Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
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The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Strathclyde)
My Lords, perhaps noble Lords would leave as quietly and as quickly as possible, so that we can all hear the noble Lord introduce his amendment.
Lord Wills
I am very grateful to the noble Lord for his courtesy.
Rather curiously for this House, I support the Bill’s objectives. I support a referendum on the alternative vote system and I support any attempt to make the process of boundary revisions fairer and more efficient. Who could possibly be against any reasonable attempt to cut the cost of politics? However, as I and many other noble Lords have already argued, there are profound flaws in how the Bill proposes to achieve those objectives. The amendment is designed to remedy some of the worst of those flaws in Part 2. It is lengthier than I would have wished, because it sets out to provide a comprehensive solution to those problems, but I would be happy to withdraw it if the Government could give an assurance today that they will find a better way to secure such a solution.
At the heart of Part 2 lie assumptions about the optimum size of the House of Commons, the optimum size of a parliamentary constituency and the process of altering constituency boundaries. Those issues are central to the machinery of our democracy, yet the Government have conceded that the assumptions that they have made are arbitrary. They are not subject to any governing principle and they have not been subject to adequate consultation and scrutiny by the people whom they are meant to serve. Those issues are all the subject of vigorous debate.
Our electoral arrangements should never become the subject of partisan dispute, as that corrodes public trust and undermines the foundations of our democracy. Therefore, for many years, all political parties have sought consensus on such issues and, for the most part, they have succeeded in finding it. The Bill is a deplorable exception to that good practice, to which the amendment attempts to return. The amendment would not substitute my judgment for that of the Government in addressing these issues. Instead, it sets up a process for an independent, fair and principled set of judgments to be made. In doing so, it is intended to restore faith in the impartiality of the process for changing our electoral arrangements by requiring the Government to set up a committee of inquiry, such as a royal commission, to investigate and make recommendations on all those key and contentious issues.
The royal commission is a tried and tested mechanism for addressing such important, complex and contentious issues. It has worked well in the past and is generally accepted as a fair mechanism for dealing with such contested issues. Its composition would be for the Government to decide, but it should include Members of both Houses of Parliament, including representatives of the principal parties in the House of Commons, as those with most direct experience of such issues, as well as individuals with no party attachment, and others.
It would be for the Government to decide the process of such a committee of inquiry, but I draw Ministers’ attention to the Liberal Democrat conference resolution of 2008, which pledged to set up a constitutional assembly or citizens’ summit as a deliberative mechanism for the people of this country to pronounce on precisely such important issues as this. I am profoundly sorry that the Government have not followed the recommendation of that Liberal Democrat conference of 2008. It may be that they will now seize on this amendment as an opportunity to do so. They could even vote with us on this.
The remit for the commission would include consideration of how best to equalise constituencies, particularly taking into account all those issues of local identity and character about which such widespread concerns were expressed at Second Reading, which I think all Members of this House have had expressed to them in correspondence since Second Reading. The amendment proposes that the commission examine the optimum size for a constituency. This is a crucial consideration in creating a principled approach to the equalisation of constituencies. I am not against equalising constituencies, but I want to see it being done according to a fair, impartial and principled process.
What is the appropriate relationship between a Member of Parliament and their constituency and what size of constituency best sustains that relationship? The United States, with a population approximately six times that of the United Kingdom, has 435 Members of the House of Representatives and 100 Members of the Senate. A proportionate adjustment for the United Kingdom would result in a House of Commons of around 90 MPs.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
I apologise. I misunderstood what the noble Lord said. Obviously, further work would need to be done. I am happy to say that when I said further work was required, the noble Lord nodded—that is the point that I am making. First, what is the workload on a Member of Parliament and what is the right size for Parliament in relation to that consideration?
Secondly, what should be the basis of determining the constituencies? Of course, I think that it should be the electoral register, though there is an issue about population. There is a respectable view that says, where you have constituencies which have very significant populations which are much higher than the electoral register, those constituencies should, in some way, reflect that increase in the size of the population. For example, just as we have a geographical limit because we think it is too far for an MP to travel all around the constituency, is there a population limit above the electoral register which should have some effect on the size of constituencies?
