House of Lords

Wednesday 12th January 2011 Lords Chamber

Wednesday, 12 January 2011.

15:00

Prayers—read by the Lord Bishop of Derby.

Introduction: Baroness Stowell of Beeston

Wednesday 12th January 2011 Lords Chamber

15:07

Tina Wendy Stowell MBE, having been created Baroness Stowell of Beeston, of Beeston in the County of Nottinghamshire, was introduced and took the oath, supported by Lord Coe and Lord Hill of Oareford, and signed an undertaking to abide by the Code of Conduct.

Introduction: Lord Strasburger

Wednesday 12th January 2011 Lords Chamber

15:14

Paul Cline Strasburger, Esquire, having been created Baron Strasburger, of Langridge in the County of Somerset, was introduced and made the solemn affirmation, supported by Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove Bay and Baroness Scott of Needham Market, and signed an undertaking to abide by the Code of Conduct.

Finance and Insurance Market: Underwriting Fees

Wednesday 12th January 2011 Lords Chamber

Question

15:19

Asked By

[Lord Harrison]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the level of underwriting fees in the United Kingdom finance and insurance market.

[The Commercial Secretary to the Treasury (Lord Sassoon)]

My Lords, the Office of Fair Trading is currently undertaking analysis of the way the underwriting market works and assessing whether there is potential for improving the way it functions. The report will consider how underwriting services are purchased, how underwriting services are provided and how the regulatory environment affects the provision of these services. The report is intended to be published later this month. The Government await with interest the findings of the report.

[Lord Harrison]

My Lords, given that City underwriters have in recent years pocketed some £2.5 billion through raised insurance claims without paying out once, not even on the capital-raising bids from RBS and Bradford & Bingley, does the Minister accept that those who lose out are the British shareholder, investor, saver and taxpayer? In light of this, will HMG undertake to implement in full Douglas Ferrans’s report on this subject to increase confidence in the industry, transparency and competition, and bring greater and strengthened rights to shareholders?

[Lord Sassoon]

My Lords, call me old fashioned if you like but it is probably better if I stay off the substance of matters that are the subject of inquiries by the competition authorities at the moment. I have certainly studied the Ferrans report and I note that he and his team worked closely with the OFT. It will clearly be an important input to the OFT’s studies.

[Lord Myners]

My Lords, we are fortunate that the Minister is here to answer this Question. He was, of course, an investment banker before he became Gordon Brown’s City ambassador. The Ferrans report, to which he refers, highlights several agency failures, which end up costing UK companies much more to raise capital and end up incurring far larger costs for UK investors, pension funds and insurance companies. I encourage the noble Lord to agree to meet Mr Ferrans and those who authored this excellent report.

[Lord Sassoon]

My Lords, I am happy to acknowledge that the noble Lord also has a distinguished history in this area. As well as being a fund manager, he wrote a report for the DTI in February 2005, so there are lots of poachers turned gamekeepers out there in the jungle. We should wait to see what the OFT recommends. It can recommend a range of actions, which could include matters coming back to government. I and my colleagues in government would then follow them up in the appropriate way.

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that the Ferrans report is yet another demonstration of the fact that if bankers are left to their own devices they behave in an uncompetitive way? While certain aspects of the report are being considered and are relevant to the OFT, it makes a number of suggestions about how some EU financial services directives could be strengthened to improve the sector and its competitiveness. Will the Minister give an undertaking that before the OFT reports, and in its ongoing discussions in Brussels, it will take forward the proposals in the Ferrans report to ensure that transparency and competition are promoted?

[Lord Sassoon]

My Lords, as I have already said, it is expected that the Office of Fair Trading will report later this month, so we do not have long to wait. We should consider what the appropriate action is to take after my ministerial colleagues have had a chance to consider the recommendations of the OFT report. However, I hear what my noble friend says.

[Baroness Kingsmill]

My Lords, I wonder whether the Minister is aware that when I was deputy chairman of the Competition Commission I conducted an inquiry into precisely this issue. This marketplace is notoriously uncompetitive and it is only as a result of constant vigilance that we can keep everyone on the straight and narrow in this area. I hope very much that the Minister will agree with me that the Competition Commission is possibly the best place to resolve these issues and that it will do so—

[Noble Lords]

Question!

[Baroness Kingsmill]

I have asked a question. Does the Minister agree with me that it will do so by the best possible method; that is, by conducting the inquiry with a panel of peers?

[Lord Sassoon]

My Lords, I am obviously interested to hear from the noble Baroness who has great experience in these matters. However, as she well knows, a range of outcomes could emerge from the OFT market study. Those could include enforcement action taken by the OFT through a market investigation reference to the Competition Commission, recommendations to government to change law or regulation, voluntary action by industry players or, indeed, a clean bill of health. We should wait to see what the OFT recommends.

[Lord Eatwell]

My Lords, is not the truth of the matter that the complete failure of the Government to persuade the banks to lend has forced companies into increasing rights issues and that the banks have used corporate desperation as a lever to charge higher underwriting fees even when market conditions have improved? Does the Minister agree that this is prima facie evidence of an underwriting cartel? Does he regard this as a legitimate way for banks to repair their balance sheets?

[Lord Sassoon]

My Lords, first of all, I do not accept for one moment the premise about government action in some way preventing companies borrowing from the banks, because, as we discussed at some length yesterday, the Government are taking a considerable amount of action to make sure that the banks lend and increase the amount of lending over what they would otherwise have done. As to the noble Lord’s questions about the underwriting market, again I would wait until the OFT has come up with its report within the next few weeks.

Transport: Mobility Scooters

Wednesday 12th January 2011 Lords Chamber

Question

15:26

Asked By

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government when they will publish the guidance on the dimensions and weight of mobility scooters suitable for use on public transport, as recommended in the Department for Transport’s 2006 report, Carriage of Mobility Scooters on Public Transport—Feasibility Study.

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, we are currently exploring options around the carriage of scooters on public transport and what guidance will cover, and discussing these issues with relevant parties. We will announce in due course when guidance will be made available. Any decision made on scooters being carried on public transport will aim to strike a balance between the needs of the user to maintain independence and the operating constraints of the industry.

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes]

I thank the Minister for that reply. He will be aware of the confusion and shock caused by the sudden changes that bus operators made last year. I should declare an interest: I have a family member who uses a mobility scooter. Can the Minister tell us whether there is any move, or whether his department will move, towards setting standards for these scooters so that all bus operators—and I am particularly interested in buses but the point applies to all transport—will know whether a certain scooter complies? Manufacturers also should be made aware of the aim of meeting that international requirement. Will he particularly bear this in mind with the upcoming Olympics, as many of the people who will be coming over for the Olympic and Paralympic Games may well use this type of mobility scooter.

[Earl Attlee]

My noble friend makes an extremely good point. We are considering the feasibility of a number of options for more consistency on the carriage of mobility scooters on public transport, and we will make an announcement when a decision has been taken. In reviewing the options for a uniform policy on the carriage of scooters on public transport we have in mind the timetable for developing an accessible transport strategy for the Olympics. The London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games has established a working group to develop arrangements for the renting of mobility scooters for the Games. The department will be working with LOCOG on the transportability issue.

[Baroness Grey-Thompson]

My Lords, what consideration can the Minister give to the current rules on the number of wheelchair users who can travel on London’s buses, specifically—bearing in mind the increased number of spectators and athletes—during the Olympics and Paralympics? Under the current rules, only one wheelchair user is allowed to travel on a bus. As my husband is an occasional wheelchair user, if he chooses to use it, we are not allowed to travel together.

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, the noble Baroness makes an important point. A considerable amount of money has been spent on ensuring that all buses are wheelchair accessible, but there will obviously be a limit to how many wheelchairs—probably only one—can be accommodated at any one time. I will discuss the issue with my officials after the debate.

[Lord Bradshaw]

Will the noble Lord acknowledge that the people who have to deal with this problem—bus drivers, bus conductors and train staff—need to know whether or not a mobility scooter can be carried, as there are some very big ones that cannot be carried? Can he please ensure that scooters are clearly marked in some way to make sure that they can go on public transport?

[Earl Attlee]

My noble friend makes an extremely good point. We are considering the feasibility of a passport and kitemarking scheme, as well as other options, and will make an announcement when a decision has been made.

[Lord Davies of Oldham]

My Lords, the Minister will recognise the progress that we have made in recent years in terms of the availability of public transport to users of wheelchairs and other means of locomotion. However, does he appreciate that we are anxious that this looks as if it is grinding to a halt, in particular against the background of new equipment, some of which is heavier than we have been used to in the past? Does he recognise that normal users of bus and train services take on very commodious vehicles such as pushchairs which are of huge size, and therefore it ill behoves us to let down those who are disabled?

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, the noble Lord touched on the weight of wheelchairs. One issue is that modern class 3 mobility scooters that can be used on a public road are so heavy that they could cause a problem with access ramps. That is why we need to work to agree standards covering which mobility scooters can go on which modes of public transport.

[Baroness Masham of Ilton]

My Lords, will the Minister communicate with various disabled organisations so that they know what vehicles they should have—otherwise they could be disappointed and could waste money buying the wrong scooter?

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, in this process it is absolutely essential that the Government communicate with all stakeholders. We need to communicate with the manufacturers to make sure that we do not develop a standard that is unique to the UK, in which case we would not be able to get the benefits of volume of manufacture. Obviously we need to communicate with the users of mobility scooters and the operators of the transport system. If we miss out any one of those three groups, we will fail.

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Davies, that great progress had been made were not quite correct? These recommendations were designed to be published in 2006, but they never have been. That is what I am asking for in this Question.

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, the noble Baroness is correct, but we are looking towards the future and want to improve the independence of disabled people by making sure that they can make maximum use of the available equipment.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

My Lords, we were most encouraged yesterday when the Minister said from the Dispatch Box, in the context of the Public Bodies Bill, that the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee would be continued at least until the Olympics. However, given what the Minister said today in respect of the need to communicate with stakeholders, and in particular the users of public transport, is there not a case for retaining this important body?

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I am not briefed on that issue, but I am sure that noble Lords had great opportunity during discussion of the Public Bodies Bill to debate it in detail.

Aviation: Hand-luggage Restrictions

Wednesday 12th January 2011 Lords Chamber

Question

15:33

Asked by

[Lord Clement-Jones]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the impact of hand-luggage restrictions operated by airlines on professional musicians and on the United Kingdom’s music economy.

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, there are no government restrictions on musical instruments and their accessories carried by passengers into the cabin of an aircraft. The Department for Transport advises passengers that it is best to contact the individual airline before booking, as they may need to make special arrangements such as buying an extra seat for large instruments. Charges and fees imposed for the carriage of instruments are commercial decisions for the individual airline concerned.

[Lord Clement-Jones]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply; I am sure that he has looked into this matter with great care. However, there have been terrible cases where valuable and cherished instruments were smashed up in the holds of aircraft as a result of musicians not being able to take them on board as hand luggage. It may not be possible in every case for the Department for Transport to enforce the clear set of guidelines which it issued in 2009, but can it not at least name and shame the airlines involved?

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, the first point that my noble friend made was about damage to instruments. The key point here is that the musical instrument is absolutely vital to a musician. Musicians and their instruments are as one and, if they lose their instrument or it is damaged, their ability to perform at the highest level is severely reduced. My department is well aware of the issue, but if airlines want to acquire a bad reputation for looking after musicians, they do so at their own risk.

[Lord Colwyn]

My Lords, I should declare an interest as a member of the Musicians’ Union and as a very part-time musician. Does my noble friend agree that musicians need airlines to be consistent in understanding the problems of travelling with musical instruments? I know that my noble friend has had a meeting with the Musicians’ Union but can he explain why musicians from other countries do not seem to experience similar problems and why professional musicians are treated less favourably than sports enthusiasts?

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, the noble Lord suggested that airlines in other countries do not have this problem, but they do. One difficulty for musicians is that they can fly out from, say, Heathrow with one airline which accepts their instrument but when they try to fly back with the same airline on a return ticket they find that they cannot get back. One solution might be to regulate but the difficulty there is that we will go for the lowest common denominator and that might discourage the industry from coming up with an innovative solution. During my meeting with members of the Musicians’ Union, I urged them to take the opportunity to talk to airline and airport operators to try to come up with a solution to the problem or at least to improve the situation.

[Baroness Warnock]

I should like to ask the Minister to ensure consistency. Does he agree that an international trans-airline industry policy is needed? I declare a mild interest in that I am a patron of the English Concert, which, like many other English orchestras, depends for its existence on overseas recitals. At the moment, large instruments such as tubas and cellos have to have an extra seat booked for them and orchestras understand that. However, it is with smaller instruments such as violins, flutes and oboes that there is total inconsistency. Although an orchestra may have informed the airline that an orchestra is being conveyed, that information is often not passed on to the check-in people and therefore a musician may be turned away, being told that he cannot take the instrument. That leads to total chaos. Will the Minister try to enforce at least consistency?

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I am not prepared to promote regulation by central government. It is for the airline industry to come up with consistent standards and we are not going to regulate on this. The noble Baroness touched on the position of orchestras. However, orchestras do not have this problem because they have significant buying power and sometimes hire the whole aircraft. The real problem lies with individual musicians, perhaps going to a show in southern Europe on their own, as they have very little buying power or clout.

[Lord Davies of Oldham]

My Lords, leaving it to the industry looks to be a somewhat forlorn hope. After all, the Minister has just illustrated that an airline can disagree with itself on how it treats musicians according to whether they are going out or coming back. We know how long it takes for regulations to be drafted, let alone appear before the House, but if the Government at least indicated that they were prepared to take some action in this area, surely that would be a stimulus to the industry to tackle what is obviously an acute problem.

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, if an airline disagrees with itself then it will acquire some very bad publicity. We have seen that in the press on several occasions recently as regards not only musical instruments but other problems associated with check-in as well.

[Lord Dykes]

My Lords, on behalf of non-musical as well as musical travellers perhaps I may ask the Minister whether he is confident that it will not be too long before the electronic security check-in machines that we all have to go through at airports will allow us not to have to take off our shoes, belts and other articles of clothing, because this machinery is more efficient.

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, considerable progress is being made on the development of screening equipment. I hope we will see significant improvements in the coming months.

[Baroness Masham of Ilton]

My Lords, could there not be containers for instruments in the hold which could be used when needed?

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, the noble Baroness makes a good point; it is one that I put to the Musicians’ Union when I was talking to it. One problem is the environmental conditions in the hold. Understandably, musicians want to carry their instruments in the cabin rather than place them in the hold.

[Lord Bradshaw]

My Lords, I discussed this issue last night with the manager of a London orchestra and she said that there are generally no problems with scheduled flights, but that all the problems arise with the low-cost airlines. She also made the point—I wonder whether the Minister will give it serious consideration—that the instrumentalists frequently see large items of hand baggage taken on planes that are far outside the regulations. The Government should deal with that.

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, my noble friend makes an important point about low-cost airlines. This morning, when I looked at the appropriate websites and did a Google search, it was very telling how different the story was for a very large airline as compared with a low-cost one.

Police: Protest Groups

Wednesday 12th January 2011 Lords Chamber

Question

15:41

Asked By

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what discussions they have had with the police about the use of undercover operations in relation to environmental protest groups.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Neville-Jones)]

My Lords, decisions on intelligence gathering are operational matters for chief officers working within the relevant legal framework. The Government do not discuss with the police the use of undercover operations in relation to environmental protest groups. The Home Office has spoken to Nottinghamshire Police about the next steps in this case, which has been referred to the Independent Police Complaints Commission. It is talking to ACPO and HMIC about which body is in the best position to undertake a review of the wider lessons to be learnt.

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for her reply and I hope that we can have an inquiry into the workings of these police units. I am sure that she would agree that we cannot have a situation of overtly having freedom of speech and freedom to demonstrate but covertly demonstrators are in fear of agents provocateurs and of being spied on and put on databases held secretly when they have no idea what is going on. Does she agree that there is far more to this than the one simple case? We need to clean up the position so that people can demonstrate. If they commit criminal acts, they will be prosecuted, but if they demonstrate in good faith, they should be able to do so without fear.

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, it is fairly clear that Nottinghamshire Police wish to have this episode investigated. They are aware that something is not quite right. We ought to await the outcome of that investigation, and indeed, if there is a wider investigation into the longer-term consequences, what HMIC will do. It is clear that there are governance issues, which ought to be looked at. The Government have already done certain things in relation to the governance of such matters. We are in favour, as is the whole House, of the right to peaceful protest and we will certainly not resile from that, but unfortunately not all protests are peaceful and in those circumstances the police need to benefit from good intelligence. Key to good policing of protests as a whole is ensuring the right to protest of those who are peaceful and limiting the activities of those who wish to do damage.

[Lord Mayhew of Twysden]

My Lords, is there a code of practice that describes the legitimate use of undercover police officers? Do not these officers, in going about their very important, difficult and often dangerous work, have to be very careful not to pressure, persuade or instigate the commission of an offence so as not to lead to their ultimate evidence being excluded by the trial judge on the grounds of unfair entrapment? If there is not a code of practice, would it not be a good idea to have one? If there is, is it being followed?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My noble and learned friend makes a very important point. As I mentioned, governance in this area is a very important element. I must say that the police agree. The chief constable of West Midlands himself has said that the line is not to be crossed between infiltration to gather intelligence and the agent provocateur. He is quite right.

As to the codes of practice, the legal framework is provided for by regulations contained in the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act. There is also a code of conduct and practice, which has been published by the Home Office under the previous Government, on how covert human intelligence sources should operate. The independent Office of Surveillance Commissioners has also provided procedural and interpretational advice.

[Noble Lords]

Too long!

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

I am telling the House what I think that it would like to know: what the governance arrangements are.

[Lord Harris of Haringey]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a member of the Metropolitan Police Authority, although I have not been briefed on this issue. Can the noble Baroness confirm that all such operations would require RIPA authorisation, and what level of authorisation is required? Can she also tell us whether there is an expectation that such operations would be subject to regular internal review at a senior level regarding whether they were still appropriate and proportionate in the light of circumstances?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

RIPA—the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act—specifies how that should be done. The authorisation has to be by a senior officer. There has to be a regular instruction and record kept and there are various other procedures in the Act which are designed to manage and control the operation. I do not think that it is the framework that is lacking.

[Lord Macdonald of River Glaven]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that undercover policing is an essential resource that has resulted in many dangerous criminals and criminal gangs being brought to justice—thanks, in large part, to the courage of the individuals involved in that work—and that it would therefore be an enormous pity if public confidence in that technique were to be diminished or undermined? In those circumstances, does she agree that undercover policing needs to be firmly controlled and used only in the most appropriate cases? Although she does not want to comment on individual cases, in general terms can she think of any circumstances in which it would be appropriate for an undercover police officer to be embedded for seven years among a group of climate change campaigners?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

I think that there is widespread agreement in the House with what the noble Lord has said, for which I thank him. I do not want to comment on the individual case, but clearly the length of time would need to be looked at.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, the noble Baroness mentioned the possibility of a wider review following discussions with ACPO. In view of the debate today, does she agree that there ought to be a wider review? Can she also reassure the House that the outcome of that review will be made public?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, Nottinghamshire Police are in direct contact at the moment with ACPO and HMIC. The question is who does it: who is best placed to do it. I would have thought that that is a matter that would be made public.

Pensions Bill [HL]

Wednesday 12th January 2011 Lords Chamber

First Reading

15:49

A Bill to make provision relating to pensions and for connected purposes.

The Bill was introduced by Lord Freud, read a first time and ordered to be printed.

Energy Bill [HL]

Wednesday 12th January 2011 Lords Chamber

Order of Consideration Motion

15:50

Moved by

[Lord Marland]

That it be an instruction to the Grand Committee to which the Energy Bill [HL] has been committed that they consider the Bill in the following order:

Clauses 1 to 68, Schedule 1, Clauses 69 to 85, Schedule 2, Clauses 86 to 102, Schedule 3, Clauses 103 to 105.

Motion agreed.

Re-Export Controls Bill [HL]

Wednesday 12th January 2011 Lords Chamber

Third Reading

15:50

Bill passed and sent to the Commons.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Wednesday 12th January 2011 Lords Chamber

Committee (8th Day)

15:50

Clause 10 : Reports of the Boundary Commissions

Amendment 55

Moved by

[Lord Lipsey]

55: Clause 10, page 8, line 14, leave out “2013” and insert “2015”

[Lord Lipsey]

My Lords, with this amendment, we pick up some of the debates that we were having on Monday night—I fear that we must have done something on Monday night that made noble Lords feel that they did not wish to remain in the Chamber for the whole of the subsequent debate.

In that debate, we were discussing the timetable for the re-warding of constituencies. The word that was used for the Government’s timetable, which means that this will be done by 2013, was “achievable”. I agree with that; that timetable is achievable. I have checked with experts in the matter and there is no doubt that, if the right resources are applied to the Boundary Commission, it can be achieved. However, I understand from reading the newspapers that a man recently achieved the feat of rolling a marble up a 12,000-foot mountain with his nose, so that feat is achievable too, but it does not make it sensible or a very good way to climb mountains. In the same way, I am going to argue that 2013 is not a sensible date by which to seek to conclude the first boundary review.

We have to understand that there is a toxic blend of two elements in this first review. The first is well understood—the reduction in the number of MPs from 650 to 600. We will come back to whether that is a good or bad move later, but that is the Government’s policy and it is part of what has to be dealt with in the boundary review. The second element in the toxic blend going forward is the five-yearly review, which means that reviews are going to happen every five years and cause upheaval.

However, what has to be understood is that this first re-warding is going to create greater upheaval than any review before because it will have the whole of the 50-seat reduction as well as having to adhere to the 5 per cent margin. It is hard to exaggerate how radical this review is going to be and how much upheaval it is going to cause. Just to take one example from the many that I could go into, Democratic Audit, an independent think tank, calculates that if these provisions on 600 seats and 5 per cent tolerance go through, there will be only nine counties out of the 46 in England where county boundaries are still respected in the drawing of constituencies. If my arithmetic is right, that means that there are 37 counties where county boundaries will cease to exist. That applies again for local authority ward boundaries. This is a complete redrawing of the electoral map, yet it has to be done not in five years, which will be the timetable for subsequent reviews, but in just over two years. This extraordinary upheaval has to be crammed into two years.

This decision has not been made out of a desire to get the task done well or anything like that; it has been made, quite frankly, because the Tories believe that they will win more seats under this disposition. The really peculiar thing, which I find almost impossible to believe, is that no independent person who has looked at it thinks that this is likely to be true. For example, Democratic Audit, which has done the most detailed analysis, says that of the 50 seats lost under the Bill, 17 will be Tory and 18 will be Labour. There will not be much difference and that is well within the margin of error. On seeing the 300 pages of legislation before the House, I think that that is an awful lot of trouble to go to to win one extra seat. Still, politicians will be politicians.

One has to think also of the side effects. For example, in order to get this job done in just over two years, public inquiries are to be abolished. We will come to the case for and against public inquiries later in our debate, but this seems a curious reason to abolish public inquiries—not because they are good or bad things, or because they contribute or do not contribute, or whatever, but in order to get to an arbitrary, politically imposed timetable for the new boundaries to be placed. When you take into account the fact that the political advantage is illusory, the proposal beggars belief.

Therefore, I propose the year 2015 for the completion of the first review under this Bill. It would allow a less hurried approach and, should the House decide so to rule later, would mean that public inquiries could be restored and that we would get more sensible boundaries at the end of the process. My amendment would not change what will happen; it would just change the time at which it will happen. I believe that I am proposing a more sensible pace for what is a fundamental reform.

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

My Lords, I think that this clause is deeply suspect. I support the amendment of my noble friend and I should happily vote for other amendments giving slightly more time for a Boundary Commission to undertake its task. It is quite extraordinary that it is now felt responsible to compress the time available for a Boundary Commission to undertake its work into about the half the time that it traditionally takes, while imposing on it quite unprecedented constraints—the need at the same time to achieve the maximum 5 per cent limit and to reduce the total number of MPs by the arbitrary figure of 50.

If you have a contractor or several contractors bidding for your business and one says that he can build your house, motorway, piece of machinery, factory or whatever in half the time that it has always taken in the past, and in half the time that the competitors say that they need, you would be sensible to be alert at least to the possibility that serious corners are being cut. It is clear that serious corners, including any sense of public inquiries or appeals, are being cut.

Such inquiries are essential in the democratic process. I have given evidence in a public inquiry on a Boundary Commission report. We did not carry the day, but I and those who supported the same point of view all felt at the end of the process that we had had a thorough and fair hearing and that it was an essential part of democracy that such a debate should take place in public about proposed new constituency boundaries. That is the only way in which the public can be reassured that nothing surreptitious is going on and that there is no hanky-panky on the part of the Government covertly trying to influence the result of what should be obviously an entirely objective non-party-political process. Those things are terribly important. All those safeguards are going out of the window.

If I was a member of the Boundary Commission, I should like to have the mechanism of the public inquiry and the appeal process preserved. I would feel it much more likely that I did a good and proper job if there was that check and balance in the system. I should welcome the opportunity to listen openly and frankly to the expression of other views on a particular determination that I might make and to think again in the light of that. I should feel that I was doing a much better job having had that opportunity and that there was much less of a possibility that there might be some angle or consideration that had been neglected.

