Westminster Hall
(13 years, 10 months ago)
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Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
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Prisoners (Voting Rights)
(13 years, 10 months ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
May I wish you a very happy new year, Mr Benton, and offer my grateful thanks to Mr Speaker for giving me permission to lead today’s debate?
May I also wish the Minister and his shadow a very happy new year? The Minister is a personal friend, and I have always had high regard for him, both before he was elected to this place and since he took up his present position in the Government. I know, therefore, that we will not fall out on a personal level over this issue, but it is my job as a humble Back Bencher to stand up and to speak up for my constituents, whose view is that this country should not give prisoners the right to vote, and it is my job to hold the Government to account on that.
Here is a question for hon. Members. Who said
“Frankly, when people commit a crime and go to prison, they should lose their rights, including the right to vote”?
He also said:
“It makes me physically ill even to contemplate having to give the vote to anyone who is in prison”—[Official Report, 3 November 2010; Vol. 517, c. 921.]
The answer is my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, and I could not agree more with him. The vast majority of people in this country would also back him in those sentiments. One difference between the Prime Minister and myself, however, is that he is actually in a position to do something about this issue. We need some backbone—we need a hardened spine—if we are to take on the European Court of Human Rights and resist its judgment.
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
In making that statement about public attitudes, is the hon. Gentleman aware that research carried out for the previous Government in 2009 showed that only a quarter of respondents favoured a total ban on prisoners having the right to vote?
Mr Hollobone
The previous Government’s two consultations, which they did, by the way, to avoid having to make a decision—they kicked the issue into the long grass for five years—involved a pathetically small number of respondents. Given that there were fewer than 100 respondents, the statistical relevance of those consultations is almost meaningless. If I asked my constituents whether prisoners should be given the right to vote, the vast majority would say that they should not. I strongly suspect that if the hon. Lady spoke to her constituents, she would get a very similar reaction.
I also want to pray in aid the words of the now Attorney-General when he was in opposition:
“The principle that those who are in custody after conviction should not have the opportunity to vote is a perfectly rational one. Civic rights go with civic responsibility, but these rights have been flagrantly violated by those who have committed imprisonable offences. The government must allow a parliamentary debate which gives MPs the opportunity to insist on retaining our existing practise that convicted prisoners can’t vote.”
I absolutely, 100%, agree, and I hope that this morning’s limited debate will be a warm-up act for a proper debate on the Floor of the House.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
I apologise for sitting on the opposite side of the Chamber to my hon. Friend, but there are 20 coalition Members in here, and there is just not enough room. My hon. Friend’s one-and-a-half-hour debate is very important, but the issue surely deserves much greater coverage elsewhere in the House.
Mr Hollobone
As on so many issues, my hon. Friend is absolutely right. There are lots of Select Committee sittings on Tuesday mornings, and many hon. Friends and Opposition Members who would like to be here to voice their views are unable to do so.
We are talking about this issue because the European Court of Human Rights has decided once again to interfere in Britain’s domestic affairs.
Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)
Before my hon. Friend gets to the European Court of Human Rights, which was based on something written by David Maxwell Fyfe, will he please tell us when prisoners lost the right to vote and for what offence?
Mr Hollobone
Before I respond to that intervention, I congratulate my hon. Friend on his recent knighthood, which is extremely well deserved. His many years’ experience in this place make him far more qualified to talk about these issues than I, but my understanding is that the British Parliament discussed these issues when it passed the Forfeiture Act 1870. Now, 1870 was 80 years before the European Court of Human Rights was established in the 1950s. British parliamentarians decided that it was appropriate for prisoners not to be given the vote way before the concept of a European court was even thought about.
By the way, there would be no human rights in any part of Europe today were it not for the brave actions that this country took on its own in 1940, and some of the European Court’s judges should remember that. We are the mother of Parliaments and we have a long and proud history of democratic thought processes, debate and decision. Frankly, the British people are sick and tired of being lectured to on human rights issues by unelected judges in this pseudo-European court.
Mr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)
My hon. Friend mentions unelected judges, but is he also aware that two people in the previous Parliament were keen to pursue this issue? One was my predecessor, who lost against me in the general election, and the other was the former Member of Parliament for Oxford West and Abingdon, who also lost his seat. Does that not show hon. Members and others that members of the British public have been very unhappy with the European Court of Human Rights and with the Human Rights Act 1998 and those who pursue it and that they have showed their displeasure through the ballot box?
Mr Hollobone
My hon. Friend makes a telling intervention, and he has done the country a national service by winning his seat in the general election. He ably represents his constituents on these and other matters. He is right. The manifesto on which he and I stood clearly states:
“we will replace the Human Rights Act with a UK Bill of Rights.”
I am sure that my hon. Friend was asked about human rights issues during the general election campaign—I certainly was in Kettering. Whenever such issues were raised, constituents were adamant that it was time for us to take sensible action on the Human Rights Act, which the previous Government introduced. The coalition agreement has kicked the replacement of the Human Rights Act by a Bill Of Rights into the long grass; it may happen, but there is no timetable, which is a great shame. Nevertheless, there is huge public demand for us to take action on these human rights issues. We would be doing our constituents a disservice if we did not raise their concerns in this place. My hon. Friend’s majority in Hendon, my majority in Kettering and the majorities of many of our hon. Friends in Westminster Hall this morning demonstrate that human rights are an important issue for our constituents.
Mr John Hirst, who is serving a life sentence for an axe killing, brought his case and subsequent appeal to the European Court of Human Rights. He celebrated with glee on the television when the appeal judgment was announced—how wonderful it was that the European Court was going to force Britain to give prisoners the right to vote. Many of our constituents will have seen that and have been disgusted by Mr Hirst’s joyous celebration of the Court’s decision.
The Court decision is interesting in several respects, because its main gripe is that there is a blanket ban on prisoners being given the right to vote. There are ways to tackle that issue, other than just caving in and getting rid of the blanket ban. It may interest hon. Members to know that 13 other countries that are signatories to the European convention on human rights also have blanket bans. Why is this country being singled out for the treatment it is getting from the European Court, when blanket bans continue in other countries, such as Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Moldova and Slovakia, among others? Our constituents will be outraged that the UK is being singled out for special treatment.
One of the issues that the European Court raised was that there has not been proper parliamentary debate about the issue. The judgment states that
“there was no evidence that Parliament had ever sought to weigh the competing interests or to assess the proportionality of a blanket ban on the right of a convicted prisoner to vote. It could not be said that there was any substantive debate by members of the legislature on the continued justification…for maintaining such a general restriction on the right of prisoners to vote.”
I am sorry, but those matters were discussed in this Parliament in 1870, 80 years before the European Court was even established. The judgment goes on to say that perhaps courts could be given the discretion to award disfranchisement to convicted prisoners on an individual basis. It says:
“It was also evident that the nature of the restrictions, if any, to be imposed on the right of a convicted prisoner to vote was in general seen as a matter for Parliament and not for the national courts. The domestic courts did not therefore undertake any assessment of the proportionality of the measure itself.”
It also states that
“in sentencing, the criminal courts in England and Wales made no reference to disenfranchisement and it was not apparent that there was any direct link between the facts of any individual case and the removal of the right to vote.”
There is therefore a way to address the Court’s concerns by making sure that judges can award disfranchisement specifically in individual cases and encouraging them to do so.
Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)
My hon. Friend is making a powerful case. For the avoidance of doubt, if the Government do not change their policy enunciated in the statement of 20 December, I shall not vote with them, but in the Opposition Lobby. My hon. Friend touches on some interesting points. Is not it true that the recent case of Greens and M.T. v. the United Kingdom specifically allows the Government to proceed with a range of policy options, which, like the consultation in 2009, could be put out for public discussion? Instead the Government have gone for an arbitrary four-year limit, without any further debate or discussion in the House or with the public.
Mr Hollobone
My hon. Friend makes an interesting and brave point, and I commend his courage on the issue. He will be joined in the Lobby by many of our colleagues. The Government should be left in no doubt this morning that they have made the wrong decision on the issue and that they will not get the proposals through Parliament.
My hon. Friend is right: the Government can tackle the issue in far more imaginative ways. It was wrong for my hon. Friend the Minister to say in his statement of 20 December, which was sneaked out just before the Christmas recess, that
“we should implement the Hirst judgment in a way that meets our legal obligations, but does not go further than that.”—[Official Report, 20 December 2010; Vol. 520, c. 151WS.]
The Government have gone further than that by saying that the limit should apply to those sentenced to four years or less in prison, because there are many countries that are signatories to the European convention that apply the ban to prisoners serving far less time in prison. For example, Austria, Malta and San Marino ban all prisoners serving a sentence of more than one year. In France only prisoners convicted of certain crimes lose their right to vote.
I should therefore like to know why the Government have settled on the apparently arbitrary figure of four years. They say that it is the difference between serious and non-serious offences, but frankly I do not accept that definition. There are other ways to cut the cake. For example, the ban could be applied to those who have their sentence issued by the Crown court, rather than the magistrates court.
Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)
On the point about limits, does my hon. Friend agree that the crimes of rape, for which a three-and-a-half year sentence was awarded in November, in a case in Warwick, and armed robbery with a knife, which has also been given a sentence of less than four years, are serious crimes, and that it is shocking that the Government even contemplate that such things should be covered?
Mr Hollobone
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. Her constituents and mine will be sickened if rapists are given the right to vote. It is shocking how many prisoners would be entitled to vote if the Government’s proposals were to go through. I should be grateful if the Minister would confirm the present number of people serving time in prison. Statistics that, again, were sneaked out just before the recess, show that there are 28,770 prisoners serving sentences of less than four years, of whom 5,991 have been convicted of violence against the person, 1,753 of sexual offences, 2,486 of robbery, 4,188 of burglary and 4,370 of drug offences. If the Government were, for example, to restrict the limit to sentences of one year or less, the number of prisoners who would be enfranchised would go down from 28,770 to 8,096.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
Those figures are startling, but does my hon. Friend agree that all the people represented in the numbers he quoted have not had the vote taken from them—they have removed it from themselves by committing the crimes that led to their ending up in prison? If voting is so important to them, there is presumably an easy way out: they should not commit the crimes that get them sentenced to prison.
Mr Hollobone
As always, my hon. Friend speaks not only for his constituents but for Britain. Lots of people would agree with him. As his local police commander will have said—and as mine has said—“Philip, everyone we catch and convict is a volunteer.” No one is forced to go to prison for committing offences. Indeed, it is difficult to go to prison nowadays, under the liberal criminal justice regime that the coalition Government are starting to pursue.
There are therefore a number of ways in which the Government can respond to the European Court ruling, other than just caving in with the four-year rule. Primarily we need a proper parliamentary debate on the issue, so that colleagues can debate the pros and cons and be given the opportunity to vote to maintain the status quo. That would satisfy the European Court’s judgment that Parliament has not debated the issue. I hope that the Government will think hard about putting that before the House.
Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend accept that what the Government put forward as a justification for the measure—namely that if they did not implement it there would be a substantial cost to the taxpayer, in millions of pounds in damages—was a specious and unjustified argument? Just before Christmas I spoke to an official of the European Court of Human Rights, who confirmed that the talk about millions of pounds of compensation being payable if we did not comply was a load of nonsense.
Mr Hollobone
As a Member of the Council of Europe my hon. Friend is closer to many of the issues than I am. I share his scepticism about the figure of £160 million, which we were given as the possible amount of compensation. I invite the Minister to justify where that figure has come from. It would be extremely irresponsible for the Government to bandy around those figures when they have no realistic basis in fact. I understand that there are 2,500 outstanding court cases, pending a resolution of this issue with the European Court. I would like to know how the Government established the basis of compensation for each of those 2,500 cases, because I strongly suspect that the Government may be guilty of making up those numbers and in danger of misleading Parliament.
This is very serious issue. The British public do not want prisoners to be given the right to vote. Many other countries in Europe successfully operate blanket bans and have not been challenged in the European Court. My constituents and many other people up and down the land are furious that once again the Government seem to be bending over to the human rights lobby to introduce a measure, which is frankly inappropriate to the balance of crime and justice in this country.
Once again, we seem to be going soft on criminal justice issues. The British people will not put up with that for much longer. Here is a golden opportunity for the new coalition Government to say, “We are going to put Britain first.” If we have to pull out of the European convention on human rights, let us consider that and possibly do so. That would certainly have a lot of support in the country. However, if we are going to respond to the appeal judgment from the European Court there are many ways of doing it other than simply applying the four-year rule, which will not address my constituents’ concerns. I say to the Government with confidence that if they continue to press this issue in the House, they will be defeated.
Mr Joe Benton (in the Chair)
Order. Before I call the next speaker, as a number of people have indicated they wish to speak, I propose to commence the wind-ups no later than 10.40 am.
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
I thank the hon. Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) for bringing this matter to debate. I agree with him and other hon. Members that it is right to have a proper debate.
I suspect I will not be the most popular speaker this morning, but I want to place on the record that I am in favour of giving prisoners the right to vote. I am in favour of it in this situation, first, because we are required to comply with a Court order, and it is impossible for us to run a criminal justice system around the basis of the rule of law if we then decide which laws and legal obligations we as a country will choose to follow and which we will not.
Secondly, I am in favour of it because I believe it is morally right that prisoners should have the opportunity to vote.
Kate Green
I will in a moment. I want to expand the three bases of my argument and then I will be happy to take the hon. Gentleman’s intervention.
I believe it is morally right that prisoners should have the right to vote. I do not accept that they lose all aspects of citizenship in losing their liberty as a result of a custodial sentence. I fundamentally disagree with those who feel that prisoners’ fundamental human rights should be weakened. In a decent and civilised society it is right that we treat all, including prisoners, with respect.
My third argument is that there is potential to see the right to vote in the context of a process of rehabilitation. Cleverly managed, it could contribute to the reintegration of prisoners in our society. Therefore, there may be some efficacy grounds for accepting a right to vote.
I am happy to take the hon. Gentleman’s intervention now.
Mr Offord
The hon. Lady says she feels it is wrong for the United Kingdom to decide which laws it will implement as a result of the European judgment. However, only last night at the Oldham by-election, the Labour candidate decided that she did not wish to debate with one of the other candidates, whom she had removed by the police from a public meeting. The hon. Lady cannot have it both ways. If we as a country should accept all the laws, the hon. Lady and her potential colleagues should do the same.
Kate Green
I am not aware of the breach of law by the Labour parliamentary candidate in the Oldham by-election. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman can enlighten me later.
The hon. Member for Kettering said—I suspect rightly—that many in my constituency would be disconcerted to hear me making the arguments I do today. That is why I strongly support his call and that of others for a full and informed discussion to take place in this House, because we have not properly considered the evidence or, indeed, the purpose of our criminal justice system and the role that the right to vote or withdrawal of it plays. I hope that this debate will make some contribution to that analysis and information, but I consider that we need a far fuller understanding in the country as a whole.
I have taken an interest in this subject because I served as a magistrate for 16 years. I have sentenced people to custody and have never done it lightly. I am mindful that it entails not just a loss of liberty but puts at risk people’s jobs, homes and family life. Hence, magistrates follow a rigorous decision-making process in selecting an appropriate sentence. With 16 years’ experience on the bench, I cannot think of a single sentencing objective that removing the right to vote from prisoners sentenced to custody would have helped to achieve.
Kate Green
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for raising that issue, which I want to explore in my remarks. The hon. Member for Kettering was right to say that there is more than one way to skin a cat. I am not suggesting that a blanket rule that applies before or after a four-year custodial sentence is the most appropriate way to go, but it is a step in the right direction and one on which I would like to see us build.
I would like to say a little more about how we might see restoration of the right to vote as a positive by enabling prisoners to fulfil their responsibilities as citizens, and how that might in a small way—I see scepticism on faces opposite me—contribute to reducing reoffending, which is surely the prime purpose of the criminal justice system. If we fail to give prisoners any stake in our society, it is difficult to see why they should wish to reintegrate into that society—why they should feel any sense of obligation to mutual rights, dignity and respect when we do not afford that to them. I see an opportunity alongside this new legislation to improve education and rehabilitation in our prisons.
When I raised the matter with the Secretary of State at Justice Question Time before Christmas, he expressed scepticism as to whether prisoners would take advantage of the right to vote. However, before last year’s general election the Prison Reform Trust participated in a debate with prisoners in a local prison. It reported that prisoners were intensely engaged in debating the political matters of the day: not just criminal justice but a wide range of issues that would affect them, their families, communities and society as a whole—a society, of which, like it or not, they remain a part.
Prisoners are rightly recognised as being among the most disadvantaged in terms of social inclusion prior to receiving custodial sentence. We should be looking to take steps to improve their social inclusion. What happens to them while they are in prison undoubtedly has a role to play.
Kate Green
No; I am just coming to my conclusion.
I conclude with two questions which I hope the Minister will address. First, what plans does he have for a programme of prisoner education and engagement that takes advantage of the reintroduction of the right to vote, within the context of prison education—educating prisoners in their civic responsibilities—and how that will support their planned reintegration into the community? Secondly, I would like to follow the points raised by the hon. Member for Kettering in questioning the rationale for introducing a cut-off point at four years. That seems to suggest degrees of citizenship: one is more or less of a citizen, depending on the nature of one’s sentence. I would be interested to hear the hon. Gentleman’s view on whether discretion for judges might be applied more realistically if a blanket right to vote were put in place that gave judges the opportunity in certain cases to say that such a right was not appropriate and should be removed.
I am pleased that, after many years, we are seeing some modest steps to reintroduce a right to vote for prisoners. I support the direction of travel the Government are taking. As other Members have said, I very much hope we will move to an informed and rational debate about the effect of the measures now being brought forward.
Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) on securing this debate. It has generated more interest in Westminster Hall than other debates that I have attended. I congratulate also the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green). She said that she felt rather vulnerable taking part in the debate, but at least she positioned herself strategically with no one sitting behind her.
Some Members will acknowledge that an announcement was unavoidable because the Minister had been put in a position in which he had no alternative. Others, however, will argue that he could have disregarded the ruling. I should be interested to know whether a majority of Members present think that we should abide by the law and the ruling of the European Court of Human Rights, which clearly stated that the Government had to address the question.
The Government have known about the problem for a long time. Since 2004, we knew that the Government—any Government—would have to deal with it sooner or later. The previous Government found some imaginative ways to postpone taking a decision or responding to something that they knew was coming down the track, given the consultations that they launched and their unwillingness to take action.
During his speech, the hon. Member for Kettering was asked to confirm when the blanket ban came into place. As he said, it came about under the Forfeiture Act 1870. He deployed the argument that the Government and Members of Parliament clearly debated the matter in 1870. I do not know whether he thinks that once in every 140 years is appropriate, or whether those 140 years have brought about a change in the way in which Parliament and society should operate.
Philip Davies
Does the hon. Gentleman not accept that in those 140 years, there has been ample opportunity for Governments to change the status quo? The fact that change has not been debated is a fair indication that the will of the House—and of the public—in those intervening years was not to change it. It has been within Parliament’s gift to change over for the past 140 years if it had so wished, but it did not so wish.