Thirdly, the purpose of the deviation figure of 5 per cent from the electoral quota is to ensure that constituencies are broadly the same size. That would lead to a difference in the size of constituencies of about 7,000 if 76,000 is the average size of a constituency. The purpose is to get rid of what is described as the malproportion factor. Published work, in particular by Thrasher and Rallings, and by Lewis Baston, suggests that a deviation figure of 10 rather than 5 per cent would have the same effect in reducing the malproportion figure yet at the same time allow one, in determining constituencies, to keep communities together and not have the radical effect that the government proposals would have. What work have the Government done on whether 5 or 10 per cent would make a substantial difference to malproportion? Has any research been done on that? What effect on, for example, crossing county boundaries would a 10 per cent as opposed to a 5 per cent deviation have? The Government will not be able to answer all these questions; I am asking about the research that is being done on them.
Thirdly, what effect will this have on the Executive? Reducing the size of the House of Commons from 650 to 600 will increase the size of the Executive and reduce the number of Back-Benchers. Is it the intention of the Government to stick with that? If so, what effect will that have on Parliament as a place to hold the Executive to account?
Fourthly, what will be the effect of removing local boundary reviews that can be conducted in person? These reviews have had a 64 per cent effect on changing constituency boundaries. What work has been done to determine the effect on the reliability and acceptance of the boundaries that removal of the reviews will have?
If the Government will not answer those questions or have not done the work, the questions should be answered by somebody. This is not a great reform like the 1832 Act, as the Prime Minister said; it needs work doing on it. The effect of the amendment of my noble friend Lord Wills is that that work can be done. As my noble friend Lord Boateng said, our democracy is something that we rightly prize. The idea of rushing into this change, which has the support only of one side of the Houses of Parliament—let alone of either the country or the rest of the world—is wrong. It is not an acceptable justification to say that the Tory party agreed it with the Liberal Democrats between Friday and Tuesday after the latest general election. That looks like the worst sort of political gerrymandering. I ask the Government to reconsider and to give ground in relation to an independent look at the changes that they are making.
The Advocate-General for Scotland (Lord Wallace of Tankerness)
My Lords, first I thank the noble Lord, Lord Wills, for introducing a debate that has given rise to a considerable number of important contributions. I am not sure that I can address all of them, but I will do my best to pick up most of the salient points. It is clear that the debate on this amendment has touched on many issues that will inevitably come up as we go through the Bill. Future amendments have already been tabled that deal with some of them. I hope to explain the principles that underlie the proposals that we will debate further. I hope also to explain why the proposals are reasonable and why a committee of inquiry is unnecessary.
It is clear that the amendment would slow down the proposed reform of our political process and system. It is highly unlikely that the proposals in this amendment would be in place in time for the next election. There would be a three-year deadline to report, six months to draft measures giving effect to the recommendations, and then time to legislate. That would be only for the legislation that set new rules for conducting boundary reviews. The reviews themselves would then need to be carried out. Therefore, even if the rules were in place before the next election, the new boundaries could come into effect only at the election after that.
I do not want to suggest that the political purpose of this has been to kick the Government's proposals into touch, although my noble friend Lord Tyler referred to previous committees of inquiry that delayed and postponed for many years what were seen by many as desirable reforms, and there was a general groundswell of support for his point on this side of the House. I also want to knock on the head the idea that I have accused noble Lords opposite of filibustering. The only complaint I would make is about the time taken up by them complaining that I might accuse them of filibustering. I also take great exception to the suggestion that the proposal is partisan. I do not believe that the opposition case stacks up. The noble Baroness, Lady McDonagh, pointed out that the issue of the size of constituencies applied as much to Conservative constituencies as to Labour ones. One cannot on the one hand say that reform will have the same impact on Labour and Conservative constituencies and on the other say that what we are trying to do is partisan.
I will pick up a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Wills, about his freedom of information application. I apologise that the noble Lord has not yet received a reply to his request. I will seek to ensure that he receives one as soon as possible. However, my noble friend Lord McNally, who is sitting with me, has indicated that as far as we are aware no work has been done on any kind of partisan measurement of what a new size of 600 for the House of Commons would bring about. No modelling has been done on that basis. I also say at the outset that amid all the outrage that we have heard from the other side, one would think that it was a constitutional outrage to support the principle of one vote, one value. That is what is enshrined in this part of the Bill; one vote should have one value in all parts of the United Kingdom. I do not believe that to be a constitutional outrage, except in Orkney and Shetland and the Western Isles. I am happy to argue that, as the noble Lord's party did in the Scotland Act in the case of Orkney and Shetland.