I do not think that it is a matter of dispute that a corner is being cut in this case and I do not think that it can really be a matter of dispute that this is a very serious corner that is being cut. It is more than a corner because it is something quite fundamental to the process and to public confidence in it. What is being cut out is, if you like, the dialogue between the bureaucracy, or the agency in the form of the Boundary Commission, on the one side and the general public on the other. It is a serious matter.

I have listened to a lot of the debates, although I have not contributed before, but I have yet to hear from the government side a cogent reason as to why this has to take place. The only answer that we get is that it has to happen by the time of the next election. That takes us back to the gerrymandering issue that has been raised on many occasions. Why does it have to happen by the next election? We are trying to get the electoral process right, so if we are going to make substantial changes let us go through the process carefully and thoroughly so as to make sure that we take the public with us. We should make sure that we have something that is valid not just for the next election but for generations to come. We cannot keep coming back to this matter.

Frankly, the haste is unworthy of the democratic process and unworthy of the way that constitutional changes should be carefully deliberated in this place. I intend to support amendments along the lines of those put forward by my noble friends that would extend the time available to the Boundary Commissions to complete the deeply delicate task with which they are now going to be confronted if this Bill gets on to the statute book.

16:00

[Baroness McDonagh]

To save time for your Lordships, I shall speak to Amendment 56. I put my name to this amendment because of my understanding of politics and government, which is that what can go wrong will go wrong. It seems a complete folly to introduce a major change to the voting system when none of us knows whether the referendum will be carried or not, which means that we have to organise the legislation in such a way that it can be implemented at the same time as introducing the biggest boundary changes that any of us have seen in our lifetimes. Only one constituency in the United Kingdom is guaranteed to fight an election on the same boundary. Why do we need to do this?

I suggest that it was with some irony that the Minister from the Lib Dem Benches said that the constituency changes are important because of the great principle that one vote would be equal to one vote. We are about to pass a law that will put a system to the vote where, in some cases in some constituencies, some voters will have two votes, where, in some cases in some constituencies, some voters will have three votes, and where, in some cases in some constituencies, some voters will have four votes and up to five votes. It is not because of the principle that one vote is equal to one vote, otherwise we would be debating a referendum on a pure PR system, which we are not. We know already, because we can see it from the figures, that constituencies in the United Kingdom are largely similar. However, they also have one other facet, which is that they represent communities. I believe that moving this change to 2016 will preserve confidence in our democratic system.

It seems to me to be quite right and proper to want to reduce the timescale for the Boundary Commissions. Reducing it by half, within the current funding constraints, can be seen as possible. Reducing it to two years suggests to me that people are not being realistic about the deliberations that need to be undertaken. In addition to the cost for the Boundary Commissions, I want to ask the Minister what extra provision is being made for local authorities, as many of these changes will fall on them.

In life, big risks should be taken where there are big rewards. I do not understand where the rewards lie in introducing both these new systems at the same time when we could undermine the faith of this country in its democratic systems. An example of this at the last election was that a small number of voters were locked out of polling stations that they had attended before 10 o’clock. This caused huge uncertainty and concern among the public. What the Government are proposing to do here poses a much greater risk.

[Lord Grocott]

Amendment 56A, in my name, covers much same ground as the two amendments that have been briefly discussed today, so I do not intend to speak to it when we reach it. My suggestion is that the Boundary Commission should be required to report by 2017. It is not a date that I have picked out of thin air; it was chosen in anticipation of the time that a Boundary Commission would normally take to complete its work. Lest the Committee should think that I am a Johnny-come-lately on these issues, I point out that I am an obsessive. When you have had the experience, as I have had, of representing a constituency with an electorate of around 90,000 when your majority is around 360, you look very closely at parliamentary boundaries.

As soon as I saw in 2009 that the Conservative Opposition, as they were then, were thinking of reducing the number of MPs, my mind flew to how the boundaries would be drawn. I asked the then Minister—a splendid Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Bach—in a Written Question how long it took to conduct a boundary review. He said in his Answer of 3 November 2009 that the previous boundary review for England had taken six years and eight months and that for Northern Ireland it had taken three years and five months. I know from my experience of various Boundary Commission changes—many other people in this Committee will have had the same experience—that consulting local people and discussing whether their community should be split, joined or divided is a lengthy process. The job has been very well done by Boundary Commissions in the past and the time taken has been reasonable.

Although I knew that the Conservative Party was likely to go ahead with its pledge when it came into government, I did not think that it would substantially short-circuit the period of time required for a proper boundary review. I have proposed 2017 because I anticipate that the Bill will become an Act this year, which will give the Boundary Commission six years to do its work. I do not think that is an unreasonable period.

Anyone who has been an MP knows that boundary redistributions are pretty uncomfortable and difficult processes, as are the consequences of Boundary Commission proposals, which often mean colleague fighting against colleague from the same party for nomination for a seat. If you believe in first past the post, as I strongly do, you obviously have to accept that constituencies should be broadly similar in size and that they should be reviewed, because populations and their distribution change. However, they should not be conducted with phenomenal regularity.

I think I am right in saying that the House of Commons has an unusually, if not unprecedentedly, large number of new MPs. When they have settled into the euphoria of becoming a new MP—and it is a pretty euphoric experience—they will discover that they had not bargained for the fact that within a few months someone will come along and change the boundaries of their constituencies, probably substantially. That will put them in conflict with neighbours and all the rest of it. What is more, that will happen every five years. I almost plead with the Government for their own sake that that is not a good idea. You will not make MPs of whatever party—this is not a Labour Party partisan plea—very happy if you put them in a continual state of uncertainty about the democratic base on which they stand.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

It is not just the sense of insecurity; it is the fact that it will influence the quality of entrants into the House of Commons because people make a judgment when they seek to be candidates. It is an important issue for many MPs.

[Lord Grocott]

I can see my noble friend’s point, although I am not sure I agree. There will always be a lot of people who want to be a Member of either of these Houses—quite rightly because it is a wonderful privilege. There is no shortage of people who are keen to stand, for all the hazards of elections—and I know all about the hazards. I simply put it to the Government that it is not unreasonable to suggest that we should have a reasonable period of time—six years was my suggestion—before the next boundary review, not least because we have only just had the last one. The 2010 general election was fought for the first time on new boundaries. That was pretty unsettling, as it always is. The Government are wrong to propose another one so soon. If they want to change the mechanism of elections, obviously they can do that. They have a majority that will enable them to do that. If they want this Bill to become an Act, in whatever amended form, they will probably get away with that as well.

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

Before my noble friend concludes, can he help me with a question that I asked earlier, which is not rhetorical? Why does he think the Government are being impelled into this unseemly haste? What is the motive for doing away with what has been an accepted British tradition for a very long time: the boundary review and public inquiry procedure? What is the motive for throwing all that away and removing the strong degree of political legitimacy that derives from this process?

[Lord Grocott]

That is a question for the government Front Bench. I think I know the answer. It has something to do with five days in May, but we can wait for those on the Front Bench to answer that. If they want to look after their own Back-Benchers, let alone the Back-Benchers of any other party, my advice to the Government is that to have parliamentary boundary reviews every five years is not such a good idea as they thought when it was first put on the drawing board.

[Lord Wills]

I support all the amendments to this clause, but I incline most to the amendment to which my noble friend Lord Grocott has just spoken. They all speak to the folly of the unmerited speed of what the Government are doing with these boundary reviews. The risks of their approach are manifold, and we have heard some of them already rehearsed this afternoon. I focus on one: the statistical inadequacy of conducting reviews on the basis of what is universally acknowledged to be a flawed electoral register. The best estimate that we have is that 3.5 million people are eligible to vote but are missing for one reason or another from the electoral register. How on earth can the Government propose to rush through a boundary review on the basis of such a flawed register?

The Government must be aware that the Labour Government took significant measures and passed legislation to ensure that the flawed electoral register was repaired. It gave the duty to the Electoral Commission of ensuring that by 2015 the electoral register was comprehensive and accurate, and gave it significant powers to achieve that end—powers that I see the Deputy Prime Minister is now claiming as his motivation and responsibility. Actually, the previous Government passed the legislation that gave the Electoral Commission those powers.

16:15

Why are the Government rushing ahead to conduct a wholesale and radical review of boundaries when they know they do so on the basis of a flawed register? If they only waited a few months they would have the judgment of an independent body, the Electoral Commission, on whether the register was indeed comprehensive and accurate. Surely the Government can see the case for waiting. All these amendments speak to that end: to delay this review. I urge the Government to take heed of these amendments and wait for the results of the work of the Electoral Commission in ensuring that the register is comprehensive and accurate.

This is a complex task. On many occasions in the debate on this legislation we have heard some of the problems that the Electoral Commission will face. Everyone knows this is a difficult task and that is why we gave them significant powers, such as data-sharing, to try and help them, for the first time, to get a register that is comprehensive and accurate. It cannot be rushed. No serious, objective and independent expert observer believes that we can get a comprehensive and accurate register by 2013. It is nonsensical. I am sure the Government themselves do not believe it.

In the House of Commons before the last election, both the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties agreed that 2015 was a reasonable timescale to achieve a comprehensive and accurate register, so why have they changed their minds and decided to rush through this review on the basis of a register which is by all accounts not going to be comprehensive nor accurate? Why have they changed their minds? If they have not changed their minds, why do they believe that the register can be comprehensive and accurate by 2013? If they do not believe that, why are they proceeding with such a radical and comprehensive revision of boundaries on the basis of an inaccurate register? Why are they doing this? Could the Minister answer that? In the absence of an answer, I hope the Government will look at these amendments favourably and support them.

[Lord Dixon]

We are now getting to the main part of the Bill: the constituents. The arguments about alternative vote and first past the post will come with the referendum. I was involved in alternative vote in this House in 2003, when one of the hereditary Peers, a Deputy Chairman, died. There was a ballot to take his place. Some 423 out of 661 Members voted and the candidate who won had 151 votes. There were 81 candidates, 44 first-preference votes and 42 transferred votes—alternative votes. The person who was elected still did not even get 50 per cent of the votes that were cast. Those arguments will come out when we get to alternative vote.

The important part of the Bill is the constituencies. I have personal experience with constituency. The last change in the Jarrow constituency was in 2005. I know a little about the Jarrow constituency; I have lived there for, in a couple of weeks’ time, 82 years. The only time I was out of the constituency was when I was doing my Army service for two years in the Royal Engineers, so I know a little about the constituency. I served as councillor, mayor and MP, and am now in the House of Lords.

The Boundary Commission proposed that the Bede ward—named after the Venerable Bede—in the Jarrow constituency be transferred to the South Shields constituency and that the Pelaw and Heworth ward in Gateshead be transferred to the Jarrow constituency. That proposal looked good on paper because the difference in the size of the two constituencies would have been only 153 voters. Everyone thought that they were doing well to achieve that equalisation between the Jarrow and South Shields constituencies.

The people of Jarrow had no objection to gaining the voters of the Pelaw and Heworth ward, because Pelaw and Heworth used to be part of the Jarrow constituency. In fact, Thomas Hepburn, who was the founder of the Northumberland and Durham miners union, is buried in Pelaw cemetery. For a long time, the members of the Jarrow constituency Labour Party would put a wreath on his grave before they went to the Durham miners’ gala.

The problem that arose was with the proposed transfer of the Bede ward to the South Shields constituency. Now, Jarrow got its name from the Saxon word “Gyrwy”, which means marsh or fen, which it has been suggested refers to the Jarrow Slake that lies along St Paul’s church in Jarrow, where the Venerable Bede had his home as well as at the Wearmouth St Peter’s church. The Venerable Bede was one of early Europe’s most established scholars. I might add that none of that rubbed off on me—I left elementary school when I was 14, I started in the shipyard when I was 14 and three months and the only exam that I passed in my life was my driving exam—so I cannot claim any of St Bede’s knowledge.

On the proposed transfer of the Bede ward to the South Shields constituency, I wrote to the Boundary Commission on 6 January 2005 to make an alternative suggestion. My suggestion was that the Bede ward should remain in the Jarrow constituency, that the Pelaw and Heworth ward in Gateshead should be transferred to Jarrow and that Jarrow’s Whitburn ward, which is on the coast, should be transferred to South Shields. I was pleased to find that my suggestion was accepted by the Boundary Commission, because many in Jarrow would definitely have been upset if the Bede ward had been transferred to South Shields.

The other thing about the Bede ward in Jarrow is that, as some Members may recall, in 1936 some 200 men from Jarrow marched to London for the right to work. The Jarrow march was not for another crust or for more money on the means test—as it was then known—but for the right to work. Most of the men who marched from Jarrow lived in the East ward, which was adjacent to the Jarrow town hall. After the war, the East ward was cleared and most of the Jarrow marchers were transferred to the new estate in the Simonside ward. The Boundary Commission’s proposal would have resulted in the descendants of the Jarrow marchers of 1936 ending up in the South Shields constituency. That would have virtually caused a civil war, as it would have suggested that they were now Sanddancers rather than Jarrow people.

However, the Boundary Commission did not know any of that. The only way that the issue came out was because there was a public inquiry. The Boundary Commission accepted the proposal that Whitburn, which to my knowledge has never had a direct bus service to the centre of Jarrow, be transferred to South Shields and that the Bede ward remain in Jarrow constituency. The difference in the electorate of the two constituencies was 53, as against the difference of 179 in the Boundary Commission’s original recommendation.

I think that it is vital that local residents have some say in how the constituency boundaries are formed. That issue, I believe, is the most important issue in the Bill.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

My Lords, I was going to rise before my noble friend but I am grateful that I did not as I want to make only one brief point. It is partly on what he was saying about the naming as well as the defining of the boundaries, because one of the things I am most concerned about is that so many boundaries will be changed that one of the big issues will be the naming of the new constituencies and therefore the time taken. This part of the Bill will bring in more consultation than is allowed for without boundary hearings but it will also be timed. I therefore support this amendment and I urge the Government to consider, when they look at the timing of this, that one of the most political issues, even after they have defined the boundaries, will be the naming of so many new constituencies. I urge caution on that as that is where, in the words of my noble friend, civil war will break out.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

My Lords, in speaking to Amendment 55, moved by my noble friend Lord Lipsey, I am obviously happy that I will not speak to or move Amendment 56, which stands in my name. We are already in 2011 and the proposal in the Bill is that we are to have a report from the Boundary Commission in a little over two and a half years. That is just impractical. If we do not see some movement on this, we are creating the conditions whereby the Boundary Commission will find it almost impossible to have any sort of meaningful process with local residents, even under the limited proposals in the Bill.

Many years ago, I lived in Coventry—a great Midlands city—and I was involved in presenting evidence to the boundary inquiry in the early 1990s; I think it was in approximately 1993. That inquiry was triggered by proposals to reduce the number of parliamentary seats from four to three. At that time there were three Labour and one Conservative Members of Parliament. Going down from four seats to three meant that it was very unlikely, however you drew the boundaries, that the Conservatives would retain a seat in the city. In producing its recommendations, the Boundary Commission produced two seats in the north of the city. It had a Coventry North West seat and a Coventry North East seat. It put the Holbrooks ward from the north-west and the Longford ward, where I lived in the north-east, into the same constituency.

It made no difference to the outcome of a future election but the Boundary Commission, by drawing up its proposals back in its London office, had missed the Coventry-Nuneaton railway line and the A444 from junction 3 of the M6 into the city. I stress again to your Lordships that where those wards ended up made no difference to the actual outcome of the election, but it had completely missed that. We had a local inquiry; local residents, community groups, Members of Parliament, the parties and the local authorities all attended. The next day, the commissioner himself drove around the city, visiting the various points that had been mentioned by residents there. He saw the merits of the case argued by people and changed the proposals accordingly so that, even today, the Holbrooks ward remains in Coventry North West and the Longford ward remains in Coventry North East.

My point is that if the Government get rid of local inquiries and only allow less than two and a half years, as proposed in the Bill, for written submissions then such things will never be picked up. We will have constituencies created that have no basis in any sort of community ties and no relationship to local residents. I want to hear from the Minister whether the Government are prepared to risk that or are they prepared, as the amendment suggests, to give a longer time than they are proposing for the Boundary Commission to consider written proposals?

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

My Lords, there is no case at all for this process being rushed as the Government seek to insist that it should be. In the range of amendments so helpfully tabled by my noble friends, I personally prefer that in the name of my noble friend Lord Grocott, requiring that the Boundary Commission should report by 2017. The Government may argue, I suppose, that the case for insisting that the Boundary Commission makes its recommendations by 1 October 2013 is that it will hasten the great day when we have votes of equal value in this country, but if that is their argument it is a fallacious one. Equalising constituencies will not produce votes of equal value. Other factors will offset that effect. For example, differential turnout will mean that votes will be of different value in different constituencies. If you vote in a constituency where there is a 50 per cent turnout and someone else votes in one where there is a 60 per cent turnout and the margin of victory is the same, your vote in the 50 per cent turnout contest is a more significant one. Introducing the alternative vote will do nothing to alter the present state of affairs in which general elections are won or lost in the marginal seats. It will be the votes of swing voters in marginal seats that will continue to be intensively wooed by campaigning parties and candidates, and those votes will have a quite disproportionate effect on the electoral outcome.

16:30

[Lord Wills]

I agree with the powerful case that my noble friend is making, but does he agree that another factor militating against the equalisation of constituencies that the Government want to see—I think most of us want to see it—is the fact that this boundary review will be taken on the basis of a flawed register? Many constituencies will have nearly 100 per cent registration of all those who are eligible to vote, but others will have barely half that. How can constituencies possibly be equalised on that statistical basis?

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

My noble friend developed his argument compellingly in his speech just now. Just as differential turnout matters very much, so do differential levels of registration. These are all factors tending, unfortunately, to produce votes of unequal value. Moreover, within the alternative vote system, we know that the votes of the supporters of the minority parties that continue to be totted up and distributed will themselves carry more power in the ultimate decision than other votes will.

One is left puzzled about what the Government’s motivation can be in rushing this through, unless it is to secure political advantage for the Conservative Party as part of the deal between the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives. The Liberal Democrats do not even get the reformed electoral system that they really want, but the Tories get their opportunity to reduce the number of seats by 50, which, it has been calculated, if not by them—although I think they might be aware of the calculation—will advantage them and disadvantage the Labour Party.

The truth is that, while pursuing this pretty cynical policy, the Government risk causing the redistribution of constituencies to be botched. If it is botched and there is widespread public dissatisfaction with it, that can serve only to alienate sentiment and to alienate our citizens further from our democratic processes in this country. If there is a case for reform, and I believe that there is a case for significant reform in a number of aspects of our constitutional arrangements, then the benefits of reform will be dissipated and lost if the public feel angry that their legitimate entitlement to make their contribution to this process through public inquiries has been stamped upon by a Government who are in a hurry to effect change to suit their own political interest.

My noble friend Lord Dixon made a speech of profound importance, and I hope that Ministers and noble Lords opposite will think very carefully about what he said. He spoke with passion about the community of which he has been a member all his life. The Government’s formula of insisting on rigid numerical equality between constituencies risks violating community, ignoring history and causing profound offence to the people of this country. If indeed there is to be a rigid numerical formula, with a difference of no more than plus or minus 5 per cent from the norm of 76,000 voters, it is all the more important that the Boundary Commission should be allowed to have the time to take care to be sensitive to these other very important factors. If the Government rush in seeking to create numerically equal constituencies and do not pay attention to what people have to say about community, history, geography and the importance of the alignment of parliamentary constituencies with local government, they will make the process even more offensive than I fear it will inevitably be in any case.

[Baroness Corston]

Does my noble friend recognise that many of us have heard—as, perhaps, he has—from people in Cornwall, who have said that their boundary has been inviolate for more than 1,000 years? They are absolutely appalled that anyone should consider a boundary that includes areas of both Devon and Cornwall, which they would consider utterly unacceptable.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

It is a grossly insensitive and, politically, a remarkably stupid thing to contemplate. I add one further point. My recent observation of the working of the Boundary Commission was in Norfolk, on the question of whether there should be unitary status for Norwich within the county of Norfolk. The difficulty that we got into was, in part, because the Boundary Commission took so much longer than the timescale to which it had been tasked. It simply could not get the job done on the timescale that the previous Government wanted. It might be wise for this Government to study that instance and learn a lesson from it. If this process is pushed through with the kind of haste that is intended, all kinds of grievous consequences will follow. It is a waste of an opportunity for reform.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

I do not want to labour the issue of timing, other than to say that I support vigorously the amendment moved by my noble friend. However, I implore Ministers to listen to the wise counsel of the noble Lord, Lord Wills. He probably knows more about electoral registration than any other Member of either House. He was a Minister throughout a period when it dominated his agenda. Ministers in this Government would do well to consider carefully his words on the whole issue of why the existing register is useless for the purposes that they intend to use it.

I want to ask Ministers questions based on the 14th report of the Select Committee on the Constitution from the 2003-04 Session, Parliament and the Legislative Process. Paragraph 15 of Chapter 3 refers to the arrangements for the handling of legislation. I raise this issue because it deals with the question of consultation. I am trying to secure from the Government some more information on the extent to which they consulted on the time that is set out in the Bill for dealing with the Boundary Commission review. Paragraph 15 says:

“There is an extensive gestation and drafting process before a bill is laid before Parliament … Proposals now are regularly put out for consultation and there is an established framework for that consultation”.

Paragraph 16 goes on to refer to a,

“Code of Practice issued by the Cabinet Office”,

which,

“stipulates that there should be a consultation period of twelve weeks”.

My questions are about that consultation period. When did it start? When did it end? Who was consulted? Where is the information that came back as a result of that consultation? That is highly pertinent to today’s debate. All I ask of Ministers is whether we can have that information. If that is the process that should have been undertaken, and recognising that there has been a short period between the election and today, some of us, including me, might wonder whether that code of practice was complied with. If it was not, let us have a full explanation of why not.

[Lord Rooker]

My Lords, I did not intend to speak on this but I will add a new example on the time element. We would not be having a debate about the time element were it not for the contents of the Bill from page 9 onwards in new Schedule 2, which deals with the rules for the redistribution of seats. I note that one of the factors that the Boundary Commission may take into account—I realise that it will be in May—is,

“local government boundaries as they exist on the most recent ordinary council-election day before the review”.

Timing and names are not unimportant given the ward building blocks in present constituencies. I represented part of the city of Birmingham when I was a Member of the other place. Birmingham had the largest building blocks in the country, with an average ward size of 19,000 electors. My figures are now out of date but were correct when I was a Member of the other place. If you then decide how many constituencies you are having and you get an odd number, and the policy is not to split wards, you end up with some Members having three wards with 60,000 people and others having four with 80,000 people. That is what happened in my case and that of colleagues. Noble Lords may say that that will not happen under the formula in the Bill and that wards will have to be split, but that is something that you avoid doing. Herein lies the problem.

One of the rules set by the Boundary Commission, which is buried somewhere among its procedures—we came unstuck on this on one occasion—stipulates that the constituency in a county borough, which Birmingham is, has to be named after one of the wards in the constituency. My former colleague Terry Davis was really upset about this because we lost the ward of Stechford and had to change the name of the constituency, which was virtually the same. If you have to split the wards because they do not make arithmetical sense in this situation, this problem may arise. Nobody wants more councillors in Birmingham; we are already at the limit with some 120 to 124 and the extra ones for Sutton Coldfield.

You cannot sort out this situation in two years. It is not just a matter of changing the boundaries; you are potentially rewriting local government boundaries in the big cities. I think that Leeds is the only other city with such large wards—there is an average of some 15,000 electors in a ward. You can see the difficulty that arises when you start moving these large building blocks around. The difficulty does not arise in London boroughs, where the wards are very small, at about a third of the size of those in Birmingham, and have better representation in terms of councillors.

This issue has to be addressed within the two-year period. It is a question not just of the building blocks but of names and the division of current local authority building blocks in our big cities. As I say, the problem will arise in Birmingham and Leeds. It applies to Manchester but to a lesser degree, as its wards are much smaller than those of Leeds and Birmingham for historical reasons. This factor means that more time will be needed to tackle this issue. As I have said before, I think that the boundaries should be equal, but the fact is that the rules in the Bill mean that the review cannot be done in two years without upsetting a lot of people through splitting wards and consequently redrawing local government boundaries while you are trying to tackle parliamentary boundaries. I do not think that you can do both together.

[Lord Snape]

My Lords, I rise to speak to my noble friend’s amendment, as I have tabled a similar one that we shall discuss later in the proceedings and I have no wish to detain your Lordships further by discussing virtually the same matter twice. Much of the debate on my noble friend’s amendment has been about numbers and electors. However, as my noble friend Lord Rooker has pointed out, other matters will have a direct impact on any redrawing of the boundaries as proposed in the Bill. Like my noble friend Lord Kennedy, who pointed out some of the difficulties that had arisen in Coventry, which were put right by a local inquiry into Boundary Commission proposals, and my noble friend and fellow sapper, Lord Dixon, who pointed out the historical arrangements in his part of the world, I encountered such a difficulty when I was a Member of the other place.

