19:05

[Lord Hoyle]

My Lords, what we are considering here is a nasty and partisan Bill. No clear answers have been given by the opposite side, and I hope that the noble Lord who is to reply—I nearly said “my noble friend” because we have called each other different names at different times—will give us some better answers than we have had up to now. On the question of why the figure of 600 seats has been chosen, it was pointed out in the speech just before mine that all we got was a wave of the hand with no clear indication as to why that should be. My other question is: why are we having this at all? After all, the Boundary Commission considers these issues every eight to 12 years, and the review took place only at the last election, in 2010. Why are we going into another review at this time? One can only think that it is to gain some political advantage.

The review itself is based purely on the size of constituencies. Surely that cannot be right. The question has been asked time after time: why is this being done? Again, I hope that we get some better answers than we have had up to now. Two constituencies have been taken out because this is not going to apply to them. The noble Lord was asked why there is to be this differentiation when there are many constituencies which ought also to have special consideration given to them.

We need to say again and again that constituencies are about far more than the size of the electorate. There are historical and national boundaries, and there is the community. My noble friend Lord Howarth said that he was sticking his nose into Lancashire. I must say that he is a very brave person to do that, but we do not mind when we get the constructive remarks he made in relation to it. That is because the Government have not seen anything yet compared to what they will see if they start to interfere with the boundaries either there or in Cheshire. They will run into tremendous problems. Whatever may be said, there is a sense of identity. Indeed, I am rather surprised that the noble Lord opposite talked about constituencies as though there is no sense of identity. He must have been a very unique MP because that was certainly not what I found in the east Lancashire constituency I had, which is now Pendle but had been Nelson and Colne. There was a real sense of identity. Indeed, it was so strong that at one time people who lived in Nelson would not work in Colne and vice versa. I think also of Warrington and how when we had to split it into two constituencies, that caused all sorts of problems. There is far more to this than what is being said.

Another thing that has been said time after time is this: why are we doing away with public inquiries? It is a disgrace. It is being said that people or communities who have objections will be satisfied with making a written complaint. What happens when they find that the reply they get is not satisfactory at all? Where can they go then? Is it going to be carried up? Surely that would be far better. Again, the reason for this is haste: minds have already been made up.

I hope noble Lords on all sides of the House will join in the demand for a real examination of this change in constituencies; we have got to put more into it and think more deeply about it. I hope that we can come to a different conclusion and that the people living in the affected constituencies will have a right to make not only written objections but something more desirable. We need to look again at the issue of holding public inquiries. They need not take the time they have done in the past, but people are certainly entitled to them.

The intention to change the system of voting that has served us so well over many years concerns me equally as greatly, if not even more. People understand the first past the post system; it has led to strong government in the past and I have no doubt that it will do so in the future. The electorate know and understand the system. They know that if a party puts forward a manifesto and is elected, it will be called to account—but it will have the chance of putting its manifesto into operation under the system that we have now.

Again I ask: why is this being changed? One can only conclude that it is because of the coalition, because of a sop thrown to the Liberal Democrats. We know it is a sop because of what the Deputy Prime Minister said about it. As was said yesterday, he referred to it as a “miserable little compromise”—yet it has been accepted by them. He went further—and this really concerns me—and said that AV is a baby step in the right direction if only because there can be nothing worse than the status quo. That gave the game away—that this is only the start. They see it as a starting position from where they can begin the change. We know what they want to do—they want to bring in an era where there will always be a coalition in which they see themselves playing a role. That is the reason for the change; it is not because the change is desirable. The change will take power away from the people. They do not decide whether there will be a coalition Government; that decision is taken and agreement is reached behind closed doors, and the people suffer because of it.

No one on the other side of the House has put forward a good reason why there should be this change. I shall resist it. I shall fight against it in this House and, if it goes to a referendum, I shall fight against it then as well. I return to where I started: why the haste about this matter and the issue of the constituency boundaries? Why is the Bill being rushed through? Why is a constitutional change, which affects all of us, being pushed through with haste when there is no demand for it? Whenever I fought an election as an MP—and many of my colleagues will agree—the issue was never raised on any doorstep; no one ever said, “The electoral system is wrong and we need to change it”. So where is this coming from other than the fact that it is a coalition and the sop has been given? It is a small sop but, as I say, they wish to build upon it. It comes back to this: why should the British public suffer a change in the system and MPs suffer a change in their constituencies to bring about, in the first case, a permanent coalition through the method of how we vote; and, in the second case, a political advantage for the parties opposite? I disagree completely with both of them and it will be my duty to fight them in every way I can.

19:15

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

My Lords, as a Lewisham resident, I disagree with the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Maples, about the borough. It is a wonderful borough; it has a vibrant, multicultural community of which I and my wife are proud to be a part. It is not only a few square miles of concrete; people know exactly where they live.

I declare an interest as a member of the Electoral Commission. With that in mind, I shall restrict my remarks to matters concerning the proposals to reduce the number of seats by 50 and to changes to the way in which boundary inquiries are conducted as these matters are not within the remit of the Electoral Commission. I shall make no comment on matters on which the commission has to take a view or will be charged with delivering when the Bill is passed into law.

The proposals to reduce the number of seats and to deny citizens the right to make representations at a local inquiry to determine the area their elected representative will cover is not only a matter for the House of Commons. I and other noble Lords in this House will not let the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats get away with suggesting that that is all it is. These proposals go to the very heart of how we are governed. They are politically motivated, as was the proposal to bring in another group of Peers so soon after the summer intake, of which I was a Member. So on the one hand we have proposals to further increase the combined strength of Conservative and Liberal Democrat Peers in this House and, on the other, proposals to reduce the number of seats in the House of Commons by 50 to 600, of which it is suggested approximately half will be Labour.

I have no issue with equalising seats; it is the reduction by 50 to which I object. Where did this figure come from? It was in neither party’s manifesto. How will the citizens of our country be better served with 50 fewer Members of the Commons to represent them? Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord McNally, will tell us a little more than the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, told us yesterday. “A nice round figure” were the words he used.

No matter how the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats try to dress it up, there is only one way to describe their actions—gerrymandering. They are partisan and seek to gain political advantage for their respective parties. My noble friend Lord Wills referred to the website of the honourable Member for the Cities of London and Westminster, Mr Mark Field, on this point yesterday.

The proposals for the boundary review are the most far reaching in modern times; there has never been a boundary review like the one proposed by the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats. It will take place every five years, shorter than normally, and the Government want a full review in three years. How do they achieve that? They do it by denying citizens the right to make representations in person at local inquiries. I asked the Government a question on boundary inquiries a few weeks ago. The noble Lord, Lord McNally, advised me that there had been an initial inquiry and five periodic reviews since 1944, and that the legislation which brought in local inquiries dates from 1949. That is 61 years ago. The Labour Government of the day had just brought in the NHS the year before.

The noble Lord, Lord McNally, further advised me in his reply that at the last boundary review a total of 205 seats had changes made to their boundaries from what was first proposed by the Boundary Commission as a result of evidence received, including local inquiry reports. The last election was fought on that review of parliamentary seats for the first time, and the Labour Party lost that election. That is nearly a third of the seats in the House of Commons today.

No case has been put forward by the Government as to why this change is justified. This system works: why cannot the Government speed up the process but still keep the inquiries? That would be achievable, keep what is good in the present process and allow citizens to have as full a role in the process as possible. Having the ability to send in a letter; having the review use a mathematical formula; and having no respect for communities is no substitute for what we have at present.

Why also do the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats want reviews every five years, so that we have a review after every general election with as little as possible involvement from the public?

Not everyone in the Conservatives and Lib Dems is happy about this. The honourable Member of Leeds North West, Mr Greg Mulholland, who is a Liberal Democrat MP, said in the House of Commons recently:

“Redrawing the boundaries every five years, for every Parliament, is simply not sensible. I am happy to support the principle of having more equal constituencies, but the proposals as they are now worded show no recognition of the reality of the process of introducing boundary changes”.—[Official Report, Commons, 19/10/10; col. 882.]

He made those remarks when introducing an amendment which would have required a boundary review every 10 years. I agree with Mr Mulholland; he is absolutely right. We should be working towards having a review every 10 years.

I am sure that we will be told that the Government want communities to be respected and local ward boundaries to be the building blocks. Their problem is that by imposing such rigid rules on the Boundary Commission and allowing only toleration of only a 5 per cent variation, they make it impossible. The Boundary Commission must be allowed more flexibility in looking at issues such as geography, culture and community ties. If the Government relaxed the toleration margin to 10 per cent, they would not only achieve their objective of more equally balanced constituencies but also allow other considerations to be taken into account.

Mr Lewis Baston from Democratic Audit made this very point in written evidence to the Political and Constitutional Reform Select Committee, saying:

“A general principle of toleration of 10 per cent variation allows for county boundaries, community identity and practicality of representation to be taken into account, while a rigid 5 per cent rule cannot … Of the 533 English constituencies in the last review, 474 (88.9 per cent) were within 10 per cent of the English quota … One has to ask whether it is worth imposing the disruption … when the bulk of them are within 10 per cent of what they ‘should’ be anyway”.

Reducing the number of MPs from 650 to 600 was in the manifesto of neither the Conservatives nor the Lib Dems. No justification has been provided for this proposal either. The honourable Member for the Cities of London and Westminster, Mr Mark Field, who is a Conservative MP, has not been convinced on this point. He said during the passage of the Bill in the other place:

“Neither can I see any justification for a reduction in the size of the House of Commons from 650 to 600”.—[Official Report, Commons, 20/10/10; col. 1049.]

So we have reductions in the number of seats; citizens denied the opportunity to make their case in person in front of a commissioner; and rigid rules imposed by the Conservatives and Lib Dems. This is the new politics, with no attempt made to reach a sensible consensus on which all such types of legislation should be based. It is partisan politics at its worst, seeking to achieve change for narrow party political advantage. There is nothing one nation or Liberal about this Bill. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

19:22

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy of Southwark, may be jumping the gun. We should give this House a chance to consider this Bill in an intelligent, fair-minded way. I have no doubt that the vast majority of Members of this place will do just that. While I support the Bill generally, I want to hear more debate about the 5 per cent variation either side. I also want to hear more debate about the reduction in the number of MPs, because it strikes me that, in the modern age of communication, the intensity of work that MPs have to undertake is utterly different from what it was even 10 years ago. There is a lot of water to go under the bridge before we finalise the shape of the Bill.