My second point is that there would not only be a delay. If the 2015 election is to be fought in England on boundaries that took as their electoral registration base the year 2000—15 years previously—can anyone suggest that that is a constitutional principle that we should seek to uphold in this House? We wish to make progress with this so that we can have a boundary review that will deliver its report and be in effect by the 2015 election.
Lord Harris of Haringey
I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord for giving way, albeit slightly after the point that he was making. He said, on behalf of himself and the noble Lord, Lord McNally, that no political modelling had been done on the implications of this reform. I would have been very surprised had he told us that the Civil Service had done an exercise on behalf of Ministers that had demonstrated what the political consequences of these changes would be. However, is he also giving us an assurance that such an exercise was not prepared either by a special adviser—a political adviser in the relevant government department—or by the political parties concerned?
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
The noble Lord, Lord Harris, is absolutely right about the Civil Service. It would be improper for it to do this, and it has not done it. Nor are the noble Lord, Lord McNally, and I aware of any special adviser who has done it. I cannot speak for the Conservative Party, and while I may be able to speak for the Liberal Democrats, I honestly do not know what the answer is. I simply reaffirm the point that the principle here is one vote, one value. It would be a rash person who would predict the political fallout from this reform.
Lord Lipsey
How does the noble and learned Lord square what he is saying about this part of the Bill being about one vote with one value, with the argument that he and his Lib Dem colleagues have put forward for years that the only votes in our system that have value are those in marginal seats, because in all other seats the votes do not count at all because of the huge majorities?
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
We are debating the earlier part of the Bill and are not going to debate electoral systems. That would be beyond the scope of this amendment. What we have done in Part 1 of the Bill will lead to a better system. That is my personal view, and the view of my party. The Government as a whole will not take a view in the referendum. I have a number of important points to make and would like to do justice to them.
Lord Soley
I understand the noble and learned Lord’s problem in that he is a member of the Liberal Democrat party but is speaking for a coalition Government. The idea of reducing the size of the House of Commons to the suggested figure is not new. It was first put by the Conservative Party in 2004 and reiterated in 2009 and 2010. The two reasons given were, first, that the Tories did not get sufficient seats from the system with the current number, and, secondly, the cost. Those are the only two reasons that were given until the general election. They are in writing in a number of Conservative Party documents.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
The noble Lord rightly reminds me that I am speaking on behalf of the coalition Government, and I reiterate that we have not done any political modelling on the possible political outcome of a House of Commons of 600.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
I am not sure that I will ever be able to answer all the points.
Lord Howarth of Newport
The noble and learned Lord has dismissed suggestions as to why the Government might have alighted on the figure of 600 parliamentary constituencies. He has explained why they did not make that choice, but what is the rationale for that figure?
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
I thank the noble Lord for that question, because he has illustrated that if he had not intervened I might have reached that point by now. I hope noble Lords will allow me to answer that important point, which was made by a number of noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Howarth. I hope to respond to these points as we proceed.
The noble Lord, Lord Wills, has made an ambitious attempt to balance the effect of almost every electoral procedure against every other one. His amendment asks us to wait longer to turn the Bill from a Bill that is workable and achievable into a deeply analysed but almost impossible one that would then have to be taken forward. As I have said, our objectives are clear and we believe that they are attainable. We want one elector to have one vote throughout the United Kingdom. By contrast, the amendment promises a comprehensive overhaul of the whole system that we are considering, including the maintenance of the union and the relationship between the two Houses of Parliament that might produce a magic number of electors and the optimum constituency size.
The current rules by which the Boundary Commission carries out its work have not been considered by a committee since the 1940s. They have been changed on a number of occasions since then by the decision of Parliament through legislation. There is a clear precedent for adjusting boundary rules in the light of experience. The changes have included important elements, such as a longer period of reviews of 10 to 15 years rather than three to seven years. It was right for a Speaker’s Conference to determine the basis for boundary reviews when that happened for the first time back in the 1940s. When the Boundary Commission has asked in its reports for the rules to be made more coherent, Parliament has not asked a conference, a committee or an inquiry to consider what an independent—I stress independent—Boundary Commission has asked for. It is right for the debate to take place in Parliament. Even the 1944 Speaker’s Conference recommended that electoral equality across the constituencies of the United Kingdom should be an overriding principle. We should allow the Boundary Commission to commence that work without delay.