The boundaries for the then new seat of West Bromwich East, which I fought in 1974, had been drawn up by the Boundary Commission in the 1960s. The natural boundary between the constituency of West Bromwich East and that held with such distinction by the noble Baroness, Lady Boothroyd, as she now is, was the former Great Western Railway line. Unfortunately, before I arrived on the scene, that line was closed—actually in 1972. The cutting through the centre of West Bromwich had been virtually filled in and therefore there was no natural boundary between our two constituencies. It took a local inquiry after the 1980s boundary review to point that out and the dividing line between our respective constituencies was then redrawn on to a dual carriageway that represented a much more natural break between the two seats. That was electorally advantageous to the incumbent in West Bromwich East, which just so happened to be me. It was not quite so advantageous to my then honourable friend on the other side, but I got my representations in first and congratulated that local inquiry on the common sense of its new recommendations. I am glad to say that the noble Baroness, Lady Boothroyd, has forgiven me over the 25 years since and we are back on speaking terms. The point that I am seeking to make is that the anomaly was pointed out only because of that local inquiry. The Boundary Commission in its wisdom went purely on numbers and did not look at geography, the contours of the ground or a natural boundary between our constituencies.

16:45

[Lord Bradley]

Perhaps I may give another example. I went through two boundary changes in the city of Manchester. The Boundary Commission produced proposals that split the communities north and south of the Mersey valley, part of which was more than a mile wide. The commission had also forgotten that the M60 motorway had been built along the valley, so there was no connection between the north and south of the Mersey valley. When there was a local inquiry, that point was strongly made and on both occasions my constituency was put back together north of that natural boundary.

[Lord Snape]

Again, your Lordships will draw their own conclusions from that intervention. In fact, local knowledge makes a big difference when these boundaries, having been drawn up, are finally agreed. I hope that the Minister who replies to the amendment will accept that to lose that opportunity for a local inquiry, where anomalies such as these can be pointed out, would be a serious and retrograde step. As I have indicated, I intervene at this stage to save time and to pre-empt my later amendment. I hope that the Minister will accept that these are relevant points and will address them in his reply.

[Lord Bach]

My Lords, all three amendments that we have been discussing—the amendment that has been moved and the other two, Amendments 56 and 56A, which have been spoken to—are important. A great deal of important information has emerged as a consequence of the speeches made. I certainly do not intend to repeat those arguments, but I want to make a few short points.

First, all three amendments propose a delay to the submission of the reports of the first boundary review to be held under the new rules. From the Front Bench, we agree with that principle. I remind the Committee that on Monday we debated Amendment 54A, which also called for a delay—it was an important debate—but more implicitly than explicitly, as these amendments clearly do. We called for a delay in the boundary review process, first, until the electoral register is accurate and up to date. If I may say so, the compliment that my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours paid to my noble friend Lord Wills for his work over many years in this field is well merited. It is important that the Government listen carefully to what my noble friend Lord Wills and others say about the nature of the register and how important it is to get the data right before embarking on some sort of brave new world.

It is also key that the Boundary Commission should be given sufficient time to complete the very large task that it will undoubtedly face. This argument has been made by a number of noble Lords. In evidence to the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee of the other place, the secretaries of the Boundary Commissions for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland confirmed that the timetable was achievable, but tight, and that extra resources would certainly be needed—I believe that this point, too, was spoken to on Monday. Who knows whether they are being optimistic or realistic? Obviously it is their best guess. However, by any standards, the changes envisaged in Part 2 of the Bill are substantial. Surely it must and will take time for the various Boundary Commissions to propose a new set of constituencies. Our view, which I think is common sense, is that 1 October 2013 is too tight a timetable. That is the case, simply put, and it deserves an answer from the Minister. Why does the Boundary Commission have to report by 1 October 2013? Why not make sure that it has plenty of time to produce reports that will stand the test of time?

We have heard today about public inquiries and no doubt we will have debates on the matter. From my own experience, and more importantly from that of noble Lords who have spoken today about public inquiries, I say that their value is absolutely undoubted. They may be frustrating in terms of time, but their value in making sure that parliamentary boundaries are sensible and can last has been shown time and again. We have heard this from various ex-Members of Parliament who have spoken. I speak as a non-ex-Member of Parliament who has appeared at many boundary inquiries in different parts of the country, sometimes with success and sometimes, I confess, with a substantial lack of it. However, nearly always, following the public inquiry, the decision made by the Boundary Commission, in whoever’s interest, is better than it was before the public inquiry. This issue is of fundamental importance to the Bill and we will return to it at the proper time. It is one of the most powerful parts of the argument that has been made in favour of these three amendments.

[The Advocate-General for Scotland (Lord Wallace of Tankerness)]

My Lords, the Bill would require the Boundary Commission to report by October 2013. The amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, would change this to October 2015. The amendment in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady McDonagh, and the noble Lord, Lord Snape, would make it October 2016, and Amendment 56A, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, would make it October 2017. As I indicated on more than one occasion on Monday, the Government’s approach has been simple: to ensure that constituency boundaries are as up to date as possible. That point is worth repeating. The boundaries in effect in England at the general election fought last May were drawn up based on data that were 10 years old. If the House were to accept any of the amendments, the election in May 2015 would be fought on data that were 15 years old.

I mentioned on Monday, in answer to the noble Lord, Lord Wills, the 3.5 million people who are eligible to vote but who are not on the register. What I cannot fathom—and I have thought about this time and again in case I was missing something—is the point that somehow one does a service to these 3.5 million people by using electoral data from 2000. What service does that do to those who have come on to the electoral register between 2000 and December 2010?

[Lord Wills]

Perhaps I may answer that question. Under legislation, the Electoral Commission is tasked with repairing this grievous fault in our electoral register by 2015. Why can the Government not wait two more years? I understand the frustration and the point that the Minister is making about data being ridiculously out of date. Of course he is right, but why not wait just a few months more for the Electoral Commission, an independent body with new powers, to bring those 3.5 million people on to the register, and then do this comprehensive review?

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

I shall answer the noble Lord’s second point directly.

[Baroness McDonagh]

My Lords—

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

I am sure that the noble Baroness will allow me to answer the question posed by her noble friend. First, I do not believe that it does any service to those who came on to the register between 2000 and 2010 to ignore them. Secondly, under the Bill, the relevant review date for the Boundary Commission report due in 2018 would be December 2015. I acknowledge the work that was done by the noble Lord when he was a Minister with regard to the rolling register. All the data-matching work that we intend to do in pilots, and to which I referred on Monday, will be available for further review with the relevant review date being in December 2015. It is not as though we are not going to be able to do that. We are also saying that the election in 2015 will be based on electoral data for the whole of the United Kingdom as at December 2010. I find that far more acceptable than basing it on data for England as far back as 2000. I do not see why we should have one general election based on data as old as that.

[Baroness McDonagh]

I thank the Minister for giving way. It is better that we register the 3.5 million people who are not registered because the constituencies are not representative. The important points are that, first, constituencies are largely the same size and, secondly, the people not on the register are those most in need of representation. They tend to be disadvantaged and in inner-city areas. I do not need to go through all the geodemographic issues that pertain to those individual residents but, although they are not on the register, they need, and seek, representation by their Members of Parliament. Those Members of Parliament have to represent constituencies that are in need of a lot of support, and they are larger than other Members’ constituencies, which do not have that level of casework and representation. That is why it is better that those people are on the register.

I have one final point. The people who have come on to the register since 2000 have taken the place of voters who were previously on the register, and they make no difference.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

I cannot accept that they make no difference. I have acknowledged that it is important that we track those 3.5 million people and that they are registered. However, by acknowledging that and indicating that the second review under the rules proposed in the Bill will take account of them, I cannot see why we should ignore those who have come on to the register since 2000. It is rather sad to reflect that since 2000, as the noble Baroness indicated, many people on the register do not need any representation. However, I am not sure why their being on the register should be relevant for the election that is fought on the boundaries in 2015 when we can do better and bring the register up to date. I cannot say, as was suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Davies, that this is somehow a gerrymander. Indeed, in introducing his amendment, the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, indicated, using independent analysis, that there would be precious little difference between the number of seats lost by the Labour Party and the Conservative Party. That rather undermines the case made on more than one occasion that somehow this is a partisan measure.

I believe it is important that these boundary changes take effect at the next general election, and indeed there will be even fresher boundaries for the election in 2020. We will come on to the periodic frequency of the review, when we will certainly seek to ensure that each election is based on a more up-to-date register than the previous one—something that we have not enjoyed in this country until now. The secretary to the Boundary Commission for England has indicated that this will be a more sizeable task for England. However, as I quoted directly from the report of the Political and Constitutional Reform Select Committee in the other place, he indicated that the commission had sufficient resources and time to complete the review by 2013. He thought that that was achievable. If it is achievable, as the Boundary Commission thinks it is, to fight the next general election in 2015 on boundaries referring to 2010 as the baseline for data and not 2000, that begs the question why we would not do it.

No doubt we will return to the question of inquiries and I am sure that we will have robust exchanges, but it is possible to move forward. It is achievable, as the secretary to the Boundary Commission has indicated, and the next general election should be fought on constituency sizes which are far closer to ensuring one vote, one value, than would be the case if we were to allow yet another five years to elapse before addressing what will increasingly become over the years an even more divergent problem. I therefore ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

17:00

[Lord Lipsey]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord for his full answer to the amendment, but I am puzzled. It is wonderful that here is an attempted partisan redrawing of boundaries, which alas has been botched, so it will not have the effect that the party dealing with the changes in the boundaries intends. The noble and learned Lord says that that shows it was never intending the partisan effect in the first place. Others will no doubt decide whether that is an objectively sustainable claim.

More seriously, the problem is not really with getting up-to-date electorates. We would all be in favour of that, but the trouble is that it is being brought forward not only for that reason but for the others I have mentioned, including a believed partisan effect. It is the combined effect of trying to get a more recent database with a 5 per cent tolerance that is being introduced that my noble friends have been pointing out. Some of these changes are very delicate and they will be particularly so if they are happening everywhere. The 5 per cent means that nearly every constituency in the land has to be redrawn and nearly every ward will have its boundaries crossed, involving all the problems with the names of constituencies. That is why it will not prove a successful, speedy attempt.

I shall not seek the opinion of the House. It will be easier to take a view on this amendment, as on the others before it, when we have seen the whole picture in this Committee stage on the whole of this part of the Bill. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 55 withdrawn.

Amendments 56 and 56A not moved.

Amendment 57

Moved by

[Lord Lipsey]

57: Clause 10, page 8, line 15, leave out “fifth” and insert “seventh”

[Lord Lipsey]

Goodness, you hardly get to sit down before you have to stand up again.

I am not sure that this amendment is right. It suggests a seven-year periodicity of reviews instead of five years. I am not sure whether seven years is the right answer. At the moment we have reviews broadly every 10 years, which is broadly every two elections. Seven years would not sustain that, although there is a case that it should be sustained. I am sure, however, that five years is daft. It is strange coming from a coalition Government led by a Conservative Party, but five years is a recipe for permanent revolution. It will mean much upheaval; you will hardly have finished with one review of boundaries before settling into another. It means that there will be no stability in the system and many people will only just have discovered who their MP is when it changes, not as a result of their decision at a general election but a Boundary Commission decision. That is the result of a combination, which I believe is toxic, of the 5 per cent variance in the size of constituencies and the five-yearly reviews of constituency boundaries.

Stability matters tremendously to MPs. Under this system, they will hardly get back into the other end before they will be wondering which seat to look to represent next time. Will your present seat continue to exist or, if its population is growing, is it about to be dismembered and replaced by another constituency? Every Member of another place will, under this system, be carrying a permanent carpet bag, ready to find himself or herself a new seat.

I do not think that that is a good recipe for anything, including the good governance of this country. If you are thinking the whole time about where your seat is going to be, you are not going to be thinking the whole time about what policy should be. Some of us believe that there has been a dangerous development in our politics, whereby the sheer degree of constituency issues which every MP must consider—I defer to those who have been Members of another place; I may be quite wrong about this—and the sheer weight of constituency work which they face, make it extremely hard to give attention to the wider national issues for which, in a sense, they are elected.

That has been a substantial change over the years. If you read the biography of Gladstone by Roy Jenkins, you will find that he hopped constituencies every few years and had no constituency work or contact at all. Nowadays, any MP has to be deeply embedded in their constituency—a bit like bishops. The ones who are doing a good job really know their areas, their patch, and their people. They will not get embedded in that way if, at the next general election, they know that their patch and their people may be completely changed and that they may be starting again on fresh turf, as Gladstone did. Gladstone ran the Midlothian campaign, but I did not hear of him running many campaigns for the repair of drains in the constituencies that he represented.

That instability for MPs is not the main problem. Anyone who seeks a sympathy vote for MPs is on a losing wicket these days. The main point is the effect that it can have on constituents. Constituents come in all shapes and sizes. I am sure that every Member of this House who has been a Member of another place had many constituents that they would have been delighted never to see again at their surgery doors, but they built up a relationship with their people and people built up a relationship with their Member.

When I was working as a political journalist, I found, when I had conversations with a Member of another place about the great issues of politics, that I was often not wholly overwhelmed by the breadth of knowledge and vision that they had on world problems, and so on. Where I always learnt from any conversation that I had with a Member of another place was when they turned to the issues in their constituency. That is how I understood the reality of the decline of manufacturing industry. It is there where you understand the dilemmas involved in what services you improve and what services you have to hold back on. That was the whole basis of what they brought to our national government and governance.

We had a wonderful example from the noble Lord, Lord Dixon, this afternoon. Could that knowledge be picked up by anyone who happened to be passing through Jarrow on a Sunday afternoon? Would that knowledge be held by the civil servants sitting in Whitehall, or even in the north-east? No, it was detailed constituency knowledge based, as the noble Lord said, on 50 years of living there and representing people there. That is a terrible thing to throw lightly aside, and it is the constituents who will lose. They will not know who to write to; they will not know whether to trust who they write to; they will not know what they are hoping to achieve when they do; and they will not have that intimate relationship that both they and MPs value so much.

It is very noticeable from opinion polling that if you ask people what they think of MPs in general, it is unspeakable. They think that they are nasty, self-seeking men and women on the take. I think they are wrong, mostly, but that is what they think. However, if you ask people what they think about their MP, you get a very different picture of affection and respect that is, in most cases, earned by hard work based on the knowledge that the MP wishes to retain the relationship between him and the constituency he represents for many years ahead. That will go under this Bill, and part of the mechanism by which it will go is the demand that the constituency boundaries be revised every five years.

Whatever we decide on the right variance between constituencies, and we may well make a decision, and whatever we decide about the number of MPs, and we may well make a decision, I hope that between now and the final passage of the Bill, it will not be totally impossible for the Government to think again on this issue and to space the reviews more widely so that this relationship can survive. Not much rope now attaches the people to our politics. It has grown thinner and thinner. The people’s confidence in politics has diminished, as, I fear, has their confidence in Parliament, but it is the constituency relationship and a consistent constituency relationship—

[Lord Tyler]

Before he completes his speech, will the noble Lord explain the rationale behind the selection of seven years for the review? By definition, that would mean that more constituencies would be subject to change than if it was five years. If he went for a longer period, presumably even more constituencies would be subject to change, so all the arguments that he has been advancing, which I entirely endorse as someone who was very proud to represent an interesting part of the country, would fall by the wayside if more constituencies were changed as a result of his proposal.

[Lord Lipsey]

I am most grateful to the noble Lord. I have been on my feet in successive speeches, and he must have missed the beginning of my speech when I said that I was not sure that seven years was right. I was simply sure that five years was not right. That is why we have a Committee stage in this place: so that we can explore these things and come to a correct decision when we get to Report. If the decision was made for 10 years, I certainly would see no reason to suppose that it was wrong. I think that five years has a particular defect that seven years avoids, which is that in five years you know exactly the time. If we have fixed-term Parliaments, the chicken run starts two years before each general election, so there are only three years in which it does not start. Seven years would avoid that, so at least you would get another election after you were first elected, and then you would have a period of uncertainty. However, if the noble Lord wished to move an amendment that proposed 10 years, I should be an enthusiastic supporter of it, and it would be good to see him doing it. All I am saying to the House this afternoon, and I am not sure whether he disagrees, is that a five-year permanent revolution under the Conservatives is too short a period.

17:15

[Lord Martin of Springburn]

My Lords, I support everything that the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, said. My amendment talks about eight years. I address my remarks to the Minister. The purpose is to give new Members of Parliament a chance to get at least two years serving in the House. If I look around, at least 20 noble Lords have served in the other place. I think they will all readily acknowledge that you do not learn your craft as a Member of Parliament within one term; far from it. I am stating the obvious that, apart from London Members of Parliament who have other pressures and difficulties, every Monday every Member of Parliament has to be on the road leaving their wife or husband and family to travel down here to London. In some cases that is a considerable distance, through all sorts of weather. When they come to the House they work with enthusiasm for what they do.

I was always impressed by Members of Parliament who raised such things as Adjournment debates about the problems of other countries, such as famine or the loss of civil liberties and civil rights. They got no votes for that. They did not do that for selfish reasons; they did it because they wanted a better world. It will be a very sad day if, as soon as a Member of Parliament arrives at Westminster, they worry about whether they will hold that office after the next election. I do not think that there will be any difficulty finding Members of Parliament to serve for the five years about which the Minister is talking.

In all the time that I have been in Parliament, everyone has always said that they want a good cross-section of the community, which is a good thing. I remember the Falklands debate in which former soldiers from every side of the House talked about the adrenaline when on a troop ship. They had come from another life, and the whole House, including young Members who had never been in the forces, were able to enjoy that.

I was on the Floor of the House when two former miners from the north-east of England described what it was like to be in a coalmine when the dust was flying and there were all sorts of dangers. They held that House in the palms of their hands and every Member listened. During a debate on hanging, I listened to Conservative Members who had represented people who were being defended against the chance of being sentenced to capital punishment. My point is that there were people from every walk of life.

I would not like to say that we do not want young people who leave university, work for an MP and then become a Member of Parliament. There is a place for them, but if the House becomes completely full of young researchers who had worked for MPs and then got a parliamentary seat, that would not be the representative body that we need in our Parliament. It would be far from that.

At the other end of the ladder, the ladies in this House have rightly argued that we need more women in Parliament. There was talk about all-women shortlists in order to get more ladies into Parliament, which is right, but will we get a lady who is typical of someone in my constituency, such as a home help with two children? She would have to say to her husband, “Well, I have got a chance of going into Parliament”. Her husband might say, “But you could get promotion in the health service. You will only get one term out of this”.

I know that someone might say, “The electorate can take you out”, but every Member of Parliament takes that chance. I used to cringe when people said to me, “You’ve got a safe Labour seat”. I did not have a safe Labour seat. You fight for every vote and you support the people in your community. In a marginal seat—I have seen this happen—where a Member of Parliament comes in with a majority or 23 or 24, they can build up the support and are willing to do that, but the boundary commissioner coming around with a pencil and cutting up the map is perhaps something that they would not want. We have people who were successful in business and are now retired and well off. We will also have young people. I do not think they should be barred, but if that was all of them we would not have people from every walk of life in our Parliament. Here in your Lordships’ House we make every endeavour to get people from every walk of life. We have judges, QCs and engineers like me who are able to talk about the engineering industry. We will lose that.

What kind of strain are we going to put on Members of Parliament when, as family men and women, their children say, “We want to go to the pictures. We want to have a day out”? The husband or the wife comes up the road on a Thursday only to get a phone call saying that there is a difficulty over employment, or in the local hospital or local authority. The day out for the children is spoilt. I know that from my own experience. I was raised as the son of a merchant seaman. My father was never in the house because he had to earn a living. I was determined that, whatever time I had in Glasgow, my children would be with me. That meant taking them to all sorts of rallies, ward meetings and trade union meetings. The poor wee souls were bored out of their skulls, but there was a promise that afterwards there would be a trip to the pictures, a museum, or something more enjoyable.

My case for this amendment is that it is not about delay or any other argument. We go into schools through the efforts of the Lord Speaker. I do not think that there is a noble Lord or a Member of Parliament who would refuse a visit to a school or college or would say that politics is not a good and rewarding thing to be in. Not one of them would do that. It is my understanding that this House has a scheme through which we encourage young people to get involved in Parliament. How can that encouragement tie in with putting forward a case that you are going to get only one term?

A lot has been said about the Executive and Ministers. I know the difficulties with Ministers because they want to talk. That is why I enjoy being in the House of Lords: because I did not get to speak for 10 years. Ministers want to talk all the time, but each and every one of them is doing an important job, and the law officers look after a department. How will it be if, within five years, there is a chance that their boundary will change? Sometimes unworthy things can come to the fore with boundary changes. Sometimes Back-Bench parliamentary colleagues might say, “Well, John can’t turn up because he is a Minister, you see, but I am free to come to your meeting”. “Don’t vote for John when we have the boundary change”, does not have to be said because the strong hint will have been put.

From a party political point of view, I used to be in the Labour Party and now I am on the Cross Benches. I enjoy this neutrality, but I also enjoy the workings of every political party because I have sat in the Tea Room with colleagues sometimes until one or two in the morning. I know especially the workings of the Labour Party. The minute boundary changes are on the horizon, I can hear the phrases yet: “You had better start getting the delegates in. You had better go to your trade union. You had better go to your Co-op and your affiliated societies and get them in”. It is not good for democracy if you are doing that every five years. I will tell you what will happen. I used to read stories about the ward bosses in Boston, and we will get ward bosses in our cities, and, indeed, in our spread out rural areas, who can deliver the votes. That, to me, is not what parliamentary democracy is about.

I say only this to the Ministers, and I do it with the best of intentions; we want good people from every background and every possible age group, so give them a chance of serving for at least two terms as parliamentarians.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

My noble friend Lord Martin of Springburn has just made a very important contribution to this debate, because he knows what will happen in the real world in the event of the Government going forward with the five-year principle. My noble friend spelled out all the experiences that I know many Members of the other place, on all sides of the House, had during their political lifetimes, whereby, when they were confronted by Boundary Commission inquiries, all kinds of abnormal things would happen in their constituencies—often things that they did not even comprehend.

I have asked the Minister a series of questions. Would he care, in winding up the debate on this amendment, to answer them or undertake to let me have replies before next Monday? I understand that he might not have the information with him now, but I would like to know about the Cabinet Office’s code of practice on consultation.

On the security of tenure, I apologise to my noble friend Lord Grocott for having to disagree with him on the basis of his response to my earlier intervention. I believe that individuals often consider their likely period of tenure in the House of Commons prior to being elected. They have it in mind for all sorts of reasons. I cannot count the number of times over recent years when I have asked people, “Would you go into Parliament?”. I have asked people whom I thought were worthy and who would make good MPs. They would say to me, “I will never touch it. I wouldn’t go near the place”. That is invariably because they are wary of the insecurity that arises, particularly now, after the expenses inquiry. Every time an IPSA story appears in the national press, whereby it is being criticised for its lack of sensitivity in its treatment of MPs, and when MPs are being attacked almost daily both in regional and national newspapers and their integrity is often undermined by journalists, perfectly honourable people are put off the political process. It is that, along with the prospect of a brief tenure in Parliament, which I believe influences the judgments that people make.

I also know of former MPs, not only in here but outside, who have lost their jobs. When they have left Parliament, they have found that no work is available outside because they have the lost the skills or knowledge that would be required for them to practise their trade, skill or professional work. People also have that in mind when they consider whether to enter. It is a question not only of what they think as individuals but also of what their families think. Many people have been stopped from going into Parliament on the basis of a spouse or family view as to whether the family can take the financial or the employment risk. That is the case even under present arrangements, whereby there is at least an acceptable term between boundary reviews and changes. Under the Government’s proposals, it will be far worse. The Government are bringing into that calculation all those considerations of insecurity, which will turn families off and whereby they are more than likely to say to an aspiring MP in the family, “Please don’t do it. We just can’t afford the risk”.

That is basically my case. I argue that what is being proposed is wrong, that the period is too short and that the insecurity that it will breed should not be entertained. My final view is that it will influence the quality of people who are attracted to going into the House of Commons. My noble friend says, “Well, there will always be people who want to go into Parliament”. There are always people who want to go on to councils, but the quality of some local authority representation in the United Kingdom is absolutely appalling.

To be frank, there were people in the other place when I was there who I would have had difficulty voting for myself—we know who we are talking about. Some of them, frankly, were not fit to be in the House of Commons, but they got there. If the Government want to create a House of Commons to which more and more people seek nomination who are not of sufficient calibre to enter the place and do a good job, they are making a very grave error.

17:30

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

I add two considerations to the important ones already put forward by my noble friends and the noble Lord, Lord Martin of Springburn. One is that it is not a question of what is fair to people serving as MPs: we ought also to consider that the House of Commons itself needs continuity. It needs experience. It needs committee officers who have experience of that particular committee work. It needs its subject experts who the House learns to respect and listen to on particular matters. It needs those who are knowledgeable about procedure and people in the Whips Office who keep the show on the road. All those contributions that different individual Members of Parliament make need experience. Ministers need experience. Some Ministers will demonstrate within a short timescale that perhaps they should return to the Back Benches. Others, who will be good Ministers, need time to develop. For all those reasons, it is profoundly important that, as the amendment of my noble friend Lord Lipsey, proposes, we do not destabilise the pattern of parliamentary representation more often than is genuinely necessary to ensure that the boundaries are adequately up to date.