I was nearly provoked by the noble Lord, Lord Hoyle, into debating the merits of electoral systems, but that is not what this debate is about. This debate is about the Bill and the referendum. We are going to put this issue to the people of this country, and quite rightly. All of us will say our pieces hither and yon, and the people of this country will decide what they think are the merits of this complex argument.

I shall concentrate on just one aspect of the Bill: the way in which the public are to be prepared for their referendum choice. I plead a special interest in this as founder and president of the Citizenship Foundation. I hope that my remarks are entirely without partisanship. Noble Lords may be forgiven for having missed, in a 301-page Bill, two lowly paragraphs—paragraphs 9 and 10 of Schedule 1—that prescribe just how the British public is to have a good chance of understanding what all this is about and being fired up to get out and vote. I am sure that one thing on which we all agree is that, if we are going to have a referendum, we must make the best of it. We must get the best possible turnout, regardless of which side it takes.

Paragraph 9 of Schedule 1 states that the role of the Electoral Commission will be, first,

“to promote public awareness about the referendum”.

That is an excellent requirement. The commission tells me that it has already decided to put a leaflet through every door in the four countries. Secondly, the Electoral Commission is to have discretion—I wonder whether that should be a requirement—to,

“take whatever steps they think appropriate to provide … information about each of the two voting systems referred to in the referendum question”.

Paragraph 10 of Schedule 1 is headed “Encouraging participation”. I give credit to the Government for including a provision that will require steps on the part of various people to encourage participation. What I question—it is a very open-minded question—is the way in which the obligation to encourage participation is split among four groups: first, the chief counting officer, who is, under the 2000 Act, the chair of the Electoral Commission; secondly, the regional counting officer, who is given an obligation under the Bill to encourage participation; thirdly, all counting officers; and, finally, all registration officers. Does that not make matters more complex than they need to be? Should not there at least be very early collaboration among those four groups to ensure that they do not each reinvent the wheel and to ensure that certain key matters do not fall between two stools and are not left unexplained and unencouraged?

Paragraph 10(5) states:

“The Minister may reimburse any expenditure incurred by an officer for the purposes of”

the encouragement provisions. Can the Minister give the House some indication of just what the Government propose in this regard? Unless an early, solid assurance can be given by him that the expenses incurred for the purposes of encouraging participation will be at least partly met by the Government, that will be a serious inhibition of what should be a highly effective propaganda campaign—if one wants to use that loaded phrase—to get people fired up to go out and express their view with knowledge enough to enable them to reach, each according to his own, a right conclusion.

I refer back to Section 108 of the 2000 Act, which states that the Electoral Commission shall decide which organisation on each side of the divide shall be designated for the purpose of the Act. Only one organisation can be designated. Section 110 of that Act states that each of the designated organisations shall have up to £600,000 to enable them to undertake their roles as organisers of the referendum campaign. There are provisions about free postage, free meeting halls and so on. That figure of £600,000 was established in 2000. Can the Minister assure the House that that figure will be increased, so that the task of the organising designated bodies can be fully and well undertaken? I repeat: to have a referendum with a poor turnout would be the worst of all worlds.

19:29

[Lord McAvoy]

My Lords, I shall take a minute or so to outline the context and the background against which I shall make my remarks. When I came to the other place, quite a long time ago, I did not have much time for this place and did not understand it. I thought that this place was undemocratic, illogical, irrational and all the rest of it. That was quite a naive attitude to take and was based on a lack of knowledge of this place. When I was in the government Whips Office in the other place and there was ping-pong going on, at the third ping-pong I decided to come here to try to get a grasp of what was going on. Back and forwards the Bill went, and then the Conservative spokesperson got up and said, “Well, it’s our job to revise and to get the Government to think again, but we have asked them three times with three revisions and they have chosen not to take our point of view. However, they are the elected House and they must have their way”. That was quite a shock to the system, because the people who had the power to defeat the Government chose not to use it. That made a powerful impact on me, and since then I developed quite a bit of respect for this House long before I arrived here.

The Leader of the House, in speaking against the hybridity Motion yesterday, had some fun saying that what was happening on our side of the House was House of Commons-style. That was quite provocative and, to me, it was quite clear what he was doing. He was condemning the House of Commons style as being confrontational and partisan, with all this argy-bargy. He was creating a diversion by provoking the type of behaviour that he was condemning to show that the opposition to this Bill is based on Commons partisanship and Commons-style oppositionism. That is completely wrong, but I certainly knew what he was up to.

I accept that the role of the House of Lords is that we revise and send legislation along and ask the Government of the day to think again, but the partisanship did not start on this side of the House. David Laws blew the gaff in his account of the coalition negotiations. The bit that hit me between the eyes was when he said that the Tories came forward with their proposed reform of the constituencies to “remove Labour over-representation”. The reform was nothing to do with democracy or about over-representation being a bad thing; it was about removing Labour over-representation. As my noble friend Lord Wills proved when dealing with the over-representation argument, at the very least it is debatable that there is over-representation.

The word that I would use to describe the Bill is “gerrymandering”, which has been used quite a lot this evening and yesterday. I know that sensitive people on the other side of the House do not like that word, but it is a fact—we regard it as a fact on this side of the House. I was hoping that the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, would still be in his place and I am sorry that he has left—one thing that I have noticed about this place is the weighty contributions from speakers, on both sides, who have ability, experience and judgment, so this place impresses me—because he referred yesterday to the dangers of trading permanent changes for short-term advantage, which he said would be wrong. In the Bill, we have a collaboration or coalition Government who have come together for their own short-term party-political advantage. The Conservatives, of whom I notice that there are only two in the Chamber at the moment, can only do that with the support of—guess who?—the Liberals. Members on both sides of the House have long experience of dealing with Liberals—we know what they are like—and we can see that, from their condescending position of taking the high moral ground with their fine principles, the Liberals are now displaying hypocritical behaviour. As anyone knows who has watched this situation, they have sold their souls. And what have they sold their souls for? They have sold their souls for AV.

[Lord Tyler]

My Lords, I have a very real affection for the noble Lord, Lord McAvoy, but I recall only too well that he was the past master of the black arts in the Whips Office in the other place for many years. I have the greatest respect for his opinion, but does he really think that it is appropriate that my former constituency comprised 87,000 constituents? I wonder how many constituents he represented. Does he think that it is a gerrymander to try to level things up to provide equality of voting strength among constituencies when there is such a discrepancy? Perhaps he would like to tell us how many people he represented.

[Lord McAvoy]

Certainly. I represented 77,000 constituents. Let me say right away that, as for the affection that the noble Lord holds me in, I will think about that.

[Lord Grocott]

I suppose that my noble friend is as surprised as I am that the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, did not follow the basic rule of parliamentary questions, which is never to ask a question unless you know the answer.

[Lord McAvoy]

As ever, the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, has hit the nail right on the head.

Let me tackle the questions put by the noble Lord, Lord Tyler. First, I felt a sense not of unease but of strangeness in being described as a past master, because that phrase is not usually associated with a name such as Thomas Anthony Martin McLaughlin McAvoy. If he is not sure what he is talking about, he should come up to the west of Scotland. I certainly believe in more equalisation, and I have no problems with the Government tackling that. How the Government are going about that is the problem for me.

I am absolutely delighted that the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, has come in to the House, because he is the second Conservative Peer that I would like to quote. He need not look so worried, because it is a semi-compliment, although perhaps that might upset him. He said yesterday that constitutional change should be as a result of consensus. Those are wise words, but we do not have consensus here. That starts with the timing of the referendum in Scotland in particular, where the timing could do damage in relation to turnout. As the noble Lord, Lord McNally, mentioned, there was a large number of spoiled votes in the Scottish elections of 2007 because of confusion and change.

My noble friend Lord Grocott talked about the MPs’ constituency links, which are the bedrock of the parliamentary system. Dividing constituencies on numbers alone by taking boxes of 75,000 people would totally destroy the concept of that bond. Any MP whom I have ever met—no matter which party they were in—felt that special bond with their constituency. I was surprised to hear the noble Lord, Lord Maples—I am sorry to say this because I have always found him personally amenable—apparently denigrate both his former constituencies. I do not think that he meant to do so, but that was how it came across. That link between the Member of Parliament and the constituency is undervalued in the Bill. However, I do not want to repeat how an MP can link up with his or her constituency, because that has been dealt with quite a bit already.

Noble Lords have referred to the fact that a referendum on AV was mentioned in the Labour Party manifesto. I do not have a problem with having a referendum. I am opposed to AV and I shall campaign against it if a referendum comes about, as I believe in first past the post. To come back to my friends the Liberals, with proportional representation—or any variation of it—parties and their leaders will say one thing before an election and then, once they get into the smoke-filled room, they will do a deal and forget what they promised the public. For example, right up to days and hours before the general election, Mr Clegg pledged not to vote for increased tuition fees, despite the fact that, internally, the Liberals had acknowledged two months before the general election that going back on such a pledge would be a distinct possibility. Yet what happened? They made a deal. Proportional representation is undemocratic. I do not believe that people should get their way on PR, which just allows the hierarchies and elites to go and make their deals.

It has been acknowledged on all sides of the House that 3.5 million people are not on the register that will be used to draw up these parliamentary boundaries. It is particularly undemocratic that there are to be no local inquiries; that is an affront to democracy. If Liberal-held constituencies can get special treatment, why cannot my former constituency? My former constituency faces being split, despite regaining our community cohesion as being part of South Lanarkshire rather than, as was the case previously, being situated in Glasgow. Yesterday, the Leader of the House—again, I note that he is not in his place—invited my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer of Thoroton to come up to the Western Isles to face the people there about the size of their constituency. I invite the Leader of the House, in his absence, to come to another constituency by coming to Rutherglen or Cambuslang or Halfway.

Even better, I invite the noble Lord, Lord McNally, or the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, to come to Rutherglen, Cambuslang and Halfway to advocate that the constituents should again be in with Glasgow. If the noble Lord, Lord McNally, accepts my invitation, I will be absolutely delighted to make the arrangements now. As the chair of the meeting, I will give him fair and impartial treatment. I would like to see him come and tell the people of my former constituency that they do not care whether they still have their own local community, which we have been in for 500 years. We are going to be ripped apart by a deal done for political convenience.

19:42

[Baroness McDonagh]

I start by declaring an interest; I have been a professional election organiser since my teens, I was general secretary of the Labour Party and I am still proud to be a grass-roots activist, so I am really passionate about what I do. I also know that many Members of this House, from all political parties, are passionate about working in the community and on elections, so I was excited to see this Bill coming through and to see whether it would meet the new challenges that I feel we face in this century: those of apathy, exclusion and isolation. I not only read the Bill but looked at everyone’s speeches on why they were introducing it. I can only come to a few conclusions.