Sir Peter Bottomley
Our hon. Friend, the hon. Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone), has been very helpful. Parliament debated the matter in 1967, and gave prisoners the right to vote in 1967.
Tom Brake
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. He may or may not be referring to something that I was about to say, which is that what the Government propose is not necessarily a radical departure. I understand that remand prisoners, people in prison for contempt of court and fine defaulters held in prison are eligible to vote. The principle is already established that some prisoners are entitled to vote.
Gavin Barwell (Croydon Central) (Con)
On a point of principle, does the hon. Gentleman think that the judges of the European Court should ultimately determine what happens—or should it be the Members of this House, who are elected by their constituents?
Tom Brake
The fact is that we abide by the rules of the European Court of Human Rights, and it has ruled that the Government should take action. I believe, as does the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston, that it is appropriate for the Government to do so. The hon. Gentleman may disagree, as may others, but they take the debate slightly away from the right of prisoners to vote to the subject of the European Union, on which there will be a longer debate—[Interruption.] I mean aspects of the European Court and human rights that will be the subject of another debate in the main Chamber.
It is right that the Minister should clarify why four years was chosen. In the briefings that I have seen, the justification is that four years is the cut-off point between a short-term prison sentence and a long-term one. I have seen no other argument for why that threshold should have been chosen. The Minister should respond to that point.
The Minister should also respond to the hon. Member for Kettering and others, who said that concern had been expressed that compensation might have to be paid. If a total of 85,000 prisoners claimed £750 compensation, it could amount to tens of millions of pounds. The Minister will have heard that some accuse the Government of making up the figures. I hope that he will tell us where the information about these potential compensation claims came from and say whether he stands by the contention that the Government might be liable for a large number of claims if no action is taken.
I hope that the Minister will also explain why the voting rights that he proposes are to apply to Westminster and European elections only, and not to other polls. If the Government were to allow prisoners to vote in local elections exclusively, it could be argued that prisoners would be less able to influence the Government’s prison agenda if they could vote only in local council elections. I would be interested to hear why those two elections were chosen.
Tom Brake
In a moment. The Minister has rightly made it clear that if the proposals go through, prisoners will be allowed to vote only in the constituencies that they came from or with which they have a connection and not in the constituency in which the prison is placed. The risk of large numbers of prisoners swinging an election result will therefore be greatly reduced.
Tom Brake
The hon. Gentleman has helpfully answered my question, so the Minister does not need to respond to it. I presume that that is why the Government have not gone down the route of allowing prisoners to vote in local elections. However, they could exercise their local votes as electors on the register in the constituencies from which they originally came; it would not necessarily have to be in the locality of the prison.
What this argument is clearly about, and the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston expressed it very well, is whether voting is an intrinsic right—a basic human right—or whether it is a right that should be forfeited when people lose their liberty. Of course prisoners lose their liberty; no one disputes that that is the appropriate response to a crime. However, to what extent do they lose other liberties that are associated with being a citizen? There are certain responsibilities that they retain. For example, prisoners pay capital gains tax on any capital gains transactions that they might be involved in and they pay tax on their savings. They are, therefore, making contributions that other citizens make, so to what extent do we inflict civic death on them and include withdrawing their right to vote as well as other aspects of their liberty?
Mr Offord
The picture that the hon. Gentleman paints is of prisoners being like the fictional characters of Andy Dufresne or Norman Fletcher—I am talking about paying capital gains tax and other tax. However, if we look at someone like John Hirst, who was originally convicted and sentenced to 15 years, we will find that he served another 10 years for his behaviour in prison. That shows that not only was he not a model prisoner when he was in prison, but he was not a contributor to society when he was out of it. Does the hon. Gentleman not accept that some prisoners deserve to lose the kind of rights that we have been talking about?
Tom Brake
Of course. The hon. Gentleman has quite rightly illustrated that there are certain prisoners for whom there should be no such thing as a right to vote. They have forfeited their right, and that is appropriate. However, this debate is not black and white, but shades of grey. For some prisoners at one end of the spectrum, a one-year cut-off might be more appropriate. Equally, there are other prisoners, at the other end of the spectrum, who have forfeited any right to vote in future elections.
It is also worth considering the arguments that could be deployed against allowing some prisoners the right to vote. For example, is there any evidence that disfranchisement helps to prevent crime? I am not aware that there is any evidence that suggests that withdrawing the right to vote from prisoners helps to prevent crime. Are there any concerns about the difficulties of implementation? Certainly, the Prison Governors Association and the National Offender Management Service have no concerns about the logistical difficulties of providing votes to certain categories of prisoners. As I stated earlier, is such a change a great departure? In other words, are we moving to a system in which prisoners are, for the first time, given the right to vote? The answer is no, because remand prisoners and people in prison for contempt of court and for defaulting on fines are already eligible to vote.
To conclude, it is very clear that this is an issue in which the coalition Government are between a rock and a hard place. The European Court ruling is clear. The Government, who are potentially at risk from compensation claims, have to take action within the framework of the law. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response on some of these issues of detail and on how the Government arrived at the particular threshold that they have chosen.
Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) on securing this extremely important debate. I am pleased to have this opportunity to speak because I believe that it is fundamentally wrong for prisoners to be able to vote. If someone has decided to step outside the law to the point where they have to be incarcerated, they should have no say on how the law is made. Part of the deprivation of liberty that comes with imprisonment is a loss of entitlements, and that should include the right to vote.
My hon. Friend quoted the Prime Minister as saying that even contemplating giving the vote to those incarcerated as convicted prisoners makes him feel physically ill, and he said that in response to a question that I asked him. It is nauseating to think of some of the worst offenders having a say over how this place, or any town hall or parish council, is run. What aggravates us is that this issue was ignored by the previous Government and kicked into the long grass. It is yet another mess that we have inherited and have been left to deal with.
Mr Stewart Jackson
Mindful of the comments of the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), is it not hypocritical of the Labour party to take a similar view, given that in 13 years, it made very little impact on rehabilitation in the penal estate in terms of putting prisoners to work and improving literacy and numeracy? To now say that preventing prisoners from having the vote is somehow attacking their human and civil rights is hypocritical and gets the priorities completely wrong.
Gareth Johnson
My hon. Friend makes an important point. During the 13 years of the previous Government, I worked in the criminal justice system and I saw their lamentable record. We are still waiting to hear what the Opposition would do about the issue of prisoner votes. We have heard the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston give her opinion, but we have yet to hear the official position of Her Majesty’s Opposition. We also want to know why nothing was implemented in the last four or five years since this particular judgment was passed by the European Court of Human Rights.
We all want to see prisoners obey the law. That is why they have been put into prison in the first place. We all have to obey the law. The United Kingdom is a member of the European Court of Human Rights and is, therefore, subject to its decisions. As members, we cannot pick and choose the decisions we want to comply with. We have two options: either we accept this judgment, hook, line and sinker, or we pull out of the European Court of Human Rights. Perhaps we need to review our membership, because it should be for Britain and not the European Court to decide whether or not British prisoners vote.
Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)
My hon. Friend was making a powerful argument, but he rather simplified the last point. It is not an issue of the ECHR versus Britain. A previous Home Secretary, now in opposition, said that he distinguished in his mind—I think he was right—between the ECHR overseeing the role of Governments and whether they properly obeyed the law, and the ECHR overruling the actions of Parliaments, which are not the same thing. One of the interesting points here is that what is being taken as a ruling to a Government is, in fact, a ruling to a Parliament, and we should challenge that point.
Gareth Johnson
My right hon. Friend makes a good point. I will come on to the issues relating to the judgment. I am concerned that it appears that through international law, which is always a bit of a hazy subject, we are being told that the United Kingdom has to comply with the direction given by that Court, or else we must pay compensation. My objection is that it should be wholeheartedly for the United Kingdom Government to make a decision on this issue, and there should be no kind of sanction against us if we say, “No, we feel that all convicted prisoners should lose the right to vote.” I accept that there are advantages and disadvantages in the United Kingdom’s membership of the ECHR, but this debate highlights one of the most significant disadvantages. It is therefore now up to us to weigh up whether we wish to continue being a member of that Court.
It is true that no criminal thinks that they will not commit a crime in case they lose their right to vote. I spent more than 20 years working in the criminal justice system, and I never met a defendant who took the attitude that they would not commit a particular crime because they were fearful of losing their right to vote. Nevertheless, I believe that giving back the right to vote on release can be part of a prisoner’s rehabilitation, and there is a distinction there.
For me, however, the issue here is not crime prevention but the principle that it is wrong for incarcerated criminals to help decide how government should operate. It is laughable to suggest that convicted prisoners should decide how the criminal justice system is operated or what priorities should be given, for example, in the policing budget.
The Government have responded to the case of Hirst, which we have heard mention of, in the ECHR; it is the reason we are having this debate today. The Government have said that votes will be allowed if prisoners are sentenced to less than four years’ imprisonment, and that that change in the law would comply with the ECHR judgment.
I have a copy of that judgment. If we are simply trying to comply with it, I believe the Government can be far stricter than they are currently being. The judgment says the following in being critical of the UK Government’s position so far:
“It had regard to the fact that it”—
the UK Government’s position—
“stripped a large group of people of the vote; that it applied automatically irrespective of length of sentence or the gravity of the offence”.
My interpretation of the judgment is that if we place a bar on those prisoners serving a particular length of sentence and on the categories of offence, that would still comply with the judgment. Therefore, the Government can be far tougher and still remain within the ECHR judgment if they wish to do so.
For example, the Government could not only bar from voting those sentenced to at least four years, but those convicted of, say, sexual offences, which my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey), who was here earlier, mentioned, or any other category of offence. It is the blanket ban that the ECHR has rejected.
Imprisonment for committing a crime should bring with it a deprivation of liberty beyond a mere bar on the freedom of movement. That deprivation should include the deprivation of the right to vote.
Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)
First, I want to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) on bringing this issue to Parliament and I hope that there will be a debate on it in the main Chamber too. I agree with him that we are the people who should make decisions. Secondly, I want to thank him for his kind words about my new year honour; in thirty years’ time, I hope to be here to congratulate him on achieving the same thing. [Laughter.]
If I may, I do not plan to give way because there are two quotations that I want to give before developing one or two arguments of my own. The first quotation is from a Home Secretary:
“The mood and temper of the public in regard to the treatment of crime and criminals is one of the most unfailing tests of the civilization of any country. A calm and dispassionate recognition of the rights of the accused against the State, and even those of convicted criminals against the State, a constant heart searching by all charged with the duty of punishment, a desire and eagerness to rehabilitate in the world of industry all those who have paid their dues in the hard coinage of punishment, tireless efforts towards the discovery of curative and regenerating processes, and an unfaltering faith that there is a treasure, if you can only find it, in the heart of every man—these are the symbols which in the treatment of crime and criminals mark and measure the stored up strength of a nation and are the sign and proof of the living virtue in it.”—[Official Report, 20 July 1910; Vol. 19, c. 1354.]
That Home Secretary was Winston Churchill, speaking in the Commons in 1910.
The second quotation comes from an American judge, so some of the expressions that he uses and some of the experiences that he refers to may not be identical to those in this country. He is Judge Dennis Challeen, and he is quoted in a document called “Making It Right” that was published in 1986, talking about prisoners:
“We want them to have self-worth...
So we destroy their self-worth.
We want them to be responsible...
So we take away all responsibilities.
We want them to be part of our community...
So we isolate them from our community.
We want them to be positive and constructive...
So we degrade them and make them useless.
We want them to be non-violent...
So we put them where there is violence all around them.
We want them to be kind and loving people...
So we subject them to hatred and cruelty.
We want them to quit being the tough guy...
So we put them where the tough guy is respected.
We want them to quit hanging around losers...
So we put all the “losers” in the state under one roof.
We want them to quit exploiting us...
We put them where they exploit each other.
We want them to take control of their own lives, own their own problems,
and quit being a parasite ...
So we make them totally dependent on us.”
I hope that the future debates that we have in this House will not be about the effect of the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights and I do not actually want them to be about the European convention on human rights. The issue is not whether we join the Court; it is whether we think that the points put in the European convention on human rights by people in this country are points to which we want to adhere.
To my mind, the dominant issue is how we got into this pickle in the first place. The Forfeiture Act 1870 lifted a lot of the problems of people who are convicted; it stopped all their land and property being taken away, and it stopped their wives and children from becoming dependent on the state. It happened to include, under the heading of “treason” in section 2:
“If any person hereafter convicted of treason…”
should be disqualified from
“being elected, or sitting, or voting as a member of either House of Parliament, or of exercising any right of suffrage or other parliamentary or municipal franchise whatever within England, Wales, or Ireland.”
Incidentally, this measure did not apply to Scotland so the idea that there is United Kingdom symmetry on this issue is not right.
When I was allowed to intervene on one of my hon. Friends—my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake)—I referred to the part of the Act that came from the modification in the 1960s. Following a criminal law review process, from 1967 prisoners were able to vote.
Sir Peter Bottomley
I said that I was not planning to take any interventions; that applies whether they are made from a sedentary position and repeated, or made by a Member who is standing up and said for the first time. [Laughter.]
As it happened, in the mid-1960s, unless someone had established a proxy beforehand, I do not think that there were provisions for establishing proxies or for voting by post, so that is a change. Nevertheless, that modification takes away one of the difficulties of how voting by prisoners could be arranged now.
I want to put a question to my hon. Friend the Minister; if he does not know the answer now, I will be very happy to receive it in a letter later on. Is there a duty at present to register prisoners to vote, until we change the registration laws to enable individual registration, and even then does that duty apply? Indeed, one question is about whether people can vote; the second question is whether they appear on the register, whether they are qualified or disqualified. I would be very grateful to know from the lawyers in the Minister’s Department, or through him from the lawyers, whether there is presently a requirement on a prison governor to register a prisoner on the electoral register and, if so, whether that prisoner is registered as being disqualified from voting in the prison or disqualified from voting from what would have been their normal address, as it were, if they were, say, an overseas elector.
The second question is about voting itself. I hope that the future debates that we have on this subject are about why it is an extra punishment or provision that someone who is convicted and then, as part of their sentence, has their liberty taken away, has their right to vote taken away as well. I am not terribly interested at the moment about the boundary problem or whether there should be a bar for those sentenced to more than four years or for those convicted of certain offences; I think that that is a subsidiary set of issues. I believe that the key point is whether we can actually say to people who are convicted, “We want to take away your liberty, but we want you to be a member of society”. That is the essential issue. That is why we try to teach people in prison to read, to work and to be interested in things around them, and why we want them to have some sympathy and empathy for the feelings of others, whether victims or otherwise.
I end by asking a question that most people do not ask themselves. Each week, how many people in this country commit a serious criminal offence for the first time, one for which if they are caught and convicted they could be sent to jail for six months or more? I will give way just once to anybody who can give me the answer.
One would have thought that, dealing with crime and punishment, we would all be interested in knowing the answer to that question. The figure is about 1,800 people a week, who are mostly male and under the age of 30, who for the first time are convicted of an offence for which they could be sent to jail for six months or more. So the figure is presumably above 1,800 a week. A third of all men under the age of 30 have been convicted of an offence for which they could be sent to jail for six months or more. I think that the fact that most of the dispositions are not to send those men to jail is a good thing, although some of my hon. Friends and others in other parties might disagree. I think that we are talking about something that is rather common, and the provisions for allowing prisoners to vote are entirely separate from the issue of how we reduce the number of criminals.
Having said that I would end, I will say it again. When I was Minister with responsibility for painting white lines in the middle of roads, which is quite a dangerous position, rather like my position in this debate, it was estimated that young men drove cars after having consumed more than the legal limit for alcohol—which was a socially acceptable, body-bending, illegal habit— 2 million times a week. Within 2.5 years, that figure appeared to have decreased to 600,000. We cut that crime, which killed 1,200 people a year, by two thirds in 2.5 years with no change in law, sentencing or enforcement.
If we are seriously interested in reducing the number of victims, which is why we are interested in reducing crime, and in having fewer criminals, the way to do it is not by having long arguments about whether to give prisoners the vote; I would vote to do so straight away. I would also try to spend more time on effective reduction of the amount of crime in this country. I hope that this debate will be one of the first steps to doing so.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
It is a great pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley) in this debate. I congratulate him on his knighthood. Perhaps one reason why he got it is that he is an independent Member of Parliament who has always been willing to go against the popular tide. I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) on introducing this important debate. I must say that I am on his side on this issue.
I am aware that the winding-up speeches will start in nine minutes’ time, so I will be extremely brief. Three members of the Backbench Business Committee are in the Chamber today, as are 24 coalition Members and a number of Members from Her Majesty’s Opposition. It is wholly inappropriate that this issue should be left to a Westminster Hall debate, as Members speaking on all sides of the argument have said, so I will not discuss the issue itself, as it should be debated in the main Chamber under a substantive motion. I urge hon. Members to go along to the public sitting of the Backbench Business Committee next Tuesday and argue the case for having this debate in the main Chamber on a substantive motion.
The only thing that I will say on the issue is this. We have discussed the coalition Government’s four-year rule. It is a classic case of the Government saying something and then caving in later—by reducing it to a year, for example—and saying, “There we are; we’ve listened to Back-Bench Members of Parliament, and we’re complying.” To me, the issue is straightforward: either no prisoners should have the vote, or all prisoners should. The arguments are clear. It either is or is not a good thing for society that prisoners should have the vote. If it is a bad thing, then no prisoners should have the vote; I take that view. The other, crucial matter is parliamentary sovereignty and who decides the laws of this country. That issue must be developed in much greater depth during a longer debate.
Philip Davies
My hon. Friend says that the Government have gone too far in order to be seen to be scaling back. Is not the other alternative that they have gone so far as a sop to our coalition partners? Does my hon. Friend agree that if that is the case, the Government have forgotten once again that they are in coalition with the Conservatives as well as the Liberal Democrats? It is rather ungrateful of the Liberal Democrats that only one has bothered to appear to support the Government’s sop to them.
Mr Bone
I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. There may well be some truth behind it. I will conclude so that other Members can speak. Again, I hope that hon. Members will go along on Tuesday and urge the Backbench Business Committee to hold a debate on this subject in the main Chamber.
Mr Dominic Raab (Esher and Walton) (Con)
I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) on securing this debate. It is important because it asks a fundamental question: who is in charge of our criminal justice system and our democracy?
In the time available, I will focus on the latter. The right to vote, hon. Members will recall, is not included in the European convention itself but in a protocol to that convention, for good reason. The French proposed including the right to vote in the convention, using language referring to universal suffrage. The British objected; the travaux préparatoires to the convention, which are publicly available, say explicitly that we did so because we wanted to retain restrictions on the franchise, including for prisoners. The proposal for the protocol returned two years later with the offending language removed. By the way, that was under Churchill.
I make that point because it is absolutely clear that Britain did not sign up to that idea. It is important as a matter of interpretation of international law under the Vienna convention. The Strasbourg judges should have heeded it; it is a basic canon of the interpretation of treaty law, and it is obviously critical as a matter of basic democratic accountability. We did not sign up to the idea.