I will touch briefly on the other consideration that I would like to put forward because I said something about it in one of our debates on Monday and I do not want to repeat myself. Equally, it is important that local political parties should not be destabilised and upset more often than is necessary. All political parties have difficulty in attracting membership and are too prone to dissipate time and energy in the tussle for office and position within the party. They need to be able to settle to their work and do the job that they do within their communities, which is absolutely fundamental to the operation of our democracy. We should not destabilise that process gratuitously.

[Lord Maclennan of Rogart]

My Lords, I am interested in the arguments that the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, put forward in support of his amendment. But there has been an unspoken premise throughout this short debate that the Boundary Commission will inevitably shake the kaleidoscope and the picture that emerges from it will be quite different from before. That will not necessarily be the case. Certainly, as a consequence of the reduction in the number of parliamentary seats that is proposed in the Bill, on the first occasion there will be a considerable change in the shape of constituencies. But once that position has become settled—and I do not imagine that even the most ardent constitutional reformer would anticipate that altering the size of the House of Commons would become a matter of custom—the stability of the total numbers is highly predictable.

[Lord Lipsey]

I am most grateful to the noble Lord, whom I hugely respect on constitutional matters, for giving way. The reason that there will be permanent upheaval is the 5 per cent limit. The reduction of MPs is indeed a one-off effect, but as soon as you go one voter over the 5 per cent, that constituency has to change, which has a knock-on effect on the next constituency, which has a knock-on effect on the next and the next. I know that the noble Lord is an avid reader on the subject and I recommend the work of Democratic Audit, which would explain to him very clearly that what I say may be desirable or undesirable, but it is the factual situation that will result from the Government’s Bill.

[Lord Maclennan of Rogart]

I accept that some changes will flow from that. In another place, I went through nine different elections and each time the Boundary Commission reported there were some marginal changes. It is marginal changes that are likely to take effect. These were, in the cases I recall that affected me, changes to enlarge the electorate because I had both the second largest constituency in geography and the second smallest in numbers of electors to begin with. Naturally enough, there was an attempt to increase them.

The thought that the Boundary Commission would be likely to upset the prospects for a sitting Member seems nothing compared to the probability that if we had a fairer electoral system, it would more adequately represent the electors by ensuring that their votes and the numbers of their votes were reflected—

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

The noble Lord cites his own constituency, which I know as well. It had a nuclear plant in Dounreay. Would the noble Lord agree that it is not a representative constituency? It is surrounded by a vast rural area. However much the boundaries of Caithness and Sutherland were changed, it would have had little effect on the result. Most of the votes that the noble Lord gleaned in that constituency were the result of his own efforts.

[Lord Maclennan of Rogart]

Flattery will undoubtedly get the noble Lord far down the track with his arguments. The actuality is that my constituency and those constituencies that lay to the south of me changed with great regularity. There were Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and Labour Members and the shape of the constituency as determined by the Boundary Commission was not an element that caused great uncertainty.

Having gone through nine elections where in no case was the outcome certain, I think that there has been a sympathetic exaggeration of the concerns of potential Members of Parliament about stability and certainty. If you go into politics, you cannot make a presumption that you will be there for all time. Events, dear boy, change things.

[Lord Hughes of Woodside]

I know the noble Lord’s constituency well. However, in my own case in the city of Aberdeen, we had many major changes. We went from two MPs in a purely city constituency, two MPs with a vast rural hinterland, to three MPs and back to two MPs. If you go from three to two, somebody has got to go. I do not argue that people should be there for ever—I have never argued that—but this artificial way of consistently changing boundaries makes it difficult for them to do a proper job. We must take into account that people have a great attachment to their constituency and also, thankfully, to their constituency MP.

[Lord Maclennan of Rogart]

The noble Lord enjoyed a degree of stability which has enabled his voice to be heard consistently for decades in politics. I do not think that he personally can have been seriously troubled by the sitting of the Boundary Commission. His position is more the norm than that of the MPs who are fearful about modest changes at the margins to reflect population or electorate changes.

There seems to be an underlying unwillingness to recognise that significant changes can happen in the course of 10 years and that constituency electorates should be broadly comparable to each other. If Boundary Commissions may make mistakes, why should we wait for another 10 years to put those mistakes right? In reality, concerns will be raised if these issues about local communities are not adequately addressed. Consequently, those changes should be made within five years.

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

On the noble Lord’s point that the Boundary Commissions may make mistakes, does he not agree that the chances that the Boundary Commissions will make mistakes will be much greater if the counterweight of public inquiries and appeals is removed? Would it not alter the equation considerably if the Bill results not only in the Boundary Commissions recommending changes more frequently but in those recommendations being more likely to be—to use his own term—mistaken?

[Lord Maclennan of Rogart]

That issue will be addressed in separate amendments and is a perfectly fair point to make. There may be a case for continuing with public inquiries, but that does not affect the argument about the frequency with which an attempt should be made to have up-to-date boundaries.

However, the case for continuing with public inquiries is not made simply by arguing that, for the peace of mind of those who are thinking about standing for Parliament, MPs should have a security of tenure for up to 10 years. That is artificial, unreal and inappropriate in considering these matters. The purpose of the reform is to satisfy the electors, not the elected.

[Lord Rooker]

Will the noble Lord give way?

[Lord Maclennan of Rogart]

I have finished my speech.

[Lord Grocott]

My Lords, I cannot help but remark that, although the noble Lord, Lord Maclennan of Rogart, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness—who I assume will sum up the debate— both had long and distinguished careers representing their constituencies in London, their experience of boundary redistribution may not, I respectfully suggest, be very typical. Unless my geography is completely askew, the former constituency of the noble Lord, Lord Maclennan, was surrounded on three sides by sea and the former constituency of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, was surrounded on all sides by sea. To me, that suggests a security of tenure that I would have envied.

[Lord Maclennan of Rogart]

I thank the noble Lord for giving way. The reality is that the Boundary Commission added 25 per cent to the number of my electors. That did not give a sense of security.

[Lord Grocott]

Whatever the circumstances, being a Member of Parliament is not the most secure of roles.

I want to make two points. First, I have added my name to Amendment 58, in the name of my noble friend Lord Martin of Springburn, which would provide for Boundary Commission reviews every eight years. Certainly in my case, that number was not just plucked from thin air. The current law provides that the period between each redistribution should be between eight and 12 years. There needs to be some compromise—there is no tablet of stone that tells us how frequently redistributions should take place—but a requirement that redistributions should take place every eight years would have some historic precedent. I hope that our recommendation of eight years would go some way towards meeting the Government’s requirement to provide, on a continuing basis, for a rough equalisation of constituency sizes—a principle to which in general terms I certainly do not object. Requiring the review to take place every eight years would at least give Members of Parliament probably two terms in which they would represent the same area.

Secondly, I simply want to point out the sheer practicalities of the situation that my noble friend Lord Lipsey has described as a kind of permanent revolution. Members of Parliament would not be human—we have all seen this happen—if, having discovered halfway through a Parliament that they will lose a large section of their current constituency and gain another area from another constituency after the election, they did not start concentrating some of their activities and energies on the area that was to be transferred. They would not be human if they no longer attached quite the same level of attention as they had in the past to the bit that they knew would be going somewhere else in 18 months or two years. That is just a matter of sheer common sense and no reflection on the integrity or commitment of the vast majority of MPs. I have always believed that to have been the case.

17:45

Incidentally, I say to people who favour changing the electoral system that I have seen no distinction whatever in my parliamentary life between the activities of Members of Parliament in so-called safe seats—I never regard any seat as safe—and those in marginal seats. I have seen all sorts in all seats but the vast majority are assiduous in attending to the concerns of their constituents, whatever arithmetic majority they may enjoy. I can even quote from personal experience. I perhaps have more reason than most to be grateful to the dear old boundary commissioners. For a while, I had one of the most marginal seats in the country but thanks to the boundary commissioners—not to my talents—the boundaries were redrawn so that it seemed to other people to have become a safe seat. It never felt like one to me, but the fact that it went from marginal to safe made not a shred of difference to the work that I was doing.

I feel that this cannot be true but I almost wonder whether whoever drew up this proposal for five-yearly redistributions can ever have represented a local government ward or a parliamentary constituency in their lives, because it is obviously deeply unsettling. Obviously, the work of an MP can never be secure but that is unsettling, particularly in terms of the balance of time that Members of Parliament can spend between Westminster and their constituencies. A good MP has to do both but, again, the MPs would not be human if they did not find that the duties that they had at Westminster became less and less important as the ground was shifting from under them in their own constituency, and was doing so for election after election. Certainly, from my perspective—I hope that the Government will not see it as an unhelpful suggestion—eight years, which is the minimum requirement under the present legislation, is a sensible period, giving as it probably does two parliamentary terms. I hope that the Government will look at that very carefully.

[Lord Rooker]

My Lords, I have a specific question for the Minister. The debate has concentrated exclusively on the interests of the Member of Parliament. In drafting the Bill, particularly with the squeeze from what was 12 or 13 years down to five, did the Government ask colleagues in local government, anywhere in the country, what use they make of parliamentary boundaries? Again, I quote only the example I know of from representing part of a large city, but each time the boundaries were changed for constituencies in the city of Birmingham—I had three elections on one set, then they changed; three elections on another, then they changed—they were used by the local authority for managing and administering social services. Because a big city of a million people had to be divided up, they set up the structural management of more than one of the key departments—it was probably three—to match those boundaries. That made sense, because those boundaries were coterminous with ward boundaries as well, so when it changed at each boundary review they looked at the structure and changed the management and delivery of those services.

I do not know whether that happens in the county areas because of their nature. I do not know about that, but did the Government ask what use local government makes of the boundaries? In that case, given the fact that they have more or less three elections on the same boundaries, you could do it. If it comes down to five years along with a fixed-term parliament, there is no way that local government will be able to organise the management and keep changing the delivery structure or the management of personnel at that speed. My question is really: was local government asked about what use it makes of constituency boundaries for the management and administration purposes of its services?

[Lord Gilbert]

My Lords, listening today to the noble Lord, Lord Martin, confirmed my long-held view that the voters of the Black Country are by far the most sophisticated in the country. The noble Lord expressed concern that the consequences of this legislation would be the introduction of ward bosses into Glasgow. I first arrived in the Black Country 40 years ago, and I can tell him that we knew all about ward bosses then. It made your job a lot easier if you were trying to get reselected because you knew who you had to go to and who you had to keep sweet. If they have not yet got around to that system in Glasgow, I am very surprised.

[Lord Martin of Springburn]

They are certainly getting into that system—they probably visited the noble Lord’s constituency—but my point is that it would become more intense.

[Lord Gilbert]

I am obliged. My second point is that we all come here with different experiences. I have heard many glowing references to the work of the Boundary Commission and the inquiries and hearings that it had. As far as I am concerned, it is a damned waste of time. It never took a blind bit of notice of anything that was said. Even when, as was always the case in Dudley, the Conservative MP for Dudley West and I as the Labour MP for Dudley East made identical recommendations, these people again took no notice of them whatever. Unsurprisingly, the extremely distinguished Conservative Member for Dudley West wanted all the Conservative voters and I wanted the Labour voters; it seemed to be an extraordinarily simple arrangement that could easily have been accommodated, but the commission never paid any attention to what we had to say.

Thirdly, on a slightly more serious point, I make no imputation—if I have the Minister’s attention; how kind of him—that the Government are trying to derive party advantage from these proposals. I have disagreed with some of the proposals before in the Bill, but these are the only ones that I find profoundly dangerous. I really hope that the Minister will go away and look at them. The idea that you pick everything up by the roots and look at it every five years, and the consequences—I forget which of my noble friends said this—for both parties, where people would be squabbling for selection at the next election and the election after that, would be very serious. I hope very much that the Government will think again.

[Lord Bach]

My Lords, I feel more than usually inadequate to speak in this particular debate, as I think I am the only speaker—it does not matter whether it is the noble Lord, Lord McNally, or the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, who responds—who, much to my regret, has never been a Member of the other place. Much of this interesting and helpful debate has been about the role of Members of the other place. Still, let me do my best.

In our amendment the other day—I cannot blame noble Lords if they have not exactly remembered every single phrase of it—we suggested from the Front Bench that the periodic boundary review should occur no later than every six years. We recognise the concerns that the current rules under which the Boundary Commission carries out its work—namely, eight to 12 years—is perhaps too long. Many argue that the extent to which boundaries have become out of date in the intervening time between the commission reporting and new boundaries applying following a general election is unsatisfactory, and we are tempted to support action to address that. The British Academy report on the Bill has concluded that,

“population movements are considerable over relatively short periods of time”.

We acknowledge that that may even happen within a five-year period. However, there has to be a balance, at the very least, between that consideration and the workability of the task that this Bill in particular is asking of the Boundary Commission. That is how we came up with the figure of not more than six years.

The arguments employed during this debate give us some cause for reflection about whether “not more than six years” is necessarily the right length of time. The powerful arguments made by the noble Lord, Lord Martin of Springburn, and others about the role of Members of Parliament raise significant and real points. I was intrigued by the answer of the noble Lord, Lord Maclennan, to the points that were made. I particularly enjoyed—I say this with the greatest affection—how he talked about boundary changes in his old constituency where, on the borders, there were Liberal, Labour and Conservative seats. I could not help thinking that he had managed to be a member of more than half of those parties, although I would never accuse him of being a Conservative.

More seriously, to have a review every seven years leaves it just a bit too long. The same applies to the other amendment in this group, which suggests eight years rather than seven. We would like—if this is possible for the Opposition—to go back and consider whether our point about six years strikes the right balance. On the Front Bench we have been rather attracted by the arguments that have been employed about how, unless the electorate decide differently, it is important that there is a certain stability for Members of Parliament, if only to encourage people from all walks of life to go for that honour.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

My Lords, these amendments would increase the frequency of reports by the Boundary Commission from the Bill’s proposed every five years to, in the case of the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, every seven years and, in the amendment spoken to by the noble Lord, Lord Martin of Springburn, every eight years. I hear what the noble Lord, Lord Bach, had to say. He was in distinguished company, because the amendment was moved by the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, who was not a Member of Parliament either. I am sure that that was the loss of the House of Commons.

[Lord Bach]

My noble friend was a special adviser, which is more important.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

It was still the loss of the House of Commons. On the question of six years, five years would, if we are moving to fixed-term Parliaments, allow for regular periodic review. To take up the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, while the convenience of political parties should not, by any stretch of the imagination, be our overriding concern, political parties do oil the wheels of democracy. What we propose will allow a period of some 18 months, recurring over the fixed term of five years, for local parties to adjust. The Government’s approach has been a simple one: to ensure that constituency boundaries are as up to date as possible.

To respond to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, the Cabinet Office has guidelines on undertaking any kind of consultation, be it legislative or otherwise. They recommend 12 weeks, but that is guidance; it is not binding. It is well known that the provisions of the Bill are set out in the coalition agreement. Any incoming Government, by the very nature of being an incoming Government, are bound to bring forward legislation in their early days that they have not had the opportunity to consult on beforehand. The Government have made it clear that this legislation should make progress, which is why it was introduced early in the Session. The timetable has meant that that did not allow for pre-legislative scrutiny. However, in the previous Parliament the then Government added whole new parts to the CRAG Bill, including AV referendum clauses, without any prior public consultation. The noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, may have complained about that, too; he has a certain consistency. This was indicated in the partnership agreement. It is also fair to point out that before today, the House—at Second Reading and in Committee—had debated and scrutinised the Bill for some forty-seven and a half hours. We cannot be far short of forty-nine and a half hours now. I am sure that there are many more hours of scrutiny to come.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

Is the Minister saying that, in introducing this highly important constitutional Bill, the Government breached the Cabinet Office code of practice?

18:00

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

These guidelines are not binding. I am indicating that any Government who come into office immediately after a general election with flagship legislation will, almost by definition, not have had the pre-legislative scrutiny that would otherwise attend legislation. I do not think that it is unreasonable for a Government taking office to pursue their flagship legislation. Why do we propose reviews every five years?

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

My Lords—

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

I do not think that there is much more that I can add to that. The noble Lord can ask another question but I am not sure that I can add much more to what I have said.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

If that is the case, why did the Explanatory Memorandum to the Bill not state the reason why there would not be prior scrutiny of the Bill? The rules stipulate that a reason is to be given for not subjecting a Bill to prior scrutiny.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

It was quite proper that, having indicated a coalition commitment to introducing this legislation and having laid down certain times, the Government should make speedy progress to introduce the Bill. I also believe that it has had more than 40 hours’ consideration in the other place. It has now had approximately forty-nine and a half hours’ consideration in this place with, no doubt, many more hours to come.

The reason why the Government propose reviews every five years is that at present—I think that this has been acknowledged—a review takes place every eight to 12 years. We believe that that leads to boundaries becoming out of date and infrequently refreshed. For example, the movement of electors means that boundaries can get out of date quickly. In 2006, some 59 constituencies were more than 10 per cent larger or smaller than the quota used for the previous review. Three years later, by 2009, the number of constituencies outside that 10 per cent range had almost doubled simply due to the movement of electors. These variations in size make votes unequal. The figures demonstrate how long periods between boundary reviews can exacerbate that imbalance and unfairness.

The noble Lord, Lord Martin of Springburn, graphically illustrated the life and commitment of Members of Parliament and his comments were echoed by many other noble Lords who have been Members of the other place. However, it is fair to say, as my noble friend Lord Maclennan of Rogart indicated, that the underlying purpose of this Bill is primarily to serve the electors, not the elected. By a similar token, I say to the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, that there was no consultation with local government on the use that it made of current parliamentary boundaries. However, I do not think that it is beyond the wit of local authorities to find other boundaries within which to deliver administrative services. The important point is that we look to ensure that the Bill is in the interests of electors and represents one vote, one value.

I listened carefully to what the noble Lord, Lord Gilbert, said. His comments on the utility of boundary reviews displayed a refreshing candour. However, I could not agree with his comment about pulling up the roots every five years. The rules that the Bill sets down for the Boundary Commission state at paragraph 5(1)(d) of Schedule 2 on page 10:

“A Boundary Commission may take into account, if and to such extent as they think fit … the inconvenience attendant on such changes”.

That is disapplied for the first review, which is to take place and report by October 2013, because by its very nature—I think that this has been recognised—when one loses 50 seats the upheaval is bound to be greater. But thereafter the Boundary Commission is able to take into account,

“to such extent as they think fit … the inconvenience attendant on such changes”.

My noble friend made a pertinent point when he indicated that the more frequent and regular the review, the less likely it is that there will be any huge change in constituency size. The figures that I cited show that the longer the interval between reviews, the more the figures diverge, which inevitably leads to greater upheaval when the review actually takes place. Indeed, in evidence to the Committee on Standards in Public Life, Professors Butler and McLean indicated back in 2006 that it was possible to have more frequent reviews without significantly impairing their equity.

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

As far as I know, in 2006 no one had conceived this extraordinary idea that every time you have a review you have to make sure that all the constituency numbers are within 5 per cent of each other. It is surely the addition of that new rule to the five-year boundary review that will cause the inevitable disruption.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

I cannot accept that. If you were to have a longer period, that would lead to greater disruption, but you have to take into account the five-year period and the fact that in reviews after the first one the Boundary Commission has the discretion to take into account any inconveniences attendant on the change, even allowing for the 5 per cent variation. Therefore, I do not believe that it leads to the same degree of upheaval.

I cannot accept the premise that the noble Lords, Lord Howarth and Lord Martin, mentioned that this is somehow a recipe for one-term Members of Parliament. I do not think that that stands up.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

Even if the Minister is right that five-yearly reviews will not necessarily lead to the major redrawing of boundaries in every case, how can it be good for Parliament if Members of Parliament are continuously distracted by these reviews and feel that they are existing on shifting sands? I do not think that that will help them to do their job better.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

The contributions that we have heard from a number of former Members of Parliament indicate that, notwithstanding what was happening, they continued to apply themselves with considerable and utmost diligence to the task in hand representing the constituents who elected them in the constituency for which they were elected at the previous election. As my noble friend Lord Maclennan said, his constituency was increased by some 25 per cent and he accommodated that. I recall the effort that he made to address the needs of those new constituents. Even under the present system, new boundaries are drawn and come into effect at a general election. Anyone who wishes to see their current MP can readily find out who he or she is if they do not know, and indeed they do so. At an election they will know who the candidates are and will choose how to cast their votes. The two matters are separate for electors. As I indicated, the important principle here is fairness to electors. On that basis, I encourage the noble Lord to withdraw the amendment.

[Lord Lipsey]

My Lords, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, referred to the length of time that has been devoted to scrutinising the Bill. However, the quality of scrutiny does not depend primarily on the amount of time that it takes but on the willingness of the Government to listen and respond to the arguments that are put to them and, where necessary, to facilitate discussions designed to narrow differences between Members of all parties and none, so that, wherever possible—I accept that in many cases this will not be possible—differences are resolved and the Bill that goes forward is improved. Therefore, I do not suggest that the quality of scrutiny depends primarily on the amount of time involved.

[Lord Soley]

The point that my noble friend makes is important but it is profoundly important when you are looking at a constitutional Bill.

[Lord Lipsey]

I totally agree with that point, particularly in relation to a constitutional Bill that, for the reasons given by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace—we may or may not accept those reasons—did not receive proper scrutiny before it came into this House or proper analysis by Select Committees and Joint Committees such as a Bill should have.

That brings me directly to the central point that I want to make. The real issue is that five-yearly reviews, although they have advantages, as they constitute a more recent reflection of the electorate, will lead to mighty upheavals. That is a matter of fact. As we do not have the opinion of Joint Committees or Select Committees on this issue, we have to go outside. I have in front of me the excellent report produced by the British Academy, which has been often cited in this debate, as it provides facts on this subject. It states:

“With a quota of just under 70,000, more than one-third of constituencies would almost immediately have been outside any +/-5% constraint”.

That is, as soon as the constituencies were in place, they were immediately, as soon as the new numbers came along, outside the constraint. The report goes on to say that,

“by the time the first election was held using the constituencies … as many as one-half may have been”,

outside the constraint. That refers just to those directly outside the constraint. It does not deal with all the other constituencies that, where you make the appropriate changes, are also outside the constraint.

Therefore, the facts as we know them suggest that there will be a considerable upheaval. If the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, and his officials can produce evidence that this is a greatly exaggerated case, fine—we will accept it. If it does not cause all the difficulties that I suggested, I would be delighted. However, on the facts as we know them, it looks as if the combination—it is the combination that is toxic—of 5 per cent tolerance and five-yearly reviews is a recipe for permanent revolution. I therefore invite the Minister, who has been most patient and considerate in his approach to the Bill, to try to establish the facts before we get to Report stage and to give them to all Members of the House, who can then make a considered judgment as to whether this element of the Bill should remain as it is. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 57 withdrawn.

Amendment 58 not moved.

Amendment 58ZZZA

Moved by

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

58ZZZA: Clause 10, page 8, line 15, at end insert—
“(c) if there is a system of fixed-term Parliaments but a General Election is to be held other than on a 5 year cycle beginning with May 2015, then the Boundary Commission shall submit a report under subsection (1) no later than 18 months before the due date of each General Election.”

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

My Lords, this amendment connects in quite closely with previous debates but also raises a new point. It basically deals with the relationship between this legislation and the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill, which is making its stately progress through the other place and will, I hope, arrive here by the end of this month. We will be having a debate on it. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, gave us an indication of how the Government envisage the relationship between the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill and this Bill. The Fixed-term Parliaments Bill envisages five-year Parliaments and five-yearly looks at the constituency boundaries by the Boundary Commissions. He says he envisages that there will be roughly an 18-month gap between the date on which the Boundary Commissions report and the date that the subsequent general election takes place. Those 18 months are presumably a period in which, where there are changes to the constituency boundaries, the constituency parties can select new Members of Parliament, people can get to know their constituencies and there can be a canvass in relation to it.

There is one factual issue in relation to this and one principle issue in relation to law. I raise first the factual issue which my noble friend Lord Lipsey touched on. He asked how many changes there would be every five years and made the point that if the numbers remain critical and it is only a 5 per cent variation, it is possible to envisage the boundaries of many constituencies changing. I quote from a document called The Ten Per Cent Solution which is by a man called Mr Lewis Baston and dated 20 January 2011. He says the following: “The government’s Bill”, which is a reference to this Bill,

“proposes that the boundaries will change every election, which disrupts the relationship between MP and constituency and will no doubt lead to confusion. Because the 5 per cent limit is so tight, many constituencies that were the right size in one boundary review will be too big or too small by the next. This will happen because of growth and decline in population. It will also happen because of variations in electoral registration from year to year, which are likely to be larger under the forthcoming Individual Electoral Registration system. It is quite possible that radical changes in boundaries will be made for no better reason than fluctuating registers, which as we know have become much less stable, complete and accurate”.

So this report from Democratic Audit says that the effect will be quite significant; it uses the phrase “many constituencies”. I do not know what work the Government have done on this but it is important to know their estimate of the effect of the five-yearly review—not the first review but the five-yearly review.