First, this Bill is actually built on a complete and utter falsehood. We have heard the noble Lord, Lord Maples, articulating it this evening. It is that the Conservatives need more votes to win elections than Labour, because Labour has small seats and the Conservatives have big seats. That is completely untrue. It is true that Labour needs fewer votes than the Conservatives to win an election, but for this reason only: Conservative voters tend to be—not exclusively, but tend to be—older and wealthier and more likely to be managerial, to be homeowners, to be a stable population, to be well educated and to have gone to university. Labour voters are likely to be poorer, to have more problems with literacy or language, to be younger, to be in insecure accommodation, to have to move and to be on minimum-waged jobs. That mobility and all those reasons lead to Labour voters being less likely to vote than Conservative voters, so what happens is that you win Labour seats not proportionately but on fewer votes than in Conservative seats. That is a geodemographic fact.

I will let the House into a secret. It is not a fact just in the UK; it is a fact all around the world that those who are poorer, more mobile and less well educated are less likely to vote than people who are better educated, wealthier, older and more established. This can easily be sorted out. We heard it tonight and we heard the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, agree with it yesterday. I call upon the noble Lord to write to the House and show statistically that the case is that Labour gets elected because it has smaller seats than the Conservatives.

If the whole of the legislation is based on a false premise, another problem with it is that it impacts the whole basis of democracy in the United Kingdom. The basis of our democracy has always been one small and simple rule: that Members of Parliament represent a community of interest. They have always done that. This Bill says, “There is no such thing as community”. This is a very dangerous path to follow. I say to your Lordships: I have always believed in society and I am glad that all parties now believe in it, but I also believe in community and I think that nearly everyone in this House believes in it.

There is one little thing to think about. When walking around this—

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

Is the noble Baroness aware that, of the factors which the Bill prescribes must be taken into account by a Boundary Commission, the third are,

“local ties that would be broken by changes in constituencies”.

What are local ties if not community?

[Baroness McDonagh]

Exactly—but to create those local ties you have to be able to build from a local government ward and to recognise natural boundaries, county boundaries and other boundaries. That cannot just be put into the Bill without allowing those people whose responsibility it is to be able to draw communities; you are going to break wards.

I was about to explain that when I see noble Lords taking people around the House, or when I hear them at a dinner, it does not take visitors very long to ask them about their title. Every time, somebody has a story about when they went along to Garter and how they got their title. The reason for that is that it is about a community that they believed in. Having listened and looked—and I have seen a few people this evening—I do not believe that this House shares the Bill’s view of community. By the time it comes back for its next stage, I would hope that your Lordships will have been able to talk to your counterparts in the other place and will bring back amendments that recognise clear county boundaries, local government wards and natural boundaries.

We can all see that there are a few anomalies, but they are not there because somebody in the past has had a narrow, sectional interest. Let us take Wales for an example; by the way, Scotland is not a good example because Labour-held Scottish seats are large. In legislation, it says that you cannot reduce the number of seats in Wales to under 35. A previous Government did that because one of the constituencies would have ended up being a quarter of the size of Wales. They thought that was ridiculous; now, who was that Government? Was it Labour? No—it was in a parliamentary Act of 1986 and it was the then Conservative Government who recognised that there were proper boundaries and communities of interest. If a 1980s Conservative Government recognise that, it seems strange that this Government cannot.

It is not only the coalition that gets some of these things wrong. My own party, for example, got the issue of individual registration wrong. The Bill would be a fantastic place to bring it back and ensure that there was household registration. Some 3.5 million people are already under-registered, and now there are cuts of 28 per cent to local government. I hope that the Government will come back and explain—this was not answered properly yesterday—what advice is being given to registration officers about this, when it is now so important.

I was out knocking on doors last week, doing registration. I went to a small home, a lady came to the door and I showed her the names on the register. There were three adults. It looked like a busy household so I said to her, “Is everyone in your household registered? Everyone needs to be registered from the age of 16 and three months upwards”. She looked at the floor. I said, “Look, if they’re not, I’ve got a form here and I’m happy to help register the people who aren’t registered”. She started to give me the names of all the other adults who were not registered. I got up to six additional people. I was getting on with her, so I said, “Why didn’t you put these people’s names down when you sent in the original form?”. She said, “I was ashamed that so many of us had to live in one home”.

That is a problem for many people in our community. There is a need for registration. I do not think that the coalition Government really appreciate how much they are going to alienate people with this legislation. Having said that my own party got this wrong, I ask that the coalition Government to look at this issue again.

I also do not understand—this keeps getting asked, but I do not understand what the answer is—why this has to be done so quickly. No one seems to have answered that although it is such an important issue. I cannot understand why the Government would not want to consult; there are so many people who could bring improvements to the Bill. Apart from anything else, this legislation is actually very badly written. It has to be interpreted by many other people. The Government will have to table a serious number of amendments to the Bill just to make it understandable.

We are so privileged to be here in the home of democracy, when so many people before us fought the fight to get the vote and were able to establish Parliament in such a way that we could be a role model for the rest of the world. I do not know what any of them would think if they were looking at our legislation now. While our ancestors fought for the vote, our fight is against apathy, isolation and exclusion. Does anyone here think the current legislation meets any of those tests? Does anyone think that a young person starting out would feel included by this legislation and that it would speak to them? The legislation seeks to exclude. It divides our nation and damages our society.

I have one other thing to say to the Conservative Party. I have heard many of its statements, and it must be a great disappointment for it not to have been able to get an overall majority at the general election, but the Conservative Party was not robbed. It was not tricked out of its majority. What happened is that the public were fearful to give the Conservative Party a majority because they were worried that it would introduce sectional-interest legislation and that it would seek to divide. This legislation shows them that they were right to be worried.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

My noble friend was just addressing her remarks to the Conservative Party, but has she noticed that there is not a single Member of that party present in the Chamber?

19:55

[Lord Roberts of Llandudno]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to take part in this debate. Much of what we have heard seems to treat the electoral system as something that is static and could well be stagnant, but it has always been evolving. There was the secret ballot, generally advancing the number of adult males who could vote. Then there was more or less universal suffrage, with the introduction of votes for women. Then the voting age was reduced to 18. It has always been an evolving system. As it has evolved, it has largely adapted to the needs and demands of the time.

The first past the post system was possibly far more acceptable when there were only two parties, as in the 19th century. There were the Whigs and the Tories, then the Liberals and the Conservatives, so in every constituency there would be a straight fight. That meant that whoever won would have had to have won 50 per cent of the vote. It was only as the other parties came on the scene that fewer than 50 per cent of the electorate could enable a party to win a seat. I refer to Wales in the 1910 general election. There was one two-Member constituency, Merthyr Tydfil, and let us admit that it did the nation proud by electing Keir Hardie as one of its two Members. However, there were 32 single-Member constituencies, and of those 32 only a Swansea seat had a three-cornered contest, won by Ben Tillet, who entered the fray on behalf of the Labour Party. In 31 of those Welsh seats it was therefore just a straight fight, so those Members would represent 50 per cent of the electorate.

One hundred years later, we rarely see a two-party fight. There is a multitude of candidates for every seat. In Wales, as in other places, since the Labour Party emerged we have had Plaid Cymru and the Green Party; we often have between five and eight candidates contesting the one seat. That means that of those seats, very few of them see more than 50 per cent of the votes cast for the winning candidate. For instance, I was looking at the 40 seats that we had at the general election, and in only six of them did a party have 50 per cent or more of the votes. We have a situation that demands adaptation and modernisation or else we are back in the dinosaur era of the 1900s.

I am thinking of north Wales—I can speak of the area that I know. We have nine parliamentary seats in the regional list area for the Welsh Assembly. Of those nine seats last May, no one winner came anywhere near having 50 per cent of the votes. Aberconwy was won with 35.8 per cent for the winning Conservative candidate, while 63.2 per cent voted against that candidate. In Alyn and Deeside, 39.6 per cent voted for the winning candidate while 60.4 per cent voted against. So it was throughout the region. Arfon, Clwyd West, Delyn, Clwyd South, Vale of Clwyd, and Wrexham were all won with less than 50 per cent of the vote. Usually the winning candidate had around 40 per cent or less.

Ynys Môn, the last one, was won by Labour with a vote in favour of the MP of only 33.4 per cent. That meant that 66 per cent of the electors in that constituency did not vote for the winning candidate. Is that a fair result? The Bill that we are discussing is a Bill for the representation of the people. Do figures such as these give us adequate and fair representation of the people? When there was a straight fight in Anglesey in 1910, Ellis Jones Griffiths, who I am happy to say was a Liberal, got 70.7 per cent of the vote—more than double the 33.4 per cent of 2010. I suggest that, whatever our traditional approach to this, the system is horrendously unfair. Two-thirds of the electorate in a constituency are unrepresented directly.

When we fight elections every party uses the two-horse race theme, saying that it is a fight between Labour and Conservative or Liberal and Conservative. We try to squeeze the vote, instead of having a straightforward system whereby the people themselves choose the second name that they want to vote for. It is a far more transparent and much fairer system. Under the system that we have today, if we go for larger constituencies—if, say, Ynys Môn were to go from 50,000 to 75,000—and just 33 per cent still vote for Labour, it will mean that even more people are unrepresented. If we have larger constituencies it is absolutely essential that we have the AV system of election.

Let us also look at something else. The system that, a century ago, gave at least half the electors an MP of their choice, today denies that to the majority of the electorate of the United Kingdom. We speak of 3.5 million people who are unregistered. Can I speak for the 20-odd million people whose votes are not influential in electing a Member of Parliament? We have the opportunity in the AV Bill and the AV referendum to put that right.

How do we encourage young voters? I have another meeting tomorrow evening in Parliament.

[Lord McAvoy]

My good friend the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, has informed me that in 2005 my electorate was just over 74,000. In response, I should have said “approximately 77,000”. I needed to get that clear. In 2010 it must be near enough to 77,000. Does the noble Lord, Lord Roberts, take into account that the bigger the constituency in numbers, the more casework there will be? In my old constituency I went from having 53,000 to that 74,000 after the reduction of the Scottish seats. It made for a considerably increased amount of work.

[Lord Roberts of Llandudno]

That has nothing to do with my argument. My argument is that in larger seats more people will not have a direct influence on the Member that they elect, which is very serious.

I come to mention the Bite the Ballot campaign, which aims to engage young people in democracy and bridge the gap between democracy and young people’s apathy. Are we going to say to those young people, “We want you to be engaged in democracy but, remember, two-thirds of your votes will not count”? Are we going to say that more than 50 per cent of the votes that they cast will have no influence whatever? That is why we need to support not only the Bill but the AV referendum when it comes.