It is one example among many of the rampant judicial legislation that has come from Strasbourg since the 1970s. The law of negligence as it affects the police was rewritten in the Osman judgment. Not just right-wingers or tabloids got upset about that; Lord Hoffmann, until recently the second most senior Law Lord, has complained bitterly about it judicially and extra-judicially. Deportation has been increasingly fettered, and Strasbourg has intruded into parents’ right to determine how to discipline their children, overruling not only the prerogatives of elected lawmakers in this country but a jury. Now we face a demand to give prisoners the vote.
Strasbourg does not deny such judicial legislation. It embraces it, referring to the doctrine of the living instrument, according to which the convention is a living instrument which it is the courts’ duty to update from time to time. Where did the mandate to engage in judicial legislation come from? Not from the convention or the protocol. It is not expressly or implicitly given anywhere. It was conjured up from thin air. My right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) made the point that Strasbourg is not only checking Governments but rewriting laws written by elected lawmakers. Why is that happening? Clearly, it is because Strasbourg is not really a judicial institution at all. I reviewed the CVs of all the judges in 2007. More than half had no prior judicial experience before going to the Strasbourg bench.
In the time available, I will make one point. The question is what to do now. There is one silver lining—the backstop written into the Strasbourg enforcement machinery. Strasbourg cannot enforce its own judgments, so if the UK refuses to adhere to this judgment, as I think it must, it cannot be enforced. Of course, we could face other awards against us in Strasbourg, including compensatory awards, or be referred to the Committee of Ministers, but the judgment is not enforceable in UK law. No sanctions will apply, and there is no serious prospect of our being kicked out of the Council of Europe. We can say no, given the political will.
My question to the Minister is this. If the Government are not willing to rebuff Strasbourg in this case, arbitrary as it is, at what point, if any, will they refuse to accept a ruling? How bad must things be before Ministers stand up for the prerogatives of elected UK lawmakers? If we do not draw a line in the sand now and send back a clear message, we are inviting even more perverse judgments in future. It is time to draw that line.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
The contribution made by my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab) was so excellent that I would happily have given up the two minutes remaining to me to hear even more from him. This is the situation in which we find ourselves: a democratic Parliament in a democratic country is being told that we are not allowed to decide primarily moral issues, by unelected judges in a court set up to deal with the trashing of human rights by dictators and by countries very different from ours. Winston Churchill was quoted earlier. He was a great war leader, but he was not famed for consistency in domestic politics. His twice crossing the Floor of the House is evidence enough of that. Were he here today, and had we a vote on the matter, I venture to suggest that he would not vote to give convicted prisoners the vote.
People do not go to prison for light offences these days, they go because they have done something seriously wrong. The real problem that we face is that judges all too often assert rights that really ought to be qualified rights as absolute rights. Even the right to life is not absolute, because it is infringed when countries legitimately go to war. Where the line is drawn should be a matter for democratic politicians, not unelected judges.
To conclude my remarks in the all too brief time that those of us who are against giving prisoners the right to vote have been allowed by those who spoke earlier and who are in favour of giving prisoners that right, I ask the Minister this: when the time comes, if the Government feel that they cannot draw the line in the sand, which I would love them to do, will they at least do the absolute bare minimum to comply with the judgment, because that is certainly not what they are proposing to do at the moment?
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
I, too, wish you, Mr Benton, and all Members present a happy new year. I also wish myself a happy birthday, although I note that no one offered that unto me. I congratulate the hon. Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) on securing the debate. It is right that we should have the debate here and, as several Members have said, that there should be a proper debate in the Chamber so that many of the issues can be elaborated at greater length, so I hope that that will happen.
I do not wish to disturb the equilibrium between myself and the Minister, but I must excoriate him slightly, because thus far there have been only written ministerial statements on the matter. The policy should have been announced in the Chamber, not by written ministerial statement, and I say that because the Minister said on 2 November 2010:
“when decisions have been taken they will be announced to the House at the Dispatch Box in the usual way.”—[Official Report, 2 November 2010; Vol. 517, c. 722.]
That is not what happened. A written ministerial statement was snuck out—I never know what the past tense of sneak is—or sneaked out.
Chris Bryant
Put out is less pejorative, and I want to be pejorative on this point. The statement was snuck out the day before Parliament adjourned for the Christmas recess. That is an inappropriate way to deal with Parliament, let alone with the politics of making a significant constitutional change in this country.
I am afraid that on this occasion I agree with neither my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), nor our new knight, the hon. Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley), whom I congratulate on his knighthood. I believe that the tradition that prisoners should be unable to vote is older than the Forfeiture Act 1870, because prior to that, the property qualification was so significant that, in practice, prisoners would have been unable to vote anyway. Merely referring to the 1870 Act, although that was the point at which the idea was qualified in statute, is irrelevant. It is an old tradition and a fine one. I think that when one forfeits the right to liberty, one should forfeit the right to vote.
However, I disagree with those who have said that we should leave the European Court of Human Rights. I think that David Maxwell Fyfe was a pretty odious Home Secretary, but I agree with those who argue that he did a good job at Nuremberg in trying to ensure that human rights were protected across Europe. It is difficult for us to argue with Russia that it should comply with the European Court of Human Rights in cases such as that of Sergei Magnitsky if we do not comply ourselves.
I also believe that the Government have been entirely wrong to gold-plate the provisions that are being brought forward. If the cut-off comes at four years, that will mean that people who have committed many very serious crimes, including violent crimes and crimes of a sexual nature, and electoral crimes for that matter, will be able to vote, which I think is inappropriate. That will mean that close to 30,000 people in prison will be able to vote. Notwithstanding the comments that other Members have already made, I think that there will be logistical problems in various areas in the country, which I will move on to in a moment.
The proposals are far more generous than the arrangements in other countries. The hon. Member for Kettering referred to several countries but not to Belgium, where the line is drawn at four months. I wonder whether the Government simply got the words “months” and “years” wrong, because opting for four months would allow them to comply with the Court. In Austria the requirement is one year. In France there is an element of judicial decision making on who gets the franchise—I think that the Government intend to introduce that here—as the court decides whether someone should be deprived of the right to vote as part of the sentencing. The hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab) commented earlier on how the French approached the creation of the Court in the first place and that their system arose because the Napoleonic code had always stipulated that. Of course, 13 countries still have complete bans, although it must be said that they are not countries that we would hold up as exemplars of liberal and civilised societies that comply with human rights.
I have 10 questions for the Minister, although I realise that he may be unable to answer all of them. I hope that he will write to me on any that he is unable to answer today, as the deputy Prime Minister has not responded to any of the letters that we have written to him on the subject—it has been quite some time now and I am looking forward to those replies. First, the current prohibition on votes for prisoners was introduced through primary legislation in the Representation of the People Act 1983, and amended by the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000. Can the Minister confirm that the amendments to statutes to enable prisoner voting will be done though primary legislation, rather than secondary legislation, so that it can be amended on the Floor of the House? Secondly, were we to proceed with a one-year ban, rather than a four-year ban, can he confirm that that would meet the requirements of the Court and that, therefore, the four-year ban is entirely of the Government’s choosing?
Thirdly, can the Minister confirm that more than 28,000 prisoners will be given the vote under the proposals, including around 6,000 who have committed violent crimes and 1,800 who have committed crimes of a sexual nature? Fourthly, the written ministerial statement states that prisoners will be able to vote in an area where they have a local connection. That seems, contrary to the remarks made earlier by several Members, to be a rather loose way of determining where they vote. What will happen if a prisoner wants to be registered in their prison, rather than in their home, or if they are registered in the place where they last lived but someone else is now living there? Frankly, they might not want someone who is serving time in prison to be registered to their home address. What provision have the Government made to ensure that that will not affect householders in their credit rating and in other ways? Will prisoners be entitled to anonymous registration, or will they be included in the electoral register, including details of their last known address, and what provisions will be made for candidates to be able to canvass prisoners?
As I understand it, the Government intend to allow judges to make specific recommendations on depriving people of the vote. On what grounds will a judge be entitled to remove the vote? Following the comments made by other Members, are there particular crimes that, while they might be subject to relatively short sentences of less than four years, should in all cases still see the perpetrator banned from voting? In particular, will the Government ensure that judges receive guidelines on when it will be expected that the vote be removed, and will those guidelines be made available when a Bill comes before the House? Will mentally disordered offenders or prisoners detained in mental health hospitals awaiting sentencing be entitled to vote under the Government’s proposals? I hope that the Minister can answer many of those questions. Many Members are understandably angry about out inaction in the past, but I must say that I prefer our inaction on the matter to the Government’s action thus far.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr Mark Harper)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Benton. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) on securing the debate, particularly on getting it as a kind of reserve option, and thank him for his generous remarks at the beginning of his contribution. As ever, of course, he and I will not fall out, even if we end up disagreeing. I would like to take the opportunity, as everyone else has, to wish all hon. Members a happy new year, although that does seem rather a long time ago.
I shall set out what the Government have announced and then try to deal with as many of the questions as I can. I will respond to questions which I believe are of interest to as many people as possible, and write to hon. Members about those that remain which I can not answer at this point. I will place a copy of the letter in the Library so that Members can see the Government’s responses.
It is worth starting with a bit of background because hon. Members have mentioned it—I will get through this quickly. We have already mentioned that some prisoners—those on remand, for example—have been able to vote for some time. The bar on prisoners who are serving a sentence dates back to 1870, and successive Governments have maintained the position that those who have broken their contract with society by committing an offence and are imprisoned should lose their right to vote.
My hon. Friend the Member for Kettering opened the debate in a perfectly helpful way by quoting my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, who made it clear that he does not want to make this change. To be frank, it is not something that I want to do, and I believe that many Government Members would rather not do it, but we do not have a choice. We have a legal obligation. To answer my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), the proposals are not a sop to anyone. The European Court of Human Rights made a ruling in the Hirst case, and we are legally obliged to comply with it.
It is worth reminding ourselves what the Court actually said in the Hirst case. It said that the existing bar on convicted prisoners—the blanket ban—was contrary to article 3 of Protocol No. 1 of the European convention on human rights. I believe that my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Mr Offord) referred to Mr Hirst. Although the ruling was given in his case, under the proposals that we will put before the House, he would not have been entitled to vote when he was in prison because he committed a serious crime and was sentenced to a lengthy term of imprisonment.
We in this country seem blessed—that is not really the right word. The most odious criminals appear to be the ones who run off to the European Court of Human Rights. Another odious criminal who took the Government to court—the judgment was announced before Christmas—also had been convicted of serious crimes.
The Government are following three principles in their approach. The first goes to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis). We have to meet our legal obligations, but we want to go no further than that. Secondly, we want to ensure that the most serious offenders are not given the right to vote. That is why we did not say that there would be no line, that the limit would be entirely up to judges. We want to ensure that there is a line, so that anyone above that length of sentence would not be able to vote. We recognise that the most serious offenders should not be able to vote.
Mr Harper
Let me make a little more progress. I am conscious that Members have raised many questions, and I want to try to deal with some of them rather than stack up new ones.
The third principle is to prevent the taxpayer from having to pay successful claims for compensation. One of the problems we have is that even if the compensation in an individual case is not significant, we in this country are blessed—again, that is probably not the right word—with lawyers who are assiduous, if there is money on the table, in running around and getting lots of people to sign up for cases under no win, no fee rules. Various Members have mentioned that there are already 2,500 cases pending. One can be certain that if there were a successful case for compensation, lawyers would quickly go around prisons to sign up prisoners for legal actions on the basis that there might be £1,000 compensation on the table. The Government would be faced with thousands and thousands of cases. We estimate that compensation in an individual case might be around £750 to £1,000, but multiply that by the thousands and thousands of prisoners who would bring cases if there were money on the table, and we would be looking at significant sums for the taxpayer. The one thing that would be worse than making these changes in the law would be giving hard-earned taxpayers’ money to some of those criminals. I shall take my hon. Friend’s question.
Mr Jackson
I thank the Minister for that explanation, but his argument would carry much more weight if Frodl v. Austria had been the last substantive case in the European Court of Human Rights on this issue. The ruling was very prescriptive and said, in effect, that the majority of prisoners had to have the vote. However, it was not the last case. As I made clear earlier, the last case was Greens and M.T. v. the United Kingdom, and paragraphs 112 to 114 of its ruling specifically made it clear that the Government had a range of options on which they could consult. It is not a question of the Government having to comply with the arbitrary limit of four years; that simply is not true.
Mr Harper
My hon. Friend makes a helpful point by referring to the Greens and M.T. judgment. This comes down to what several Members have said about whether we have the option of doing what the previous Government did, which was nothing. I am afraid that we do not. In that judgment, the Court gave the UK Government six months from the date that the judgment becomes final to introduce proposals. I can say to the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) that there are various ways of dealing with it, but the Government will introduce primary legislation in the House. That should deal with questions raised by several Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone), who is a member of the Backbench Business Committee. Proposals for primary legislation will be put before the House, and Members will have an opportunity to debate them fully. We will not try to think of a different way to implement the judgment, but we want to ensure that we have a debate in the House.
Mr Harper
In terms of the timetable, we have to introduce proposals, not pass them. The Government’s responsibility is to introduce the proposals before 23 August this year; in other words, before the House rises for the summer recess. The Court has suspended the 2,500 or so cases of people claiming damages on the basis that we will introduce proposals within the time limit. If we fail to do so, the cases will be revived and there will then be a serious risk that the Government will be faced with paying damages.
Let me deal with some other questions. To respond to my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering—this is his debate—the problem would not be fixed by somehow getting rid of the Human Rights Act 1998. Even if we were to sweep it away tomorrow, we would still be a party to the European convention on human rights and the ruling would stand. The debate on the Act is important, but it is not relevant to this matter.
My hon. Friend asked whether the UK was being singled out. We have to act because British prisoners took cases to the Court, on which it has ruled. Some of the other countries that still have a blanket ban have not been put in that position. If no prisoners had brought a case against the UK Government, we would not be acting. We are acting only because of the legal judgment. The hon. Member for Rhondda said that it had been his Government’s preference to do nothing. It is our preference to do nothing, but we face a legal obligation.
Mr Harper
I, too, congratulate my newly knighted hon. Friend. He put his case in a measured and thoughtful way, as did the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green). Apart from what she said at the beginning of her remarks—that this is, indeed, a legal judgment and that we are obliged to implement it—I did not agree with her arguments, and I am afraid that the Government and I do not agree with what my hon. Friend said either.
Let me try to answer some of the questions that were raised by several Members, including the hon. Member for Rhondda. He accused the Government of gold-plating the provisions. We absolutely have not done that. We set a limit which we believe is the minimum required to comply with our obligations. Moreover, in contrast with the previous Government, who were proposing to enfranchise prisoners for all elections, we have said that we will make a change only for those elections where we are legally obliged to do so: the Westminster and European elections. We will not do it for local elections or referendums. Importantly, we will not do it for elections for police and crime commissioners, or for mayors. We will do what is legally necessary and no more. That was not what the previous Government were going to do. They proposed enfranchising prisoners for all elections. That would have perhaps had some of the consequences for local elections that Members have mentioned.
Also, we will ensure that prisoners cannot register to vote at the prison. It would clearly be inappropriate to have significant number of voters at prisons able to influence the results of elections. It is also worth saying, as my final point—
Mr Joe Benton (in the Chair)
Order. That concludes the debate. We must move on to the next one.
Parliamentary Representation
(13 years, 10 months ago)
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Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Benton. Given that we are debating an issue that will have a big impact on all the Members who are currently leaving the Chamber, I am sorry that there is such an exodus from it. I am delighted to have secured the debate, which will explore many of the issues that we did not have an opportunity to explore during the passage of the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill—in spite of the large number of amendments that I and many others tabled. That was not due to the Government’s programming of the Bill, which I do not necessarily criticise—I am sure the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) will when he gets the opportunity in a moment—but because of how we as a House managed the available time and engaged in a tremendous amount of repetition. We failed to get to grips properly with the issues that needed to be debated to improve the Bill before it transferred to another place.
This morning, I intend to explore Government policy on parliamentary representation in relation to the number of parliamentary seats, the drawing up of constituency boundaries, voter registration and the role of the House of Lords in revising what the Commons produces. The House of Lords is revising the Bill, which we passed to it after its Commons stages last year.
There are currently 650 constituencies. As I indicated to the Minister during the debate on the Bill, my concern is that the Government’s approach has been far too timid, although I understand that perhaps there has to be compromise over the figures that were bandied about in advance of the general election. A figure of some 600 seats should not necessarily be hard and fast, but should be an indication of the size of the House of Commons. The current figure of 650 is an indication, and there could be more seats or fewer.
In his background reading, I am sure the Minister will have noted that seven years ago, on 15 October 2003, at columns 117 to 119 of Hansard, I brought forward a ten-minute rule Bill. The Representation of the People (Consequences of Devolution) Bill proposed a significant cut in the number of parliamentary constituencies, to about 500 in a first phase, because following devolution, and considering comparisons between the number of MPs in the United Kingdom Parliament and the number in Parliaments of similar sized countries in Europe and other western democracies, we were significantly over-represented.
There are countries in Europe in which the number of parliamentarians per 100,000 is higher than it is in the UK, but they all have significantly lower populations. All the countries with populations of about the same or more than the UK’s have significantly different representation and fewer Members of Parliament. I strongly recommend that the Government revisit the figure and take a more flexible approach. Part of the reason why I wish to emphasise that point is that the figure of 600 could have been plucked out of thin air; it need not necessarily be interpreted in the hard-and-fast manner in which the Government are approaching the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill.
I know that the Minister is well aware of the primary issue of contention because I and my parliamentary colleagues from Cornwall have raised it. I am pleased that my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Sarah Newton) is here today. My hon. Friends the Members for South East Cornwall (Sheryll Murray), for North Cornwall (Dan Rogerson), for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice) and for St Austell and Newquay (Stephen Gilbert) are unable to be here today but support the principle I will espouse, which is that we did not get a proper opportunity to debate constituency equality during the Bill’s passage.
The Bill proposes that all constituencies have an electoral quota of approximately 76,000 with a margin of only 5% either way. It would carve up the country in a manner that would create bizarre constituencies and ignore important cultural, historic and geographic boundaries. We would end up with bits of islands, such as the Isle of Wight, attached to mainland constituencies, and place their MPs in an invidious position when two very different places they represent fail to see eye to eye on a matter of vital local importance. We do not want antiseptic constituencies with perpetually mobile boundaries. The five-yearly boundary review that would happen between each Parliament would mean an MP’s attachment to their constituency being perpetually reviewed, so the sense of settlement with the communities they represent would be continually undermined.
The amendments to the Bill which I and other hon. Members tabled were unsuccessful, in that they were not selected or therefore debated. They sought to find circumstances in which the Boundary Commission was given sufficient discretion to work towards the target figure, taking into account reasonable geographic, cultural and electoral issues. We want the Government to allow places to make decisions for themselves collectively, provided that they do not request more favourable treatment, such as over-representation. I hope the Minister takes note of that. It is not about more favourable treatment but simply recognising the distinctiveness of places, which the Bill does not take into account.