18:15

I say in parenthesis that I may have misunderstood what the noble and learned Lord said. He appeared to be saying that disruption in relation to what happens could be taken into account at subsequent reviews but not at the first review. My reading of proposed new Schedule 2 to the 1986 Act is that it would apply in relation to subsequent reviews as to first reviews. But I could be wrong about that, and if I am I hope that the noble and learned Lord will correct me. The proposed new schedule is headed “Rules for distribution of seats”, and rule 2—at paragraph 2—states:

“The electorate of any constituency shall be … no less than 95% of the … quota, and … no more than 105% of that quota”.

So there is a 5 per cent variation. That applies to a subsequent review and not just to the first one. I am not going to hold the noble and learned Lord to his nods but I note that he is nodding at the moment.

Under the heading “Factors”, to which the noble and learned Lord referred, rule 5(1)(d) states:

“A Boundary Commission may take into account, if and to such extent as they think fit … the inconveniences attendant on such changes”.

The noble and learned Lord drew our attention to that rule. Rule 5(3) then states:

“This rule has effect subject to rules 2 and 4”.

I read that as meaning that if you deviate in a subsequent review—not just the first one—from the 5 per cent tolerance allowed by rule 2, that will override the Boundary Commission’s entitlement to take into account the inconveniences attendant on such changes. The position is therefore that, regardless of whether it is in the original review or subsequent reviews, if there is a deviation of more than the 5 per cent allowed for under rule 2, the position on attendant changes will be swept aside. I may have misunderstood what the noble and learned Lord said, but he seemed to be saying that the inconveniences attendant on such changes could override fluctuations. I do not think that they can do so under the Bill as drafted.

So, exactly as my noble friend Lord Lipsey said, if there is any fluctuation over and above the 5 per cent, you will have to change the constituency boundaries. That can happen from a fluctuating register as much as from population changes. The independent work of Mr Baston suggests that that will affect “many constituencies”, although I do not know how many.

We now get into the subject of the relationship between the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill and this Bill. Noble Lords will remember that our own Constitution Committee said that the Government had not properly thought out the relationship between the two. What happens if, in accordance with Clause 2 of the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill, a general election is called outwith the five years—because, for example, there is a two-thirds vote—or if, as that Bill envisages, there is a vote of no confidence in the Government and no subsequent Government can be formed after 14 days? Let us suppose that that occurred in October 2013, which is the date at which the boundary review will be completed. A boundary review will be completed and immediately thereafter there would be a general election—and ever after, until there was another breach of the five-year rule, you would be having the review and the general election happening almost on the same date.

We tabled this probing amendment because we want to know what thought the Government have given to the issue. The amendment proposes that if a general election takes place outwith the five-year period—for example, it occurs at or about the time of the review being completed—then there should be a recalibration and you should state the period in which the review will occur so that it is produced no later than 18 months before the next projected date of a general election. Under the Bill as drafted, an election could be held out of sync and then the review would occur right on top of a general election without the 18-month gap which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, has rightly acknowledged is necessary to give new prospective parliamentary candidates the opportunity to find their seat and settle down there.

I have two fundamental questions. First, what work have the Government done on calculating how many constituencies might change hands? Obviously the noble and learned Lord cannot answer that with certainty but the Government must have done some work on it. What is the estimate? Secondly, am I right in my construction of the rule, which appears to be inconsistent with the noble and learned Lord's interpretation of the Bill? Thirdly, I invite the Government, if they are serious about the recurring 18 months, to table an amendment to the Bill to allow for a recalibration if there is an election outside whatever the fixed term is under the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill. I beg to move.

[Lord Lipsey]

I rise briefly to support my noble and learned friend. His amendment calls attention to something that is implicit in the whole structure of the Bill. It is simply too rigid to be fit for purpose. There is the rigid 5 per cent tolerance, with only two exceptions. However, the real problem is the rigid five-year review timetable. If something gets knocked out of place in this timetable, the whole thing does not work and, as the noble and learned Lord said, one will get boundary reviews with no time for new candidates to be selected for seats. This is not a matter that should be difficult to rectify, and nor should there be much controversy about rectifying it. One simply has to allow the existing Government, when the situation arises, to relax the five-year rule. There is no problem in doing that if the will is there. If it is not, the Government will find that a great many people are cursing, because if there is an early election, as the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill will allow, the whole overrigid structure of the Bill will crumble.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

My Lords, I thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, for tabling this amendment. At the outset, I will clarify that I agree with his interpretation of the rules. Perhaps I may put in the caveat that the rule with regard to taking into account inconvenience does not apply to the first review in 2013, but would apply thereafter. I thought that I had indicated that it was subject to the 5 per cent rule when I responded to the point of the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey. That is indeed the case. I was responding initially to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Gilbert, who talked about uprooting the whole system every time and starting again, which is not consistent with the discretion given to the Boundary Commission.

As the noble and learned Lord—echoed by the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey—indicated, the intention is that there should be fixed-term Parliaments of five years with boundary reviews in sync. The intention of the amendment is to retain the relationship between the cycle of general elections and the boundary review reporting timetable if the cycle of fixed-term Parliaments shifted away from the pattern starting in May 2015. That would happen if the terms of the fixed-term Parliament were changed to something other than five years. I thought that that may have been the point of the noble and learned Lord’s amendment, but he made it clear that that is not the case. However, he indicated the possibility that there could be an extraordinary general election. We do not believe that it is possible to provide for every reason why an election might not occur at the exact five-year interval. Instead of such complexity, the Bill seeks to address the matter in a way that would not necessarily waste resources. At the same time, future Parliaments would be able to consider how best to address the issue of the reviews getting seriously out of sync. The commission's annual progress reports that are required by the Bill will increase Parliament's knowledge of each review and assist it in deciding how to act.

As the Bill stands, there would still be a broad alignment of boundary review and general election cycles. I will give an example. If the boundary review reporting cycles were realigned to be exactly 18 months before any general election, it is possible that the Boundary Commission would be forced to abandon a review midway and start again from scratch. For example, if there was an extraordinary general election in 2018, before the 2018 report was due out, the Boundary Commission would have been reviewing boundaries for three years on the basis of electorate figures for 2015, and that work would have to be scrapped and a new review cycle started on the basis of 2018 electorate figures. This would be a waste of resources.

I accept the constructive intent of the noble and learned Lord's amendment. It is not necessary, but I am willing to reflect on whether we have done the best we can to maintain sync. However, if issues became such that there was a serious mismatch, it would be open to a future Parliament to redress that. The amendment does not achieve the outcome it intends and could lead to an unnecessary waste of resources. With these comments, I hope that the noble and learned Lord will withdraw it.

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

That was a helpful response. First, I thank the noble and learned Lord for confirming that my view of what the Bill meant was correct, which is obviously important. Secondly, he is in effect acknowledging that if there is a general election outside the fixed term—I say in parenthesis that if the fixed term were changed in the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill as it goes through this House, it might affect the cycle, but that would require an amendment to this Bill—the intention is that there should be an 18-month gap, and that may have to be dealt with by primary legislation after the general election. It is that eventuality that my amendment seeks to avoid. It is an unsatisfactory situation that every time there is a general election outside the cycle—none of us in the Chamber knows how regularly there will be general elections outside the cycle, and if one looks at history one can envisage circumstances where one has an early general election, for example because a coalition falls apart, and then there is an indecisive result and one ends up with considerable uncertainty—and one needs a boundary review, one has to wait for primary legislation, and the party that gets into power after a closely fought election is in the driving seat in relation to when the review takes place.

I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord for saying that he will consider this. I, too, will consider it, and perhaps we could meet to think of a way in which some degree of certainty can be assured, because this is an important issue. I would also be grateful if the noble and learned Lord would write to me with the Government's estimate of the number of seats that might change their boundaries in the first of the five-yearly reviews, as opposed to the one that they envisage ending in October 2013. I agree with my noble friend Lord Lipsey that the facts are critical. On the basis of the helpful response of the noble and learned Lord, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 58ZZZA withdrawn.

Amendment 58ZZZB

Moved by

[Baroness Thornton]

58ZZZB: Clause 10, page 8, line 15, at end insert—
“( ) No Boundary Commission shall begin work on a report to be submitted under subsection (1) above until both Houses of Parliament have approved a separate report issued by the Secretary of State confirming that particular action has been taken to maximise the proportion of 17 to 24 year olds who are on the electoral register.”

[Baroness Thornton]

My Lords, this will be the first of several related discussions. We had a more substantive discussion on Monday about the challenges that having 3.5 million of our fellow citizens not registered to vote poses both for the Bill and for all of us. Today we will discuss some of the problems of individual groups of the population who are overrepresented in that 3.5 million.

I have spent a large part of my life working with young people. I have been a youth club leader and many years ago I worked in a young people's locked custodial establishment, which was known then as a remand home. I have worked in children's homes and, more recently, before I joined the then Government, I worked with and became a trustee of Action for Children. Dealing with many troubled and disadvantaged youngsters convinces me that the amendment is very important.

I also have a local interest as a citizen of Bradford. The Bradford metropolitan district population is set to grow by 27 per cent over the next 20 years, and 25 per cent of that growth will be among young people. At the moment, the Electoral Commission tells us that the electoral roll is inaccurate by a margin of 10 per cent, so if 10 per cent of people are not registered to vote, we have a huge challenge.

18:30

Everyone agrees that we want young people to participate in public life and to take the responsibility that goes with being a citizen in our democracy. I suppose that, like any parent, I felt proud—although I may not have enjoyed the experience much—when my children disagreed and argued with me about politics. However, I thought that it was very important when, for example, they went off to demonstrate against the war in Iraq. They feel passionate about many matters, even having given up their annual leave to go and work full time against the British National Party in Barking during the last general election. Nevertheless, we know that for the poor children of politicians, their parents are both an advantage and a disadvantage, so it is a mixed blessing. However, the issue here is not our children but the more than 50 per cent of young people who are not registered to vote. This is a matter of great concern for the future of our democracy.

I am sure we all agree that we want our children and young people to argue and to care passionately about things. We want them to vote and to think that voting in elections matters. I think that we desperately want them not to be cynical about politics and politicians. We also know of the chaos in which some youngsters live their lives. Even for children from more affluent families, voter registration may not be the first thing that they think about during their freshers week, for example, having gone off to university and as they settle in with all the new experiences of living independently for the first time. If they are looked-after children or unemployed, or if they are living on a very low income or no income, or if they are young parents, they are going to be very preoccupied just with the problems of daily survival. They may move many times until they have a settled life. We know, for example, that young people will be particularly hard hit by the changes to local housing allowances, as single people under 35 will be entitled to only the shared-room rate, which, even when calculated at the median, has been found to be too low for a decent-quality tenancy in many areas. The problem of a lack of available accommodation for young people has been acknowledged by this Government, as it was by our Government, and it all adds to a lack of stability and a problem with young-voter registration.

Coming from Bradford, I know that because we have a young population, a university, a very large black and ethnic-minority community and some very poor communities, it is a challenge to get our register even up to 90 per cent, which means that it is still 10 per cent out of date. I am not a mathematician but I think that the Government’s proposals will mean that we in Bradford will lose a parliamentary seat because our register will be inaccurate.

There are also some hopeful signs concerning young-voter registration. There was a last-minute rush of people who wanted to register to vote at the last general election. The fact that people could register right up to the Tuesday before polling day was very important, and the Electoral Commission reported a spike in the downloading of voter registration forms after the televised debates. Indeed, the commission had a tie-up with Facebook. Democracy UK was set up jointly between the Electoral Commission and Facebook, which encouraged many young people to register. The commission teamed up with the social networking site with a link to the About My Vote website. About 14,000 registration forms were downloaded by Facebook users, and just over 40 per cent of people visiting the About My Vote website—which amounted to hundreds of thousands of hits—were young people aged between 18 and 25. I know that the National Union of Students worked very hard to get students registered and voting at the election. The Electoral Commission has said that, because many people do not become interested in a general election until the election is called, this has given a major boost to the number of people being registered. I think that that must be so and I suspect that young people form quite a large part of that cohort.

On Monday we discussed door-to-door canvassing, which helps to build an accurate register and bring it up to date. However, we have to be even more imaginative if we are to get young people on to the register and keep them there. I am concerned about that and I ask the Minister whether he thinks that individual voter registration will help or hinder with the specific issue of young-voter registration.

The amendment seeks to ensure that the Electoral Commission not only spreads best practice on voter registration to all local authorities but uses young-voter registration as one way of measuring the success of local registration campaigns. That would be the effect of the amendment. It seems clear to me that, if a local authority has succeeded in getting many of its young residents on to the electoral roll, it will almost certainly have succeeded more generally in getting voters to register. Perhaps the Minister agrees with me. If so, I urge him to recognise the importance of this issue and to accept the amendment. I beg to move.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

My Lords, not surprisingly, I support the amendment, which also stands in my name. I have a particular interest in young people voting. It is true that it comes somewhat second to my interest in women voting; nevertheless, for me it is a high priority, as the Committee will know from my, sadly, unsuccessful move to allow 16 year-olds to vote in the referendum next year. How we vote depends, of course, partly on the system, which is what the referendum will decide in due course. However, it is also a matter of when and where we vote, and of the interest that the authorities, parliamentarians and returning officers take in our votes.

As to the timing of elections, I have another interest—to allow voting at weekends and in town halls or in libraries or anywhere else and not just at one polling station. I think that that should be possible with electronic records. However, that matter is not in front of us today. Here, we are concerned about a new generation of voters—either those who first qualify to vote in the 2015 general election, or those who perhaps could have voted in 2010 but for a range of reasons did not do so. Part of the reason for that lack of voting was down to political parties: the choices that they offered, the language they used or their style of campaigning. None of those matters is in front of us today but some of them concerned the low level of registration of new, and particularly young, voters.

Part of the problem has been that there is no single body or person who has both responsibility for getting people registered and something of a vested interest in doing so. Of course, the parties want voters to register—or, if we are being really honest, they want their potential supporters to register. However, the responsibility lies with local authorities, for which there is no benefit from a high success rate in their area. Therefore, we need some carrot if no stick is to hand to ensure that someone with the responsibility for registration also has the incentive to flush out new voters and get them on to the list.

It seems to me that the new system of defining constituencies, which will be almost completely number-driven compared with our historical, more flexible approach, offers an opportunity for a fresh approach to voter registration, and I urge the Committee to seize it. We should write into the Bill that the Secretary of State will have to be satisfied that local authorities really have sought out their youthful populations and got them on to the register before the Boundary Commission starts on what will be a very demanding task. That will make it easier for the commission, as it can then be satisfied that it is not forced to ignore residents simply because they have not been registered. However, I believe it will also show the next generation of voters that the Government are serious about wanting to involve them in the democratic process and are taking steps to ensure that their voices and needs are not excluded from the arithmetic of boundary lines. I believe that such a move is needed. If we cannot use notional votes as the basis for drawing boundaries, we must find and register new voters so that they are included.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

Presumably a large part of the purpose of parliamentary reform is to refresh our parliamentary democracy, re-animate it, and re-engage the citizens of this country with it. My noble friend Lady Thornton’s amendment is particularly helpful because it addresses a problem that we all recognise to be real and disturbing, which is the poor propensity of people in the 18 to 24 year-old age group to vote. There is some evidence that the attitudes that people bring to their first opportunity to vote as young adults tend to persist through life. We must all agree that it is extremely important that we make a determined effort to ensure that there is a much fuller participation of young people in our parliamentary democracy and that they take up their right to vote.

My noble friend has tabled a helpful amendment in enjoining a particular duty on the Secretary of State. We had some discussion on Monday about our fear that local authorities, because of the reductions in their funding, will be unable to pursue electoral registration as vigorously as they should. My noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours made a powerful speech on that problem. If local authority funding is to be cut by some 28 per cent over the next four years, it must follow that any activity that is not statutorily required of local authorities will be in jeopardy. My noble friend’s amendment would insist that at least the Secretary of State was able to certify that every effort is made to bring 17 to 24 year-olds on to the register. That points in a direction that implies that the Secretary of State himself must take steps to ensure that the registration process is carried on vigorously, effectively and thoroughly.

It would be helpful if the noble and learned Lord would say something about the Government’s view on the practical prospects for improving the proportion of registration in all age groups, but particularly in this one, the behaviour of which will be so crucial to the future of our democracy. We can change the voting system and constituency boundaries, but if we fail to re-engage people to vote, those reforms are little better than a sham.

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

I do not think that there is much dispute about either the facts or the outcome sought. In March 2010, the Electoral Commission produced a report entitled The Completeness and Accuracy of Electoral Registers in Great Britain. In a sample of areas that it examined in detail, 56 per cent of 18 to 24 year-olds were missing from the electoral register. In the 2005 general election, 37 per cent only of those between 18 and 24 voted, so there is a more than 50 per cent underregistration, and only just over a third of that age vote.

We have heard repeatedly in the debate and outside that if young people are not registered and do not vote, they set a trend in their lives that distances them from democracy. I do not think that anyone in the House disagrees with any of those propositions. We on the Front Bench of the Labour Party support the amendment because we have heard nothing from the Government about what they propose to do about it. If they had some proposal that could assist, we would be interested to hear it, but this proposal, made by my noble friend Lady Thornton and supported by my noble friend Lady Hayter of Kentish Town, builds into the system the requirement for work to be done on the issue, which is something that the noble and learned Lord himself has said in previous debates that he wants to do. He should tell us what the Government will do about what they have already agreed is a problem. If it is not as good as this amendment, maybe this is the way forward.

18:45

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Thornton and Lady Hayter, for the amendment, which, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, has indicated, commands support and consent across the House because of the sentiments and the importance of registering young people. However, the Boundary Commission would not be able to set about its review until a separate report, issued by the Secretary of State, confirmed that particular action had been taken to maximise the proportion of 17 to 24 year-olds on the electoral register, and that that had been approved by both Houses of Parliament.

I do not dispute that it is important for the electoral register to be as accurate and complete as possible. That is one reason why we are accelerating progress towards individual registration and introducing measures such as data-matching schemes to help local authorities gain as complete a picture as possible of eligible voters in their area, and particularly underregistered groups. The figures in the Electoral Commission’s report last March showed that the registration rate in the United Kingdom was more than 90 per cent, which compares well with other countries. While we, and everyone in your Lordships’ House, wish to see as complete and accurate a register as possible, boundaries have since the 1940s been based on the electoral register. To delay indefinitely any review of boundaries that are already 10 years out of date would not only be disproportionate, bearing in mind the overall picture of registration, but would make votes even more unequal than they already are.

It was important and instructive for the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, to talk about the surge in young voter registration in the previous general election campaign. As a result, those young people are now on the electoral register. They are likely to be on the register as at 1 December last year, which will be the basis of the Boundary Commission’s review for the report in 2013. It would be ironic if, as a result of carrying this amendment and with no possibility of the next general election being fought on new boundaries, we were still working from data from 2000 in England and that those who had registered as a result of the impetus in the previous general election were not taken into account. There is a distinction between the data for the review date and the important issue of trying to encourage registration, which has merit in its own right.

The Government are committed to taking steps to improve electoral registration as part of the move towards individual electoral registration. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, asked what the Government were doing. I thought that I had set that out in detail on Monday, and was encouraged by the fact that the noble Baroness, Lady McDonagh, said that she had been encouraged by what I had indicated. The Government will be trialling data matching later this year when the electoral register will be compared with other public databases to find people missing from the register, to see how effective it is in boosting the completeness of it. Based on the results of the trials, we will decide whether to roll it out more widely. The pilots will also tell us how effective the data matching is in improving registration among specific underregistered groups, such as young voters.

Among that information will be data from the Student Loans Company. Indeed, on Monday, the noble Lord, Lord Maxton, asked me whether data on school pupils could be used. I have now checked and can confirm that the Department for Education’s national pupil database is one of the data sets that we are considering for these schemes. I cannot say what the position is for information held by the Scottish Government, but I hope that they would be as willing to co-operate if there was a pilot in Scotland. We are working with local authorities to see whether they can make use of their own data on school pupils.

[Lord Maxton]

After I raised that point, someone raised with me the question of whether the Data Protection Act will allow that sort of exchange of information, as it is presently worded.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

If my memory serves me correctly, when I responded to the noble Lord on Monday I mentioned the concern about the Data Protection Act. I have checked, and we will do a further check in the light of that point, but the information that I have had since we had that exchange on Monday is that the Department for Education’s national pupil database would be one of the data sets that we would consider.

I say to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, who asked what we are doing, that a series of events will be planned over the next few months as part of the introduction of individual registration, when we will consider with stakeholders what further steps can be taken to engage with groups who are underrepresented on the electoral register. However, we must proceed with a boundary review to ensure that boundaries, in England in particular, are not 15 years out of date at the next general election, thereby missing out those who have registered in the past 12 months, because that would exacerbate the inequality. To achieve that, with due time for the commission to consult widely, we must allow it to get on with its task now. That in no way diminishes the importance of registration, and I hope that I have indicated to the satisfaction of Members across the House what we are trying to do to establish that.

[Lord Rooker]

Is there not a big society point here? I genuinely think that the best people to get young people registered are young people—not local government officials, not Members of Parliament. Local authorities will be strapped for resources anyway; we understand the reason for that. Is there not a case for requiring local authorities, because they are in charge of the register, to pull together a group of young people charged with seeing that other young people get on the register? Out there, with homelessness and unemployment, the best evidence is that young people who are trained as mentors are much better at mentoring young people on a range of issues. It is a big society point; I freely admit that. Thinking about it and listening to the debate, I think that we must make more use of young people themselves and not do it top-down. That is just a thought.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

I have no hesitation in welcoming such a proposal. It does not run counter to the other data matching that we are proposing or the roadshows on individual registration. I am sure that the very constructive suggestion by the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, will be taken into account.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

My noble friend Lord Rooker makes an excellent point. Will the Minister be kind enough to tell the House what view the Government take as to the likelihood of sufficient resources being available to electoral registration officers in local authorities?

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

As I have said, we are committed to undertaking the pilot schemes and, if they have proved their worth, rolling them out. I would not make that commitment unless we believed that the resources were there to do that.

[Lord Wills]

I ask the noble and learned Lord to clarify the point that he has made several times already. Is he really saying that the injustice that he sees in people already on the electoral register being misallocated to a constituency—about which, as we have heard, there is considerable controversy—outweighs the injustice of proceeding to this wholesale boundary revision that will exclude 3.5 million people who are eligible to vote but who are not on the register? Does he really think that one outweighs the other?

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

I am saying that I think it is more unjust to have the 2015 general election fought on the basis of data that were collected in 2000, not data that were collected in 2010. That would be the injustice. There are the people, to whom the noble Baroness referred, who signed up to the register during the last general election campaign. If we go into the next election on the basis of constituencies in which the electoral registration data for the year 2000 apply, we will miss out those people. There is also the completely different but related issue of trying to improve electoral registration, which we are very much committed to.

[Baroness Thornton]

I thank the Minister for that, but it seems that he is completely happy to go ahead with the boundary-redrawing knowing that 3.5 million people are not on the register and that a large number of those will be young people. I think that is a shame. Actually, I think it is a disgrace. I do not want to delay indefinitely—

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

I just want to clarify whether the noble Baroness thinks that it is right that the next general election should use boundaries for which the data were collected in 2000, which will exclude anyone who became 18 since the year 2000.

[Baroness Thornton]

The point that I was going on to make was that the Government need to get their finger out and get the registers up to date before they get on with the boundary-redrawing. That is what they need to do. I am not saying that we should not move ahead with this, but I cannot believe that the Minister can possibly be satisfied. There were indeed some extra voters on the register as a result of those measures—which, as I said, were positive—but even the Electoral Commission says that the electoral register is hopelessly out of date. Possibly millions are young voters, and I think it is very unsatisfactory that the Government think it is okay to proceed in that situation. I thank my noble friends Lady Hayter and Lord Howarth and my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer for their support.

This House has a great tradition of supporting young people. We have spent many months together over the years discussing how to improve the lot of disadvantaged young people in particular. We have protected their interests; we have promoted their interests. The amendment is about that. It is very unsatisfactory that the Government are not prepared to promote and protect the interests of those young people. Therefore, I would like to test the opinion of the House.

18:57

Division 1

Ayes: 133

---

Labour: 115
Crossbench: 12
Independent: 3
Ulster Unionist Party: 1

Noes: 203

---

Conservative: 118
Liberal Democrat: 69
Crossbench: 12
Ulster Unionist Party: 1

19:09

Amendment 58ZZZC

Moved by

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

58ZZZC: Clause 10, page 8, line 15, at end insert—
“( ) No Boundary Commission shall begin work on a report to be submitted under subsection (1) above until both Houses of Parliament have approved a separate report issued by the Secretary of State confirming that particular action has been taken to maximise the proportion of private sector tenants who are on the electoral register.”

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

My Lords, I rise to move Amendment 58ZZZC on behalf of my noble friend Lord Knight of Weymouth. This amendment seeks action from the Government on another group of people who are overrepresented in the 3.5 million missing voters on the electoral register. We have heard about the Electoral Commission’s report of March 2010 on the completeness and accuracy of electoral registration in Great Britain. We heard of the decline in the completeness of the register and we know that geographical variations have widened since the 1990s. While a majority of registers are 90 per cent plus complete, the report indicates that a growing minority of local registers are likely to be less than 85 per cent complete. We know that there are concentrations on specific social groups who are underrepresented. We have just had a debate about one group in particular—young people.