To conclude, the system that we have today is unfit for the 21st century. It was worn out in the 20th century and barely acceptable in the 19th century. I ask those who say, “Let’s keep the old system”, what is your alternative if we are to tell young people that their votes count? Under first past the post we say, “Hard lines—you just haven’t come up with a winner”. What is your alternative? Will you continue to support a dinosaur system of elections, or are you ready to move into the future?

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

Since the noble Lord is, quite rightly, interested in young people, would he support a change to the Bill to enable voting in the referendum at 16?

[Lord Roberts of Llandudno]

I would be quite happy with that. It is Liberal Democrat policy to lower the voting age. I think I have said enough for tonight.

[Baroness McDonagh]

I do not know why the noble Lord is shouting at us. Holding a referendum on the alternative vote was in the Labour manifesto.

[Lord Roberts of Llandudno]

It was, so I will continue shouting until the Labour Party admits that it was in its manifesto and that it will vote for the Bill and, when the time comes, vote positively in the AV referendum.

20:06

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

My Lords, it is late so I will make just four points. First, I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, who sat through most of the debate, is not here. I want to take up something that he mentioned—a threshold for the referendum. That has also been mentioned by my noble friend Lord Howarth of Newport. This, as has been said, is an implementing, not an advisory, referendum. However, it will turn on a single moment of thought. There will be no Second Reading, no Third Reading in both Houses on the issue, and no time for ifs and buts—just a sudden death play-off between two sides and only two sides. Can we really think it is a great idea to change decades or centuries of voting habits on a turnout of, perhaps, 15 per cent and a majority of, perhaps, 1,000, in a single moment of thought? That moment, incidentally, might reflect delight with or contempt for the Government of the day, rather than a real verdict on the issue on which the noble Lord has just spoken.

[Lord Rennard]

On the issue of turnout, there were referendums in Scotland and Wales, introduced by the Labour Government in 1997, and proposals by the Labour Government possibly to consider referendums on the European constitution and the single currency. Indeed, in the last Labour manifesto, there were proposals for a referendum on the alternative vote. Where was the mention, at any point in any of these referendums, of a threshold being applied?

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

At that stage I would also have argued for a threshold. George Cunningham remains a friend of mine; he reminds me frequently of the importance of a threshold. However, there is a difference in that this is an implementing referendum, rather than what they would have been.

I ask another question. There is the threshold issue, but is a majority of one across the whole nation enough? In a way, I look forward to our debates on the equivalent of the hanging chad. Will there be spoilt ballot papers and people outside polling stations unable to get in? Will Peers or EU citizens perhaps be forbidden to vote in the referendum—one correctly and one incorrectly? That should tie up the electoral court for many a long night. What if Wales votes one way and England another? Have we considered having different voting systems in these two different countries?

Secondly, I turn to the question of numbers. I enjoyed the grasping at the air of the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, yesterday on where he thought the number 600 came from. My noble friend Lady Liddell said yesterday that she hoped the Minister would explain this lovely round number when he replied. We look forward to that later this evening. The Constitution Select Committee concluded that this number was chosen without consideration of the role or functions of MPs and, as has been said many times in this debate, that it unbalanced the relationship between government and Parliament with no reduction in the payroll vote, boosting the power of the Executive rather than the power of the legislature. What do the Government have against Wales that they have decided to drop a quarter of its seats? Perhaps that was vengeance for Wales not voting Tory often enough. That step certainly does not show an understanding of the very special geography, history, culture and language of my original home.

Thirdly, as many noble Lords have said, it is important that boundaries take account of more than numbers. They should take account especially of geography, whether of Anglesey—where I used to live—across the Menai Bridge; that of Cornwall, across the Tamar; or that of the Isle of Wight across the Solent. They should also take account of the geography of valleys—coming from Wales, I know about those—and of rivers. I now live in London, where almost my biggest decision in life was to move from Battersea Bridge Road, just by the river, across the river to the north bank. I have only just got over that and that was 26 years ago. The Scottish boundary is sacrosanct but other boundaries, such as the river in London, are not recognised, and will not be recognised in the drawing-up of boundaries. In the days of the Empire when we were carving up the colonies, people with pencils drew lines across countries to which they had never been. I have visions of that happening here, with the same bad results, because we should not take into account simply physical geography—important though I think that is—but travel-to-work zones, hospital and school catchment areas, transport hubs, even football supporters and where they come from. These are also important issues for community, as my noble friend Lady McDonagh said. Local government, especially education authorities, has to work very closely with its populations. Education authorities must ensure that there are adequate junior school places, and senior school places for pupils to feed into subsequently. This is something about which parents feel very strongly and on which they frequently lobby their MPs, but how can MPs understand the issues involved if they are dealing with two or even three local authorities and MPs’ boundaries shift every five years, just when they have got to know the characteristics of their local schools, local communities and the travel and local hubs?

Furthermore, it is not simply voters who contact their MP, as all those in the House who have been MPs will know much better than me. Hospital staff, the police, businesses and school heads also contact their MPs and may well have views on how their community can best be represented in Parliament. However, they will have no say in decisions on boundaries taken by the commission. Such groups and individuals should be able to make representations to the boundary commissions on constituencies other than the one in which they live. Businesses, which rely heavily on local and transport services, may find themselves dealing with a number of different MPs for no other reason than that this Government prefer tidy numbers to the true representation of local interests.

The proposal that constituency numbers are based solely on registered voters does serious disservice—indeed, disrespect—to the role of MPs, whose workload, responsibilities and pastoral concern extend to, and are generated by, the whole population of their constituency, as many of your Lordships have said. We therefore need a greater margin than the simple plus or minus 5 per cent to allow for these vital attributes. As Andrew George—I believe that he is not a Labour MP—has said in another place:

“The Boundary Commission should be given the discretion to recognise identity, culture, tradition, history, geography … so that places with strong identities, historic communities”,—[Official Report, Commons, 1/11/10; col. 680.]

are not divided up to satisfy statistical equalisation.

Perhaps the most fundamental issue comprises boundary reviews. Only written submissions are to be permitted. Let me think who that might favour. Will it favour those with money who can employ clever specialists and PR advisers; those well used to the written word as their weapon of choice; and those with access to computers, design facilities, photocopiers and postage? Let me think who they might be. Would they be shop workers, local parents, hospital patients, tenants’ groups or youngsters? No, they would not have access to such facilities or the ability to undertake such a campaign, but hitherto they have had the right to hear, see and comment on the submissions of others. The process will become the equivalent of the sealed bid process, with substantial documents being received on the closing day from well heeled vested interests. It will be much harder for local groups—the big society, on which our Prime Minister is so keen—to make their voices heard.

I contend that this point is particularly important in view of the fact that the first major redistribution exercise will affect every seat—sorry, every seat bar two—in the country. This redrawing will disrupt and destabilise community identity and voters’ identification with their existing MPs. Worse, it will then continue in each Parliament, thus damaging the ongoing pastoral role of MPs, which depends on working relationships not only with their population and its representatives—whether that is local tenants’ groups, parents’ groups or local business communities—but with the relevant decision-makers, who might be local authorities, hospital trusts, water, gas and electricity suppliers, PCTs, GP commissioners or the police. Those relationships really matter if an MP is to do his or her work properly and effectively on behalf of their electorate. Constituencies need community identity in order to function as part of our democracy and local people are best able to explain that, including the relevance of a constituency’s name, which might be the biggest issue that the boundary commissions have to face. There need to be public hearings for this matter to be debated and to enable the community to become involved in it.

If the Government truly believe in the big society, they will want that community involvement. The old Liberal Democrats—how we miss them—favoured public involvement and democratic scrutiny of the Executive, but they now seem to be afraid of public hearings about these proposals. I wonder why.

20:18

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

My Lords, I declare a past interest in that when I worked at the Policy Unit at No. 10 before the last election, constitutional reform was part of my brief. At the risk of compounding my earlier indiscretion in your Lordships’ House this afternoon, I hope that I am not betraying too many state secrets if I say that a number of the Bills that are currently rolling up here from the other place bear a remarkable resemblance to some of the work that I was doing before May. That is very interesting and is much to be welcomed, although it is sad that so many differences are appearing between the packages of material that we would have brought forward, had we been returned in May, and what we are reading now.

I should like to make two points. The first is about principles. First, Parliament in general should deal with the packages of constitutional reform that we consider, because I fear that we are not doing our best on them. Secondly, a balance needs to be struck between numerical equalisation within constituencies, and the trust and confidence in Parliament that should flow from having regard to our communities right across this country.

Over our time in government, the Labour Party made a large number of substantial constitutional changes of which we are right to be proud. There were approximately one a year during our time in office. Our experience during that process drew out for me the following principles, which should underpin any constitutional package proposed by any Government.

First, constitutional reform should not be rushed. The evidence is that people care about what we might call the hard-wiring of our country. Their eyes certainly glaze over when you talk detail, but that does not mean that they should not be involved or have some engagement with it.

Secondly, constitutional reform should take time. While we discussed it when we were in power, we used to recognise that it would take longer to consider any constitutional measure than any other piece of legislation, and we would say “rightly so”, because it needed to be addressed properly in all its ramifications. If you rush it, you will make mistakes.

Thirdly, and consequently, major constitutional changes need time to bed down so that any unintended consequences can be assessed and, if necessary ameliorated. Given that there were so many changes under the previous Administration, it is a little surprising that so much has been rushed forward in such little time.

Fourthly, all our measures were immeasurably improved by deliberative and inclusive processes, particularly pre-legislative scrutiny. That should be an absolute feature of all constitutional measures. I do not know how that could be arranged, but it is something that Ministers should think carefully about.

Fifthly, it is rare for a constitutional measure to work if it is not given all-party support. We certainly strived for that when we were in power, and I hope that the same will apply on this occasion. It is not clear where that support is coming from, but the attempts that have been made so far in this House to be party to the process seem to have been rebuffed.

My final point on the principles is that it is rare to have a constitutional measure that stands on its own. All constitutional measures inevitably bear on each other, and there does not seem to be space in the processes that we are going through to take a long look at what is happening in the round. Changing the way in which the House of Commons is elected inevitably involves a process of change for this House and the way in which local government operates. These things need time to be thought through and discussed. The Bills that we are seeing at this time do not measure up to the principles that I have outlined, and we will all be the poorer for that. I hope that the Minister, when he replies, can point out ways in which the Government are trying to come alongside these principles. I look forward to hearing what he has to say.