On Second Reading my noble friend noted the dangers of a perfectionist approach, which perhaps is the approach summed up in the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Wills, when he said:
“The Bill is not a panacea. It is not some holy grail in the scripture of political re-engagement, but it is a good start”.—[Official Report, 15/11/10; col. 594.].
Again I say to noble Lords opposite that it is a great pity they did not start the process when they were given such a long opportunity to do so. The point was made by the noble Lord, Lord Gilbert, that there is no perfection of fairness; one person’s fairness may be seen as another’s unfairness. I believe that the Bill, by establishing one vote of equal value across the country, goes a long way to getting a better perception and reality of fairness. I would add that the British Academy report found that the new rules set out in the Bill,
“are a very substantial improvement on those currently implemented”,
and that,
“they have a clear hierarchy and are not contradictory”.
A number of noble Lords, including the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, and the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, asked how the figure of 600 was reached. We have never suggested that there was anything magical or ideal about a House of Commons of 600 any more than the current size of 650 is ideal. It is flawed legislation that has allowed the size of the House of Commons to creep up over time.
Lord Bach
The noble and learned Lord says that in the past Parliament has directed certain matters regarding the redistribution of boundaries, and he is right about that, but does he agree that no Parliament has ever set an exact number, such as the 600 in this Bill? No Government have ever done that. In the 1986 legislation and other previous legislation, Governments have left the Boundary Commission to set the exact number as a result of its inquiry. This Government in this Bill are trying to set a number of 600. That is unique, is it not?
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
I will give way to the noble Baroness in a moment. The noble Lord is factually correct but as I was about to say when he intervened, the legislation in place has allowed the number to creep up and up. The only occasion on which it has come down since 1945 has been post devolution to Scotland. The noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, indicated that the noble Baroness, Lady Liddell of Coatdyke, brought forward the order, quite properly, to reduce the number of Scottish constituencies from 72 to 59. Under this proposal, we are going even further. That is the only occasion when the number has come down. The fact that no number has been set has allowed the numbers to creep up and up over the years.
Baroness McDonagh
I want to add that not only has the number crept up but the electorate has increased from 33 million to 42 million in this period.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
Indeed, but the point I was about to make about the present size of the House of Commons is that it is the largest directly elected national chamber in the European Union, and at 600 it would still be relatively big. It would have fewer than the chambers of some comparable countries. The Bundestag, for example, has 622 members and the Italian Chamber of Deputies has a similar number. As indicated in an exchange between the noble Lords, Lord Foulkes and Lord Wills, each country has its own internal arrangements, be it some federal situation as in Germany or the United States, or devolution in our own country.
Lord Bach
The noble and learned Lord said that the numbers have gone up. I am sure that he knows that the number of Members of Parliament who were elected in 1945 was 640, with a population, as my noble friend just said, of 33 million. The number elected in 2010 was 650, with a population that is much higher than that. Will the noble and learned Lord admit that those figures are correct?
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
I have no reason to doubt the noble Lord, Lord Bach, but will he accept that, with the exception of the reduction of Scottish Members post the 1945 election, the numbers have gone up on every occasion?
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
In fairness, it is the noble Lord’s amendment, but I want to address the points that have been raised.
Lord Wills
I do not want to delay progress unduly, but the noble and learned Lord misrepresented, or misunderstood, the exchange between me and my noble friend Lord Foulkes. The point was not that one country has a better system than another. Those other countries—Germany and the United States—all had a profound, rigorous public debate on the right arrangements for their constitution. They have written constitutions. We are not having that debate now about this Bill, and we should. That was the point of the exchange and what we are asking the Minister to consider. We want a proper public debate on these crucial issues.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
The point that I was making about the exchange between the noble Lords, Lord Wills and Lord Foulkes, was that a point was made about the Senate having 100 members and the US House of Representatives having approximately 434. The noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, pointed out that there are also state legislatures in 50 states. We are not comparing like with like. I took the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Wills, that international comparisons take you only so far. The noble Lord, Lord Snape, made the point about the word “gerrymandering” coming from the United States and seemed to suggest, although I am sure he did not mean to, that the Boundary Commission would somehow be heavied by the Government of the day. In the United States, as the commentaries following the elections in November made clear, the new boundaries will be set by the state legislatures, not by an independent boundary commission. That is the fundamental difference. I hope that noble Lords will accept that.