In respect of socio-demographic factors, the report states:

“However, the evidence does indicate that the interaction between social disadvantage and housing tenure may have a significant influence on the geography of under-registration. Taken as a whole, tenants in the private rented sector are significantly more likely to be absent from the electoral register than owner-occupiers or those in social housing. This pattern arises from the greater turnover of households in the private rental sector compared to other tenures as well as the associated concentrations of specific social groups in private rental accommodation, notably young people and students, and some BME groups”.

In looking at a range of case studies, the report determined that for those cases something like 49 per cent of private sector tenants were not registered. If my noble friend Lord Knight were presenting this amendment, he would recount his experiences in his previous constituency and the Melcombe Regis and Park district of Weymouth, and tell how difficult it is to make contact with people. I am sure that many noble Lords who have served or have sought to serve in the other place, or have supported people in their endeavour to do so, know how difficult it is to canvass and reach people in some parts of some constituencies.

We know that there is scope for improvements in the electoral administration—indeed, we heard from a Minister in reply to the previous amendment and doubtless he will repeat that—around data matching and possibly around the timing of the canvass. There is a crucial issue, which was touched on by my noble friend Lord Rooker, about local authority by spending and the need to have proper resources for electoral administration at a time when local authorities are facing significant cuts in their expenditure.

The decline in completeness is uneven and it is unfair on areas of high levels of private rented accommodation, whether it be students, inner cities or coastal towns. My noble friend’s notes point out that he has done a bit of arithmetic. If one looks at Scotland, overall the registers are 92 per cent complete, but for Glasgow they are 67.8 per cent complete. If one is looking for some sort of equality across constituencies, you would have to gross up that Glasgow number to get something like 103,000 people for a comparable constituency based on the register as it is.

The issues around the private rented sector are going to get worse. We know that if you look at recent years, the number of households accommodated in the private rented sector has increased significantly. I think that the number is in excess of 1 million, which is because of the growing number of households and because the provision of social housing, in particular, has not kept pace with it.

We know that people in private rented accommodation have less security of tenure. They are more likely to move and when people move we know that they are more likely to drop off the register. We know that sometimes people avoid registration in order to avoid detection—possibly when they have accumulated debts—which is more likely to have an impact on poor people who are the sort of people who would live in private rented accommodation. Figure 12 of the commission’s report looks at the correlation between non-registration and repossessions of houses, which bears out that issue.

On looking at the impact of, say, universities on registration, it may be that what the coalition Government have done on tuition fees has encouraged and will encourage many more students to go out not only to register but to cast their vote in elections, so there may be some redress in that respect.

This position will get worse, particularly because of the housing benefit measures that are coming down the track from this Government. Estimates of the housing benefit changes suggest that there will be something like 1 million people worse off by £12 a week, which will be an increase in indebtedness. We know that there will be displacement of people, certainly from London into lower-cost areas. Again, there will be significant movement. We know that there will be significant migration to cheaper out-of-London accommodation.

Noble Lords do not have to take my word for it. The Work and Pensions Select Committee of another place made that clear. It said that “while the department”, the DWP,

“acknowledges that some households may have to move, evidence suggests that these numbers may be much greater than the Government expects. We have also heard of the difficulty of identifying households who may have to move and that people on Housing Benefit tend to move home less often than low-income working households and often over-stretch themselves financially in order to stay within their community network where possible. The Government should monitor the extent of enforced moves and resulting hardship and increase Discretionary Housing Payments if necessary”.

Of course, it has not done that to any great extent.

If noble Lords look at the position of the private rented sector, we know that the occupation and types of groups which occupy private rented accommodation in particular are more vulnerable to underregistration. We know that that sector is likely to grow in importance for as long as there is inadequate provision of social housing. We know that the housing benefit cuts, which will be imposed shortly, will exacerbate debt and enforce greater moves among people who access that sort of accommodation. All that will have an impact on registration and on the exercise which is under way supposedly to equalise those entitled to vote.

I urge the Government to be very clear on what they are going to do about it. Like my noble friend Lady Thornton in respect of the previous amendment, we are seeking clarity on what the Government intend specifically in relation to this sector where the data are very clear that it is a major problem area. I beg to move.

[Lord Soley]

I support my noble friend Lord McKenzie and my noble friend Lord Knight of Weymouth who I understand cannot move the amendment. It is a particularly important issue and I know that, like me, my noble friend Lord Knight will have had real examples of the problem in his own constituency when he was an MP. However, I have to say that this matter does not affect just inner-city areas: it affects the whole private rented sector. I had a survey carried out in my constituency of Hammersmith, which lasted for more than a year. A number of things stood out, but one which stood out very strongly was the overrepresentation of people from the private rented sector coming to see the MP or the councillor because their problems were more acute. This is really what the issue is about. These people need representation and yet they are the ones who are least likely to be on the list.

I recognise the problem for local authorities. People in this group are particularly hard to identify and to follow up on if you fail to get them to register in the first instance, but it is important that we make an effort. I know that it affects rural areas as well, which is why I say that it is not just a matter for inner-city areas. The private rented sector generally has in it people who tend to be on lower incomes, often in accommodation for not that long. If it is a shorthold tenure, it will be for a maximum of six months, although obviously that can be renewed as appropriate. But it means that you are dealing with a high turnover of people, often on low incomes and yet often with multiple problems that need to be addressed by an elected representative, be it a councillor or a Member of Parliament.

I do not have any simple answer, but I can say that at one stage Hammersmith council got particularly good at following up on these people and did rather well on increasing the representation of people in the private rented sector. However, I do not think that any of us has got it right yet. As I have said, although it is more extreme in urban areas, it also affects rural areas. The evidence is very strong that there is underrepresentation on the electoral roll of people in private rented accommodation, and it would be useful to know if the Government have any ideas at all about how to address this.

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

My Lords, this is well tilled territory. The position according to the Electoral Commission is that if you own your house outright, 93 per cent of you are on the electoral register; if you are buying on a mortgage, it is 86 per cent; if renting from a council, 79 per cent; if renting from a housing association, 75 per cent; and if renting from a private landlord, only 44 per cent. If you are “other”, it is 78 per cent. I do not know what “other” is. Perhaps it is living in a commune or in a tent somewhere or, indeed, in a caravan, as suggested by my noble friend Lord Graham. Why is this? The Electoral Commission report says:

“Taken as a whole, tenants in the private rented sector are significantly more likely to be absent from the electoral register than owner-occupiers or those in social housing. This pattern arises from the greater turnover of households in the private rental sector compared to other tenures as well as the associated concentrations of specific social groups in private rental accommodation, notably young people and students, and some BME groups”.

Again, I do not think that much of this is in dispute and that what we are looking for are proposals as to how it might be dealt with.

I endorse all that my noble friend Lord McKenzie has said about the private rented sector, but there is a further point to make. I turn to the point made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, to the effect that, “You do not want this review to take place using very out-of-date material. It is going to take place using material prepared in December 2010, so all your proposals that there should be an improvement in the number of young people and BMEs in the private rental sector will not apply unless you want to delay it”. That is the key answer. What is the hurry for this to take place by 2015? The obvious answer to the point made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, is that a period of time should go by, maybe a year, and then we should take the register at December 2011, but only if the sort of steps that my noble friends Lady Thornton and Lord McKenzie of Luton have been asking for have been taken.

If that is wrong, because we can delay the date until December 2011 and we can seek measures to be taken to the satisfaction of the Secretary of State or the Electoral Commission to ensure better representation of the three underrepresented groups, we can achieve both. I would therefore ask the noble and learned Lord to give answers to two questions. What is being done about the private rented sector to get more people on to the electoral register? What would be the problem in answering his oft-repeated song that we delay for a year or some other period the date at which we take the electoral register for the purposes of the boundary revision? What would the nation lose by that? There would be more people from these underrepresented groups on the electoral register.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

My Lords, as has been indicated, this amendment is very similar in its terms to the previous amendment, although it focuses on the need to maximise the proportion of private sector tenants on the electoral register. It will therefore not come as a surprise if I indicate that the arguments are substantially the same. I will answer the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer. The difference is that what we are being invited to do with these amendments is put off the boundary review to some indeterminate time. No date is fixed in these amendments, although the noble and learned Lord said that it could be 1 December 2011. But we have heard the whingeing complaints that to do it in 2010 is going to make it tight for a boundary review to report by 2013. Given that, I rather suspect that using a review date for the electoral register in December 2011 is going to make it impossible for the 2015 election to be fought on new boundaries. That is the crucial difference.

The party opposite appears to wish the boundaries for the 2015 election to be fought on electoral data, so far as England is concerned, that go back to the year 2000. We have quoted on many occasions in these debates the report from the Electoral Commission published in March last year, when of course the party opposite was in power. These underregistrations have not suddenly materialised since May last year. I have indicated what we intend to do with regard to younger people in terms of data matching, so I found it rather breathtaking to hear the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, say that we should get on with it. I think that we are probably proposing to do more in our first eight months in office than all that happened during the past 13 years. I give credit for initiatives that were taken, like rolling the register, but all that would come to naught because any benefit that came from that if we hold the 2015 election on electoral data from 2000 would be lost. Any positive steps taken by the previous Administration will not have any effect.

The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie of Luton, mentioned Glasgow, and in previous exchanges the noble Lord, Lord McAvoy, has indicated what has been done there, and it is a positive example. But of course none of that would be taken into account if we had to use electoral data from 2000. I welcome back the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes of Cumnock, because I wondered where he was earlier.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

I have been here or hereabouts for most of the evening. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, will remember as I do that Jack de Manio, when he presented the “Today” programme, had in front of him a message: “Remember, it’s different in Scotland”. Can the noble and learned Lord answer a question for me? All today and on previous days I have wondered what arrangements departments in England dealing with this are making for liaison with the Scottish Executive in implementing this and all other parts of the Bill, if it becomes an Act.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

I am glad the noble Lord mentioned that because I have indicated that using the year 2000 does relate to England, but of course the previous Labour Government introduced a boundary review following devolution. The numbers were reduced and used electoral data which I am sure, if you note the kind of figures quoted by the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie of Luton, must have been as deficient in terms of underregistration in certain categories as the ones they are now complaining about; however, they did not hold back from conducting a very necessary boundary review at that time.

I indicated earlier to the noble Lord, Lord Maxton, that in terms of school records, I certainly hope that the Scottish Government will be co-operative in these matters. I fully intended to write to the noble Lord to follow up on his comment last Monday. He then made a further comment on data protection that I will respond to in a further letter which I will circulate. I also take on the point about departments and the Scottish Government.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

The Minister says that he hopes the Scottish Government will be co-operative. As he knows, the Scottish Government have been urging the UK Government not to go ahead with the referendum on 5 May, and therefore they are not necessarily in an immediately co-operative frame of mind. If this Bill becomes an Act, can I urge him to consider arrangements for joint discussions in the form of a committee or other ministerial meeting to deal with some of the tricky problems that will arise?

19:30

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

I hope that the Scottish Government would be as keen as the parties in this House on trying to improve electoral registration. I hope to be able to indicate what engagement there has been with the Scottish Government in trying to ensure that that is the case. I am not sure that setting up another committee is necessarily the best way to do it.

I have mentioned data matching. The kind of publicly available data that would be relevant to this amendment, although they would not be specific to private tenants, could be national insurance data, information from the DVLA and, specifically, housing benefit data. Those are the areas we would look at, via proactive pilot schemes, to try to ensure that that particular category of person, who I accept is underregistered on the electoral roll, is better identified than at the moment. Against that background, I hope that the noble Lord will withdraw his amendment.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his response and to my noble friend Lord Soley and my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer for their support. I do not intend to press the amendment tonight; I am grateful for the information that has been given around the prospect of data matching and the expanded scope for that in relation to private sector tenants. It would have been good to hear a little more from the Minister about issues of local authority funding, given the huge constraints that they are under and the real risk that one of the things that will not get the priority that it should in the current climate is effective electoral registration.

The Minister suggested that the amendment was indeterminate in its timeframe. If he would be happy in due course, possibly at a subsequent stage, to accept an amendment with a more specific timeframe, we would be very happy to reflect on that. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 58ZZZC withdrawn.

House resumed. Committee to begin again not before 8.32 pm.

Health: Maternal Health

Wednesday 12th January 2011 Lords Chamber

Question for Short Debate

19:32

Asked by

[Lord Patel]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how they propose to meet Millennium Development Goal Five on improving maternal health and maternal morbidity.

[Lord Patel]

My Lords, before I introduce today’s debate, it gives me great pleasure to congratulate the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Verma. Last week, the Prime Minister of India bestowed on her the high honour of Pravasi Bharatiya Samman in recognition of her work.

I thank the long list of distinguished noble Lords from all sides of the House who are taking part in the debate. That demonstrates the huge interest that your Lordships’ House has in the subject and signifies the need for a longer debate. It is a pleasure to note that the noble Lord, Lord Green of Hurstpierpoint, will make his maiden speech. I look forward to that. Given his distinguished career, I have no doubt that the House will hear a lot more from him.

The topic of today’s debate is how the UK Government propose to meet millennium development goal 5, relating to maternal death, maternal health and maternal morbidity. It is fortuitous that the Government published at the end of December 2010 their framework, Choices for Women: Planned Pregnancies, Safe Births and Healthy Newborns, for improving maternal health in the developing world. I congratulate them on producing that document, which sets out clearly the vision of the UK Government and their ambition to improve maternal health globally. It sets clear goals in each of the areas mentioned for the UK Government to meet by 2015. It is a little less clear about how this will be done, but I have no doubt that we will explore that today.

An article appeared in Delhi’s Hindustan Times on 29 August 2010, the day before the start of the first global meeting on maternal health, organised by the Bill Gates Foundation and the Indian Ministry of Health, which exemplified the problem in relation to maternal deaths. The headline was:

“She gave birth, died. Delhi walked by”.

It was the story of a destitute woman who died having given birth on a pavement on a busy street in central Delhi as thousands walked by.

In sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia, women die in childbirth, not of disease or epidemics but of conditions that are easily treatable: prolonged labour, haemorrhage, high blood pressure, infection and unsafe abortions. There is a lack of skilled attendance at births and a lack of access to emergency obstetric care.

The commitment made by world leaders in 1990 to reduce by 75 per cent by 2015 the 570,000 maternal deaths that occurred annually at the time—millennium goal 5—is the most off-track millennium development goal. While there was estimated to be some reduction to 350,000 yearly deaths by 2008, unless efforts are accelerated, the goal of reducing deaths by 75 per cent by 2015 will not be met.

In September 2010, an international alliance that included the United Kingdom was launched at the UN General Assembly. The UK’s leadership is well recognised globally, as alluded to by Melinda Gates in her New Year blog.

The causes of death remain the same: lack of skilled attendance at births, poor access to emergency obstetric care and health system failure. The Government’s framework states that it will address all these issues. It commits the UK, working in high-risk countries in sub-Saharan Africa, to reduce annual deaths by 50,000 by 2015. On the basis of what evidence are the Government confident that they can meet this goal? I hope that the Government will support other African countries, too, such as Tanzania, where there is a will on the part of local and national government, professional organisations and the population to improve maternal health, with some good examples of strong health systems. The UK can and must provide the co-ordination and leadership required and draw on the experience of professional organisations and individuals in the United Kingdom, who will happily contribute to the national efforts.

For the next few minutes, I should like to address obstetric fistula, a subject about which I have spoken previously—I make no apology for doing so again. At long last, after nearly six years of campaigning by a small group of people, obstetric fistula, from which an estimated 3.5 million women suffer worldwide, has come to the notice of the world’s politicians. I, for one, was very pleased that, following the adoption of a resolution by the UN General Assembly, the Secretary-General of the UN, Ban Ki-Moon, is calling for at least $750 million to treat the 3.5 million women who suffer from obstetric fistula. Of course, that is not possible, but I hope that the problem will at least get greater attention. As Ban Ki-Moon said, obstetric fistula is one of the most devastating consequences of neglect during childbirth.

Like maternal mortality, obstetric fistula is almost entirely preventable with skilled care during labour and access to emergency obstetric care. Obstructed labour, a major cause of maternal death, is also the main reason for a mother ending up with a fistula and, in most cases, a stillborn baby. She is left incontinent in relation to urine and she smells. She is made to live in social isolation. To the 3.5 million women with the condition, an estimated 50,000 to 100,000 new cases are added each year. Cost-effective, sustainable strategies, albeit on a small scale, have been instituted by a few dedicated groups.

I am privileged to be involved with one such group, co-ordinated by the International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in London. Over the past four years, it has established training centres for doctors and nurses and is in the process of treating 2,000 women with obstetric fistula. It has trained 32 doctors and nearly 50 nurses in Tanzania alone at a cost of approximately $300 for a woman treated and cured. That is not much. The UK’s framework for maternal health recognises that there is a problem that needs to be addressed. Beyond that, there does not appear to be any commitment. I hope that the call by Ban Ki-Moon will now energise DfID into some action.

The UK can provide a global lead in shaping the strategy to help to tackle the problem. We have a cadre of experienced surgeons in the UK. We have produced competency-based training manuals that are accepted globally for the training of doctors and nurses. We have the experience of running successful programmes. The UK can lead and co-ordinate with other partners. I hope that the Government will commit to some action. I know that the professional organisations stand ready to help. I am hoping for a positive response from the Minister. The publication of the framework demonstrates the Government’s recognition of the problem relating to MDG 5. I hope that resources to meet the goals will now follow.

19:41

[Lord Black of Brentwood]

My Lords, I declare an interest as chairman of the Commonwealth Press Union Media Trust. I start by congratulating the noble Lord on securing this debate on such a tragic issue.

As we have heard, 555,000 women in the developing world die each year from complications during pregnancy or childbirth. The most awful aspect is that so many deaths are avoidable because they are caused by a simple lack of awareness about basic primary healthcare and cleanliness. Information and communication are therefore vital in tackling the problem. This is an area where a free media with well trained professional health journalists must play a key role.

The evidence is strong. In countries that lack a vibrant press with specialist health reporters, maternal morbidity rates are most acute. Where the media operate effectively, the problem can be tackled head on. A recent report from the Open Society Institute showed how mass media campaigns in the area of HIV promote the adoption of prevention of mother-to-child transmission services, which are a key part of maternal health. In Rwanda, to take a concrete example, a mass media education programme has helped to reduce the maternal mortality rate from 750 per 100,000 live births in 2005 to 383 in 2009, so public information helps. A key priority for us should therefore be to foster programmes where skilled health professionals can work with specialist journalists to develop locally generated educational campaigns that can reach out to all members of the population.

One other area where a free media have a key role to play is in ensuring that there is transparency about what individual Governments are actually spending on maternal health issues. Last year, the International Budget Project conducted a survey to find out what 80 Governments were spending on issues relating to international goals, some relating to maternal mortality. Ten African countries with the highest maternal mortality rates did not bother to respond, while many others asserted that there was no central information on issues such as spending on life-saving drugs. To work out what needs to be done, as the IBP pointed out, we need to know what is already being done, which is far from clear.

The task of communicating information and of holding Governments to account requires a well trained and free media if we are to make further progress in dealing with the cruel scourge of maternal morbidity.

19:43

[Lord Winston]

My Lords, I declare an interest as Emeritus Professor of Fertility Studies at Imperial College and Professor of Science and Society. Also, I was a scientific adviser to the WHO on its reproductive programme in the 1970s and an adviser to the International Planned Parenthood Federation during that decade.

I remember approaching, while I was on that mission, a Bangladeshi farmer who had five sons. He said, “Look, I am rich in my poor community because I have five sons who will look after me in my old age”. That is one of the key problems. Some 15 years ago in this Chamber, the noble Baroness, Lady Chalker, pointed out that contraception was not ultimately what “controlled” populations. Quite clearly, what is needed is better infrastructure and education, better status of women and better women’s health.

That is why I am somewhat critical of the aims that I understand are part of the Government’s, which are to improve contraception and safe abortion. While those are worthy causes, they will not deal with the basic problem of the massive incidence of maternal mortality, particularly in places such as Nigeria, Ethiopia, Congo and India, where 50 per cent of these deaths, with the other three countries that are cited by Margaret Hogan in her excellent paper in the Lancet, are recorded.

One has to accept that almost certainly the original half million is an underestimate. A 1.5 per cent decrease per annum will clearly not meet the targets that are needed. There is a serious problem, particularly as in many cases the number of maternal deaths—those from ectopic pregnancy, for example, which is largely silent and hardly ever diagnosed in the third world—must be underestimated. The same applies to abortion. Even where safe abortions are possible, it is difficult in many cases for women in these poor countries to seek them because of the social pressures on them. There is a huge amount of work still to be done.

19:45

[Lord Chidgey]

My Lords, user fees for healthcare can be a key barrier to achieving MDG 5 in developing countries. While contributing on average only 5 per cent to healthcare costs, they leave too many women with no choice but to give birth at home with no qualified medical assistance. Sierra Leone removed user fees in April 2010 with DfID and other donor support. The number of women giving birth in hospital doubled in the first month and continues to rise.

In the first month alone, antenatal clinics in Freetown saw seven times more women than they ever had before. According to Oxfam, since removing fees Uganda has seen an 84 per cent increase in attendance, while Burundi has seen a 60 per cent increase. In Niger, consultations for under-fives have quadrupled and for mothers have doubled. In the light of that compelling evidence, will the Minister confirm the Government’s continued commitment to maternal health multilateral aid through, for example, the UK’s support for the Global Fund?

In fragile states such as DRC, achieving MDG 5, as with any of the other development goals, requires the international community to consider more thoroughly and widely the political dimensions of DRC’s poverty. In that context, will the Minister tell us what steps the Government will take to support the development of parliamentary accountability in the DRC?

More generally, what measures are the Government taking to ensure that improved government accountability is featured alongside MDG programmes? A key issue associated with maternal health and MDG 5 is sexual gender-based violence. DRC is recognised as one of the most dangerous countries in the world in which to be a woman, yet in its 2011 national budget just 0.1 per cent was allocated to the Ministry of Justice, making a mockery of claims to show zero tolerance of rape and SGBV. What representations have the Government made to the Congolese over the inadequacy of DRC’s budget for its Ministry of Justice, particularly in this regard?

19:47

[Lord Green of Hurstpierpoint]

My Lords, as I rise to make my maiden speech, I am conscious that it is customary to thank the staff of the House for all their help, as I begin like a new boy at school to find my way around. Although everyone promised that this would be so, it is an absolute delight to find just how true it is. My thanks are absolutely the reverse of perfunctory.

My thanks go, too, to my sponsors, the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths of Fforestfach, and the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick of Undercliffe. Both are close friends of mine. The fact that one sits on these Benches and the other on the Benches opposite matters to me not a jot. I am normally happy to follow the conventions of the House, but on this occasion at least I can say that both, and indeed others on various Benches of this House, are my noble friends.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Patel, for introducing today’s debate on maternal health in the context of the millennium development goals. I am keen to contribute, as I have taken on the role of Minister of State for Trade and Investment. I believe passionately that there is a vital connecting thread between trade and investment and the millennium development goals. My own perspective is formed not only by having worked in international management consulting, followed by an extensive career in international banking, but by having begun my working life in DfID, or rather its predecessor, the Overseas Development Administration, as it was then known.

I make four brief points. First, the various millennium development goals are of course intrinsically linked. The most obvious example of that, and directly relevant to today’s debate, is the connection between progress on gender equality, which is goal 3, improved maternal health, which is goal 5, and reduced child mortality, which is goal 4. The evidence is clear: children in poor communities are 10 times more likely to die before the age of five if the mother has died. The link, too, with disease—goal 6—is clear. HIV is the leading cause of death in women of reproductive age in sub-Saharan Africa and malaria alone is responsible for 20 per cent of child mortality there.

Secondly, progress in meeting the goals is mixed. There have been some important gains, with good progress in eradicating extreme poverty—goal 1. Some countries have made astonishing progress. China, for example, has lifted literally hundreds of millions of people out of poverty in recent years. Yet the mountain is still high and there is a long way to climb. Demographic patterns have meant that absolute numbers have declined much less sharply than the ratios of poverty, and the absolute numbers remain high by any standard. More broadly, across a range of targets, there is a long way to go. We have heard from a number of noble Lords about the difficulties in respect of maternal health.

Thirdly, specific interventions can be powerfully effective. Well targeted ODA and NGO-supported programmes in areas such as fistula can make a real difference to many people’s lives and indirectly to even more lives through the effect on children.

Fourthly, none of this will ever add up to sustainable, comprehensive well-being without progress—real progress—on goal 8. On the face of it, this is the woolliest goal of all. It seems like a ragbag of ideas bundled together as the last goal but it includes the all-important challenge to further develop,

“an open, rules-based, predictable, non-discriminatory trading and financial system”.

This is critical to everything else that we do. It is certainly not sufficient but it is absolutely necessary. Historians will note the importance of the words of the G20 communiqué from London in April 2009, where the heads of the Governments of 80 per cent of the world’s economy said that we start from the belief that,

“the only sure foundation for sustainable globalisation and rising prosperity for all is an open world economy based on market principles, effective regulation and strong global institutions”.