Sarah Newton (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for securing this debate. Does he agree that in addition to the need to reflect distinct cultural and geographical differences in various parts of the country, to which he rightly referred, there are practical considerations? Cornwall, as in Devon, has more than enough people to enable it to remain whole. However, one in 20 properties is a second home and, rightly, people who are not normally resident in the county cannot register to vote. The Electoral Commission should have flexibility to consider such specific local factors when establishing boundaries.
Andrew George
I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s intervention, and I will come to electoral registration and its inevitable impact on drawing up boundaries. The established rules follow case law to some extent, and the Electoral Commission is certainly clear about the interpretation of the relevant Acts. I agree that there is an issue that deserves further scrutiny and that will have a significant impact when drawing up boundaries.
Having said that, my hon. Friend the Member for Argyll and Bute (Mr Reid) and other hon. Members representing constituencies in Scotland, Wales and other areas have made the point that many of the justifications for distinctive treatment of areas such as Na h-Eileanan an Iar, and Orkney and Shetland—they are identified in clause 11(6) of the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill, although their distinctiveness is not elaborated on—could easily apply to other constituencies. The Government have a range of approaches for honouring and respecting the distinctiveness of many parts of the country. They could identify further specific exceptions beyond the two identified in the Bill, or they could establish a set of principles that underlie the reason for identifying those two constituencies and allow the Boundary Commission to determine where those principles might be applied.
In Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, we believe that there is a self-evident case based on Cornwall’s historical, geographic and constitutional significance, and that the boundary between Cornwall and Devon—many people in Cornwall consider it to be between Cornwall and England—should be respected not only with regard to parliamentary constituencies, but in all other matters. Indeed, the Government did so when drawing up local enterprise partnerships. One strong reason for that, with which my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth will concur, is that the distinctiveness of Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly was identified, but such distinctiveness seemed, at least to the Government, not to apply in Devon and Somerset. I am not making a judgment about Devon and Somerset, and perish the thought that I would ever stray into their politics. The Government recognise this important issue in Cornwall, but do not provide an opportunity for the distinctiveness of that important historical and constitutional boundary to be respected.
There is a presumption in clause 11(6) of the Bill that Orkney and Shetland, and Na h-Eileanan an Iar should be preserved constituencies. Na h-Eileanan an Iar has a population of 26,500, an area of 3,070 sq km, and geographically is apparently as long as Wales. It is a long, spread-out constituency. Orkney and Shetland has a population of 42,000 and an area of 2,450 sq km. If the decision were based purely on area, my right hon. Friend the Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Mr Kennedy), whose constituency has a land area of 12,780 sq km, would have a case for distinctive treatment.
I often compare my travel time with that of my right hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael), who is entitled under the rules of the highly respected Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority to travel by plane, but I am not. His travel time is significantly quicker than travelling by train from the far west of Cornwall to London, so clearly travel time is not the basis.
On the difficulty of getting around constituencies, I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Argyll and Bute will recount his experience of travelling between the many islands in his constituency. As well as the 82,000 constituents on the mainland of my constituency—there were well over 100,000 before the boundary changes for the 2010 election—I have six inhabited islands, five of which are 30 miles off the west coast. It is impossible to get around my constituency in a day. It takes two days to do so by surface transport, and it is difficult.
I am not asking for special treatment, or for my constituency to be added to the list of preserved constituencies, because there is a strong case for equalisation, and the Government are right to work towards the principle as far as possible. I also want to make it clear to the Minister that I am not seeking to undermine my right hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland, who is not present, and would no doubt provide a range of other arguments for why his constituency should be given special treatment. No doubt the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil) would come up with another range of arguments for his constituency being given special treatment when others are not preserved in the same way. I am simply making the point that I have spoken to them—I gave them notice that I would mention their constituencies in this debate.
I have been trying to fathom the reasons why those constituencies have been given preserved constituency status. I respect and want that because there are distinctive geographic, historic and cultural reasons for them being given special status, but if those principles apply to those constituencies, why do they not also apply to others, so that the special geographic and constitutional circumstances in which they exist are also respected?
For example, if we are looking at the whole area of a constituency, there is a significant sea area around mine, just as there is around the two I have just mentioned. My constituency is a maritime one, and a large proportion of its inhabitants exist not just on the land but in their trades at sea; those who go deep-sea fishing often go out for seven to ten days, to the continental shelf and sometimes beyond. If we were to take the whole working area of my constituency in the same way as we might take that of places where there are sheep on mountains—here there are fish in the sea—its total area would be 195,500 sq km. I have visited some of my constituents when they have been more than 100 miles out at sea and I have boarded their fishing vessels, but I reassure the Minister that I do not seek to do that weekly.
My point is simply that there is a variety of ways in which to engage with one’s constituents, particularly in this modern telecommunications age when people tweet each other across the world. It is not impossible these days to communicate with people in far-flung parts of one’s constituency without regularly meeting face to face. I am not saying that that should be denied, simply that I would like to get a better understanding of what lies behind the notion of preserved constituencies and, if there is a principle there, of why it cannot be equally applied to other areas.
I am aware that some people might point to unavoidable disagreements and old rivalries between places. The Government are right to continue the practice of preserving and respecting the boundaries of nation states; there is no cross-border constituency between Scotland and England. Strangely, though, the old boundaries of the regions—the Government zones as I describe them—will be respected as well; I understand that there will not be cross-border constituencies between the south-west and the west midlands, for example. However, as there are unavoidable disagreements and old rivalries there is little point in creating new ones.
For example, a point that would be emphasised by my hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall were she present, is that the relationship between Plymouth and South East Cornwall is both harmonious and mutually productive, largely because both distinct communities are assured of the security of existing within their own boundaries. They are ultimately responsible for their own destiny, but can, and indeed do, effectively co-operate, because they can enjoy both that mutual respect and their own security. Destroying that relationship by disrespecting the border would heighten the potential for conflict and mistrust, and would be counter-productive. I hope, therefore, that the Minister will consider that issue.
Briefly on voter registration, during the passage of the Bill we debated to a certain extent the fact that if the Government applied this regimented rule of equalised constituencies, it could be justified if one believed that the numerical basis on which the rule was applied regimentally was sound. The Government’s own Electoral Commission report in March 2010 identified a wide range of variations in voter registration levels. The report, “The completeness and accuracy of electoral registers in Great Britain,” states in its key findings:
“National datasets and local case study research suggest there may be widening local and regional variations in registration levels…Recent social, economic and political changes appear to have resulted in a declining motivation to register to vote among specific social groups. This is despite the fact that electors now have more options than ever open to them to register…Under-registration and inaccuracy are closely associated with the social groups most likely to move home…Each revised electoral register lasts for 12 months, from December to December; during that period, the rate of completeness is likely to decline by around 10 percentage points”.
The justification for believing that we are achieving equalised constituencies is therefore rather suspect. As my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth has mentioned, it is not just the issue of under-representation but the risk of over-representation, at least of those who choose to register and have an entitlement, to a certain extent, to register in more than one constituency because they own a second home.
In my constituency there are nearly 3,500 second homes according to the latest available figures on the 10% council tax discount for people with second homes. A large number of properties, however, have been taken off the council tax register because the owners, although they use the properties and might register to vote from them, have chosen to pay a business rate because they are also letting them. A large number of owners chose to do that for reasons of tax efficiency and the financial efficiency of their businesses. My hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall has nearly 4,000 such properties in his constituency.
In a letter to me on 26 July 2010, Jenny Watson, the chair of the Electoral Commission, stated:
“With regard to second home owners, in our view it is unlikely that owning a second property which is visited only for recreational purposes would meet the residency qualification…Owning and paying council tax on a property alone is not sufficient to satisfy the residence qualification: although this may give an indication of connection to an address, it is not evidence of residence. However, each decision must be made on a case-by-case basis by the Electoral Registration Officer”.
She goes on to cite case law, and the fact that illegal registration carries a potential fine of £5,000.
Thankfully, in time for this debate, the Minister has very kindly responded to a letter I sent to him on 7 December 2010 on this issue. He notes the issues that have been raised by the electoral returning officer for Cornwall council, and the suggestion that people who are registered in more than one local authority should be required to nominate a main residence, which would then be designated as the area in which they were eligible to vote. The Minister says that he will give the matter further consideration, stating:
“I have asked my officials to explore the issues connected with dual registration and will keep you informed of any developments.”
That is helpful for today’s debate. We know about the parallel issues regarding student registration. The issue needs to be addressed, and I hope that the Minister will do so.
The primary theme of the debate—I will bring my remarks to a close in a moment—is the Government’s justification for applying this rigid approach to equality of constituency. The Minister is aware that the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill is being debated in another place. On this occasion, as perhaps on other occasions when such constitutional issues have arisen, Members of Parliament have an interest in the legislation as it primarily affects them. In such cases, I argue that the Lords should have a greater say rather than a lesser say about the outcome, and I hope that the Government will take that on board.
House of Lords reform will be considered in due course, and we will no doubt pass comment on such reform. I fear that in the coalition agreement—something I have not entirely seen eye to eye with my party over—the Government have tended to get the issue the wrong way round and they seem to have engaged in a fashionable and populist view. Of course, superficially I can see that a directly elected second Chamber sounds attractive in many ways. However, the Government are considering how people get into the Chamber before they have considered what that Chamber is for. On Lords reform, I agree with the Government that the hereditary principle should not apply and that patronage is unacceptable. However, I hope that before we get too entangled in debates about how people might arrive in the second Chamber—if indeed we have a second Chamber, and I believe that we should—we will first have the opportunity to consider what the second Chamber is for. That might inform the debate about the best and most appropriate means by which people arrive in the House of Lords.
John Stevenson (Carlisle) (Con)
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate. I am delighted that he has moved on to the subject of the House of Lords and its potential reform because I feel that the issue of the House of Commons has, to a certain extent, been debated and dealt with in the Chamber. We talk a lot about individual Members and the community involvement of a representative of a particular constituency. Can it be argued that while the House of Commons represents the population and should be proportionate to that, there is potential for House of Lords reform to be based around communities or regions? For example, Cumbria or Cornwall could be represented in the House of Lords. That would be regionally based and therefore different from representation in the House of Commons.
Andrew George
That helps me with the point I am making. First, we must consider what we need a revising Chamber for. I hope that it is for revision and sober second thought, but not to trump or usurp the primary Chamber. The hon. Gentleman makes a good point about how to ensure that all nations and regions of the UK are properly and fairly represented within the second Chamber. That is the second stage of the debate, but first we must understand what that place is for.
The hon. Gentleman emphasises that we have debated this issue and the Bill—I have been looking back over debates on the Bill that we have had in the Commons. However, if the hon. Gentleman studies such debates, he may agree with me that we have not had adequate opportunity to explore fully the aspects of the Bill that I have highlighted today, and I hope that the Minister has taken note of that. I suspect that another place will revise some aspects of the legislation that I have just described, and I hope that the Minister will reflect carefully on those amendments when they come before the Commons.
Mr Alan Reid (Argyll and Bute) (LD)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Andrew George) on securing the debate. I agree that when the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill was on the Floor of the House, we did not have an opportunity to explore the issues as fully as we would have liked. I am glad to have the opportunity to do that today.
The role and purpose of Members of Parliament can be divided into two separate functions. First, we effectively form an electoral college for electing a Prime Minister, and secondly, we represent communities. Unlike the Scottish Parliament, for example, there is no formal vote in the House of Commons to elect a Prime Minister. As a Government can exist only if they have the confidence of the House of Commons, Members of Parliament effectively form an electoral college for electing a Prime Minister. It is clear that for the fair election of a Prime Minister, Members of Parliament ought to represent constituencies that have the same number—or as near as possible to the same number—of constituents.
The other role of Members of Parliament is to represent communities. It is obvious that not every community in the country is exactly the same size, and it is fair to have slight discrepancies in the number of people in each constituency, particularly when taking into account that representational role. When the representational role was originally introduced, for many centuries Members of Parliament represented whole boroughs or counties, some of which had more than one representative. In the early days, the representational role was considered more important and boundaries were drawn to that effect. Obviously, as the years went on and people moved, it became more important to have, as far as possible, the same number of electors represented by each Member of Parliament. However, we still have those two roles. Clearly, the role of an electoral college would support having exact numbers in each constituency, while the role of representation would need a bit of flexibility. We must reconcile those two different roles.
Until this Bill, the reconciliation of those two functions was left exclusively to the Boundary Commission. It has always had the flexibility to take community boundaries into account, rather than just seek the same number of electors in each constituency.
John Stevenson
Could that difference not be dealt with by the ways in which Members of the House of Commons and Members of the House of Lords are elected? That is a way those two issues could be reconciled.
Mr Reid
My hon. Friend makes an interesting point. I would like the electoral system for the House of Lords to represent larger communities—say, Scotland or the English regions. I think that the role of the House of Lords should be to represent those larger areas, rather than the smaller areas that Members of Parliament represent. I still think there is an important role for Members of Parliament in representing smaller communities.
As I was saying, the Boundary Commission has had flexibility in the past. Analysis of where the Boundary Commission has used that flexibility shows that the political effects of different constituency sizes have tended to cancel one another out. I am referring to the political effects of the Boundary Commission’s decision to have flexibility, not regulations that we have had in the past about the minimum number of MPs that Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland must have. Obviously, having a certain minimum number of MPs for Scotland and Wales in the past has tended to help the Labour party more than any other party, but with the setting up of the Scottish Parliament, the last boundary review had the same quota for Scotland as for England, and I think it would be fair for that also to happen for Wales. However, in relation to individual constituencies, analysis shows that the political effects of different constituency sizes tend to cancel one another out.
Analysis of recent elections has shown that it takes more electors to elect a Conservative MP than a Labour MP, but that is almost entirely down to turnout. The turnout is much higher in constituencies won by the Conservatives than in those won by Labour. That is the main effect. The secondary effect has tended to be that people move from Labour-held constituencies into Conservative-held constituencies. Clearly, if there is a long time between boundary reviews, that has an effect, so I fully agree with the Government that we should be speeding up the process of boundary reviews. It would not be fair to have an election in 2020 based on electoral data from 2000, which is what we would have under the present system.
Although I agree with the Government on the issues that I have mentioned, I do not think it necessary to have the 5% straitjacket or to have exactly 600 MPs. We should allow the Boundary Commission some flexibility. The number of MPs should be, say, 600 plus or minus five. It is important to put a cap such as that on the number, because in the past, when boundary commissions have used their discretion, the number of MPs has tended to drift upwards. The number has come down only when there have been constitutional changes such as independence for the Irish Republic or the abolition of the rule that meant that Scotland had on average more MPs than England, to which I referred. When it has been left up to the Boundary Commission, the number has tended to creep up gradually over the years. Therefore, having a cap is correct, but there should be a bit of flexibility—say, 600 MPs plus or minus five.
As a country, we are fortunate in having a politically independent Boundary Commission. Many other countries have boundary commissions in which there is political interference: the United States is an obvious example. We should allow the Boundary Commission a bit more flexibility than would be allowed by the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill as it stands.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
I completely agree with the hon. Gentleman that the independence of the Boundary Commission, or the boundary commissions in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, is vital, but they quite often get it wrong. In fact, invariably over the past few years, their first version has, as they themselves have readily admitted, not fitted the bill. That is why we think it very important to keep hold of public inquiries, whereby people can test in public the arguments about the shaping of constituencies. Does the hon. Gentleman agree?
Mr Reid
I am not convinced by the hon. Gentleman’s argument in that regard. One of the things I have always found problematic with the present system is the fact that there are only 28 days for people or organisations to put in objections or suggestions. Many organisations—for example, community councils in Scotland—meet on a monthly cycle, and it was often just pure luck as to whether the community council was meeting at a time that would allow it to put in objections. Therefore, the Government’s proposals in the Bill for a period of three months are very important. That will allow plenty of time for local debate. Twenty-eight days does not allow proper time for local debate, because by the time that a local newspaper has carried the detail of the proposal, a week of the 28 days will often be gone, and by the time that people get together and hold meetings, the whole of the 28 days will often be gone. The Government’s proposal for three months but without a public inquiry will be an improvement, because it will allow local debate. Although there might not be face-to-face debates at a public inquiry, there will be local debates through the local press over a three-month period. That will allow many more people to participate than would be the case at a public inquiry. Ordinary people will not take several days off work to turn up to public inquiries, whereas they can engage in debate at local public meetings in the evening or in the columns of a local newspaper.
The 5% straitjacket that the Bill imposes is not an absolute principle, because there are exceptions for certain island groups and there is also a 13,000 sq km area cap. I fully support the clause in the Bill that says that Orkney and Shetland and Na h-Eileanan an Iar should have their own constituencies. Since 1918, independent boundary commissions have always allowed individual constituencies for those island groups. It was only at the last boundary review that Orkney and Shetland was written into legislation as having its own constituency, but the Boundary Commission still decided that Na h-Eileanan an Iar should have its own constituency despite its not being written into the legislation. I am fully behind the Government on that.
[Mrs Linda Riordan in the Chair]
As my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives said, however, we would like the Government to elaborate on the principles behind where the exceptions should be. We were not able to tease out from them during the debate on the Floor of the House why the two island constituencies I have mentioned were to be exceptions, but there were not to be exceptions for other islands. As my hon. Friend pointed out, part of the Isle of Wight will share a constituency with the mainland. There is also the island of Anglesey. Under the new rules, the constituency that it would be in would include part of the mainland of Wales.
While we are talking about islands, I want to draw the Minister’s attention to my constituency, which contains many islands. In fact, it contains 25 inhabited islands. Thirteen of those have a public air service or a public ferry service, or both. I visit all those islands as part of my constituency tour. I sent the Minister a copy of the itinerary for my constituency tour, pointing out to him that it takes several weeks to get round the constituency.
That factor is important. Constituents are entitled to have the opportunity to meet their Member of Parliament face to face. As my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives pointed out, there are electronic means of communication these days, but that is no substitute for the Member of Parliament going to individual communities in their constituency and seeing the facts on the ground—or, as my hon. Friend pointed out, at sea. It is also important that constituents be able to meet their Member of Parliament face to face in their own community. I would therefore like the Minister to elaborate on the reasons why the two island groups I have mentioned were chosen as exceptions, and not other islands.
Let me give hon. Members some statistics. As I said, my constituency contains 13 islands that can be reached only by an air or ferry service. That compares with only three in Na h-Eileanan an Iar, because of all the causeways that have been built there. That means that every island in the island group is connected to Lewis and Harris, the Uists or Barra by a fixed link. Therefore, Na h-Eileanan an Iar is in effect three islands, whereas my constituency contains 13 islands that can be reached only by air or sea. If we compare Argyll and Bute with Na h-Eileanan an Iar, we also find that Argyll and Bute has twice the land area and three times the electorate. The Boundary Commission could therefore perhaps be allowed some flexibility to take into account islands and large areas where few people live.