My second point is about the UK-wide electoral quota and a wish to base every UK constituency bar three on that resulting figure. I am not sure why we are working on this idea of notional equalisation on a particular number. Once we move from first past the post to AV—I assume that that is what we will do—presumably some weighting of the total electorate will be required to accommodate the way in which a constituency has voted with its second and third preferences and to arrive at some quantum figure for how the constituency should be constituted. I should be interested to hear comments on that.

Having said that, we on this side of the House see merit in trying to eliminate gross discrepancies in constituency size, but my concern is that in so doing, we may be concentrating too much on process and not enough on content. The Select Committee on the Constitution concluded that,

“the Government have not calculated the proposed reduction in the size of the House of Commons on the basis of any considered assessment of the role and functions of MPs”.

That is surely the starting point.

Of course, part of the function of any general election is to provide a cadre of people who can form a Government and ensure that the Government get their programme into legislation. However, MPs, as has been said many times in this debate, are also there to speak up for and represent constituents and, as we have heard in many eloquent speeches, this function will vary across the country, affected as it must be by specific economic situations, geography, history and circumstance.

The principle here is that by focusing on the quality of each vote, we will drive out representations that should be made from many voters, particularly those in marginal areas of the country that are remote from the main urban centres. Presumably it is this train of thought that permeates the Bill and that has earned the Western Isles and Orkney and Shetland their reprieves, and the constituency that I come from—Ross, Skye and Lochaber—its immunity from the general rules. This constituency is described on the website of its MP, Charles Kennedy, as the largest in the UK. Perhaps somebody should point out that we are told that the Isle of Wight is the largest in the UK, but I will let that pass. He has held it in two successive elections with more than 50 per cent of the vote. Of course, this is without AV.

We need to focus on this because it is the largest geographical constituency in the United Kingdom, so there is a case, which I accept, for it to be considered separately. However, it is so large and so extraordinarily put together that it is very hard to see why it should be there. I support it—but if I support it, surely I also support the argument about the need to take into account the sparseness of the electorate, the range across which it operates and the history and culture that it comes from must apply to Cornwall, mid-Wales and other parts of England such as the north-west. Surely similar aspects of history, geography, kinship and economic difference should allow the boundary commissions to foreground the representative aspects of an MP's role over simplistic notions of numerical equality.

Size matters, as always, but it should not trump proper representation from all over the country. I urge the parties opposite either to relax the plus or minus 5 per cent straitjacket on constituency size, or perhaps, radically, to allow communities and localities to propose for themselves the sort of constituency size they think is appropriate to their needs.

20:26

[Lord Graham of Edmonton]

My Lords, I will make a brief contribution. The noble Lords, Lord Lyell and Lord Rennard, are here as gatekeepers for their parties. It shows the interest that those on the Benches opposite have in the issue. The relative numbers on both sides are representative of the contributions to the debate. I begin by saying how much I enjoyed the contributions of the noble Baronesses, Lady Hayter, Lady Nye and Lady McDonagh. They paid a great deal of attention to the detail of the Bill. I will not do that; my concern is process, especially the process through which major change is taking place against a background of the democratic right of an affected community to complain at a public inquiry not being allowed.

I have not had a lot of experience, but when I was leader of Enfield Council, the London Government Act 1963 came in. I attended the public inquiry and made a contribution on behalf of the council. We were represented by Ashley Bramall, who was well known to London politics. His brother was a Member of this House.

[Lord Bach]

He is a Member.

[Lord Graham of Edmonton]

Yes, he is a Member. It gave me a dramatic feeling of being involved in a major piece of legislation. For the life of me, what we have had, more than once, on this Bill and on others, is a tight timetable. The timetable has been fixed not by Parliament but by the political machinations of the coalition. It ought to be honest enough to say to the public that it is cutting corners because it wants to get the legislation through by a certain date, to benefit not the public but the programme and the timetable that it has set for itself. The public are rumbling the coalition and I hope it will get it its comeuppance.

I have no axe to grind on the alternative vote issue. I fought a number of elections: won some, lost some. The first parliamentary election that I fought was for Enfield West. My opponent was Iain Macleod, whose name is well known in this House. I remember saying to someone at a function, in Iain's presence, “Of course, I fought Iain at the last election”. He said, “Well, Ted, you may have done, but you never laid a finger on me”, which I did not because it was my unwinnable seat. The House has been invited to connive with the machinations on the other side. The noble Lord, Lord Maples, who is in his place, commented earlier on political gerrymandering. The Labour Party was upset because some benefits that we had were going to be taken away. The noble Lord is naive if he thinks that people on this side of the Chamber do not believe that people on his side of the Chamber are as guilty as we are in seeking an advantage.

Of course, all parties try to present their case as benignly as possible, but let us be realistic. In my view, the public are well aware of what politics is about, and at the moment it is about the credibility of the coalition parties. If they do not stand together, they will fall. So far as I am concerned, the legislation before us tonight is not in the best interests of the country or Parliament, and when the public realise what is being foisted upon them in the name of democracy, they will have second thoughts. I simply say that there is still time for the Government to reflect on the pace at which they are bringing about change.

Very little in the arguments is new. What we are talking about now is the substance of the legislation. The arguments are pretty well understood. Some people on this side of the House have said that they are in favour of one thing, whereas others have said that they are against it, and the same thing will happen on the other side. The Minister, as a person, has my respect and I know that he will be fair when he winds up the debate. However, I think he ought to take back to his masters the fact that democracy in this country is being ill served by this legislation and that it should be altered.

20:32

[Lord Davies of Oldham]

My Lords, as the 53rd contributor to this debate, I could readily succumb to the temptation of the old days and seek to summarise the main arguments that have been presented. However, I see that time is moving on and it might be thought highly improper if I were to make a two and a half hour speech, or even a 25-minute one, at this stage. In any case, I am of course leaving to my noble friend Lord Bach the task of summarising the debate from the perspective of these Benches and to the Minister the job of wrestling with the fact that the vast majority of contributors to this debate have been immensely critical of the Bill. Even the contributions from purportedly his own side have registered enormous and significant reservations about parts of the Bill, so the noble Lord, Lord McNally, has his work cut out.

I assure the House that I shall restrict myself to three points and a short speech. Those three points are, first, the alternative vote issue; secondly, the question of the inquiries into the way in which the Boundary Commission will work in the future; and, thirdly, the size of the legislature.

The problem with this legislation is that it lacks coherence and is a reflection of the political dynamic. That is why the alternative vote is spatchcocked on to the Bill. Who believes in it? The Prime Minister is going to campaign against it. The Liberal Democrats have indicated that it is merely preparatory ground for what they regard as the pristine and pure version—that is, proportional representation—as if the country would ever either understand what the Liberal Democrats were advocating in those terms or vote for it. We in the Labour Party are in favour of a consultative referendum but this involves a mandatory referendum that obliges a Minister to act the moment the Bill becomes law.

So who is in favour of the proposals in the Bill? The answer, as everyone has indicated, is that it is a compromise between the two political parties in the coalition. It has nothing to do with principle; it has nothing to do with the advancement of democracy; it has no appeal to the popular support of the nation. It is a fix, which is part of the cement that is keeping the coalition together. That is a pretty poor prospectus on significant reform to put before the nation, and it reflects the fact that the Bill is so ill thought out. We surely have the right to expect constitutional change to be subject to consultation and considered thought. After all, not even the coalition can believe that it will go on for ever. It is part of a constitution of which we are all part. That is why it is essential that there should be a modicum of agreement on how to go forward. It is on the basis of that agreement that we protect the political stability of our nation, ensure the respect in which our institutions are held and increase the respect of our individual Members of Parliament.

We all regret and know of the terrible costs of the past 18 months to two years of the expenses issue. It is still overwhelmingly the case that Parliament may be subject to challenge at certain times. Why should it not as it never delivers all that the nation wants? Political parties are open to challenge, and Members of Parliament within their political parties are often criticised. But I maintain, even at this stage—it has certainly been true over the decades—that the individual Member serving his constituency is held in high regard. That is so in Britain because of the relationship of MPs to their constituency and because the job that they do is recognised as valuable. Most of all, they are representatives of that area, which is why this issue of constituency boundaries is of such importance. You trample over local loyalties at your cost if there is no serious attempt to ensure that the political building blocks of wards and local authorities are crucial to constituencies. You are setting at nought the crucial role of the Member of Parliament.

My speech was preceded by that of my noble friend Lord Graham. At one stage we both represented Enfield constituencies. Let me say that those three Enfield constituencies—of course, it would take time for the electorate to be enumerated—will fall just outside the 5 per cent tolerance. It was clear in the borough that irrespective of who was in control of the local authority, it could get its case across to the three Members of Parliament irrespective of whether the MPs were all of one party. In fact, they never were of one party, as I recall—there was always at least one Conservative and one Labour representative in the borough—but because they would fall short of the tolerance level imposed by the Bill, the Boundary Commission may have to spatchcock on to them an additional group of electors either from another London borough or from Hertfordshire. How will that community in the locality of the borough of Enfield be represented by such a spatchcock addition? How is a Member of Parliament meant to relate effectively?

[Lord Rennard]

Does the noble Lord accept that that already happens with the crossing of London borough boundaries? For example, the constituency of Richmond Park is part of the London Borough of Richmond and part of the London Borough of Kingston. The city of Liverpool, where I come from, crosses the Liverpool city boundary and the Knowsley boundary.

[Lord Davies of Oldham]

Of course it does. The noble Lord, Lord Rennard, is probably the best placed of anyone in this House, given his intense interest and commitment to these issues, to know that the Boundary Commission listens to representations and that these are cut to the minimum. The Bill sets it at nought. It merely sets a figure that has to be complied with; no other considerations will count for the boundary commissioners. The noble Lord, Lord Rennard, talked about my objections, although I have in fact maintained a series of principles that have had to be abrogated in certain instances in the past. Those principles are set at nought in the Bill. The question of locality becomes of very limited significance indeed and this is one reason I intend to oppose this part of the Bill.

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

I am very grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. He is saying, as some of his colleagues have said in the past, that the Bill sets out four factors that the Boundary Commission take into account. They include local ties, inconvenience, local government boundaries and special geographical considerations, so I do not understand the point that the noble Lord is making.

[Lord Davies of Oldham]

Has the noble Lord not noticed that the tolerance level around the figure of 76,000 is a mere 5 per cent? If the noble Lord cannot see the straitjacket within which the Boundary Commissioners will be operating across the country, he is not showing that degree of insight into local politics and boundary-drawing which I would have expected from him.