To elaborate further, under our proposals, the 1 December 2009 register suggests that the electoral quota for the United Kingdom would be about 76,000. More than one-third of existing constituencies are already within 5 per cent either side of that illustrative quota, so the impact of our proposals will see constituencies of a size well within existing norms. However, if the House were to have, for example, 500 Members, that would push the size of the average UK seat above 90,000, and only three existing seats would be within 5 per cent of that quota. For that size to become commonplace would perhaps be too great a departure from what Members and the public are accustomed to. We therefore thought that 600 would seem to strike the right balance without reducing by too much and having regard to the fact that one-third of existing seats would be within 5 per cent either way of the existing norm. In addition, a slightly smaller House will mean that savings can be made without, in the Government's view, losing the capacity of individual Members or the Chamber as a whole to perform their functions.
Other points have been raised: for example, the fact that that should be linked to reform of your Lordships' House. I have no doubt that there will be ample opportunity to work out the implications for the reform of your Lordships' House when the draft Bill is brought forward. An important point was made first by the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, and picked up by several other noble Lords, including the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton. That is the relationship between the Executive and the elected House, the other place, if the number of MPs is reduced but not the number of Ministers.
The Government indicated in the other place that we agree that that is indeed an issue to be considered, but we do not believe that it is one that needs to be resolved in the context of the Bill. Reduction in the size of the House will not take effect until 2015, and we should therefore consider that issue in the light of decisions on, among other things, the size and composition of a reformed second Chamber. Historically, there has not been a consistent relationship between the size of the House and the number of Ministers within it. The number of Ministers in the Commons will be determined by what is needed to carry out the Government’s parliamentary business, and will not be affected by the change in the size of the Chamber. It is not clear that legislation is the answer. If the issue is the size of the Government’s payroll vote, there are ways to address that without legislation—for example, a reduction in the number of PPSs.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
That was an absolutely riveting piece of information that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, dropped into the conversation—which is that, as I understand it, the size of this House will determine whether the Government are to reduce the number of Ministers. Have I misunderstood what the noble and learned Lord said? If I have, can he please explain it? Is it better if this House is bigger or smaller for the size of the Executive?
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
I indicated that an important factor would be the size of the reformed House, because if the overall number of Ministers is to be retained, it may be considered preferable to draw them from the elected House, with tested accountability mechanisms, rather than increasing the ministerial numbers elsewhere, including in this House.
The noble and learned Lord raised that issue, although the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, raised it first. It is an important issue. It is an issue which the Government have indicated needs to be addressed, but not in the Bill. There are other implications. For example, if Ministers were not to be in the other place, would they automatically be in this place? Would they have voting rights in this place? There are a whole host of issues which are perhaps more relevant to the debate about the constitution of the second Chamber in the context of a reduced House of Commons than to be dealt with in this debate.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
The noble Lord will get an opportunity to reply.
That does not mean to say that that is not an important issue. We have debated it in the context of Part 1. As the Committee will know, the Government are committed to taking forward the proposals already set in train—by the noble Lord, Lord Wills, himself—on individual registration. My right honourable friend the Deputy Prime Minister has also indicated that there will be a pilot scheme to allow local authorities to data match with other sets of data to try to get a better understanding and a better way to identify those who are not on the electoral roll.
To think that to fight an election in 2015 on an electoral roll that has as its basis the electorate in the year 2000 is in some way better defies rational consideration. What the Bill proposes—a rolling review every five years and efforts which we are making which, I think, will be widely supported across the Committee, to encourage individual registration and to identify where there are people who ought to be on the electoral roll but who are not—is far more likely to have an effect for the general election of 2020 than setting up a committee of inquiry that might take ages to report and then to have legislation following on the back of that. We are more likely to achieve what is a perfectly laudable and proper aim of ensuring that as many people who are entitled to vote as can be are on the electoral roll by the way that we are going about it. That is more likely to lead to success.