Elsewhere on the highland mainland, the Government have introduced the 13,000 sq km rule. It is important to note that that rule will not result in the creation of new constituencies that are more than 5% under the quota, but it will create three constituencies that are a strange shape. To get within 5% of the quota and to meet the 13,000 sq km rule, the Boundary Commission will have to create three strange constituencies, each containing part of the Greater Inverness area and a large part of the rural highlands and islands. One constituency will comprise part of Inverness, going north and west all the way to Cape Wrath. Another will contain part of Inverness and go all the way west to include the Isle of Skye. The third will contain part of Inverness and go south and east. Those three constituencies will look very strange, and there will be little shared community interest between the different communities in them. As I said, we are supposed to represent communities, but someone in a remote, rural part of north-west Sutherland and somebody in the city of Inverness have little shared community interest.
That leads me to suggest that the Government are being too formulaic in simply writing in a 13,000 sq km cap without taking into account a constituency’s size and shape. Let me give the example of my constituency. Loch Fyne, which is a long sea loch, cuts the mainland part of my constituency almost exactly in two. If some miracle happened and Loch Fyne were suddenly filled in, my constituency’s land area would increase, which would take it closer to the Government’s 13,000 sq km cap. However, it would also make the constituency easier to drive around, because I would no longer have to drive all the way up to the top of Loch Fyne and all the way back down the other side when I went from Dunoon, where I live, to the western part of my constituency.
Chris Bryant
The hon. Gentleman is not advocating filling the loch in, is he?
Mr Reid
Loch Fyne is a beautiful loch with beautiful scenery, and I am certainly not advocating filling it in; I am just giving an example of how the land area would increase if the geography were different. That would take us closer to the Government’s cap, but it would also make it easier to drive across the constituency. The point I am trying to make is that land area by itself makes for too crude a formula, and the rules should take into account the constituency’s shape and the difficulties of travelling around the constituency. It is difficult to write such things into a formula, which is why we need to give the Boundary Commission a bit more flexibility than the Government propose in the Bill. Islands, peninsulas, sea lochs and so forth must also be taken into account. The House of Lords will shortly re-examine the Bill, and I hope that the Government will be amenable to accepting amendments to give the Boundary Commission a bit more flexibility.
To sum up, I am fully in favour of capping the House of Commons, but, again, there should be a bit of flexibility. I am also fully in favour of speeding up Boundary Commission proceedings. Furthermore, although it is important that constituencies have close to the same number of people in each, it is also important to have flexibility to deal with the small number of constituencies with unique geographic circumstances—rural constituencies in the highlands and islands, the Isle of Wight and Anglesey, and constituencies in Cornwall. Members from those places have come to the House to speak to Ministers and argue for a bit of flexibility. The constituencies where the Boundary Commission would exercise flexibility would be a tiny proportion of the whole. Making provision for such flexibility would improve the Bill and mean that we represented much more cohesive communities than we would under the Bill as it stands. I hope the Government will listen. We are fortunate in having a politically independent Boundary Commission, and we should trust it with a bit more discretion over constituency and community boundaries.
Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)
I am grateful for the opportunity to take part for the first time in a debate under your chairmanship, Mrs Riordan. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Andrew George), if for no other reason than that the debate gives me an opportunity to repeat the arguments that I made on the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill on Second Reading. As I said then, there should be some flexibility in the 600-seat straitjacket, to borrow a phrase used by my hon. Friend the Member for Argyll and Bute (Mr Reid).
Those of us who have been involved in politics for many years will have had opportunities to redraw boundaries at various stages and to make submissions to the Boundary Commission. Whether we are dealing with constituency or ward boundaries, the fact is that the jigsaw never fits together. It is a big mistake to put the commission in a straitjacket and to limit it to 600.
It is important that constituents identify to some extent with the unit of administration in which they live. That applies nationally, and I am a great believer in the idea that the nation state is the ideal unit of government. It also applies at local level. My constituency had the misfortune to be moved into the county of Humberside in the 1970s, and the legacy of that lives on. People deeply resent being moved around in that way.
I served as a constituency agent for 15 years before my move to the House. I served in the Gainsborough constituency, a large rural Lincolnshire constituency neighbouring mine, and it made me appreciate that identities vary considerably over geographically relatively short distances of 30 or 40 miles. To be perfectly honest, people in Gainsborough had no interest in what happened 30 miles down the road. Incidentally, that constituency, with the exception of one ward, had the benefit of being within one district council area.
Continually changing boundaries will impact on the vitality and sustainability of local political parties. The democratic process needs viable local parties and associations, but constant boundary changes inevitably impact on their viability. Taking one ward out of a constituency can render the local party virtually bankrupt if the ward’s financial make-up means that it contributes greatly to the party. We need to think seriously about that.
My hon. Friend the Member for Argyll and Bute spoke about the step-by-step increase in the number of Members over the years. Although it is true that there has been an increase, the population itself has grown significantly. I sat in the upper House during its debate yesterday, and I was reminded that there were 33 million electors in 1945. The number of eligible voters has now risen to 45 million. So, although I have no instinctive intrinsic objection to rounding off a reduction in the number, I think that it is extremely foolish to limit it to 600.
As to the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle (John Stevenson) made about reform of the House of Lords, I favour a predominantly elected upper House, and there is an opportunity, as he suggested in his intervention, to consider framing that House so that it clearly identifies with communities, particularly if we go along with what I regard as the misguided course of having 600 seats in the House of Commons.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
I had not realised, Mrs Riordan, that the hon. Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers), would sit down quite so suddenly, even though you gave me a warning just before he began his speech that I would soon be called.
I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George). I think he blames me for his not having been able in previous debates to make some of the arguments he has made today. I note from the giggling at the far end of the Chamber that that is probably the tenor of his argument. However, he has been able to discuss some of the issues today. He is right that some of them are being debated in the House of Lords at the moment. As I understand it, they have another 70 or 80 sets of amendments to deal with, and of course the process there is rather different from that in the House of Commons. Rather more time is being devoted to the Bill in the Lords, and some issues are being talked through in rather more depth. I hope that in what is sometimes a less partisan environment, some of the changes that the hon. Gentleman has advocated today will come about.
I note that the hon. Members who have spoken so far have constituencies that are called “something and something”; or rather, Cleethorpes is not really like that—the constituency is just called Cleethorpes—but I note that its Member of Parliament refers to it on his website as “Cleethorpes, Immingham, Barton and the Wold Parishes”. That just makes the point that in the historic past, when there were either county or borough Members of Parliament, everyone pretty much knew who represented them. If someone was described as the Member of Parliament for Manchester, someone who lived in Manchester knew that that was their Member of Parliament. However, through the passage of universal suffrage, the enfranchisement of women, and the steady process of changing the franchise and drawing up constituencies in the 20th century, we ended up with many constituencies that are incomprehensible to voters. One of my concerns is that the Bill now in the House of Lords will lead to a greater sense of uncertainty for voters about who their Member of Parliament is.
It is relatively easy in the Rhondda. Those who live in the Rhondda know they do, and the physical boundary is relatively well known, so people can work out quite easily that the person referred to as Member of Parliament for the Rhondda is their MP. In cities it tends to be more complicated. I suspect that things are fairly straightforward in Forest of Dean. My anxiety is that some of the provisions in the Bill will make it more difficult for voters to see such matters with clarity.
John Stevenson
I am fortunate, in that I represent the city of Carlisle, which is easy to identify, but interestingly enough, in the seat of my neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart), there are three district councils; one of the divisions of the county council is split between the two of us. In our experience, there does not seem to be that much of a problem in identifying which of us represents the people of the area. I question whether it is as big a problem as the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) thinks it is.
Chris Bryant
I do not question the hon. Gentleman’s experience, although it is relatively new. However, things are certainly very difficult in many constituencies. I get more people thinking that they are in the Rhondda who are not than the other way round. People who live in Tonyrefail, who might one day—who knows?—be in the constituency of Greater Rhondda, but are presently in the constituency of Pontypridd, believe they live in the Rhondda. There is confusion, and my anxiety is that we should not make greater confusion for voters. Most of the time most voters do not worry about such matters. It is not the most important issue in their lives.
Andrew George
I entirely support the point that the hon. Gentleman is making. Indeed, the boundary of my constituency changed at the 2010 election and those constituents who used to live in my old constituency still contact me. Given the arrangements in the Bill, that sort of thing would happen at every election, so there would be confusion. The point really is that while the hon. Gentleman is content about representing a constituency that is wholly the Rhondda—as is the hon. Member for Carlisle (John Stevenson) about representing one that is wholly Carlisle—under the Bill, at some point a line could be drawn right through the middle of either of those constituencies.
Chris Bryant
Yes. For some strange reason I seem to have been up in Oldham recently. Oldham East and Saddleworth feels as it if it has been slammed together with no consideration of what constitutes a community.
I do not want to focus too much on that issue; I really want to talk about equalisation of seats. I cannot remember which hon. Member said it, but it is absolutely right that the apparent party political advantage to the Labour party from the fact that it takes more voters to elect a Conservative MP than a Labour one is far more to do with turnout than anything else. The equalisation of seats will make barely any difference, according to calculations done by virtually every academic so far, to the partisan advantage of one political party or another. For that matter, a 5 or 10% leeway would not make a great difference, on a partisan basis, to one or other party. In Labour constituencies there have tended to be smaller majorities, but still safe seats, whereas a Conservative safe seat tends to have a very large majority, because there is a much higher turnout.
I support equalisation to an extent, and certainly as things stand the situation is not right; it is not acceptable and there should be greater equalisation. However, I worry about the Government trying to get 99% of all seats within a very tight band. That is a much tighter band than in any other country, and it is being done on the basis of registered electors, whereas most other countries use population. The hon. Member for St Ives was right when he said it would be a mistake if, because of the Bill, we ended up with—I think these were his words—“antiseptic constituencies” with permanently mobile boundaries. That would not be good for representation of views in Parliament or for ensuring that a full cross-section of British society is here. Nor would it make it easier for people to understand who represents them, and to maintain that continuity.
To give one tiny instance, if a constituent comes to a Member with a case and the Member takes it up, it might take many years, as did many of the miners’ compensation cases that I took up. Someone whose Member stops representing them because of the boundary change must start all over again, from the beginning, because the data protection people have said that MPs cannot hand the file over to another MP. [Interruption.] The Minister is saying something. I do not know whether he wants to intervene; perhaps he will respond later.
On a point of information, international comparisons are often cited regarding the need for greater equalisation. In fact, in the United States of America, if the same equation is made concerning how many voters it takes to get someone elected, Wyoming has nearly 10.5 times the representation, for population, of California. They base their arrangements not on registered or eligible voters, but on population. Sometimes it is good to equalise—but only to an extent.
It is important to recognise the distinctness of various parts of the country when we are drawing up boundaries. Some have already been mentioned. The Isle of Wight was referred to in some of the debates we had in the House of Commons. We believe that the distinctness of the Isle of Wight should be recognised in the statute, and hold a similar belief regarding Cornwall. I note that yesterday was the anniversary of the crossing of the Rubicon. I do not know whether the crossing of the Tamar is still an ambition of the Government. In one sense, Cornwall is only administratively in England. It has a distinctness that should be recognised. If there were a referendum in Cornwall on whether Cornwall should have Cornwall-only seats, there would be an overwhelming majority in favour. I hope the Government will think again on that matter.
Many of the same issues apply to Anglesey, though in that case it goes the other way in being too small, as opposed to the Isle of Wight being too large. The point was made about Argyll and Bute, and, although it did not sound like special pleading, of course it was. However, the point was well made: it is in many ways a sparser constituency than the highland seats. There is a strong argument for the distinctiveness of Argyll and Bute.
Although I understand the issues about Wales—in particular north-west Wales, where there is a high concentration of people with Welsh as their first language—a drive towards equalisation may, and in some academics’ views will, lead to no parliamentary seat having a Welsh-speaking majority. That would be a mistake in terms of how the British Parliament is viewed in Wales, and would incense a greater sense of nationalism. The Government should recognise that.
My final point on specifics that should be recognised concerns estuaries. The hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Mr Reid) referred to sea lochs, but it is important that wide estuaries such as those on the Mersey, the Humber, the Clyde, the Forth and the Thames should not be crossed when creating parliamentary constituencies. Some argue that that should apply to Welsh valleys, because of their peculiarities. It would seem odd if a small part of the top of a valley—even if there was no connecting road—was bunged into another constituency. However, I think most issues in the Welsh valleys can be addressed; there is no specific reason why not.
A 10% rather than a 5% leeway would mean there was no need to cross ward boundaries in the creation of seats. In some of the big city conurbations, that is important. There would be no need to cross county boundaries—all geographical and physical necessities that the land, or God or whoever has given us could be met, and there would be no dramatic harm to the representativeness that the Government seek to achieve in aiming for equalisation. I hope that, in striving towards their measures, the Government will look again at whether 10% might not be a better leeway than 5%.
I want briefly to say a couple of words about the number of seats in Parliament. The hon. Member for Argyll and Bute said that the number has always crept up, except when the Irish Free State was created and we cut the numbers. However, the measure we should think about first is the nature of the job of a Member of Parliament. International comparisons were made by the hon. Member for St Ives. However, to compare the UK with Spain, France or Germany—where Governments are not constituted in the same way—is to compare apples with pears and is therefore mistaken. Similarly, the powers held by parliamentarians in those countries are very different. In France, much more is devolved and done by councillors. We have far fewer councillors—one for every 3,000 voters, whereas in France it is one for every 110. Those comparisons do not bear examination.
As MPs, we create the Government; we are the electoral college, as it were, for the Prime Minister and the whole of the Government. All Ministers have to come out of Parliament, because the amendment in the 1689 Bill of Rights was lost. Dramatic cuts in the number of MPs would be a mistake. The number of constituents has grown and grown over the years, as has the amount of casework we are expected to do.
I have two final points. I wonder how the AV Bill—I cannot remember what it is called—
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr Mark Harper)
The Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill.
Chris Bryant
From a sedentary position, the Minister has helped me out. I wonder how the Bill is doing in the House of Lords. As I understand it, the Bill has to be out of the House of Lords in February in order to have the referendum in May. With another 70, 80, 90 sets of amendments, I wonder whether it is now possible for the Bill to have the two weeks between Committee and Report stages in the House of Lords, and come back to the House of Commons. I urge the Minister—indeed, I make him an offer: if he splits the two elements of the Bill, as we urged in the beginning, we could help him get his AV referendum in time for May.
House of Lords reform has been briefly mentioned by several Members. When are we going to have that Bill? It was originally going to be before Christmas, then at the beginning of the year, then in January. We hear rumours of March, April and May. When will we get the Bill?
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr Mark Harper)
It is good to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Riordan. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers), it is the first time I have done so.
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Andrew George) for securing the debate, and giving me and the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) the chance to spend the entire morning in Westminster Hall, debating a fascinating range of topics.
My hon. Friend the Member for St Ives ranged widely across a number of constitutional issues. I hope I will deal with all the points he raised, but I might be a little pressed. I will deal first with the issues he raised, as it is his debate, and then touch on some raised by other Members. He started with the question of why the Government settled on 600 as the right number for the House of Commons. We were frank during the debate on the Bill. There is no magic about it; it is a judgment. The two coalition parties had different views before the election. They both wanted to shrink the size of the House of Commons: the Conservatives to 585, and the Liberal Democrats to 500, albeit with a change to the voting system. We settled on 600, which we thought was the right balance; as several Members have pointed out, constituencies should not be so large in population that Members could not do the job. With 600, most constituencies would be within a range that Members today would recognise, and we do not think it is an enormous leap.
The hon. Member for Rhondda said he would be against a dramatic cut in the number of MPs. The Government would be as well; we are not making a dramatic cut. We are making a modest reduction of about 7%. One can argue about it, but I do not think anyone can say that a reduction of 7% is dramatic.
I was aware of the Bill brought forward by the hon. Member for St Ives. He said that his Bill proposed a reduction to 500, primarily as a result of devolution. Prior to the formation of this Government, people argued that we should treat the parts of the United Kingdom that have a devolved Parliament or Assembly differently from those parts that do not, in terms of entitlement to seats at Westminster. That idea was put forward but the Government decided not to do that. We were keen to treat all parts of the United Kingdom in the same way, so the quota is a United Kingdom quota. Because of where we start from, the impact of the change in the number of seats will differ in different parts of the UK. That is because we want the weight of a constituent’s vote to be equal across the United Kingdom, and that is an important principle.
My hon. Friend the Member for St Ives, supported by my hon. Friend the Member for Argyll and Bute (Mr Reid), wanted to know what principles guided us on the two exceptions. First, we wanted a set of principles that were widely applicable and that gave the boundary commissions the chance to allow it. We made only two exceptions out of the 600 seats for exceptional geographical reasons; the constituencies both have small populations but are large enough to sustain a Member of Parliament, as they do now, because of their dispersed geography.
I know that the matter is debatable. My hon. Friend the Member for Argyll and Bute demonstrated an encyclopaedic knowledge of his constituency, as one would expect from an assiduous Member of Parliament; he certainly taught me something. None the less, I still believe that the Government have made the right judgment about the two exceptional constituencies that he selected. I would not be so churlish as to suggest that he was pleading for anything special. However, the hon. Member for Rhondda did so; he engaged in special pleading for Wales, something about which those who participated in the debate on the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill heard an awful lot. We heard much about the Welsh valleys and Welsh constituencies, as the record will show.
My hon. Friend the Member for St Ives and my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Sarah Newton), who is not in her seat, made some specific points about Cornwall. My hon. Friend the Member for St Ives spoke about what he called—I have to be careful here—the border between Cornwall and England. I think that he raised exactly the same point when we were debating the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill. He referred today to the length of that debate; we had eight days of debate in the House, and he has obviously had the opportunity today to expand on the points that he made then.
In response to that debate, I said that although that view is shared by some in Cornwall, the Government’s position is that Cornwall is part of England and the United Kingdom; we do not recognise that boundary in quite the same constitutional way as does my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives. I understand why my hon. Friend takes that view, but I was surprised that the hon. Member for Rhondda appeared to suggest that the boundary had constitutional significance. I do not know whether the Opposition have changed policy and are trying to separate Cornwall from England, but I do not suggest that my hon. Friend takes that view.
My hon. Friend made some good points, including about the difficulty of getting to London from his constituency. That is something that he and I can both take up with First Great Western. I see that my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose) has arrived for the next debate; he, too uses that train service and will concur. That will be the best way to deal with that problem.
My hon. Friend the Member for St Ives accepted in general the strong case for moving towards equal seats. I was most impressed by his novel arguments, which I have not heard before, for claiming significant parts of the Atlantic ocean as part of his constituency. We might get into all sorts of territorial difficulties if we did so, but it was a novel idea.
My hon. Friend and his fellow Members of Parliament for Cornish seats met the Prime Minister and me to make a pitch and to explain why they believe that the nature of Cornwall is unique. I would leave him with this notion. The Government do not subscribe to the view that one cannot represent constituents in Cornwall and other parts of the country, Devon being the most obvious. “We already have Members of the European Parliament who represent the whole of the south-west of England, and so represent constituents in Cornwall, in Devon and, indeed in Gibraltar perfectly ably.” Cornwall and Devon also share a police force. The border is not inviolate.