[Lord Wills]

I am very grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. I wonder if he has noticed that this is the second intervention in which the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, has only quoted part of the Bill. The part of the Bill that he has quoted goes on to say that that provision, that rule, will be subject to Rules 2 and 4, on the electoral quota. In other words, all those considerations are still subject to that electoral quota rule, which only goes to prove the point that my noble friend was making.

[Lord Davies of Oldham]

I am so grateful to my noble friend, although he will recognise that I said that I would speak briefly and he is already extending my time. I want to get on to my third point on the size of the Commons. We all remember the histrionic gesture in this debate yesterday that suggested that the number did not emerge from anything more than thin air, as indicated by my noble friend Lord Dubs. I think we all know the motivation behind the reduction in numbers. The motivation, of course, is a £12 million cost saving and fairly obvious gerrymandering on the part of the party opposite.

It might be thought that I have dropped into a fairly severe partisan contribution at this stage and I want to avoid that. After all, we are talking about constitutional change and should, if we possibly can, avoid partisanship. I want to offer my congratulations to a Conservative Member of Parliament in the other place. He happens to be my Member of Parliament, because he represents the constituency in which I live. He is Charles Walker, the Member for Broxbourne. His concern, in the Chamber in the other place, was straightforward. He wanted to ensure that the House of Commons maintained, or perhaps increased, the capacity to hold the Executive to account when, as we all know, that capacity has been reducing over time.

There is no doubt that the Bill significantly reduces that capacity. It reduces the number of Members of Parliament and says absolutely nothing about the number of Ministers. The payroll position increases in proportion to the Commons and, crucially, affects its capacity to hold the Executive to account. I am pleased to agree with a Conservative Member of Parliament who tabled an amendment at the other end that got short shrift. What did not get short shrift were the guillotines on a constitutional Bill at the other end and the Government using their whipped majority to ram it through.

We are a revising Chamber: no more than that. We ought not to appropriate to ourselves any greater responsibility, particularly with regard to how the other place is elected and how it organises itself. Therefore I suggest that in the course of the Bill’s proceedings we merely give the other place the chance to think again, that we look at the size of the Executive—unchanged, of course, under the proposals that the noble Lord, Lord McNally, is about to defend—and that we provide opportunity for further consideration. I have no doubt that the principle on our side will be quite clear. I have hopes that we will get support elsewhere in the House, and I do not have the slightest doubt that there are enthusiastic advocates at the other end for that change to the Bill, including my own Member of Parliament. Lest it be thought that in my fulsome praise to him I automatically pledge him my vote at the next election, I will remind him that I do not vote in general elections.

20:45

[Lord Bach]

My Lords, from the Opposition Front Bench, I thank all those who have spoken during Second Reading. Of course, a large number have been from my side, and I am very grateful to them, but there have been very worthwhile contributions from all sides of the House which have also been illuminating. As my noble friend Lord Davies of Oldham just said, one cannot help being struck by the lack of support for the Government's position. From all sides of the House, there has been pretty outright opposition. Occasionally, a Peer has had a good word to say for the Bill; and, very occasionally, one or two have even shown signs of enthusiasm for it.

Indeed, the only noble Lord who showed great enthusiasm for the Bill—I am so sorry that he is not in his place, but I am sure that he will be in a moment—was the noble Lord the Leader of the House. He seemed in favour of his Bill—and quite right too—but I am not even sure about him. I admire him very much, and I very much regret that he is not sitting opposite me at present. I admire him for many reasons, but above all I admire him—

[Noble Lords]

Here he is!

[Lord Bach]

It is funny; I was just talking about the noble Lord. I admire him so much for his many qualities, but, above all, for what can only be described as his chutzpah. Anyone fortunate enough to hear him on the subject of Lords reform will know exactly what I mean—perhaps even those who saw him earlier today. For those who have not much experience of the noble Lord’s repertoire, we saw a pretty good example yesterday.

How could the noble Lord argue with a straight face that this is a proper constitutional Bill, one that has gone through all the procedures that he has so often told us—or, at least, he used to tell us when he was in opposition—are necessary for such a Bill? They are: extensive public consultation; pre-legislative scrutiny; a search for consensus; and perhaps above all, fairness and a lack of political partisanship. His speech yesterday was as good an example of both cheek and nerve as can be found.

The truth is that the Bill is rotten at its heart. It is rotten because it puts the party interests of the two parties that make up the coalition before fairness. It is rotten because no attempt has been made to consult the public or have pre-legislative scrutiny of its contents. It is rotten, too, because it seeks to decimate the role of the independent boundary commissions in determining appropriate parliamentary boundaries. It is, in effect, two Bills, and depends on a third yet to pass the other place.

Why are measures to set up a referendum on the electoral system in the same Bill as measures to set up new parliamentary constituencies? If it is appropriate to join them together, why is not the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill included as well? I am afraid that the answer is obvious: this is a Bill that is not primarily based on principle. If it were, how could either coalition partner press for a referendum that asked a question about, of all things, the alternative vote, but not about proportional representation? As has been said so often in the debate over two days, the Bill is based on a political deal. Of course it is. I would describe it as a kind of Faustian pact. The Helen of Troy in this Faustian pact is a share of political power. I must admit that I am not sure who at this stage is playing Doctor Faustus—the good Doctor Faustus—and who is playing the devil, but I think I can make a shrewd guess.

Part 1 is the offer for the Liberal Democrats although, frankly, to have settled for a referendum on AV—described by the Deputy Prime Minister in the phrase, almost now a cliché, that we have heard so often, “a miserable little compromise”—does not seem a great result, more a 0-0 draw, at least for the time being, rather than a win. Part 2 is the Conservatives’ prize as part of the deal: an unthought-out proposal to cut the number of Members of Parliament to a certain, fixed, strict, unbending, inflexible, unalterable figure of 600 to cause the coalition’s political opponents the maximum damage. All this low politics is hidden under the cover of political principle. It is described as a “new politics”, while the Deputy Prime Minister claims it is the most important political reform since 1832 and that he is the greatest reformer of them all. Stand aside Disraeli; stand aside Gladstone; stand aside Lloyd George, Churchill, Macmillan and Attlee. Bring forward the new hero of the hour, the new kid on the block, the Deputy Prime Minister. It is not unusual to hide motives under the cover of high-sounding principle, but here we see the art form at its most blatant and it needs, I would have thought, a great political writer to catch the flavour of it. Trollope! You should be living at this hour.

As to Part 1, one question stands out from many others and has been asked many times. Why the rush? Why the haste? We are to have a referendum as early as 5 May. Why combine the referendum with other elections in a large part of the United Kingdom but not everywhere? Why have the rules for the referendum been shoved into the Bill at the last moment and not been dealt with in the usual way? Why so little consultation? I ask again: why the hurry? I suspect that the answer is depressingly party political yet again: the Liberal Democrats desperately need an early sign that they actually matter in the Government. Perhaps they feel that they have more chance of winning the vote for AV if the referendum is held early, but perhaps they should listen rather more closely to my noble friend Lord Lipsey, who is a strong supporter of AV and who believes that a positive vote has much more chance if the referendum is held on another date. So often have we been told in this debate, and so often has the question been asked: is this really the way to change something as important as the electoral system of one of the oldest and most respected democracies in the world? I think the answer has to be no.

When we come to Part 2, I believe that we see the deeply partisan nature of this rushed legislation. We have heard of distinguished Conservative MPs during the course of this debate. We heard twice about the honourable Member for where we are tonight, the Cities of London and Westminster, who said:

“the current proposals for AV and the reduction in number of parliamentary constituencies are being promoted by Party managers as an expedient way to prevent our principal political opponents from recapturing office”.

It was not some idiot or some fool saying that, but a Conservative Member of Parliament.

Indeed, I am sorry to quote the Member of Parliament of my noble friend Lord Davies of Oldham, who is an independent-minded, respected MP, but it is important. He said:

“When introducing this Bill, the Deputy Prime Minister dressed it up as the beginning of new politics … it is old politics exercised at its very best or its very worst, according to one's disposition. It is about the Executive—the Government of the day—seizing more power for themselves. Let us not be coy about this … The arguments for reducing the size of the House of Commons by 50 are nothing more than very flimsy. We are told that cutting 50 Members of Parliament will save £12 million. Well … that is what 350 years of settled parliamentary democracy adds up to—we are going to save £12 million. Why stop there? Let us get rid of 300 Members of Parliament and save £72 million. There may be many good reasons for reducing the size of the House of Commons, but saving £12 million is not one of them”.—[Official Report, Commons, 6/9/10; col. 98.]

Finally, I remind the House of the words quoted by my noble friend Lord Kennedy of Southwark from the Liberal Democrat MP, Greg Mulholland. He said:

“Redrawing the boundaries every five years, for every Parliament, is simply not sensible. I am happy to support the principle of having more equal constituencies, but the proposals as they are now worded show no recognition of the reality of … introducing boundary changes”.—[Official Report, Commons, 19/10/10; col. 882.]

Hear, hear, to that. Greater equalisation is a good thing, but at what cost?

With this Bill we know that something is wrong. This does not look or sound like serious, well thought-out constitutional reform. It lacks that thought-through quality and that achieved consensus that come from proper pre-legislative scrutiny, and the reason is not hard to find. This is a constitutional measure that breaks the long-established and fundamental convention that such measures should not be taken for party gain.

I want to test this view by putting a number of questions to the Minister. First, why is there the need to undertake such an enormous boundary review by the next election? We have just been through the fifth periodical review, and new and important changes were made for this year’s general election. Why is there the rush? Secondly, crucially and without apologies, I come back to why should there be 600 seats. This is the first time in modern history that a Government have sought to set down a number that cannot be altered. Rule 1(1) of Schedule 1 to the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986 states:

“The number of constituencies in Great Britain shall not be substantially greater or less than 613”.

That gives the boundary commissions the opportunity to use their independent judgment, balancing the need for equality of electors and other proper considerations, such as geography and community ties, before coming to a fair conclusion. This system has worked. It has almost universal support.

A convenient myth has grown up that the number of MPs has risen greatly since 1945. As Professor King argued, in Sunday’s Observer, this is just not true. He went on to say that, at a time when the number of people each MP represents and the workload of MPs have been greatly increased, the number of MPs has risen by 10 over 65 years. So why should we have 600 seats? We have not had a satisfactory answer from the Government. Neither Mr Harper in another place, nor our own Constitutional Committee, nor, with great respect, the Leader of the House has given a satisfactory answer. For him to say that 600 seats strikes him as “a nice round figure” is humorous and well meaning. We know that the noble Lord, Lord McNally, who will be answering, can be a cheeky chappie. But I would ask him tonight to take this question seriously and to give the House an answer. Why should the figure be 600? Why not 585, as in the Tory manifesto? Why not 500, as in the Lib Dem manifesto? Was it picked out of the air? Is it random? Is it some kind of magic number?