I see this as the basis for real hope. It is easy to be cynical, but that would be wrong. There is plenty to do. Progress is mixed and there are many lessons to be learnt from the global financial and economic crisis. One lesson not to learn, if we really care about the aspirations that infuse the development goals in general and goal 5 in particular, is the notion of some alternative to a central role for open, market-based engagement—properly supervised—as the main engine of the economic and social development that is essential if we are to banish today’s unacceptable levels of child and maternal mortality for good.

Trade and investment is an area of policy focus for the UK that is critical not only to the UK’s own ability to deliver sustainable growth for its citizens, which it certainly is, but also to the wider goal of a prosperous, open, growing world economy that is sustainable and inclusive. This aspiration is both our wider responsibility and in our wider interest.

19:53

[The Lord Bishop of Derby]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Green, for his wise and insightful speech. He comes with a distinguished career and immediately gave a big framework and a focus to help us understand this debate and where it is going. I thank him and look forward to his contributions in future.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Patel, for drawing attention to this important issue, and I make one simple point. We have heard and will hear a range of insights into how this issue can be tackled. Many of these insights and much of the documentation are quite properly about scientific, medical and organisational strategies to try and help people in enormous need facing enormous challenges. You will not be surprised that I want to remind the House that birth and death are for most people essentially spiritual issues. There is little mention in the aspirations and the documentation about the element of faith and spirituality.

I am pleased that the Government are bold in their big society agenda in drawing attention to the role of faith in society, education, well-being and values. I hope we can think seriously about the role of faith as we try to pursue these goals. I cite two small examples of this. First, the Mothers’ Union has 3.6 million members and operates in 81 countries at the grassroots level. Secondly, if we want to confront how we pursue and deliver these goals with the people, through the people, there is a faith organisation that is right in the middle of the challenge. In the Congo, 60 per cent of healthcare is delivered by Christian churches. Can the Minister comment on the place of faith and working with faith communities in taking seriously these goals and pursuing them effectively?

19:56

[Baroness Tonge]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Patel, on securing this debate, and the present Government on the leadership they showed early on by promoting women’s health and in particular in improving the provision of contraception and safe abortion in developing countries.

The previous Government were equally enthusiastic, but sadly an estimated 350,000 women still die in childbirth and millions suffer permanent damage to their health as a consequence. Imagine a jumbo jet full of passengers crashing every day of the year. The press would go mad. Rupert Murdoch might notice and take action. Yet the same number dying each year for lack of obstetric care raises not a whimper. What a pity men do not have the babies—action would have been taken decades ago.

The coalition published the framework for action before Christmas and I congratulate them. How much money will be allocated and how will the Department for International Development monitor the results? We need to ensure real progress this time because the success of developing countries depends on the health and welfare of its women. There is no question of that.

The rest of my speech can be read in the report produced by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Population, Development and Reproductive Health, asking whether some women in developing countries might be Better off Dead? It is on our website, so please read it.

19:58

[The Earl of Sandwich]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for following up the short debate of the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, which I missed. The 2015 deadline for the health MDGs is looming nearer. I have seen the recommendations of the UN taskforce implementing a $40 billion global strategy for women and children’s health. They are formidable but I was struck by one passage:

“The chasm between what we know and what we do, between our ability to end poverty, despair, and destruction and our timid, often contradictory efforts to do so lies at the heart of the problem … the challenge posed by the MDGs is deeply and fundamentally political. It is about access to and distribution of power and resources”.

It is important that health practitioners, when coming into contact with global health, take note of these words because they take us to the heart of the community involved.

In southern Sudan, for example, on the eve of its independence, a lot of money has been earmarked for health through the Government and the multi-donor trust fund but little has been spent effectively. There have been delays in implementation, logjams in drug procurement, problems in paying health workers and transferring funds into services—every kind of obstacle you expect in a poor country, only worse. The most experienced NGOs there are frustrated. No one is giving up. It will just take a long time and many mothers and children will die waiting. This is the hard lesson that we have to pass on to dedicated teams who are rightly desperate to help these countries meet their millennium goals.

The latest UN development report reminds us that global healthcare need not be expensive but it will thrive in a more democratic and politically friendly environment. It is sometimes assumed that the ill health of the poor stems from their own ignorance and that we have to fill an acute knowledge gap that exists between rich and poor. However, my experience is that the very poor, given half a chance, are the best architects of their own development, whereas outsiders are not.

20:00

[Lord Sheikh]

My Lords, I care about international development and the achievement of millennium development goal 5. When I attended the sixth Asia-Europe Parliamentary Partnership meeting in Brussels recently, I successfully tabled an amendment to the final declaration calling for greater efforts to improve maternal health and to reduce maternal mortality.

I feel that it is pertinent to draw attention to the growing adolescent birth rate. Poverty continues to be a factor in perpetuating that worrying trend, but education also plays a significant role. Research suggests that adolescents who have not had access to any type of formal education are four times more likely to fall pregnant than their peers who have completed secondary school.

Improving maternal health is not only a moral obligation but financially prudent. It has been argued that at least 30 per cent of Asia’s economic growth was due to sustainable improvements in reproductive health. The United Nations Global Strategy for Women’s and Children’s Health suggests that maternal health problems result in losses to productivity of up to $15 billion per annum.

I welcome the Government’s commitment to support the global fund in its work to combat the rise of HIV, tuberculosis and malaria in the world’s poorest nations. More than 1 million people with tuberculosis are also infected with the HIV virus. Tuberculosis is responsible for the deaths of more than a quarter of people with the HIV/AIDS virus. In 2008, tuberculosis was responsible for the deaths of more than 300,000 expectant mothers, especially in sub-Saharan Africa.

I am also in favour of the coalition Government’s plan to tackle malaria and to reduce maternal fatalities. Malaria kills a child in Africa every 45 seconds. The plans will also ensure that, over the next five years, a minimum of 10 million couples will gain access to education on family planning. Infants and pregnant women are the main victims of malaria-related deaths.

I believe that we have a duty to ensure that lasting progress is made to fulfil millennium development goal 5 by 2015. As a leading nation in the global arena, we must ensure that goal 5—part of the challenging programme that was agreed 15 years ago—results in success.

20:03

[Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Patel, for inspiring this debate. I pay my warmest tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Green of Hurstpierpoint, for his thought-provoking and powerful maiden speech.

The context of this millennium development goal is that maternal mortality initiatives should be incorporated within a preventive healthcare framework. On structure, an effective first step to reduce the incidence of maternal mortality would be to create integrated mother-child healthcare—MCH—units within primary healthcare centres to secure an increase in the accessibility and availability of MCH care.

To encourage attendance, the availability of MCH units should be widely advertised among the catchment area population through, for example, health education outreach programmes such as the women health volunteer programme.

Encouraging good health habits is essential. MCH units should be physically designed in a way that takes account of the patient’s needs for privacy and dignity. Ideally, such units should also have the capacity to accommodate other young members of the family while mother has her consultation. Emphasis should be placed on encouraging patients to return, to attend regularly when advised to do so, to encourage others to attend and to inculcate good health habits within the community.

Traditional birth attendants should be professionally trained. That must be a priority, with a view to increasing the number of births attended by skilled and professionally qualified birth attendants.

Local staff should be used to overcome sociocultural barriers. Programmes that are implemented by local health professionals are much more likely to be able effectively to influence situations in which a strict interpretation of traditional social practices inhibits the timely treatment of women in urgent need of medical assistance. An example of that might be the refusal to allow female relatives to be treated by male doctors.

I chair the AMAR International Charitable Foundation, which provides more than 1 million Iraqi people a year with primary healthcare. Our maternal mortality conference operates in the Iraqi marshlands, where local AMAR doctors who have presented case studies of avoidable maternal deaths have enabled tribal leaders to pledge actively to take responsibility for reducing the number of such cases.

If we follow up such steps with referral procedures, follow-up procedures, improved patient records and maternal mortality data as well as education for mothers, we will find that infant and child mortality, as well as maternal mortality, is comprehensively improved.

20:05

[Viscount Craigavon]

My Lords, in my brief contribution, I will focus particularly on MDG 5b, which mainly covers the contribution of reproductive health and family planning to the subject of this debate.

As we have heard, the Department for International Development moved the issue forward significantly with its many announcements on 31 December last year, although the specific allocation of money is still to be decided in the spending review that is to come shortly. The headline and bullet points given in a useful article in the Guardian on that day were very encouraging. The article states:

“The coalition government will put contraception and safe abortion at the heart of its efforts to help save women's lives in poor countries … Safe abortion and contraception take centre stage in the framework on maternal health”.

In this context, no one is referring to abortion as a method of family planning. The reference is to safe abortion, as opposed to unsafe abortion that all too often leads to a fatal outcome. The article goes on:

“Family planning to help avoid unwanted pregnancy is considered good value for money – it was estimated in 2008 that modern contraceptive methods cost … £5 … per woman per year”.

It is to be hoped that the forthcoming spending review will also increase the amount that is spent bilaterally directly on family planning, which has recently not increased as much as other, similar aid.

The article also tells us that,

“there will be ‘significant’ spending on reproductive health, with the aim of enabling … women ‘to choose whether, when and how many children to have’”.

I hope that that momentum will also carry over to affect how we contribute funds for development through the EU so that those can be radically reviewed and fed into the process of review within the EU that is going on this year.

20:07

[Lord Patten]

My Lords, one of the best weapons in the Government’s armoury that could help to meet the entirely laudable aims of millennium development goal 5 would be to press for better governance, on the way to the holy grail of good governance, in the countries that we seek to help in this respect. Outright corruption and bribery—with their twin and just as damaging siblings of weak regulation and indolent service delivery, often using donor aid—hit healthcare hard.

Look at sub-Saharan Africa. The World Bank’s African Development Indicators 2010 shines a revealing spotlight on the severe effects that follow from what it delicately terms “quiet corruption”. The report cites examples such as that about half the drugs that are sold in Nigerian drugs stores are counterfeit. The same report equally politely refers to “provider deviations” from the norms of expected behaviours of some doctors, nurses and other front-line providers, with the petty palm greasing, attendant absenteeism and low levels of effort. Those are very uncomfortable but very true facts, which are well documented.

Above all, we must face up to the fact that private donor aid, as well as public spending from countries such as the United Kingdom, will in the end comprehensively reduce mortality only when governance is better and transparency about performance and behaviour is vastly improved. We need that if we are to bring help in an area where more than half of all births occur without trained personnel being present, despite the excellent efforts of UK-based charities such as CAFOD. CAFOD’s innovative birth attendants training schemes in the selfsame Nigeria help to lead the way, as do the initiatives of the other faith groups that were referred to by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby in his very telling remarks.

20:09

[Lord Jones of Cheltenham]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Patel, on securing this important debate and the noble Lord, Lord Green, on his very interesting maiden speech.

In 2009, I joined Commonwealth Parliamentary Association delegations to Sierra Leone and Cameroon. I am a patron of the Kambia appeal, in my former constituency of Cheltenham, which supports healthcare in the Kambia region of north-east Sierra Leone. Both CPA delegations attended presentations about gender issues, covering the huge birth rate, the need for education, pre and postnatal care, contraception, violence towards women and the tragedy of so many deaths caused by illegal abortions.

I want to tell noble Lords particularly about the session in Cameroon, which was also attended by Members of the Cameroon parliament. One outspoken chief asked why gender issues always meant women’s issues. He said that it was the role of men to be head of the family and to lead the way, and he dismissed many of the problems and said female genital mutilation—FGM—was exactly the same as circumcision in boys. This shocked us. It produced an explosive response from our delegation leader, the former MP Joan Ryan. She told him that he was talking gibberish, that FGM was an appallingly disfiguring practice that should be outlawed and that two children were enough for anyone if Cameroon wanted to progress by enabling women to play a full economic part in their country’s development, instead of leading lives of continuous breeding from an early age. She finished by telling the chief: “Girls are just as intelligent as boys. Women are equal to men, and if you don’t like it we may just have to dominate you”. How she is missed in another place.

We must help men in developing countries to understand their responsibilities in helping to achieve MDG 5. Without that breakthrough, I fear that we will continue to see women dying before childbirth, in childbirth and after childbirth in numbers that are all too horrible to imagine.

20:11

[Lord Crisp]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Patel on raising this issue and sparking this excellent debate. I also congratulate this and the previous Government on giving the priority that they have to this issue. The question is: why is more not happening faster? There are improvements but it is not fast enough. Three things come together here.

First, on the clinical issue, we have heard from clinicians in the Chamber and elsewhere that, clinically, people know what to do. Obviously, you can do it better but two other issues go alongside the need for good clinical leadership. Secondly, it is particularly about the resources of health workers and having more appropriately trained health workers. The third issue, which is the hardest to tackle, is the one that the noble Lord, Lord Jones, has just referred to: the matter of social issues. There are issues of women’s inequality, of women not being able to leave the house without a man’s permission, of women not having money of their own, of whether women are allowed to manage the finances in a family and of whether it is acceptable for young, underdeveloped women to marry and to bear children.

Those are all issues for the whole society, particularly for men, and it is interesting to see examples of countries such as Zambia where people actively work with the leaders, whether they are the spiritual or the traditional leaders of the country, to change social attitudes. It is my belief that you need these three things to work together in a country: clinical leadership, political leadership that will in part release the resources and civil society leadership, which embraces media and other aspects that have been referred to. What are the Government doing to make sure that those three issues are addressed together? I believe that doing so is what will make a difference.

Perhaps I might add one quick footnote on an issue that my noble friend Lord Patel raised in his excellent speech. There are many people in the UK willing and able to help provide support, from his own college and elsewhere. Can the Minister tell us what is being done to enable people to use their skill and good will for the benefit of dealing with this problem?

20:14

[Baroness Cox]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate my noble friend on introducing this very important subject. I will focus on a country currently in the news and in much need of help, Southern Sudan, where fulfilments of MDGs seem a distant dream. When I was in Southern Sudan some months ago, these grim statistics highlighted the situation. One in seven pregnant women dies in pregnancy or childbirth. Immunisation is available for only 17 per cent of the population, leaving 83 per cent vulnerable to avoidable diseases such as polio, measles, diphtheria and tetanus. A girl is more likely to die in pregnancy than to have access to secondary education. We were told that there are only 10 fully qualified midwives for the whole of Southern Sudan. In many rural areas around towns such as Yei, roads are so bad that access to hospitals may be virtually impossible. A woman with obstructed labour may have to endure over two hours on the back of a bicycle to reach a hospital; many die en route. The destruction of educational institutions during the war has left a dearth of young people with educational qualifications to apply for professional training as nurses and midwives.

Those statistics will be even worse now, with massive numbers of returnees fleeing from the north in fear of reprisals following the referendum. They are now living as displaced people in dire conditions, with no adequate facilities for care and no homes to return to. Following the referendum, there will be an urgent need to address these problems if the existing humanitarian crisis is not to escalate even further, with a risk of undermining political stability. DfID has made significant funding available but in areas where my NGO, HART, is working—Northern Bahr-El-Ghazal, Equatoria and the Nuba mountains—we see little evidence of DfID’s funding. I therefore ask the Minister for reassurance that DfID’s resources are being used effectively to address these priorities of maternal mortality in these critical days in Southern Sudan.

20:16

[Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead]

My Lords, I, too, add my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Patel, for the initiative that he has taken this evening and for his long and fine commitment to the issues that we are discussing. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Green, for his contribution and I certainly agree with the points that he made, particularly on trade and development and on MDG 8. I wish the noble Lord well as a Member of this House.

The fundamental reality should of course be that no woman should die giving life. Pregnancy, as I can confirm, is a cause for celebration and surely not for despair, disability or death. I met a woman once who was about to go into labour; before doing that, she went to say goodbye to her children. That is the kind of story which really resonates and tells us what this debate is all about. We hear many fine words on maternal health but I regret that, after following this issue for many years, I do not actually see any real global fulfilment of the political or financial commitments that we have heard being made.

To answer the questions raised by the subject of tonight’s debate, should we not point, as some noble Lords have, to the low status accorded to women and, indeed, to the low value placed upon saving women’s lives—lives that have been characterised by vulnerability, exclusion and poverty? Is not this debate about women’s rights to a fair distribution of power and resources? Indeed, we would serve the objectives of meeting all the MDGs if we were to focus on achieving equity, tolerance and shared responsibility, which means recognising women’s rights. Time is short for MDG 5. It has become a popular cause but other issues are coming up. For instance, in 2011 the World Health Organisation is prioritising communicable diseases for the entire year.

Other Members of the House have outlined the problems that women encounter in terms of medication, birth attendants and other vital issues. Many women want to plan their families, yet family planning fails to meet the pace of the demands which women are making. Again, the reality is that women do not have control over their reproductive rights because they just do not have access to those rights. Finally, sadly, we should acknowledge that progress on MDG 5 is, I fear, too slow to hit the target on time.

20:19

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Patel, for securing this important and very timely debate. From the level of interest, the number of speakers and the wit, knowledge and wisdom of your Lordships’ House, today yet again highlights the great strength of your Lordships’ knowledge. I know that time will not permit me to answer all questions today, so I ask noble Lords to allow me to write to them if I do not answer theirs. I join all noble Lords in congratulating my noble friend Lord Green of Hurstpierpoint on his most excellent maiden speech. I am sure that it was just a tiny nugget of the superb contributions that my noble friend will bring to your Lordships’ House, as well as carrying out his ministerial duties as our trade Minister, a field in which he already has enormous recognition.

We all know that millennium development goal 5, to improve maternal health, is one of the most off-track MDGs. Each year, more than a third of a million women and girls die in pregnancy and childbirth and some 50 million give birth without skilled care. There is not much with which I can disagree in what noble Lords have said today—there is so much to be done. But I assure all noble Lords that this Government are determined to do their best to meet all the targets that we are setting ourselves.

For every woman who dies, up to 30 more suffer a debilitating illness or permanent disability, as the noble Lord, Lord Patel, has highlighted, which is often accompanied by stigma and discrimination. I congratulate the noble Lord on the work that he and his organisation are doing. I am sure that the department would be pleased to hear much more about it.

On the question of how we measure what we are doing, the framework sets out how we will clearly measure our outputs, our programmes and of course our end results. Most deaths in pregnancy and childbirth in developing countries are entirely avoidable. Globally meeting the unmet need for family planning alone could avoid around one-third of maternal deaths and one-fifth of newborn deaths. Yet 215 million women who want to delay or avoid a pregnancy are not using an effective method of family planning. Each year there are 75 million unintended pregnancies, of which 44 million end in abortion. In 2008, an estimated 22 million unsafe abortions took place, resulting in around 70,000 maternal deaths.

I agree that conflict can seriously aggravate the challenges of tackling maternal mortality and morbidity, such as the high levels of sexual violence, as the noble Lord, Lord Chidgey, pointed out, which is why we support the UN Security Council resolution and its sequels to demonstrate the international commitment to improving the lives of women affected by conflict. The UK Government strongly support those efforts, as we have encapsulated in a new national action plan on women, peace and security, which was launched in November 2010. The Government are reorienting the development programme to put women at its heart, empowering women to make their own choices for their health and the health and well-being of their families.

The benefits of investing in women’s health are far reaching. Improved reproductive health can improve the status of women, enabling them to live free from maternal illness and to make choices about their bodies and lives. Improving women’s health during pregnancy and childbirth saves not just their lives but those of their children. Meeting the demand for family planning services, together with wider investments in education and women’s empowerment, will reduce unwanted fertility and slow population growth.

All those improvements would all have much wider benefits for families, societies and economies, as my noble friend Lord Green has pointed out. The millennium development goals, for example, will help eradicate household poverty, and will have a national benefit when mothers and babies are healthy and when high fertility rates fall.

The case for investing is strong. Evidence tells us that investing in reproductive, maternal and newborn health is excellent value for money. Family planning is one of development’s best buys in global health due to its low cost and far-reaching benefits. Responding to the unmet need for family planning will be one of the defining international development priorities of this Government.

The debate, of course, is very timely. On 31 December 2010 the Government’s new Framework for Results for improving maternal, reproductive and newborn health was published. Called Choices for Women: Planned Pregnancies, Safe Births and Healthy Newborns, it sets out how the UK will double its efforts on women’s and children’s health over the coming years.

The Government’s two main aims are to prevent unintended pregnancies by enabling women and adolescent girls to choose whether, when and how they have children, and to ensure that pregnancy and childbirth are safe for mothers and babies. The Government will double the UK’s efforts on women’s and children’s health to save the lives of at least 50,000 women during pregnancy and childbirth and 250,000 newborn babies by 2015; to enable at least 10 million more women to use modern methods of family planning by 2015, including up to 1 million young women; to prevent more than 5 million unintended pregnancies; and to support at least 2 million safe deliveries, ensuring long-lasting improvements in quality maternal health services, particularly for the poorest 40 per cent. This doubling of effort is backed by the doubling of resources for women and children’s health, as announced by the Deputy Prime Minister at the UN summit in 2010.

The noble Baroness, Lady Kinnock, asked about funds. This Government have pledged to enshrine in law 0.7 per cent of GNI by 2013. This is the UK’s contribution to an international global push to improve maternal health, supporting the United Nations Secretary-General’s global strategy for women’s and children’s health, which was agreed in September. Our new Framework for Results outlines a comprehensive approach to improve maternal health from before and during pregnancy, through delivery to the very important first few hours and weeks after birth, known as the continuum of care. It places a particular emphasis on reaching those who often find it the hardest to access services.

The framework has four pillars for action: to empower women and girls, to remove barriers, to expand the supply of quality services and, most importantly, to enhance accountability. We will implement these pillars across DfID’s country programmes. We will focus where the need is great and where the UK has a comparative advantage. We will improve the effectiveness of the global response, including that from international institutions and civil society. We will harness the UK’s expertise to improve maternal health in the developing world. To ensure that commitments are made a reality, though, we need good intentions, action at scale and clear, demonstrable outcomes that are tracked and monitored. The core results in the framework will be the basis by which we and others will monitor our performance in achieving our aims across our programmes.

My noble friend Lord Black is right: better transparency and accountability, of which a free press is a part, will contribute to improved service of delivery. The Framework for Results recognises the role that the media can play in enhancing accountability between women and wider civil society, service providers and governments.

The noble Lord, Lord Patel, asked about the framework and how it would be done. It sets out how we are going to achieve overall results, and a series of current reviews will be completed on all our DfID programmes, which we will then develop into operational plans over the coming months. We want to ensure that programmes are targeted towards those who will have the best possible opportunity to have improvement in their lives.

I know that this debate has stirred a lot of emotion among noble Lords, and with so many speakers it would be difficult to respond to each individual question. I hope that noble Lords will allow me to write to them in depth.

We have a unique opportunity. The United Kingdom wants to be at the heart of making progress in ensuring that MDG 5 is achieved by 2015. The UK will play its part, but noble Lords in this Chamber have so much expertise and wisdom that they are duty bound to ensure that they also help us in developing our programmes. We are always open to discussion, and we hope that noble Lords will take every opportunity to discuss the programmes with us.

Once again, I thank all noble Lords for their contributions. I thank my noble friend Lord Green for his immensely important contribution, and I look forward to hearing more from him.

20:29

Sitting suspended.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Wednesday 12th January 2011 Lords Chamber

Committee (8th Day) (Continued)

20:32

Amendment 58ZZZD

Moved by

[Lord Boateng]

58ZZZD: Clause 10, page 8, line 15, at end insert—
“( ) No Boundary Commission shall begin work on a report to be submitted under subsection (1) above until both Houses of Parliament have approved a separate report issued by the Secretary of State confirming that particular action has been taken to maximise the proportion of black and minority ethnic British residents who are on the electoral register.”

[Lord Boateng]

My Lords, Amendment 58ZZZD is in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Thornton. As a newcomer to your Lordships’ House, I hope that the triple Z does not denote the degree of torpor that the amendment might induce in the Minister, who has heard it all before—at least twice in the form and wording of the amendment, albeit that it deals with different content. It deals with a different section of the population, which stands in danger of being underrepresented on the electoral register.

A big society is a cohesive society. A cohesive society is more likely to come about when there is inclusion. There can be no more important form of inclusion than inclusion on the electoral register. It is that, in a democratic society, that constitutes the link between the subject—in our case the citizen—and the state. One of the strengths of our democracy, which is rooted in our history as a nation and a Commonwealth, is the right of all Commonwealth subjects to vote. That right has undoubtedly contributed to the greater degree of democratic participation on the part of black and minority-ethnic communities in this country in comparison with any other country in Europe, where the same right was not automatically conferred.

This amendment draws attention to the reality, now well documented and well researched, of the state of the register. A reality that has been the case for many years is the underrepresentation of the black and minority-ethnic communities. I will come in a moment to possible reasons for that, the nature of the evidence, what it has been proposed might be done about it and its relevance to the Bill. It is worth reflecting for a moment on the progress that has been made, which is not insignificant. There is no room for complacency but, certainly, in my own time in both Houses of the Palace of Westminster I have seen real progress made. I came into the House of Commons in 1987. At that time there were only four black and minority-ethnic Members of Parliament and I was one of them. Since then that number has grown—slowly, initially—until 2005 when it reached 15, or 2.3 per cent of all Members of Parliament. Interestingly, this House, post-war, has always had a better record than the other place in its representation of the rich diversity of our country. I have no doubt that that contributed hugely to the quality of the debates in this place. You can see that in the contributions of the late Lord Pitt, the noble Lord, Lord Chitnis, and others on all sides of this House.