I do not accept the argument put by my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives, although I know that my hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall (Sheryll Murray) shares his view, about a Member of Parliament representing, say, part of Plymouth and part of Cornwall. Of course, some things are more important to one group of constituents than to others, but that is true of many constituencies. I have a fairly large rural constituency, and at one end of it a particular range of matters will be important that have no connection with those at the other end because of the distance. Nevertheless, I have to represent them all and understand all those issues. That is part of the job of being a Member of Parliament. The Government do not share the view that it is impossible to deal with that.
Andrew George
Of course it is not impossible to represent Gibraltar and Cornwall; nor is it impossible to represent places on either side of the Scottish border. However, the Minister has rather inventively twisted some of my evidence on what was so exceptional about the two constituencies that have been preserved. The question that he must address is what is the problem in allowing the Boundary Commission reasonable flexibility to allow constituencies that have a clearly shared view about where their boundaries should lie? That is particularly so as those areas outside them would not be affected and certainly would not be protesting against such a settlement.
Mr Harper
The principle that votes should be of more equal weight across the country is important. Several Members have used words and phrases such as straitjacket and the rules being too tight. If we were to say that all constituencies had to be exactly the same size, my hon. Friend’s argument would have some force. However, although we are reducing flexibility there is still a 10% range in the size of constituencies. Based on the 2009 data, constituencies will broadly range from about 73,000 to almost 80,000. There is still a fair bit of flexibility, which allows the independent boundary commissions to take account of issues such as local authority boundaries, community boundaries and the geographic features that we have to contend with.
In evidence to the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, the boundary commissions said that they would be perfectly able to deal with the rules proposed in the Bill, and that it would not present them with insuperable problems. We are fortunate that the four boundary commissions are politically independent. Those who pretend that some sort of gerrymandering exercise is going on are simply wrong. That phrase emanates from the USA. As one of my hon. Friends said, it is not that there is just some political interference there; in some parts of the United States, the boundaries are drawn up by the legislatures. It is not that there is interference, but it is a political decision on where the boundaries should be. We do not do that here. Parliament sets the framework, but decisions about where the boundaries should go are taken by boundary commissions.
Andrew George
That is the nub of the debate. The exception argument for the two preserved constituencies that the Minister has advanced this morning does not deal with the question of why that principle was decided upon, and why that reasonable flexibility should not also be applied for other constituencies.
Mr Harper
I shall deal briefly with the other two points raised by my hon. Friend, as they were important, particularly so in his part of the country. He was right to draw attention to the need for an accurate and complete electoral register. Our electoral registration system means that 91% or 92% of eligible voters are registered. Internationally, that is pretty good. However, the Government are not complacent and want to do better. That is why I wrote to every local authority in the autumn, inviting them to take part in pilots to consider using public sector databases to improve the accuracy and completeness of the register. We had a good response, and I shall announce which local authorities are to participate in those pilots in due course.
I wrote to my hon. Friend about dual registration, which I know is important in Cornwall. He referred to people who own second homes and who choose to pay business rates because they let those properties. The rules are fairly clear. People who let their property are not entitled to register to vote. There must be a residence qualification, and there is case law on the matter. Electoral registration officers have to make such decisions on individual cases, and they should do so. I have received letters from people who object to not being allowed to register to vote, but one test is for the electoral registration system to be robust with them. Those who own a second home who pop there for only a week every year for a holiday will almost certainly not fulfil the criteria for being resident and entitled to vote. Local authorities could do a lot to help with that.
World Heritage Status (York)
(13 years, 10 months ago)
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Hugh Bayley (York Central) (Lab)
Every MP is proud of his or her constituency, and I, like the hon. Member for York Outer (Julian Sturdy), am specially privileged to represent the city of York. As the new film “The King’s Speech” puts King George VI very much in the public eye, let me remind Members that on a visit to the city, he said that the history of York was also a history of England. When I tell people that York is applying for UNESCO world heritage status, they often express surprise that York has not already achieved such a status. To see why, one just has to look at York’s city walls, York minster, which is the largest gothic cathedral in northern Europe and contains some 60% of our country’s mediaeval stained glass, and the Roman Multangular tower that still stands 10 metres above the ground.
When I speak to people from abroad and tell them that I come from York, everyone, without exception, has heard of the city, and many have visited it in the way in which they have visited Florence, Athens or Jerusalem. York has an enormous international reputation, but I am afraid that that has made us complacent. Until a few years ago, we did not seriously think of applying to UNESCO for designation as a world heritage site, because we knew that we lived in one of the most precious gems in the western world and thought that nothing more needed to be said or done. I pay enormous tribute to Janet Hopton, who has led the campaign locally to seek world heritage designation for the city of York. I stress that it is a citizens’ campaign; it is a campaign that has come not from politicians but from the people of York. None the less, the campaign has all-party support, and we will hear in this debate from the city’s two Members of Parliament.
Over the past three years, I have worked with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and the Minister’s predecessors, my right hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Margaret Hodge) and Barbara Follett, the former Member for Stevenage, to discuss how we in the UK can possibly get the door open again so that UNESCO will consider bids from cities such as York. I should like to thank the Department and the Minister’s officials for their support over that period.
If York had applied for this status a decade ago, I am pretty certain that our application would have been accepted. Now, however, UNESCO understandably and rightly wants to see a balance in its world heritage list. There are already many great walled cathedral cities in this country and other countries on the list, and UNESCO has new ambitions. It may not accept an application for the built heritage of a city such as York. That has made us think more clearly about what is absolutely unique and irreplaceable about York, and we came to the conclusion that it is not what is immediately apparent—the Roman, the Viking or mediaeval built heritage. It is not what is above ground, but what is still hidden underground.
York has been continuously inhabited as a city for 2,000 years. It is built at the confluence of two rivers, the Ouse and the Foss, which makes the ground waterlogged. Such unique anoxic conditions—conditions where the water prevents oxygen getting to objects buried in the ground—preserve centuries-old objects, which, in any other place, would have disintegrated. The water preserves organic material, such as wood, leather and textiles, that otherwise would simply rot away.
We have a Viking shoe and Viking cloth from the Jorvik dig. Wooden buildings from Jorvik can now be seen plank by plank, beam by beam, in the same way in which they would have been seen 1,000 years ago had they not been buried. Even the leftovers from meals are available for analysis. They tell us what people ate 1,000 years ago. There is nowhere else in western Europe with similar anoxic conditions. We know a lot about York from the excavations that have taken place, but only 2% of the ancient city has been excavated; 98% is fully preserved. That is what needs UNESCO’s designation and protection.
If successful, York’s bid would provide the only UNESCO world heritage site inscribed solely on the basis of its underground deposits. York’s unique subterranean heritage is complemented by world-class archaeology in teaching, research, conservation and entrepreneurship. The university of York’s department of archaeology is a centre of excellence in computing for archaeology and bio-archaeology through its environmental archaeology unit. The Council for British Archaeology, which promotes public engagement with archaeology, is a national body but is based in the city of York. The York Archaeological Trust is respected as one of the most successful archaeological trusts. It dug Coppergate 30 years ago and not only produced an incredible record of what life was like in Viking Jorvik but turned archaeology into a commercial success.
Some 17 million visitors have visited the Jorvik Viking centre since it opened in 1984, including the former Prime Minister, Tony Blair. I encourage the present Prime Minister and his family to come and join the many who have visited the Jorvik Viking centre, because I know that he visits north Yorkshire from time to time. The Archaeological Trust also runs the dig centre, which provides hands-on opportunities for young people to experience archaeology. There are also many other bodies based in York, such as the York Glaziers Trust, English Heritage, the Civic Trust, the Georgian Society, the Mediaeval Guilds, the Archaeological Data Service and others. Between them, they create a culture of support for scientific study and conservation of this wonderful and great city, which the hon. Member for York Outer and I have the great privilege to represent.
This bid looks to York’s future as well as its past. We receive 7 million visitors a year, who spend almost half a billion pounds in York, which sustains 20,000 people in employment. We have a visitor economy; people have come to the great cathedral city of the north of England for centuries. The only thing that we really miss in York is a good saint, with relics in the minster. World heritage status would protect and enhance the city’s global reputation.
Julian Smith (Skipton and Ripon) (Con)
Just on the economic benefit that the hon. Gentleman describes, Skipton and Ripon has one of the other Yorkshire world heritage sites of Studley Royal and Fountains Abbey, and one cannot underestimate the huge benefits that such a status gives to the local economy. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for his campaign and give it all my support. For Skipton and Ripon, it makes a huge difference and it would also make a huge difference to York.
Hugh Bayley
That is a very valuable, very kind and very important testimony, because there are some people who believe that world heritage status would act as an economic deadweight on the city and it is my very strongly held view—one shared by all the parties on the city council—that nothing could be further from the truth. Inappropriate development of buildings in York cannot, should not and will not take place whether or not the city gains world heritage status, because York has a duty to respond as if it had the status whether it wins it or not. Nevertheless, the increased international recognition and support that York could receive to preserve the heritage of the city as a result of designation would further benefit the visitor economy.
I should perhaps say how pleased I am to see other Members from Yorkshire here for this debate—the hon. Member for Selby and Ainsty (Nigel Adams) and the hon. Member for Colne Valley (Jason McCartney)—as well as my fellow representative of the city of York, the hon. Member for York Outer, all supporting the argument that I am making to the Minister.
I have a few questions to put to the Minister. I would like him to clarify for us the timetable for the decisions by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport on the tentative list of bids for world heritage status. I ask him personally to read York’s bid; I know that there are 38 bids, but I would like him to give a commitment to us during this debate that he will read York’s bid. I want to tell him that he is welcome to visit York, to see what is being proposed and to discuss with some of the archaeology and heritage bodies in the city why the bid is so important. If he is not able to visit York but would like further briefing, we can arrange for people from the city to come and visit him down here in Westminster. I also want to ask him how many of the 38 applications he believes will end up on the tentative list and, finally, how many of those he would expect to receive approval from UNESCO and when.
Those are my questions to the Minister. I will sit down now, to leave a little time for the other Member for the city of York, the hon. Member for York Outer, to make his own contribution to the debate.
Julian Sturdy (York Outer) (Con)
Thank you very much, Mrs Riordan, for calling me to speak. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today.
I congratulate my neighbouring parliamentary colleague, the hon. Member for York Central (Hugh Bayley), on securing this very important debate for our great city of York and I warmly welcome his speech, which I know comes from a great depth of knowledge. We may represent different political parties, but I have no doubt that he shares my desire to serve our great city for the benefit of all its residents. Indeed, as he has already mentioned, this bid for world heritage status has cross-party political support in the city, which is very important. It is vital that we put aside our tribal differences on this occasion and promote what is great about York and its bid for world heritage status, because a successful bid would be so important for the city.
Of course, I am aware that time is short in this debate and it is very important that we hear from the Minister and give him plenty of time to respond to the debate. The hon. Member for York Central has put some specific questions that I would also like to hear the answers to.
The hon. Gentleman has also outlined the background to York’s bid and he made some very powerful arguments supporting the city’s attempt to be placed on the tentative list for world heritage status. Indeed, I fully subscribe to all the points that have already been made in the debate. The hon. Gentleman talked about people within the city and visitors to the city who are surprised that York is not already on the list for world heritage status, and I share their view; I have had that same experience of people expressing surprise that York is not already on the list. That is a very important point to make in this debate.
In my opinion, York’s outstanding range of archaeological gems is almost unprecedented in the United Kingdom. The city boasts Roman cemeteries, trading settlements and other deposits that can be traced as far back as the seventh century AD. However, thus far we have only scratched the surface. I know that the hon. Gentleman has already mentioned this point, but it is very important; local experts believe that only 2% of the city has been excavated so far, leaving 98% undiscovered. That is an important point that we must mention in this debate and in the wider context of the bidding process.
Indeed, it is the potential for further archaeological finds and breakthroughs that I find the most fascinating aspect of this whole process. Crucially, the bid is not solely reliant on the deposits that have already been discovered, although they are remarkably impressive. I am grateful to see so many of our regional colleagues here today, and Members who attended an earlier meeting will have seen some of those impressive artefacts. Nevertheless, we must also give great consideration to what we have not yet seen and what can potentially be discovered. In my view, we must ensure that a successful world heritage bid is not the end of the process but the beginning of a whole new chapter in the history of York and its archaeological finds. Building a legacy, rather than merely celebrating a legacy, is at the core of this bid.
The department of archaeology at the university of York is already recognised worldwide as a centre of excellence in the teaching of archaeology, and a successful bid would further boost interest and funding, ensuring that York remains a world leader when it comes to pioneering archaeological research.
The bid has attracted support from across the city. As I have already mentioned, there is cross-party support for it and again I want to say how grateful I am to see so many colleagues from the wider region here to support the bid today.
I also want to take this opportunity to praise the York world heritage steering group, which has led the bid with determination and vigour since 2006. We must pay tribute today to the group’s determination to see this whole process through and the experience that it brings to the process.
For me, the potential benefits of a successful bid are countless. First, there are potential economic benefits, which are important. In the past, arguments have occasionally been made against the world heritage bid on the economic front, but I think that those arguments are invalid. On the economic front alone, it is estimated that 23,000 jobs would be safeguarded by a successful bid, with the potential for many more jobs to be created, which would further enhance York’s vital tourism sector and contribute substantially to our local economy.
Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con)
I thank my hon. Friend for giving way and I congratulate the hon. Member for York Central (Hugh Bayley) on securing this wonderful debate. As a Member of Parliament for a west Yorkshire constituency and as someone who was born in north Yorkshire, I hold the subject of the debate very close to my heart. York is a wonderful city. We have already heard lots of wonderful facts about it. Personally, I love bringing my children to the National Railway museum; I love meandering down the Shambles; I like showing Australians around York Minster, and we all enjoyed Royal Ascot when it was held at York race course just a few years ago.
So I just want to stress that there is cross-party support across the region for this bid and I am very proud to be here today to support this application for York to receive world heritage status. Good luck to everybody here, and I hope that the Minister can take on board all our cross-party regional support for this bid.
Julian Sturdy
I thank my hon. Friend for those kind words. It is really important that we already have cross-party support for this bid, as well as regional support, because this process is not just about York; it is about the region too and York is a key city within our region. If it is successful, the bid can bring so much to the city of York and to our great region, benefiting the regional economy and particularly tourism. That is another important point to take away from this debate.
York truly is a beautiful city, set in God’s own county. As a proud, born-and-bred Yorkshireman, I know that York’s heritage is world-class; not only the archaeological side but, as has already been mentioned, the National Railway museum and the Minster. I remember taking my children to the National Railway museum; indeed, I still take them. The city walls, the minster—it really is a fantastic city.
It is a travesty that York is not already a world heritage site and its historical importance must be recognised. I urge the Minister to do all that he can to support York’s bid, without compromising his position. I understand his position in the bidding process, but I urge him to do all he can to support the York bid as we enter what is undoubtedly a crucial phase. I look forward to hearing his comments on the bidding process.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport (John Penrose)
It is a pleasure to have you in the Chair, Mrs Riordan, to look after us during this important debate. I congratulate the hon. Member for York Central (Hugh Bayley) on securing it and being supported by my hon. Friend the Member for York Outer (Julian Sturdy) and other MPs from the Yorkshire area. It is timely, given where we are in the process of assessing the various applications for world heritage site status, and it demonstrates strongly the widespread cross-party support that MPs have mentioned. It is reassuring to see such support not just in Parliament but, as I understand, at a local council and local government level. I am sure that it will underpin the bid’s many strengths and help it dramatically.
I was thankful for a comment made by my hon. Friend the Member for York Outer at the end of his speech. He said—I hope that everybody here will understand this—that I will have to be a bit careful in my remarks, as I must not prejudice my position in advance of the independent report from the committee of experts currently considering the various applications. I hope that everyone here will understand that although I share many of hon. Members’ views on the quality of York’s bid, I must ensure that I take a decision after comparing it against what I am sure will be strong bids in the other applications. Although I agree enthusiastically with many of the points made about York’s qualities, no one should take that as a prejudice in comparison to the strengths and weaknesses of other bids. Others out there will also be good.
From the UK’s point of view, it is particularly important that we have as many high-quality bids as possible. As the hon. Member for York Central pointed out, world heritage organisations have become a great deal more choosy and careful about what kinds of application they are willing to accept, and are raising the bar. To paraphrase him, a large number of northern European cathedral cities, many of which are excellent, wonderful and fully deserving of their status, are world heritage sites. As York is not one of them already, it must distinguish itself in some other way, because there are many other deserving sites in other parts of the world that also deserve proper consideration. He was right to draw that to our collective attention.
The hon. Member for York Central asked whether I would like to visit York. I already have. I am delighted to say that after I became Minister with responsibility for heritage, I did an extensive tour of Yorkshire. I spent some time in York and had the opportunity to see some of the attractions and heritage features that he mentioned, both above and below ground. He is absolutely right: there are some amazing things to see, from the city walls to the minster. I was lucky enough to be shown around the minster, as well as to see stonemasons working on the very fine stonework, which must be replaced continually due to the effects of anno domini on an amazingly complex and old building.
I also visited the Yorkshire museum, where at one point I had the chance to stand on a Roman mosaic set into the floor. I must confess that I was slightly conflicted about doing so. Part of me was amazed and delighted to see such a beautiful piece of Roman mosaic, but standing on it somehow felt wrong. It is a wonderful piece of interactivity. I am told that school parties going through the museum love the chance to interact with an incredibly ancient piece of architecture. However, I also worried, standing on it, that future generations might have half a millimetre less of it to enjoy due to the wear and tear of feet going over it.
There is no doubt that York has plenty to see, much of it involving the city’s amazing architecture. However, as both MPs for York have pointed out, it has a huge wealth of heritage that is almost certainly undiscovered; 98% is the figure commonly used. Clearly, therefore, this is a great opportunity for more to be discovered and for continuing richness to be elaborated and shown to future generations.
The hon. Gentleman asked for more details about the process. I will summarise it briefly. In case I miss anything, I point out that we have put more details of the dates and timetable up on the Department for Culture, Media and Sport website; that should be happening about now. I am told that that information was on the DCMS website but, for some reason that no one can fathom, was taken down by accident recently. We are now putting that right, so more details will be available after this debate for anybody who wants to discover anything extra.
In broad terms, we have encouraged people to apply to be put on the new tentative list. We have received 38 extremely good and varied applications; I am delighted that we have had so many. Those applications are being considered by a panel of independent experts who are assessing them, weighing them up and comparing their relative merits. The panel is at work as we speak, and I expect it to report to me in March, when my officials and I will consider its report and decide on that basis.
The hon. Gentleman asked how many applications we are likely to put on the tentative list and how many applications on the tentative list are likely to be inscribed as world heritage sites. I am afraid that I cannot tell him, because that will depend partly on the report from the independent panel of experts. Clearly, the experts would not be very independent if I told them how many to choose; it will depend on their conclusions. We are allowed to propose only two individual sites from the tentative list for consideration in any given year. If we have a list of 20, we will put those 20 forward in a steady trickle rather than all at once. It will then be up to the world heritage organisation to decide which ones it wants to adopt. We cannot tell whether any will be successful. Obviously, I hope that as many as possible will be.