It is not a bad rule in politics that no decision or choice about a particular number or form of words happens by chance. There is always a motive of some sort—good, bad or in-between—behind it. It is not chance that the number that has been chosen is 600. Let me put forward a possible reason. At 600 seats, the main opposition party stands to lose many more seats than its opponents. At 585 and even at 500 seats, the party advantage evens itself out. Psephologists, I am told, agree on this. Is the Minister denying that conclusion, and if he is, what convincing reason can he give for the figure of 600? If we are right, and this is being done for political partisan reasons, is it not a constitutional outrage? Are not the Government using their majority in both Houses of Parliament to usurp the role of the independent boundary commissions?

In many ways, of course, the final clue to what we argue is a partisan Bill is to be found in the abolition of public inquiries. Why are the Government proposing this? For many years they have been a vital and integral part of the difficult and sensitive process, and it is that, of redrawing parliamentary boundaries. To abolish them is to remove at a stroke the key benefit of having the original proposals of the boundary commissions tested and argued in an open public hearing before an assistant commissioner with legal qualifications. Worse than that, it removes local involvement, the opportunity for ordinary people from the area under consideration to put forward their points of view. I reject entirely the argument that public inquiries are merely a vehicle for political parties. In any event, political parties are actually made up of local people. I want to let the House into a secret. It is not that unusual for members of the same political party to put forward different proposals to the same Boundary Commission.

In my experience, and I have appeared at quite a number of these public inquiries, many years ago now and for nothing—pro bono, because I thought I saw that look in the noble Lord’s face—there are always many other citizens who put their views across. Those views may be absurd or they may be brilliant, but that is not the point. The point is that local people have the opportunity to be seen and heard, to be agreed with or contradicted, and above all to be active citizens. Is not that what, as I understand it, the big society is supposed to be all about?

The alternative proposal set out in the Bill that there should be a written consultation is, frankly, an insult. What I do not understand is how two parties which both speak about localism and the need for greater influence to be given to local people can consider abolishing public inquiries, particularly when the boundary review that is planned in this Bill is going to be the largest and most wide-ranging for a very long time. The painful answer, of course, is that all these arguments come a poor second to the Government’s need for a quick fix, a radical redrawing of the boundaries by 2015, a cutting of corners and established well-proved practices, in order to give them an advantage over the opposition party. That is the uncomfortable truth about this Bill—not so much a con trick as a Con/Dem trick. If a Labour Government had brought forward these proposals, we would have been ridiculed and savaged, and what is more, we would have deserved it.

One of the roles of this House is to help Governments to avoid the follies and mistakes of their proposals. Let me tell noble Lords that if you are in Government, it can be a fairly uncomfortable sort of help. In fact, it does not seem much like help at all. I have been there. In our view, this is a Bill where the Government need assistance from this House—and not just from our side, but from all sides, to move away from proposals that, frankly, are not worthy of the great traditions of the two parties that make up the coalition. They are traditions which accept that constitutional changes should be made, but always under two guiding principles: caution and consensus.

The Bill is deeply unsatisfactory in many ways, as our own Constitutional Committee said in its withering report last week. It represents a genuine abuse of power. I cannot believe that the Government want to gain a reputation so soon after they have come to office. For what it is worth, my advice to them is to listen to what has been said, loud and clear, by the House in this Second Reading debate; otherwise they will deserve the reputation they will undoubtedly get.

I return to the proposition that the argument for bringing the number of MPs down to 600 is to save £12 million. The reputation the Government will get is that they will be accused of knowing the price of everything but the value of nothing.

21:05

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord McNally)]

My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Bach. I know how thoroughly he has prepared his speech and I am sure that everyone on both sides of the House will read it, and we will listen.

Before I turn to the main thrust of my speech I should say to the noble Lord, Lord McAvoy, that I was extremely touched by the warmth with which he spoke of the House of Lords. It usually takes a left-wing Labour MP, although he is now denying that he is one—I am sorry, I forgot who I was talking about but I wonder how long it has been since you have been called that, Tommy—a little longer than three months before they fall completely in love with this place and adopt a “No change I like it” attitude. It is called the “I’ve got the foreman’s job at last” syndrome, and he has been quick to get it. It was also good to hear the noble Lord, Lord Davies, in a passionate speech, advocating change with all the subtlety of one of Baldrick’s cunning plots. We will watch him for that.

It has been an interesting debate. As I look around, I see that I have more Labour Members listening to me than I used to have when I was a member of the Labour Party. We have had the benefit of some old, nostalgic, vaudevillian performances. Last night the noble Lord, Lord Snape, gave his Max Miller impression, which is always good for the show; the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, is not in his place but Rab C Nesbitt would not go far with the noble Lord intervening; and I have always considered the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, to be a genuine small ‘c’ conservative on constitutional reform. I suspect that if he had been around in 1832, not only would he have defended the retention of Old Sarum, he would probably have been the Member for Old Sarum.

It is good to have gone through this debate. Certainly the Labour Party cannot claim that the Bill has not had a thorough examination. It has had two days in this House —

[Noble Lords]

It has not even started yet.

[Lord McNally]

It has not even started yet and already we have had over 40 interventions. So any complaints about thoroughness go awry.

Time is running on and so let me deal quickly with some of the points that have been raised. On timing and speed—an issue referred to by the noble Lords, Lord Stevenson and Lord Davies, and a number of other contributors—as anyone who has studied our history will know, there has always been a battle and a discussion in terms of constitutional change between consensus and leadership. On balance, people who believe in constitutional reform and fight for it have at least as much success as the consensus builders.

Whether it is on Lords reform or voting reform, the same arguments are trotted out: “Well, this is a shock. We’ve never had time to deal with this. This should really go to a Royal Commission or through some further stage”. As has been pointed out, AV was first offered by the Labour Government in 1931, some 80 years ago, so it is hardly a shocking introduction.

I say to those who talk about consensus that I was on the Cook-Maclennan committee that looked at constitutional reform before 1997. From that report emerged a Labour Government commitment to a referendum on voting reform. That, we believed; that, we followed through. But it was quietly buried by the Labour Government, sitting on their 180-plus majority. I say to those who advise consensus that there are some of us who can remember other things.

As a coalition, we have put together a Bill which has been given very thorough examination, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, rather grudgingly accepted. Eight days on the Floor of the House of Commons, as noble Lords—particularly those with experience—will know, is a pretty good run. It will be given a similar run here.

The noble Lord, Lord Howarth, expressed shock and horror at the Government’s objective, but it is no secret that the Government want the boundary review completed before the next general election. There is nothing unusual about a Government wanting to see their programme implemented. Faster and more frequent reviews are more accurate and fair. I have listened carefully to descriptions of experiences of the Boundary Commission’s work. It is barmy to have general elections on the basis of boundary reviews that, by the time they come to be tested, are nine years out of date. It has been said before, and it bears repetition, that the boundaries that were used in England at the last general election were based on electoral register data that were almost 10 years out of date.

Let us look at speed. Several noble Lords, including the noble Lords, Lord Alton and Lord Wills, have pointed out that it is now less than six months until the proposed referendum date and questioned whether it will be possible for the poll to be run effectively to those timescales. I believe that it is, not least because we tabled all the legislation, including the detailed rules for combining the referendum with the elections for the devolved legislatures, more than six months before the date of the poll. We have been working with the Electoral Commission and administrators to draft the Bill. The commission has confirmed that it is “broadly satisfied” with the discussion and scrutiny that the Bill has received. The noble Lord, Lord Wills, said that not a single opposition or Back-Bench amendment was accepted by the Government. That is not true. The Political and Constitutional Reform Committee in the other place proposed amendments in Committee which prevented modifications to the boundary commissions’ recommendations without the consent of the relevant commission and determined how the media should be regulated for the referendum. The Electoral Commission suggested a different wording for the question. The Government listened carefully to all the arguments in the other place and, when convinced, brought forward their own amendments.

The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, talked about the lack of constitutional overview, claiming that that Government had failed to take an overview of the constitutional reform structure. That is simply not true. The Government have made a number of proposals for constitutional reform in the first Session. Indeed, Members in the other place are today debating the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill, but there is no compelling argument that needs to be all contained in one piece of legislation. We need to go back to Cook-Maclennan—

[Lord Grocott]

The argument is not about whether it should all be contained in one piece of legislation. It is about whether there is any consistency between the three or four separate constitutional Bills. Can the noble Lord answer one specific point? Why does he think that it is right to have a referendum on the voting system in the House of Commons, but no referendum whatever on the abolition in its current form of the House of Lords?

[Lord McNally]

Well, I seek not to see the distant sea. We have not seen the legislation on the House of Lords yet.

[Lord Grocott]

Just tell us whether there will be a referendum.

[Lord McNally]

I seek not to see the distant sea. This is absurd. This is going on all night. You are afraid to discuss the central pillars of the Bill and every few minutes you pick up something else. Now we are off running on Lords reform. You will get the Bill on Lords reform, as we promised, in the new year, and we will have the opportunity to discuss that matter.

[Lord Grocott]

I know that the noble Lord comes from Blackpool, but could he move away from the music hall act and try and answer the questions? Could he answer the specific question, which is why on the narrow issue of Commons voting he thinks there should be a referendum? Clearly, there should, but he will not answer me the very straight, simple question whether he agrees that there should be a referendum on any move to abolish the Lords in its present form.

[Lord McNally]

We will have the debate on the future of the Lords in due time. Whether I come from Blackpool or not, I would prefer to debate this Bill, whose central issues the Labour Party is obviously petrified to debate, or we would not have had the collection of red herrings that are being paraded around this Chamber.

[Noble Lords]

We are all here.

[Lord McNally]

Oh, you have all turned out—but we shall get later to what this Bill is really about and what you are really afraid of. It is about fairness. I did not hear any discussion of fairness when the Labour Government were elected by 36 per cent of the vote in 2005.

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws]

The noble Lord most certainly did hear that in the course of this debate from these Benches. But it was also pointed out that, although there was unfairness, there was a possibility that this Bill might add to that unfairness because it is so ill considered.

[Lord McNally]

The Bill is being considered, and considered on the basis of fairness. I know that the noble Baroness is often a lone voice on those Benches. My point, which is central to the issue of first past the post, is whether we are to continue to have the kind of distortion that produces majorities of 66 on 36 per cent and then no majority at all on 36 per cent. With those kinds of distortions with first past the post, the rot sets into people’s respect for the electoral system.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon]

The noble Lord said a few minutes ago that Members on this side of the House were afraid of debating this Bill. I sat through most of the debate yesterday and have listened to most of it today and I have heard innumerable contributions from my noble friends debating the very essence of this Bill, while his Bench has been empty. Is it not an insult to suggest that it has not been debated by Members on this side?