The noble Lord’s amendment also questions whether equally weighted votes should be given priority over other factors. We are aware of and sensitive to other reasons—the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, and others mentioned the importance of local ties and communities—for proposing exceptions to the principle. An identity with or affiliation to certain areas of community is something that many people feel to be of considerable importance. Those of us in this House who have been Members of the other place feel that in particular. We acknowledge that there is a strength of feeling, and we would certainly want those with a local interest to make representations to the Boundary Commission in relation to local ties and for the Boundary Commission to be able to take them into consideration. The Bill will allow for constituencies to vary in the number of electors by as much as 10 per cent—that is, 5 per cent either way—of the UK electoral quota. That will allow the commission to take local factors into account. We will no doubt debate possible exceptions: I am sure that amendments have already been tabled to allow us that debate.
Another issue raised was workload. It is not the case that workload is a factor taken into account by the Boundary Commission at the moment. One speech suggested that somehow the Government excluding that was another manifestation of evil. It would be a judgment of Solomon for any independent inquiry to work out what is a relevant workload for a particular Member of Parliament. The noble Lord, Lord Martin of Springburn, mentioned the high asylum-seeker numbers in the constituency which he formerly represented with great distinction. I remember as a Scottish Minister once visiting his constituency on an asylum-seeker issue; I know precisely what he means. However, as a representative of a landlocked constituency, he never had to deal with an oil tanker carrying 84,000 tonnes of crude oil crashing and spilling its oil in the middle of his constituency. There are different things which different Members of Parliament have, by the very nature of their constituencies, to deal with. It would be more than a judgment of Solomon to try to weigh up what the different workload was for different Members of Parliament.
Lord Martin of Springburn
I did have the Forth and Clyde Canal to worry about.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
And the mind boggles as to what kind of issues that may have given rise to. That probably just proves the point that every person who has been a Member of the other place can say why their constituency was that bit different.
I turn to the specific point raised by the noble Lords, Lord Touhig and Lord Elystan-Morgan, about their concern about the union. I am as passionately concerned about the union as they are. The important point to remember is that the reform means that a vote in Cardiff will have an equal value to a vote in Belfast, Glasgow, Edinburgh or London. To me, that does not undermine the union; giving an equal value to a vote in Cardiff, Edinburgh, Belfast and London will, we hope, bring the union closer together. The noble Baroness, Lady Liddell of Coatdyke, indicated that she brought forward an order that was of significant cost to the Labour Party in terms of the number of seats in Scotland following devolution. Indeed, if this Bill goes through, there will be a further decrease, but I have to be honest and say that I do not really remember the rafters falling in in Scotland. Indeed, people thought that it was important. My party argued within the Scottish Constitutional Convention that there ought to be a reduction in the number of Scottish MPs at Westminster if we got a Scottish Parliament dealing with a whole range of domestic issues. When it comes to workload, how are we going to evaluate the workload of an English MP vis-à-vis a Welsh MP or a Scottish MP? Is there going to be a differential? I do not think that anyone has suggested that we should have different MPs in terms of their quality.
The question of the Scottish Constitutional Convention which the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, asked me to address was partly addressed by my noble friend Lord Maclennan of Rogart. The noble Lord’s mind is perhaps playing tricks. It was not facilitated by a Labour Government prior to legislating for the Scottish Parliament. The Scottish Constitutional Convention was established under a Conservative Government. It not only did not include the Conservative Party; it did not include the Scottish National Party either. That was through no fault of the convention, I hasten to add, but because those parties chose not to join it.
There is no way in which I can say that the number of 129 seats in the Scottish Parliament was a consensus arrived at by all the parties. One day, I will perhaps tell the House how the noble Lord, Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, and I reached the number of 129 but if I do—“Not now” says the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde—it probably means that the number of 600 will hit the heights of scientific measurement compared to how that was done.