I will finish with a comment on the questions raised and certainties expressed by both Members for York about the benefits of world heritage status. I agree with both their comments. Some people worry that world heritage status might incur additional costs of one kind or another in increased heritage protection and preservation, or that it might stunt economic growth. I take a different view, as I think do most people. Particularly in places such as York, many entirely sensible measures necessary to preserve heritage are already in place. Little, if any, additional cost would be incurred.
Making it clear that a place is special and distinct adds to its aura and demonstrates that it is worth visiting and a wonderful place to live. It makes the place distinctive. It is not just a question of tourist pounds and dollars, although they are tremendously important for any local economy; it is also important from the point of view of the beauty and sense of a place, and what makes it distinctive, different and worth living in. Therefore, I argue that from a cultural, heritage and economic point of view, the benefits of being a world heritage site are tremendous for a location such as York, and for many other places as well.
Nigel Adams (Selby and Ainsty) (Con)
I accept that point entirely. World heritage site status for York would undoubtedly boost its already fantastic tourism industry, but it could also have a knock-on effect in surrounding areas such as my neighbouring constituency. Selby has fantastic gems, including two famous battlefields and a wonderful abbey, and it was the birthplace of a king of England. I support the bid, and I hope the Minister will take on board the wonderful representations made by the hon. Members from York.
John Penrose
I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. He is absolutely right that a halo effect can be expected from a world heritage site. I have no doubt that the benefits would knock on to other parts of Yorkshire as well.
My only point of difference is with the assertion by my hon. Friend the Member for York Outer that Yorkshire is God’s own county. As someone from Somerset, which of course has better beer and better cricket, I cannot let that go by. Other than that—I had better stop before I get lynched—I am delighted that there is such strong and cross-party support for what I am sure will be an excellent bid.
Prisoner Transfer Agreement (Libya)
(13 years, 10 months ago)
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Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)
Today I want to ask questions relating to the negotiation of the prisoner transfer agreement with Libya, whether its conclusion made the release of the Lockerbie bomber, al-Megrahi, more likely, and whether, despite assurances that the decision to release him was one for the Scottish Executive to make alone, the UK Government set the stage for the release and could have intervened to stop it had they wished to do so. I am grateful that the Minister is here to respond to the debate, because his Department played a pivotal role in negotiating the agreement and advising Government Departments and the Scottish Executive on its consequences.
In December 2010, members of the United States Senate published their report on the release of Megrahi. Their conclusions are not much different from the views expressed by many other individuals who have followed the affair. They conclude that the UK Government were prepared to agree in principle to the release of al-Megrahi in return for the protection of British commercial interests in Libya, particularly those in the energy industries, and that they made it clear to the Scottish Executive that they wanted Megrahi to be released and did nothing to stop that happening. Many people find it hard to believe that the UK Government were powerless because the release was entirely a matter for Scotland and that they rightly chose to apply no pressure to Scottish Ministers on that. However, Parliament has not had the opportunity to explore the matter properly.
Like many other Members, I believe that the release of Megrahi was wrong, and like the authors of the US Senate report, I believe that there should be an inquiry to establish exactly how and why the release came about. I would rather see such inquiries and reports produced by Parliament or the UK Government. I also urge the Cabinet Secretary to conclude his review of the unpublished Government papers relating to the negotiation of the prisoner transfer agreement and the release of Megrahi. He was asked by the Prime Minister to conduct that review last summer, and we are eager for its results.
The purpose of the debate is not to bring forward any criticism of the Libyan Government, who have been clear about their intentions in the negotiation of the PTA and always intended that successful negotiations should lead to Megrahi’s release. One might wonder at the significance of the agreement for them otherwise, as only 20 of the 13,429 foreign prisoners in the UK are Libyan, compared with 188 from neighbouring Algeria.
The former Foreign Secretary, the right hon. Member for South Shields (David Miliband), stated in an interview that to link the prisoner transfer agreement with Libya to British commercial interests in that country was
“a slur both on myself and the Government”.
He said in the House of Commons during a statement following the release of Megrahi that
“there was no deal for the release of Megrahi in respect of trade, and that is absolutely right.”—[Official Report, 12 October 2009; Vol. 497, c. 35.]
However, we know from the records already released by the UK Government that that link was expressly made in the negotiations for the agreement.
The key period of the negotiations came in late 2007. On 23 September that year, the then Lord Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw), offered an unequivocal assurance to the Scottish Government that
“My officials will make clear to the Libyan authorities that without this addition”—
of a clause excluding Megrahi from the agreement—
“it will not be possible to conclude a prisoner transfer agreement”.
However, on 17 December a Ministry of Justice internal briefing note to the PTA negotiations confirmed that the Libyan Government had threatened to halt commercial contracts unless the PTA was agreed. It stated:
“Despite a consistent negotiating line that the case of the Lockerbie bomber would not be covered by the PTA, the Libyans have continued to press for a general agreement and linked the fate of some commercial contracts to its successful conclusion.”
The British objection to the inclusion of Megrahi within the terms of the PTA was then dropped.
Why did the Government drop their insistence on a clause excluding Megrahi from the PTA, and what advice did officials give to Ministers on their decision to drop the clause? They must have known that that would lead to an application from the Libyan Government for his release. Was the Ministry of Justice satisfied with that? Had the then Lord Chancellor been successfully lobbied by representatives of British commercial interest—the US Senate report states that he was lobbied by BP on three separate occasions—or was he lobbied by his colleagues in Government and convinced that it was not a fight worth having? The picture remains unclear. Former Ministers have acknowledged that it is perfectly proper for a Government to consider the importance of commercial relations as part of improving relations between Britain and Libya, but they were reluctant to make the link publically in that instance.
Ministers seemed at pains, once the agreement had been made on the PTA, to stress its relevance to the Libyan Government’s long-standing desire to see Megrahi released. The former Europe Minister, Bill Rammell, wrote to the Libyan Government following the negotiations to explain
“the processes that would apply as regards any consideration of transfer or compassionate release on licence of Mr Megrahi”
and noted how the PTA was “relevant” to this. Mr Rammell also confirmed to the Libyans in a meeting in Libya that the Government did not want to see Megrahi die in prison. Once agreed, the PTA, although offering no guarantees, was clearly a mechanism designed to support that wish. The former Lord Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Blackburn, also advised that a decision on the transfer of a prisoner under the terms of the PTA
“may be subject to judicial review”.
Therefore, even if a Scottish Minister had refused release, the decision could have been reviewed by the courts. Is that still the view of the Ministry of Justice on how the PTA could work in practice?
Despite the often repeated line from Ministers that the final decision to release Megrahi was one for Scottish Ministers, the sensitive nature of his release, its consequences for international relations and the fact that his imprisonment was the result of his conviction for an international terrorism offence, meant that the UK Government could and should have intervened. That was certainly the view of many people around the world who were so aggrieved by his release, particularly in the United States. It is an issue that the US Senate report also explored. Does the Ministry of Justice believe that the UK Government could have intervened in such a way had they wished to do so? The principle seems to have been conceded by the former Foreign Secretary in his statement to the House of Commons in October 2009, when he said:
“Notwithstanding that any decision on release was for Scottish Ministers and the Scottish judicial system, the UK Government had a responsibility to consider the consequences of any Scottish decision… British interests… would be damaged—perhaps badly—if Megrahi were to die in a Scottish prison.”—[Official Report, 12 October 2009; Vol. 497, c. 35.]
In that case, the previous Government seemed to give greater consideration to the impact of feelings between Britain and Libya than with the USA if he was released. It is clear from the right hon. Gentleman’s remarks that there was a foreign policy dimension to the decision, and this was a matter for the UK Government to consider.
I do not wish to go into the question of the diagnosis of Megrahi’s cancer or his life expectancy. Others can draw their conclusions from the fact that a man who was given three months to live more than 18 months ago is still with us. That may say something about the quality of his diagnosis in Scotland, or the quality of health care and treatment in Libya. When the moment for Megrahi’s release came, the Scottish Government decided that they could not accept it under the PTA as that would compromise an understanding that had been made between the UK and the USA, and so they released him on compassionate grounds as a free man, rather than transferring him as a prisoner. Whatever path they had taken, once the PTA had been agreed, only one outcome looked likely.
The memorandum of understanding between the UK and Libyan Governments that led to the negotiation of the PTA was agreed in the same month that BP signed its agreement with Libya. The relationship between UK commercial interests and the fate of Megrahi has been a constant thread throughout the proceedings. Their conclusion angered many people around the world, particularly the families of the Lockerbie bombing victims. I ask that we have either a full disclosure from the Government of the decision-making process that led to that, or an inquiry to establish why that happened.
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) on securing this important debate and on the way he set out his argument, particularly the questions he has asked the Minister. The question being discussed today is whether al-Megrahi should have been released in the way he was. Some of my constituents have written to me on the issue. They and many others across the country are worried that the former Prime Minister or his colleagues did a secret deal on the release of al-Megrahi to help BP win oil contracts with Libya, and that devolution was used as a fig leaf for commercial purposes. It is a serious accusation to make. Like many people in Scotland and across the country, everyone is anxious to know the real facts.
As I noted last year in my early-day motion 575, in September 2007 the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw), the then Justice Secretary, assured the Scottish Government that al-Megrahi would be excluded from the final prisoner transfer agreement. In December 2007, the Scottish Government were told by the UK Government that they had been unable to secure an exemption for al-Megrahi and had decided to go ahead with the agreement
“in view of the overwhelming interests of the UK”.
In January 2008, Libya ratified a major oil deal with BP that had previously been stalled. That is why I asked the current Prime Minister on 6 September 2010 what meetings his predecessor or his predecessor’s officials had held with BP or the Libyan Government between July 2007 and March 2008, and whether the subject of any such meetings was
“oil drilling off the coast of Libya.”
The Prime Minister replied:
“I have asked the Cabinet Secretary to review all the papers relating to this issue, and we will report shortly on his conclusions.”—[Official Report, 6 September 2010; Vol. 515, c. 2W.]
A few months later, I asked when the Cabinet Secretary might finish his review. I am grateful to the Prime Minister for his reply, which was:
“The Cabinet Secretary expects to conclude his work shortly. Dependent upon the outcome, this may include publishing additional relevant papers.”—[Official Report, 2 November 2010; Vol. 517, c. 681W.]
In the end, al-Megrahi was released not under the prisoner transfer agreement but on compassionate grounds. Despite the reports of terminal cancer, he is still alive today. Whatever the commercial effects on BP, al-Megrahi was tried and convicted in a British court of murdering 270 people. A mass murderer convicted by our courts was let out of prison and sent back to a dictatorship where he was welcomed as a hero and now lives in freedom. That is not something that we can forget. We need to know whether the release was legitimate, or whether it was a distortion of the will of a British court.
Let me be clear: the coalition Government are doing absolutely the right thing on transparency and opening up information to the public. I welcome this debate because Britain deserves to know the facts. I urge the Scottish Cabinet Secretary to move swiftly, so that the Government can report as soon as possible on his conclusions. Devolution or not, never again must a known mass murderer be released under such controversy.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Crispin Blunt)
I would like to follow the usual courtesies and congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) on securing this debate. The prisoner transfer agreement with Libya has attracted significant parliamentary and media attention since the negotiations began in 2007, and I know that since his arrival in the House, he has sought information relating to those negotiations and the subsequent release by the Scottish Executive of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi. I hope during the course of my remarks to address a number of the points that he made, and I hope that I will have some satisfactory news about the Scottish Cabinet Secretary at their conclusion.
Let us be clear: Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was convicted of causing the largest peacetime loss of life on British territory. His actions and those of his backers resulted in the death of 190 Americans, 43 Britons and 19 people of other nationalities. Shortly before Christmas, families and friends of the innocent victims commemorated the 22nd anniversary of their murder. I am sure that their pain is still great, and that the memory of what happened that night will live with them always. The release of al-Megrahi on compassionate grounds can only have added to that pain. In that sense, I echo the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) at the conclusion of his remarks.
Al-Megrahi’s release from custody was a decision made solely by Scottish Ministers in accordance with Scots law. My hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe will be aware that the Scottish First Minister and the Scottish Minister for Justice responsible for the decision have made that clear in their public statements, and that the Scottish Minister for Justice has also set out publicly the reasons for reaching that decision. Many hon. Members disagreed with it. At the time, my right hon. Friends the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary both condemned the decision to release al-Megrahi on compassionate grounds, and described it as wrong and misguided. Nevertheless, it is important to recognise that the decision to release al-Megrahi was a legitimate decision for the Scottish Executive to make.
I now turn to the negotiation of the prisoner transfer agreement, but I should first make it clear, as my hon. Friends the Members for Harlow and for Folkestone and Hythe did, that it was not the means used to facilitate the release of al-Megrahi. Indeed, his request for a transfer to a Libyan prison was refused by Scottish Ministers, in line with the terms of the agreement.
Hon. Members will be aware that in May 2007, the then Prime Minister, Tony Blair, visited Libya for discussions with the President, Muammar al-Gaddafi, and that during the course of that visit a memorandum of understanding was signed between the United Kingdom and Libya which provided for the negotiation of four agreements in the field of judicial co-operation. The agreements related to extradition, criminal and civil law, mutual legal assistance and prisoner transfers. They were intended, in part, to mark the return of Libya to the international community following its renunciation of support for international terrorism and its pursuit of weapons of mass destruction. That was an important policy objective of the UK Government and their European partners at the time.
Responsibility for the negotiation of prisoner transfer agreements on behalf of the UK rests with the Ministry of Justice. Since 1985, the UK has negotiated 23 bilateral prisoner transfer agreements, including the one with Libya. In addition, it is a signatory to two multi-party prisoner transfer agreements. In all, the UK has prisoner transfer agreements with more than 100 countries and territories, so the essence of the fact that there are only 20 Libyans in our prisons is not necessarily unique in terms of the arrangements that we have with other countries. There are not that many Rwandans in our prisons either; again, we have a prisoner transfer agreement with Rwanda.
Negotiation of the prisoner transfer agreement with Libya was conducted over several months by a small team of officials from the National Offender Management Service with the assistance of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, which is normal practice. The right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw), then the Secretary of State for Justice, was the Minister responsible for the negotiations. The officials responsible for negotiating the prisoner transfer agreement did so on the basis of a negotiating mandate agreed at each stage with Ministers. At the outset, it included a remit to exclude from the prisoner transfer agreement al-Megrahi and anyone connected with the Lockerbie bombing.
I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe will understand that I am bound by convention in what I can say about the actions of a previous Administration. That is particularly the case in describing the motives of the previous Government in seeking to conclude a prisoner transfer agreement with Libya, and their subsequent decision not to insist on a clause that would exclude al-Megrahi from it. In that sense, I am unable to endorse the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow about its being a secret deal, with devolution being a fig leaf.
The right hon. Member for South Shields (David Miliband), then the Foreign Secretary, made a statement to the House on 12 October 2009 in which he stated:
“In May 2007, Prime Minister Tony Blair made his second visit to Libya. His summit with Colonel Gaddafi at Sirte covered the full range of our interests with Libya. Mr. Blair signed a defence accord and witnessed the public signature of a major BP exploration contract. Also agreed was a memorandum of understanding on negotiations for a judicial co-operation package, including a prisoner transfer agreement and agreements on mutual legal assistance, extradition, and civil and commercial law.
The UK had a model agreement, based on Council of Europe arrangements, that was the starting point for negotiation on our prisoner transfer agreements with any country and that provided the starting point for negotiations with the Libyans. Four points are relevant. First, a PTA provides for prisoner transfer, not prisoner release. Secondly, it provides a framework for transfer, not a right to transfer. Thirdly, a PTA cannot be used when appeals, including by the prosecuting authority, are outstanding, as in this case. Fourthly, Ministers in the sentencing jurisdiction—in this case Scotland—have an absolute right to veto any transfer.
This standard draft had no provision for any carve-out for any named prisoner. However, the Scottish Executive made strong representations for us to seek to alter the standard PTA so as specifically to exclude Mr. Megrahi. The UK negotiation team, led by the Ministry of Justice, sought in good faith to achieve this goal.
The Libyans insisted that the only PTA that they would sign was a PTA without any exclusions. So the Government had a clear choice. We could agree to a standard PTA with no exclusions, retaining for Scottish Ministers an absolute veto over any request for prisoner transfer in the case of Megrahi—a veto which they used in August this year”—
August 2009—
“or we could have ended the negotiations to prevent an application for prisoner transfer. This would have set back our wider national and commercial interests that flowed from normalised relations, as the Justice Secretary has made clear.”
I note the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe that some of his disappointment with the actions of the previous Administration is caused by the fact that they were not prepared to be clear about the interests at stake. The then Foreign Secretary continued:
“Since the PTA involved no prejudice to the rights of the Scottish Executive, nor pressure on the Scottish Executive, the Government decided it was right to go ahead. The PTA finally took effect in April 2009.”—[Official Report, 12 October 2009; Vol. 497, c. 30-31.]
On whether that decision was correct, I do not think I can add anything to the description of the negotiating process.
There has been speculation surrounding the role that commercial interests—primarily those of BP—played in the decision not to seek the exclusion of al-Megrahi from the terms of the PTA. In July 2010, my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary wrote to Senator Kerry, chairman of Senate Foreign Relations Committee, setting out the extent of BP’s involvement. During the several months of discussion in 2007 about Libyan opposition to the possible exclusion in the PTA, there were a number of conversations between BP and the then UK Government. Specifically, there were three discussions between BP and the right hon. Member for Blackburn, or his office, between October and November 2007; at least two contacts in the same period between BP and the then Prime Minister’s foreign policy adviser; and contacts with Her Majesty’s ambassador in Tripoli. During those discussions, the progress of negotiations on the UK-Libya transfer agreement and the likely timing of the agreement being signed were discussed. As BP made clear in its statement on 15 July 2010, it had been made aware by the Libyans that failure to agree the PTA could have an impact on UK commercial interests, including Libyan ratification of the BP exploration agreement signed in May 2007, and it wished to bring that fact to the attention of the UK Government.
Damian Collins
For the record, I want to make it clear that the contact of Sir Mark Allen of BP with the right hon. Member for Blackburn coincided with the change in the British negotiating position on the PTA and the decision to withdraw the exclusion of al-Megrahi.
Mr Blunt
I confess that I have insufficient detail on the times and dates of all the contacts between BP and the various parts of the Government to be able to agree with my hon. Friend, but I imagine that what he says is probably broadly correct and probably not a matter of dispute. As my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary made clear to Senator Kerry, it was perfectly normal and legitimate practice for a British company to draw to the attention of the UK Government the interests at stake.
A significant amount of information relating to the negotiation of the PTA, including correspondence between the then Justice Secretary and Scottish Ministers, has already been made public, and I have drawn upon it in my remarks this afternoon. However, to ensure the fullest possible explanation of the circumstances surrounding the decision, the Prime Minister has instructed the Cabinet Secretary to review the papers to see if more needs to be published about the background to the decision. I know that my hon. Friends eagerly anticipate that report. I can tell them, in civil service language, that it will be published “very shortly”, so I hope that they will not have to wait very long for more information to be placed at their disposal and to see whether it brings new matters to our attention.