[Lord McNally]

Let me give one example. The noble Baroness, Lady Nye, shed crocodile tears over the missing 7 per cent on the election. Where was the action from the Labour Government in 13 years to deal with those very issues?

[Lord Wills]

I will tell him exactly what action we took, and I want to bring him back to a question that he has avoided answering so far, about the action put on the statute book by the last Labour Government, which placed on the Electoral Commission a duty to ensure that the register was comprehensive and accurate. It was given new powers to achieve that end, which I noticed the Deputy Prime Minister boasting today he is going to bring forward. That was the action that we took.

I should now like to ask him about one of the distortions that he is so keen to avoid addressing. That is the distortion of a wholesale revision of constituency boundaries on the basis of a register which everyone knows is neither comprehensive nor accurate. If the Government waited just a few months, we have every likelihood of having a register that is comprehensive and accurate. Why will he not wait until the register is comprehensive and accurate? Why not?

[Lord McNally]

Because we have put the legislation before the House and are taking it through the House. Just to go back to—

[Baroness McDonagh]

With respect to the noble Lord, his argument does not hold together intellectually. He is chastising us for a first past the post system when this party had in its manifesto a referendum on the alternative vote. He is repeating a falsehood: that the current make-up of constituencies leads to Labour getting elected on fewer votes than the Conservatives. It is not true. I am pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, is back because I asked earlier if he would send around to the House the psephological evidence that that is the case, because it is not. Yet the noble Lords keep repeating this falsehood.

[Lord McNally]

All that I am repeating is the cold fact that 36 per cent of the vote delivered Labour an overall majority of 66. That is the only point I am making. As for the point from the noble Baroness, Lady Nye, we have had this debate before. First, 93 per cent on a register is not a bad outcome. Anybody—and by God, I can see so many ex-party apparatchiks around this place and I am one as well, so—

[Lord Martin of Springburn]

In the 30 years that I was in the other House, there was a time when all I had to look up where my constituents were was one register which was renewed every year. Now in recent years, in fairness, every month a new register came in with additional names going in and names coming off. That was surely better than the register that was only updated once per annum.

[Lord McNally]

Of course it was. I remember at Transport House the calculations of whether Harold should go in March when there was a new register or in October when it got old. Again, that has nothing to do with the Bill. As for the noble Lord, Lord Wills, I can see that the previous Labour Government, rather late in the day, brought in reforms. We intend to carry through some of those reforms to keep the register up to date but, again, it really is not central to the Bill.

On the question of the 600, if your Lordships would let me have a go and not try to work it out as if they were going to have constituents—I have not asked on this so it is just me working it out—if you are going to have constituencies of around about 75,000 with our electorate, I suspect that that comes to somewhere around 600. Perhaps one of your Lordships will get your slide rules out and tell me whether that is true. But what, in God’s name, was so important about 650, 640 or any of the other numbers? It is an obsession and, quite frankly, with the theories of the noble Lord, Lord Bach—

[Baroness Liddell of Coatdyke]

The noble Lord is very considerate but was it not the case that in the manifesto of the party that he supports, its figure was 500, while in that of the party he is in coalition with the figure was 585? Normally, the compromise is somewhere in the middle. How did it come out at 600?

[Lord McNally]

Again, the coalition came to an agreement on a reform programme and it came to a figure which is entirely defensible, and which—

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Lord Wills]

I actually want to help the noble Lord, I really do. He is in a lot of trouble and here is my suggestion to him. Rightly or wrongly, there is a great deal of suspicion here, which he will recognise, that that figure of 600 was chosen because it was the figure of maximum advantage to the coalition parties. Now, he can remove that suspicion immediately by answering the question that I asked him in my speech yesterday. Did the Government—the Liberal Democrats or the Conservative Party—do any modelling of the different effects on their representation in the House of Commons of its size being 600, 585 and 500? If they did, what were the results? He can answer that question now and remove all discussion about this.

[Lord McNally]

I have absolutely no idea whether such modelling has taken place. If someone tells me afterwards that it has and I can get my hands on it, I will send it to the noble Lord, but it really is—

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

My Lords—

[Lord McNally]

Oh, come on.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

If the Minister has no idea, will he answer the Written Question that I tabled yesterday on that very matter? He will then be able to trawl the department and talk to his special advisers to establish the truth.

[Lord McNally]

For goodness’ sake, here we are, with everyone telling me that this is a constitutional Bill of the greatest importance, and the Labour Party gets obsessed with some conspiracy theory about the number 600. Perhaps we should have chosen 666; that would really have frightened them. Let us have the debate—we are certainly going to have a good debate and, I suspect, a lengthy one—and I am willing to go through all these points.

If you want to be mentioned in the debate, the key thing is to be either a Liberal Democrat or a Conservative against the Bill or a Labour Member who is speaking helpfully as far as the Government are concerned. On the question of thresholds, Mr Chris Bryant, spokesman in the other place, said that they are not a good idea:

“We should have a straightforward system where people fight to win their side of the argument. They win that side of the argument by getting people past the ballot box to vote either yes or no”.—[Official Report, Commons, 2/11/10; col. 850.]

The amendment to have a threshold was defeated by 549 votes to 31. Again, we can discuss this, and I am sure that amendments will be tabled.

On the number of Ministers in the Executive—

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick]

Will the Minister answer the specific point: would a threshold that related to turnout, as opposed to people voting yes, be consistent with the coalition agreement?

[Lord McNally]

I do not think so, and I do not think that we are going down that road.

On the boundaries, the Bill corrects the flaws in the current legislation that not only has seen the number of MPs creep up—by only a small number, I admit—but leads to the unfairness of constituencies with vastly unequal electoral sizes. As both my noble friends Lord Norton and Lord Oakeshott quoted a British Academy report, let me quote from it:

“the rules set out in the Bill are a very substantial improvement on those currently implemented by the Boundary Commission (they have a clear hierarchy and are not contradictory)”.

On the question of exceptions—

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

I apologise for interrupting, but my noble friend asked a question that he raised in his speech yesterday. It is an important point because our understanding is that the coalition agreement rules out having a threshold that is based on outcome as opposed to being based on turnout. It would be helpful for us to have a specific answer to that question so that we know which amendments would be within the terms of the coalition agreement.

[Lord McNally]

We will certainly look forward to the amendments but we take guidance from the House of Commons, which seems to have pretty comprehensively rejected thresholds—not the coalition agreement, but thresholds.

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick]

The Minister was given 24 hours’ notice of the question.

[Lord McNally]

We are not going to have thresholds. Put the amendments down and, at the appropriate time, I will oppose them. Okay?

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Lord McNally]

Well, noble Lords can put their amendments down and I will debate them too. I know which way we are going on that issue, and we know which way the House of Commons is going.

[Lord Tyler]

This is a helpful one. My noble friend, in opposing any thresholds, will have the support of the Constitution Committee of this House. He will not have to rely simply on the votes at the other end of the building.

[Lord McNally]

As so often in my career, my noble friend comes over the hill like the seventh cavalry.

I turn again to the British Academy report. We heard a lot about local inquiries. It is interesting that the British Academy report says that these,

“would not significantly impair the consultation process”.

The Bill proposes a two-stage process, with 12 weeks, instead of the current four, in which the public may make representation to the commission, and another 12 weeks for the commission to revise its recommendations.

I will deal quickly with a point made by my noble friend Lord Phillips about expenses. There will be reimbursement of all reasonable expenses. We are committed to ensuring a high level of participation but we are unlikely to change the £600,000 basis for the two campaigns. On the two campaigns, several noble Lords will remember the yes/no campaign for the EU referendum. Whatever else may be said about that, the system of two groupings to fight the campaign worked. I have absolute confidence that it will work again. Therefore, I look forward to the Committee stage. I say to my noble friends behind me that I have seen redistributions and psephological calculations but I do not know who will win this referendum. I have heard people say that we are bound to lose it. I am willing to trust the people. I am willing to see this in place and then take our case to the people.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

Is one of the problems with the referendum now not the Deputy Prime Minister’s statement that this is a “miserable little compromise”? Have we not effectively got that around our neck now? It will be used constantly throughout the campaign against those who are in favour of electoral reform. Does that worry the Minister?

[Lord McNally]

As we all know, there is an absolute industry in dragging up politicians’ past statements.

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Lord McNally]

The noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, is too pessimistic. At the heart of the Bill—and this is why the Labour Party, tonight and last night, have been so ingenious in trawling for red herrings—are two basic principles. We will have fair votes in fair constituencies. That proposal for fairly drawn constituencies takes out the distortions that we have seen previously; and gives us an opportunity to get rid of tactical voting and wasted voting, and give people a vote that carries real weight.

[Baroness Liddell of Coatdyke]

The noble Lord stresses fair votes and fair constituencies. Why, then, will he not allow people in those constituencies to put their arguments in a public inquiry?

[Lord McNally]

I have just explained. They will have weeks of opportunities—massive opportunities. The Labour Party has suddenly resurrected the public inquiry to be some massive issue of principle when it knows as well as I do that public inquiries were often the cause of delays that left us with boundary commissions that were nine or 10 years out of date. But, as I say, we shall have plenty of time to—

[Lord Norton of Louth]

My Lords, I intervene as I detect that my noble friend is about to finish. I noticed that a little earlier he was about to touch on the number of Ministers but was interrupted and did not come back to that. Will he deal with that point quickly as it is important?

[Lord McNally]

As I have said before—I think that this has been put on record in the other place—if the general opinion is that the 8 per cent cut in the number of Members of Parliament is such a distortion of our constitution that the payroll vote should be trimmed, we will look at that. We will have plenty of time to do that, and we are on record as saying that we will do it. I will give way but we will have lots of time to discuss the issues.

[Lord Touhig]

I would hate the Minister, as a Liberal Democrat, to miss the opportunity to explain to the people of Wales why it is right that they should have a 25 per cent reduction in their representation in the UK Parliament. I am sure that all the Liberals in Wales are eager to hear that.

[Lord McNally]

The Liberals in Wales will hear those arguments when they are discussed in Committee. It is not a case of my not answering that question; we can all go on discussing these matters until a quarter to one but it is clear that the Labour Party is not willing to face up to the distortions in our present system. This measure is a fair way of approaching that.

Bill read a second time and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

House adjourned at 9.36 pm.