Baroness Liddell of Coatdyke
One day, I will be very interested to know how the figure of 129 was arrived at. There are many different versions of the story. The point I would make to the noble and learned Lord is that when we came to the point of laying the order that reduced the number of MPs coming to Westminster, it was done with broad agreement across the House. This is the very point that I and others are trying to make to the coalition: if you proceed with consensus, or even seek to achieve consensus, you end up with a much more robust constitutional settlement at the end of the day.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
I sincerely hope that when the Boundary Commission produces its review, if this Bill goes on to the statute book and the Boundary Commission review takes place, whoever is the Minister responsible for bringing forward the order will do so with the same determination and integrity as the noble Baroness. An acknowledgement that it had been done by an independent Boundary Commission would command support right across both Houses of Parliament.
A number of noble Lords made the point about how we bring this together. I conclude by indicating that the Government have an ambitious programme for political and constitutional reform. We are keen that Parliament has adequate time to debate all the proposals, and I have not complained that this debate has taken so long. Important issues have been aired. The committee is interested in how the Bill makes the political system more transparent and accountable, but our proposals will give the people a say in determining the method of electing Members of Parliament under Part 1, which they have never had the chance to express a view on before. It is with the people in mind that we want to equalise the size of constituencies to give their votes more equal weight. With these thoughts and reflections, I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Wills
My Lords, this has been a significant debate. Everyone who has sat through the past three and a half hours would agree that everyone who has spoken has made an important contribution to public discourse on these important constitutional issues. However, in many ways the most significant speeches are those that were not made. As has already been pointed out, apart from a handful of brief interventions and one speech which seemed not to have been premeditated but to have been motivated by the rather noble intention to fill the great silence echoing across the Chamber from the other Benches, there was nothing from the Liberal Democrat or Conservative Back Benches. I wonder just how it is that all those distinguished Peers sitting on the government Benches have nothing to say about these crucial constitutional issues. As many noble friends have pointed out, that is revealing.
Then there was the speech that the Minister did not make. I would have hoped that he would have shown some recognition of the potential risks of rushing through this legislation in the way that the Government are doing. There are risks. These are very technical issues. They are complex and relate together, and the consequences are potentially profound. They have not been considered. Over and over again we have heard it admitted by Ministers. These issues have not been thoroughly considered. My noble and learned friend Lord Falconer asked for evidence of the deliberations and discussions. It could not have been deliberated upon or researched with any seriousness in the timescale available to the Government. That is what is needed. These signal a profound change in our constitutional arrangements, yet the Minister has avoided any recognition that there are risks involved in proceeding in the way that he has.
Nor did he produce any serious argument against this amendment. The only argument that he produced is that there is a need for speed, but what is this need for speed? This amendment does not kick it in to the long grass. I respectfully disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Maclennan. It is not inevitable that a commission of inquiry will mean that it is going to get bogged down and will never happen. It is simply a question of political will. If the Government have the political will to drive this forward now, surely in just three years, within the lifetime of this Parliament, they can muster the same political will again. It is entirely a matter for them. There is nothing inevitable or inexorable about this getting bogged down if this amendment were accepted. The Minister produced no good arguments.
I would have hoped that at the very least he might have done what my noble friend Lord Grocott urged him to do, which is what Ministers since time immemorial have done, which is to nod wisely and sagely and say that they will at least consider the issues raised by this amendment and perhaps return to it on Report. But he did not even do that, and I am surprised. I had not expected to push this to a vote because I had thought that I would have a more encouraging response from the Minister. But I did not get it, so I am now in two minds. On the one hand, I think that the frailty of the Government’s position has been so exposed in this debate that it should perhaps be tested in the Lobby. But I am not without hope, so the other part of me still hopes that even now the Government may reconsider their position. I hope that they will recognise that their current position is so bereft of principle and so damaging to their credibility, not just in this Chamber or the other place, but among the people of this country who deserve and demand a say in the arrangements by which they will choose the people to represent them in Parliament. I hope that that will give them pause and that between now and Report they will reconsider and see whether there is a way that they can engage seriously with these issues.
Finally, I remind the Minister that I am not seeking to substitute my judgment for that of the Government on all these important issues. I am simply asking for an impartial, fair and independent process to resolve these issues within a timescale that most people would recognise as reasonable. In the end, I have decided that I will withdraw the amendment in the hope that the Government will reconsider. If they do not, I am afraid that we will have to return to all these issues on Report. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.