I am limited by convention on what can be said about a previous Administration. My hon. Friends have properly drawn the matter to the attention of the House.
Damian Collins
The report of the US Senate suggested that the UK Government had legal authority to intervene in the matter. In my remarks, I asked whether that was the view of the Ministry of Justice.
Mr Blunt
I am grateful for that intervention; I meant to pick up on my hon. Friend’s point. I am advised that, no, it is not a matter on which the UK Government would be in a position to intervene. It is properly a matter for the sentencing authority—in this case, that is Scottish Ministers—to make the decision. They cannot be second-guessed by the UK Government exercising a different authority under the agreement.
My hon. Friend also asked about judicial review of the Scottish decision. The truth is that any prisoner could seek judicial review, and the outcome would be up to the judge who heard the review, but I am advised that it is very difficult to see how a review in those circumstances would meet the test for judicial review or for a decision to be overturned.
Following the request from the Prime Minister, we can look forward to more information from the Cabinet Secretary in a short time. I note that my hon. Friends have urged that the review be brought to a rapid conclusion, and I am confident that their request will be noted and accepted.
Regeneration (Tottenham)
(13 years, 10 months ago)
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Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)
Thank you, Mrs Riordan, for allowing me to have this debate, which comes at such a crucial time for my constituency, wider north London and the upper Lea valley. This is one of the first times that I have had the opportunity in the House to give a speech that surveys my entire constituency. I do not think that I have spoken in this way since my maiden speech 10 years ago. I said then that we have to invest in the souls of Tottenham people as well as their skills.
The decision before us would rip the soul out of my constituency and wider north London, and affect the entire upper Lea valley. I will explain why that is so in relation to regeneration. Three things make being the MP for Tottenham particularly special: one is our history, which is wrapped up in our football team, but also in our special part of north London. Tottenham is on the A10 corridor and the old Roman road that ran from Bishopsgate to Lincoln, York and the north. It is historically part of Middlesex and the home of the Somerset family. Tottenham, and the London Borough of Enfield, is a part of London that people have come to from all corners of the world to make their home, because of the nature of its housing stock and its position near places where people could find jobs.
That point brings me to the second special thing about the constituency, which, of course, is its people. In the past 50 or 60 years of Tottenham’s history, they have been people working in the rag trade, Jewish refugees from violence and prejudice in Europe, and immigrants from the Commonwealth who came to make a new life. Those immigrants included my father, who arrived in this country in 1956. Tottenham is where I grew up. I went to primary school there and I know the streets, so this debate is personal. It is an important opportunity to raise these issues.
The third special thing about my constituency is that it is always wonderful to represent a seat with a top premiership club. It is important to think about the history of the club. Spurs was started 120 years ago by local schoolboys from the Hotspur cricket club, and played in Northumberland park. The team was first brought together by a bible teacher from All Hallows church in Tottenham, and was represented by heroes from the community, many of whom were born and brought up in Tottenham. Successive generations have supported the team for 120 years, paying for tickets and supporting the team throughout its highs and lows.
During the dark days of the 1980s, we saw some of the worst violence that we have ever seen on the streets of this country, but not long afterwards, Tottenham won the FA cup and there was cheering that lifted my spirits at a bleak time. Regeneration of communities such as Tottenham, Moss Side in Manchester, Toxteth in Liverpool and the Gorbals in Glasgow also regenerates our country. Our country’s success is guided by the poorest and the weakest in our communities, so this debate and the decision that may lead to the football club leaving one of London’s poorest communities is grave. Who allowed that to happen? Whose bright idea was it to encourage Tottenham Hotspur to bid for the Olympic stadium on the other side of London, which would leave one of the biggest regeneration holes in London that we have seen for a generation? There are rumours that the Mayor encouraged Spurs to bid, which seems an absurd and ridiculous decision in the context of the regeneration of one of the poorest communities in the country.
At the turn of the 21st century, Tottenham was a town that the Government had forgotten in a part of London that too often failed its residents and especially its young people. When I became the MP for Tottenham, more young people there were going to prison than to university. Tottenham was still scarred by unemployment, with levels of more than 20% in the 1980s and 1990s, and in some communities it was higher than 40%. Some housing estates and communities experienced unemployment of more than 50%.
Imagine what that meant for hundreds of young people growing up without work, and for their families. Imagine the legacy that we still live with because of that unemployment. I need not name the headlines about Tottenham, because they were national headlines that usually involved vulnerable children who were knifed or who died in other ways—I am thinking of Victoria Climbié and Baby P. Much of that poverty relates to that legacy, and the decision on regeneration is one of the most pressing that faces the Department for Communities and Local Government. It is my job to remind the Department of that, and to ensure that plans exist for Tottenham if the team leaves.
The community has faced enormous tension and unrest and has been stigmatised, as have others in the past, but over the last decade it has begun to mend. More young people now go to university than ever before in our history. Schools have been rebuilt, and some are now national beacons of success. I am thinking of Gladesmore community school where the head teacher has been recognised by the Queen for all that he has achieved. I am thinking of the accident and emergency department at the Whittington hospital, where I was born, and the North Middlesex hospital, which have been largely renewed and rebuilt. I am thinking of the £50 million that we received in the new deal for communities, to which I am sure the Minister will refer. All of that lifted hopes and aspirations—unemployment was falling back a bit, but is now on the rise again—and happened over the recent period in order to renew the community. Housing estates have seen their housing stock renewed and rebuilt. Prior to the economic downturn, there was a period of hope for the community, but clearly, a decade to achieve all that we wanted to achieve against a backdrop of such disadvantage was always not going to be long enough. That is why we stand at a crossroads—do we march forwards or backwards? That is the decision that lies ahead. The story is not yet finished.
Tottenham still has the highest rate of unemployment in London, with more than 6,000 people currently out of work or on benefits. Tottenham still has one of the largest numbers of households living in temporary or emergency accommodation, with more than 5,000 families in Haringey having no fixed place to live. Four in five children born in Tottenham are still born into poverty, one of the highest rates in the country. It is clear, Mrs Riordan, that although things have got better, we have a long way to go if we are to ensure that every child in Tottenham grows up in a decent home, free of poverty, and in a community in which work is the norm, not the exception.
That brings me to the third factor that makes Tottenham special—Spurs. Since I have been the Member of Parliament for Tottenham, I have worked closely with three successive chairmen and owners of the club. The first was Alan Sugar—he has since been knighted—of “The Apprentice” fame. The second was David Buckler who came in for a brief period after Alan left to stabilise the club and led the way to the current owner, Daniel Levy. Before I became an MP, Spurs was not doing much in the community relative to other clubs. I am thinking particularly of clubs such as Sunderland in the north-east—I will not mention our near rivals, although I see that my hon. Friend the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) has taken his seat and he may mention the name of that other north London club. Spurs was not doing much in the community, but there has been a transformation.
I worked with Daniel Levy to establish the Tottenham Hotspur foundation as a model, and it is now a beacon in the premiership. It was established with £4.5 million of funding, and enables thousands of young people throughout north London to take part in projects. It is transforming their lives and attracting match funding, and not just in sport. There are wonderful things happening with disability groups and pensioners, not just in Haringey, but in Enfield, Barnet and Waltham Forest where the foundation is making a huge difference.
The club has attracted a succession of top-class international players, such as Freddie Kanoute, Mido, Berbatov, who was with us for a while, and Wilson Palacios. My office assisted them and many others with work permits, and immigration requirements to enable them to come to the community. Despite opposition from some local councillors, I strongly supported the application by Spurs for a new training ground in Enfield, and permission was duly granted despite that opposition.
The club is an immense source of pride for my community, and the young people in it. In what can feel a parochial, mundane and sometimes hostile and discriminatory atmosphere, it is a permanent badge of excellence. It shows people that they can achieve sporting excellence on the doorstep, and that reads across not just to sport, but to every area of life.
That is why I am so angry about what is taking place without proper public consultation with either the fans or my community. Those young people, whose hopes were lifted when we won the Olympic dream, are now to be dumped on from a great height because of this irresponsible decision to rip excellence from the constituency. It is unacceptable. Someone is responsible, and it is not just the club, which is being encouraged to ignore its history and its community, but local, regional and, potentially, national politicians. I want answers about how this has come about, and why this is to happen to one of the poorest communities in London.
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)
My right hon. Friend knows that I represent Islington North and am a very proud supporter of Arsenal, the other club in north London. The relocation of stadiums is a difficult issue. Arsenal and Islington worked very closely to ensure that the new stadium was built in Islington without any public subsidy. The presence of Arsenal has meant that there is a very large number of jobs at the stadium, with all its related facilities, and a huge local community programme with more than 1 million hours spent on community training in football.
It is a badge of honour for the kids in Islington and from nearby to be supporters of Arsenal, and to be part of that community, and the same applies in Haringey, where I used to be a councillor. If we do not retain Tottenham Hotspur there, not only do the jobs and facilities go but the whole heart of the community goes with them. I strongly support and endorse what my friend is doing to try to ensure that Spurs remains at White Hart Lane, and to ensure that we can carry on being north London rivals, a rivalry of which I, of course, represent the better half.
Mr Lammy
I am very grateful for what my hon. Friend has said, but he knows that he actually represents a south London club, and that is why this is even more important. All those years ago, the club moved from Woolwich, but at that time it was not of the size that we see now, making the kind of contribution that both Arsenal and Tottenham make to this very, very poor part of London. I challenge anyone to visit parts of my hon. Friend’s constituency, in Holloway, parts of mine, or the constituency of our colleague my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton (Mr Love) and say that these clubs are not making a huge contribution. Things would be considerably worse were the clubs not there.
That is why we welcome Spurs’ plan for a new 56-seater stadium in Tottenham, why I supported the club in overcoming problems with English Heritage, and why I brokered meetings with both the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment and Haringey council. Historically, relations with Haringey council have not always been at their best, but we got planning permission in record time, and in a shorter time than Arsenal. As my hon. Friend has said, it is nonsense to suggest that Arsenal received state aid, and Spurs would never have done so. However, the club is right to say—and so am I—that we need more investment in this constituency.
I have not witnessed in my constituency the kind of transformation that we have seen in cities such as Manchester and Liverpool, and that we are witnessing now in the east of London. So, is Tottenham the next big regeneration challenge for this Government? It ought to be. The people deserve it to be, and the club rightly wants to see that. The plan was that off the back of the redeveloped stadium at White Hart Lane, which has received the approval of Haringey council and the Mayor, we would get further investment from Europe and from the Government, so that yes, we would see a new supermarket, yes we would see new housing, but we would also see the new stadium. As Daniel Levy has said, the stadium has
“the potential to act as a real catalyst for the much-needed, wider regeneration of the area.”
I am disappointed, of course, that other members of the Tottenham board, such as the director Keith Mills, have said that moving to the Olympic stadium is better because
“it’s closer to Canary Wharf and to the City; and it’ll attract more sponsorship”.
I have also been very concerned about internet rumours of Spurs’ owners selling up to Qatari investors and seeking planning permission at White Hart Lane and the Olympic stadium so as to sell the club on and make more money. When Mr Levy says to me, “I’m acting in the interests of shareholders,” it is my job to remind him that he owns 70% of the shares. So, who will profit ultimately from the decision? This is important.
It is also important to recognise the entire ecology of London, and in so doing it is also important that we say, “Can it possibly be fair that Tottenham’s legacy from the Olympics is for the largest private employer to be allowed to leave the constituency?” Let me reiterate, if Spurs is allowed to leave, this Government’s legacy for the constituency with the highest unemployment in London will be to have removed the largest private employer. That cannot be right.
Is it also the case that the Olympic Park Legacy Company should take note of the entirety of London and not just regeneration in the east of the city? In my constituency, unemployment is running at 11.2% and incapacity benefit claims are at 11%. Those are some of the highest levels in London. Life expectancy is lower than in the Olympic borough. Mortality rates for women in my constituency are lower, and unemployment is higher, than in the combined Olympic boroughs. Right across the sweep, the statistics suggest that Tottenham is finding it harder than the combined Olympic boroughs, and I am sure that the Minister is aware of that.
Does the Minister believe that it is acceptable to secure a legacy in east London by condemning an area of north London to become effectively a dust bowl? Does he believe that it is fair that the largest economic project in my constituency for a generation may be sacrificed—a brand-new stadium demolished just to build a new one with a supermarket attached? The Olympics were meant to bring a unique experience to the doorsteps of ordinary Londoners. Should Spurs leave, the experience will leave a particularly bitter aftertaste in N17. Who encouraged Spurs to make the decision? What leverage are the Minister and his Department placing on the Mayor as that decision is reached? I am told that the Olympic board will reach the decision on 28 January; what consultation is going on with Haringey council and with us on a decision that is now imminent and pressing? Does the Minister not believe that consultation with my constituents by the Olympic legacy body is absolutely mandatory? Is he concerned that there has been only one phone conversation with the company and with Haringey council? Spurs owns 20 acres of site on the north side of Tottenham high road that has now been blighted. How can due diligence be done on the Spurs bid if only one conversation on the planning application has been had with the local authority?
I hope that the Minister understands that this matter is urgent; that is why I have taken the time to put it on the record for the House, and for others who are listening and watching. This is the most important thing that could have happened in relation to economic regeneration in my constituency in the past decade.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Andrew Stunell)
It is good to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Riordan, and to respond to the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy).
I first want to acknowledge the passion and knowledge that the right hon. Gentleman brings to this issue, and to acknowledge how he has forthrightly stood up for his constituents. He has outlined the problems, the progress and the opportunities for his constituency and for the borough, and has, with very considerable force, made clear his views about his premiership football club; about its record of success and its community involvement, which, as he has said, has been developed for the better over the past few years and, most important, his views about its future. I think I heard him talk about a plan for a 56-seater stadium, but I am sure that he meant 56,000.
I know that the right hon. Gentleman has arranged a meeting with my colleagues in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport so as to raise these issues with them. A number of the points that he mentioned, whatever their merits one way or the other, are matters for discussion with that Department, rather than the responsibility of the Department for Communities and Local Government.
I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will not mind too much if I say something about the broader approach to regeneration taken by the Government, and perhaps I can give him some assurances. On his specific questions about how we got to our current position and where we are going, let me remind him that for the most part, those decisions are not the responsibility of the Department for Communities and Local Government.
Mr Lammy
Will the Minister confirm that the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government is a member of the Olympic board and that ultimately, the decision of the company will come to the Olympic board? Is there a seat for the Mayor, for DCMS and for DCLG to stand up for regeneration in London?
Andrew Stunell
The Secretary of State certainly has a role in the matter, and I do not seek to avoid that. However, I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman understands fully that the lead Department will be the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. Perhaps I can put a broader perspective on the way the Government work. We think it is important to ensure that local businesses, of all scales and whatever the business, have the opportunity to thrive. We want to support economic growth and regeneration, and we have made it clear that areas such as the right hon. Gentleman’s constituency, which are behind in the economic race, need to be given support. We want to see that done by giving power and the capacity to take decisions back to local councils and to London collectively, and not by having micro-management from Whitehall on every aspect of business delivery.
We have a strategic and supportive role to play, and it is important to get the macro-economic situation right. We must provide incentives, remove barriers and provide access to targeted investment. Despite all the financial pressure faced by the Government and the country, we have given the green light to some important and significant infrastructure projects.
Jeremy Corbyn
Let me take the Minister back to the question asked by my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy). I understand the philosophy behind the future planning arrangements, but in the immediate term we have two bids going in for the Olympic stadium—from West Ham and Spurs. West Ham is a local club that would essentially seek to develop the Olympic stadium for the continuation of local activities as an east London club. Spurs is in Tottenham and is an important part of the local economy. Surely the Government have a duty to take into account the effect on the local society and economy of Haringey should the transfer of Spurs to the Olympic stadium be approved, rather than if the club continues where it has been for a long time and where it is, as my right hon. Friend pointed out, a major part of the local economy.
Andrew Stunell
I understand the concern that was raised by the right hon. Member for Tottenham and brought to my attention again by the hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn). Of course it is an issue of controversy that the shortlist contains those two clubs; I understand that. The Olympic Park Legacy Company is negotiating with each club, and expects to have reached a settled position on the legacy by the end of the financial year. I was not aware of the specific date that the right hon. Gentleman mentioned a moment ago. It would not be right for me to comment on the progress of that bidding process or on the state of those negotiations, and neither would it be right for the Government to seek to interfere with that. As the right hon. Gentleman says, at some further point the decision will come back for endorsement by the Olympic Delivery Authority, and no doubt points of view will be taken into account when that decision is—or is not —signed off.
Perhaps I can return to the broader picture. It is important to ensure that the Olympic investment and legacy benefits the whole of London; it is not intended to be a one-shop stop. An intrinsic part of the bid put forward by the previous Government and supported by all parties in the House, was that the value of the Olympic bid would be in the legacy that it would bring not only to a geographical area but to young people, by providing opportunities to promote excellence far into the future. All parts of that legacy programme are still in play as far as the present Government are concerned.
We must also recognise that we are devolving powers. We are taking powers out of Whitehall and passing them down to the Mayor of London, the London boroughs and the London assembly. Proposals have been published in the Localism Bill, and they will be considered by the House.
Andrew Stunell
The progress of the legislation means that if the timetable I have referred to is maintained, and the decision is taken by the end of the financial year, that will precede the Localism Bill coming into force. The decision will be made in the context of the current legislative framework, and the roles and responsibilities are those already set out.
Mr Lammy
A decision is being made that has a once-in-a-generation effect on my constituency. I am the elected representative of my constituents, but they have not been consulted. The Mayor has fixed a date for a meeting with me on 24 February, but that is unacceptable given that the Olympic board will consider the issue on 28 January. As the Minister responsible for regeneration in this country, will he urge the Mayor to meet with the elected representative of Tottenham and its constituents? Will he urge his colleagues to think carefully about their responsibilities to my locality through their elected representative?
Andrew Stunell
I undertake to ensure that this debate and the views of the right hon. Gentleman are clearly drawn to the attention of the Mayor. The Government certainly hope that there will be proper discussions with the democratically elected representatives of communities, but it is for the Mayor to decide what processes he will follow to achieve that.
Ensuring that the Olympic legacy delivers on what was offered in the bid is an interesting and challenging project. The Olympics will come after a period of economic retrenchment. Ensuring that the legacy is delivered, that the benefits are not frittered away, and that we can look back in 10 years’ time and see that the games were not only a success in themselves but that the legacy has endured, is an important and significant challenge for the Government, the Mayor and the London boroughs. The right hon. Gentleman has made a strong plea that the borough of Haringey should not be left out of that. I assure him that as our proposals for localising economic growth come to fruition, we will ensure that the borough of Haringey and Tottenham are not left out.
If we are to achieve success, we must ensure that the economic and financial framework facing the country is put right. That must be our top priority and that is why we have been working so hard at a national level to deliver on the financial programme. It is also why it is important to take the responsibility and powers for decision making on regeneration issues out of Whitehall, and give them back to the regions and communities where they need to be.