However, last year there was a great leap forward. I hesitate to use that term, bearing in mind the references that were made earlier in today’s debate to the state of perpetual revolution that it is alleged Members opposite wish to impose in the context of this constitutional regime. References were made—approving references if my recollection is right—by senior Members of the majority party opposite to Mao. The speed of the reform and action across the board was seen as a Maoist approach to government, which is novel, coming from the party opposite. However, this is the new politics so perhaps we ought not to be entirely surprised. Be that as it may, there was a great leap forward in 2010, when 27 Members of Parliament from the ethnic minorities were elected—some 4 per cent of all MPs. That is real progress.

A major contributing factor to that progress was the fact that 11 ethnic-minority MPs were elected from the Conservative Party. That is to the credit of that party. It is to the credit of the right honourable gentleman the Prime Minister and his team, who clearly came into positions of leadership in the Conservative Party with an expressed intent to ensure that the party was more representative of the whole community in the make-up of its elected representatives. That was achieved in a remarkably short period. There were none in 2005—the last Parliament of which I was a Member—although there had been one prior to that, but there were 11 in 2010. I make this point because it did not just happen; it came about as a result of an expressed determination to do something—and something was done. Steps were taken to redress an imbalance and an inequity. That is what we all seek, surely, for the electoral register. That is what we need to do to make sure that the electoral register is more representative of the whole community, promotes inclusion and cohesion, and therefore strengthens the basis of our democracy.

I have listened very carefully to the Minister’s response to two previous amendments that were similar in shape and form to that which I am now proposing, so I do not expect him to accept it. I know the arguments that he has ably rehearsed against the amendment in its current form. However, I hope he will accept that something must be done to address this inequity and imbalance. I hope that he will begin to demonstrate the nature of his and the Government’s thinking on this issue and a willingness to reach out to others to see what can be done, what has worked and been successful and what has not been so successful to date in making sure that our electoral registration system works better so that in the years to come—I put it that way quite deliberately—whatever the outcome of our deliberations on this Bill and whatever the form in which it finally arrives on the statute book, the new dispensation will be based on a register whose completeness and accuracy is greater than that which currently exists.

We ought to be indebted to the Electoral Commission for the work that it has already done in this area, which is of a very high quality. The Minister has cited previous references to the Electoral Commission’s report of March 2010. Paragraph 4.18 on page 75 of the report refers specifically to the fieldwork done among members of black and minority-ethnic groups in compiling it. The paragraph states that the fieldwork confirmed the fact that:

“BME groups are … more likely to be absent from the electoral registers”.

It was not possible in this fieldwork to distinguish between different black and minority-ethnic groups, although there are differences which I shall discuss briefly in a moment. Indeed, my noble friend Lady Thornton, who hails from Bradford, will no doubt be able to share with us the distinctions that undoubtedly exist in terms of participation in the register as between Asians and south Indian communities on the one hand and Caribbean and African ones on the other. Those distinctions are real. However, the 2010 study also revealed that,

“registration levels were found to be significantly lower for eligible BME British electors (69%) compared to white British electors (86%)”.

The Electoral Commission makes the point that:

“Further research would be needed to identify the extent to which under-registration among BME groups arises from confusion about eligibility to vote within some BME communities or from language difficulties, versus the extent to which it is largely because of the socio-demographic profile of BME British residents (who are, on average, younger, have higher levels of residential mobility, and are more likely to live in the private rental sector)”.

Therefore, BME communities suffer from a treble bind, as it were. They are likely to be young and therefore not on the electoral register for reasons that have been well canvassed today. They are likely to live in the private rented sector in multi-occupation residential premises and therefore are again less likely to be caught by the registration process. In addition, they have the other factors to which the commission refers and on which some research has been done, not least by the Equality and Human Rights Commission. Therefore, the problem is well established. It is clear that a disproportionate number of the 3.5 million people not caught by the electoral register are drawn from the black and minority-ethnic communities.

20:45

We have identified the problem, which is accepted by noble Lords on all sides of the House, but what is to be done? Something must be done. The Minister accepts that something needs to be done. What I am seeking to tease out and to progress in this debate is what that might be. We know that this issue, if left simply to the passage of time, will not get any better. The Equality and Human Rights Commission has produced an excellent publication, How Fair is Britain? The First Triennial Review, Equality, Human Rights and Good Relations in 2010, which indicates that in some areas the problem has been getting worse, particularly in urban metropolitan areas. The problem of registration has been getting worse and the level of self-reported turnout in elections, even for those registered, has been falling unevenly across ethnic groups between the 1997 and the 2005 elections. If we leave it to just time and good intentions, the danger is that things will get worse, rather than better.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

Has my noble friend considered the consequences of individual registration for black and minority-ethnic groups? Might there be a particular problem there? Perhaps he can comment. There may well have been a discussion with those communities—I do not know—but I should have thought there were major dangers.

[Lord Boateng]

My noble friend anticipates the first point of action on which I seek clarification from the Minister, because thought has been given to this matter. I must say that there is growing concern about what the impact of individual registration will be in these circumstances, particularly in communities and cultures where the “head of the family” takes responsibility for ensuring that the response to all official documentation that comes into the family home is co-ordinated by him.

[Lord Lester of Herne Hill]

I have not heard the noble Lord say anything so far about whose responsibility this should be, but I take it that he would agree with me that the real responsibility lies with the political parties and, for that matter, with organisations which can persuade Afro-Caribbean, Asian, white and all other minorities to register to vote. He is not saying that this is the responsibility of government, is he? The political parties, as he will know, have obligations under the Equality Act not to discriminate, directly or indirectly on the basis of race, colour or other factors, and they have positive obligations. Does the noble Lord agree with me that that is the way forward?

[Lord Boateng]

I have huge respect for the noble Lord’s contribution to community relations in this country, not least when he was an activist in the party of which I am a member and when landmark legislation was introduced in this area as a result of his activism, that of the noble Baroness, Lady Howells, and that of others, including the late Lord Pitt and Lord Jenkins of Hillhead, who were then leading members of the Campaign Against Racial Discrimination. That is the point that I am making to the noble Lord. If that legislation had not been introduced by the Government to which he was a special adviser, we would not be where we are now. This matter entails a major responsibility for the political parties—all of them. Indeed, I began by paying tribute to the Conservative Party for the action it took between 2005 and 2010. However, the reality is that this issue is too serious to be left to the political parties alone.

[Baroness Liddell of Coatdyke]

My noble friend is making a fascinating series of points which, to someone from my background, is a new experience. Given the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Lester, about the responsibility of political parties to ensure voter registration, does my noble friend agree that there is a real danger that if we put responsibility exclusively on to the political parties, we are in danger of going down the US route, where you end up with either a registered Democrat or a registered Republican, and the middle ground of politics—ironically, the middle ground which the Liberal Democrats should be seeking to enter—becomes extremely blurred? We would change the nature of the political system in this country, which is why we have an independent Electoral Commission and boundary commissioners.

[Lord Boateng]

I have a great deal of sympathy with the point my noble friend makes, given her intimate experience of the role of political parties in promoting voter registration. However, one of the things that I find heartening about the United States experience of democracy is the way that the churches and others are actively engaged in the process of promoting registration. That is something we would do well to emulate in this country, and best-practice local authorities are beginning to emulate that. I know that in my own borough of Brent, when I was Member of Parliament for Brent South in the other place, the returning officers and the local authority reached out to the churches, community groups and others in order to assist in the registration drive. My point is that somebody needs to hold the ring and somebody needs to encourage and resource that.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

My noble friend argues that political parties should be involved in this process, but that is not what we want at all. The cases of corruption that have arisen over the past few years have invariably occurred when political parties have engaged in this area of activity. Political representatives have sought multiple votes and got people to sign forms and send them in to local authorities. This has led to many cases that we are now dealing with in the courts. It is the role of the public sector and of local authority electoral registration officers to do that work; politicians should keep out of it.

[Lord Boateng]

I am not sure that I would go as far as my noble friend in saying that politicians or political parties ought to keep out of promoting electoral registration. They have a role. However, it is important that they should conduct that role within the law and that, if they do not, the full force of the law should be brought to bear on them regardless. It is very important that the law be brought to bear on those who break the electoral laws of our land.

The point that I was coming to was that somebody has to hold the ring. That primary responsibility should fall, in terms of accountability to Parliament, on the Secretary of State. That is why the Secretary of State appears in the amendment. The Electoral Commission has an important role in terms of research and bringing together good practice, and then the local authorities need to deliver. They must be resourced to deliver and one must make sure that they have those resources, ring-fenced and not scattered amid their other proper responsibilities. The Secretary of State should be there to hold the ring and to be accountable to Parliament. That is why I and my noble friends who have tabled similar amendments take the view that the Secretary of State must be in the Bill.

My second point is that it is open for debate—and this is a welcome opportunity to have that debate—what the precise role of the Secretary of State should be, what the nature should be of their statutory responsibilities, and what the relationship should be between those responsibilities and those of the Boundary Commission, the Electoral Commission and local authorities. I ask the noble and learned Lord to give some thought to that between now and Report, so that the problem is recognised and identified as an issue in the Bill. The issue of underrepresentation of various groups on the electoral register must be seen for what it is: a threat to democracy. There must be a duty for someone to ensure that something is done, because it is when something is done that things change. They have changed on the Benches opposite, in the other place and in my own party, and we are all the richer for it.

I do not ask the noble and learned Lord to accept the amendment tonight, or to give any indication that he is about to accept it, because I do not think that I will get that. However, it is reasonable to ask that he should consider how the issue might be addressed in the Bill on Report. I also ask him to recognise the role of Operation Black Vote. The leadership of the Conservative Party and of my own party addressed OBV in the run-up to the election and paid tribute to its role in promoting BME voter registration. Perhaps the noble and learned Lord would consider meeting a delegation from OBV in order that they can share with him their experience of working with local authorities, the Electoral Commission and the Equality and Human Rights Commission to promote best practice and share what the research shows. The research is helpful. It indicates the sorts of measures that lead to better registration and the cause of paucity of registration in areas where that is a particular problem.

21:00

I end my remarks by referring to London, where the situation is most extreme in all three categories which your Lordships are debating tonight. Indeed, in reporting in March last year, the constitutional affairs Select Committee in the other place shared with us the grim statistics that the Electoral Commission had brought forward in its work in this area. Those statistics show that only 6 per cent of people living in non-metropolitan areas are not on the register, whereas for inner London the figure stands at 20 per cent overall; and in rented unfurnished accommodation for the non-metropolitan areas only 2 per cent of owner-occupiers are not on the electoral register, yet for those living in furnished rented accommodation, which includes council housing, the figure for inner London rises to a massive 38 per cent. The statistics show that 36 per cent of new Commonwealth citizens in inner London who are entitled to vote are not on the register at all, and the figures indicate that the situation for young people is only a little better. Only 2 per cent of people aged over 50 are not on the register, yet for people aged between 20 and 24 the figure is 20 per cent. Therefore, the situation is dire. Something needs to be done and I hope that the Minister will have an open mind and an open door for those who suggest to him what might be done. I hope that on Report something will appear in the Bill indicating that this situation needs to be addressed if we are to have the sort of constitutional reform in which we can all take pride.

[Baroness Thornton]

My Lords, I am going to use Bradford as my example as I think that it illustrates very well what my noble friend Lord Boateng has just described. I am very proud of my city and love it very much, and I want to put that on the record. On two or three occasions today and on Monday I have spoken about the challenges and problems that Bradford faces in this respect, and I want to make that completely clear. I am grateful to the Leader’s office for making available to me information which amply illustrates the issue that my noble friend has just described. For Bradford, you could substitute Birmingham, Leicester or Tower Hamlets. This is a very serious problem.

On two or three occasions the Minister has repeated the mantra of what the Government intend to do and how they intend to push forward, saying that we cannot go forward with a register that is 10 years out of date and so on. However, that is not what any of us are proposing. I shall come to that in a moment, possibly suggesting a solution. I do not think that what the Minister says will do, as this is a very serious problem in some parts of our towns and cities. Because I do not think that reading out figures in your Lordships’ House is necessarily helpful, I shall write to the Minister setting out what the figures would be if the Government’s proposals in the Bill were superimposed on Bradford. Bradford currently has five MPs representing all the different major parties, so this is not a party-political point. If the proposals in the Bill are applied to Bradford, we will lose a Member of Parliament, which would be very serious. We will go down from five Members of Parliament for our city to four if the proposal goes ahead. It will be on a very inaccurate electoral roll because Bradford has a growing population. As I said, it is expected to grow by 27 per cent over the next 20 years, which is the fastest in the whole Yorkshire region.

A quarter of that growth will be among young people, and we have already discussed the problem of young people not being represented on the electoral roll. We know that the Electoral Commission says that the figure is more than 50 per cent, and Bradford has a young population. The highest birth rates will be in the inner city and central Keighley, so Bradford West and Bradford East are likely to see significant increases in both population size and electorate. The Bradford district has the third highest proportion of BME residents outside London. Research done by the Electoral Commission suggests that there are low levels of voter registration among the BME population, which has been described very adequately by my noble friend. About 31 per cent are not registered and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation found that south Asian adults—particularly Muslims—are less likely to be registered than other groups.

This is not a specifically Bradford problem but it illustrates that there is a serious problem. I have two questions for the Minister. First, the shadow Justice Secretary in another place, Sadiq Khan, called for a delay of one year and an intense voter registration programme to be undertaken. Why is that not possible? Will the Government consider coming back on Report with such a proposal? That would go a long way to satisfying many of these issues. It would need resources, of course. Secondly, did the Government seek advice from the EHRC about this matter and the fact that such communities will find themselves disfranchised? That is very serious in a city like Bradford. I want Bradford to be a healthy, thriving city, and an important way for that to happen is for its citizens to be registered to vote and to participate in civic life and all our elections. I hope that this legislation will help them to do that. That is what we are asking for.

[Lord Lester of Herne Hill]

I sympathise with the concern expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Boateng. I live in Herne Hill, which is between Brixton, Peckham and Dulwich, and have done so for almost 40 years. I was the area organiser with the SDP when it was founded, so I have practical experience of the problem, which is a real one in any area where there are ethnic and religious minorities.

I think that the amendment is misconceived because it would place a block on the work of the Boundary Commission until the Secretary of State can certify,

“that particular action has been taken to maximise the proportion of black and minority ethnic British residents who are on the electoral register”.

One of the proud achievements of the previous Government, in which the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, had a major role, was the enactment of the Equality Act 2010. That Act and the previous one empowered the Equality and Human Rights Commission to play a major public education role in promoting equality. The EHRC was given powerful, strategic roles in law enforcement and the power to deal with political parties that were too passive and which discriminated indirectly, as well as directly.

That body was set up and the Act gave power for positive action to be taken where there was underrepresentation—for example, of black voters—on the register. That should be the body—well funded and with those powers recently approved by Parliament—to deal with the matter. This should not clog up the work of the Boundary Commission. This work needs to go on right now; it needs to go on every year. If the Equality and Human Rights Commission does not do its job properly, it should be called to account by, among other people, Members of this House. It is not sensible to be holding up the work of the Boundary Commission for that to happen. That does not mean that I do not share the objectives; I simply disagree with the means.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

It is appropriate to welcome the noble Lord, Lord Lester, to this debate. He made an excellent contribution. Indeed, this is becoming a debate because I disagree with him. I believe that the more individuals and organisations that we have encouraging people from black and minority ethnic groups, the better.

[Lord Lester of Herne Hill]

I said that. I said, in intervening on the noble Lord, Lord Boateng—if the noble Lord heard me—that political parties and voluntary organisations have the major part to play.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

But now, in the contribution that the noble Lord just made, he implied, if not specifically suggested, that it should be left to the Equality and Human Rights Commission. That is not the right thing, unless he meant—perhaps I misconstrued him—that the co-ordinating role should be left to the Equality and Human Rights Commission, rather than the Boundary Commission.

[Lord Lester of Herne Hill]

I do not want to debate unnecessarily. I simply meant—and I think that it was obvious to everybody from what I said—that political parties have a major role. If they do not perform that role, they can be dealt with by the law and by the equality commission. As we said in the original White Papers in 1974 and 1975, the law itself cannot change attitudes; that requires voluntary action by all our citizens, including political parties, the churches and the statutory body. It should not be some clog on this excellent Bill.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

My noble friend Lord Boateng indicated that the exact wording of the amendment was not something that he would go to the stake on. He said that the purpose of the amendment was to raise the issue. The noble Lord, Lord Lester, has contributed helpfully to the debate.

I want to make just two brief comments. First, when the noble Lord was talking about the great leap forward, I got a bit worried, because it reminded me of George Osborne, who said, I think—I do not know—“We are now at a precipice. Now is the time for the great leap forward”. It always seems to be dangerous when you get your metaphors mixed up. I know that my noble friend was not getting his metaphors mixed up.

I start by mentioning a friend of mine—the noble Lord, Lord Steel, might know him—Professor Geoff Palmer. He is professor of brewing and distilling at Heriot-Watt University. I can see noble Lords wondering, “What on earth has that to do with the amendment?”. Professor Geoff Palmer is one of the world’s experts on brewing and is a renowned world expert on whisky. Noble Lords are still asking, “What on earth has it got to do with the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Boateng?”. Professor Geoff Palmer is a black Jamaican who has lived in Scotland for the past 50 or 60 years. He has made his home in Scotland. He has become a distinguished professor and he knows more about Scotland than I do—perhaps even more than my noble friend Lady Liddell, although I doubt that. He is not the kind of person about whom we are worried. I have no worry at all about Geoff. He is registered and will make sure that all his family are registered. We are talking about groups of people, some of whom do not speak English, some of whom live in difficult circumstances and some of whom have difficulty getting about. Those are the people whom we are talking about getting to and making sure that they are registered.

21:15

My noble friend Lord Boateng said that the purpose of this amendment is to tease out some ideas and suggestions. That is what I want to do very briefly. I think that at the moment leaflets about registration are available in different languages. With the greatest of respect, although all of us think that leaflets are the thing to do, the truth is that they do not get to the vast majority of the population—the underclass—and they do not get to the vast majority of the black and ethnic minority population. People from those parts of the population do not pick up leaflets, read them in the same way and follow them.

I suggest that more work should be done using broadcast media. For instance, in Edinburgh there is a wonderful local radio station—Leith FM—where a lot of black and ethnic minority people produce the programmes. There are programmes produced in different languages. I am sure that in other areas—in Bradford or London, where there are lots more groups and lots more people in these categories—there are more radio stations that could be used. I hope that in his reply the Minister will give some indication of whether more will be done using broadcast media to get this message over in all the different languages that are available. No doubt if my noble friend Lord Maxton is motivated to contribute to this debate, he will tell us, as he always does, about how new technology can be used to encourage people to participate.

We have been talking about black Caribbean and African and Asian sub-continent groups, but work also needs to be done with other groups, such as the Poles. There is a huge number of Poles in Edinburgh, for example, who are eligible to vote because they have become British citizens. Again, they do not automatically register to vote. Indeed, some of them may be unaware that they are eligible. If they are still Polish citizens, they are not entitled to vote, except in Scottish Parliament and local elections, but if they have become British citizens they are entitled to vote. I hope that we will find some way of getting to them. I hope that this has been a very small contribution to the kind of suggestions that my noble friend Lord Boateng would like to come forward in this debate.

[Baroness McDonagh]

I ask the noble Lord, Lord Lester, or anybody on the government Benches: why are the roles of government and the big society mutually exclusive? I find the notion quite shocking that it should exclusively be political parties that deal with underregistration and with underregistration of individual groups. I think that government and not-for-profit membership organisations in the voluntary sector should work in partnership to achieve these goals. In the run-up to Christmas, I was out every week doing registration as part of my local Labour Party. All the political parties were doing that work, as was the local authority. We increased the register by just under 4,000 voters across the local authority. That would have brought in 1 million voters across the country if people had done likewise everywhere. Every strong democracy in any country in the world sees government as responsible for compiling an accurate register. I think that it is quite shocking that you would not see that as the role of government.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

My Lords, the life of this country has been enriched and energised generation by generation by waves of immigrants coming to Britain and forming communities here. Whether they were Huguenots in the 17th century, Jewish refugees from central and eastern Europe in the first half of the 20th century, the Afro-Caribbean influx in the second half of the 20th century or Ugandan Asians within that same period, they have all contributed immensely to our society. The brilliance and energy of this capital city, London, seems to arise from the fact that it is a completely open international city, not that that is something that any Government have ever intended. Indeed, we have attitudes to immigration in official policy that seem to be curmudgeonly and mean and which are getting worse.

The question at issue is how those members of black and ethnic minorities, and other minorities, who are legitimately resident in this country should be engaged in the democratic process, should be entered on the electoral register and should be motivated to play their part and to exercise their democratic rights as citizens. Of those people legitimately here in the minorities, far too many are grievously disadvantaged. My noble friends Lord Boateng and Lady Thornton have both explained in reference to London and to Bradford just how bad the situation is.

This polarisation of our society is shameful. It is something that we must act on and not simply contemplate with regret. The voices of those who are unenfranchised as it is need to be heard. Their needs and their aspirations need to be represented, but they will not be unless they are registered to vote and exercise their vote. The best possibilities for the future of our society depend on their doing so and on the fullest integration within our society of those minorities.

The one-nation tradition has been a proud tradition of the Conservative Party. I hope that that tradition is not in abeyance and is not dead. One nation, of course, has to be characterised by a rich diversity economically, culturally, socially and politically. The condition of the electoral register—its completeness and accuracy—is a crucial test of our progress towards achieving that fullness of integration that will enable all our people to have the opportunities that they ought to have and our society to achieve the potential that it ought to recognise and to see. Failure to achieve that political integration must be a source of division, of tension and of the impoverishment of individuals and of us collectively.

I strongly support the view that has been expressed by my noble friends in moving and speaking to the amendment, and as was expressed by my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer of Thoroton earlier today, urging the Government to accept that there should be a drive this year to achieve a step change—a major improvement—in levels of electoral registration. That has to be a responsibility of all sorts of institutions, agencies and different groups within our society.

During this debate, mention has been made of the role of the political parties, the churches, the Equality and Human Rights Commission and the Electoral Commission. We have spent some time discussing the role of local authorities and their capacity to promote electoral registration. Above all, it should be the role of the Secretary of State to lead. I hope to hear from the noble and learned Lord the Minister, in his response, some account of how the Secretary of State will lead this process.

While we can disagree with many aspects of the reforms to which the Government have committed themselves in this Bill, all of us will accept that we must have a voting system that engages people. We must have a Boundary Commission and procedures for it to ensure that the boundaries are sufficiently contemporary and appropriate for the proper functioning of our democratic system. Without the improvement that is needed in electoral registration, those reforms will be deprived of their utility and the value that they ought to have. Reform, therefore, in the sense of real improvement in electoral registration, is no less important than the other reforms to which the Government are committed in the Bill.

I was surprised to hear the noble Lord, Lord Lester, say to the Committee that the law will not change attitudes, as one of the virtues of the equality legislation with which he is so honourably associated is that, while it may have taken decades longer than many of us would have wished to achieve the purposes that were enshrined in it, the way in which it has worked has been, as much as anything else, declaratory: it has stated a principle and established new norms in our society so that people understand what is proper. Gradually, attitudes and practice have conformed to that. I believe that the law can change attitudes. If this amendment is incorporated in the Bill, it will, by the declaration that it makes, help to change attitudes for the better and will have significant practical effects. I think that we should welcome that.

[Lord Lester of Herne Hill]

May I suggest that the noble Lord reads the White Papers of September 1974 and September 1975, where he will see what we wrote and what I have just repeated, apparently in vain, which is that the law is not a panacea? In order to be given effect and to change hearts and minds, the law has to be translated into action by voluntary measures taken by ordinary men and women. I would also add, for the benefit of another noble Lord, that I did not say that the functions of the state and the private sector are mutually exclusive. I said that they are complementary.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

I shall be happy to follow the noble Lord’s suggestion and look again at the White Papers, but I believe that the benefit of those papers and the legislation was in part that they established principles to which as a society we should commit ourselves. It has taken far longer than we hoped that it would for the reality of our national life to match the aspirations set out in that legislation, but without that legislation that change would not have happened.

[Baroness Liddell of Coatdyke]

My Lords, I am glad to have the opportunity to follow my noble friend Lord Howarth because the point he has made about the law changing attitudes in this case is very valid. If we were able to see this House accept my noble friend’s amendment, it would be a signal of the determination of the establishment of this country to reach out to those in minority communities. It had not been my intention to speak to this amendment, but my noble friend Lord Boateng’s very persuasive argument in relation to it has made me rethink some of my own attitudes. I think that some of us assume that communities are to a large extent homogeneous and that people go out and register their vote. However, I discovered a key thing in the 1970s when I was general-secretary of the Labour Party in Scotland, having come from a community that had almost no minority members at all but was also made up largely of incomers.

I come from the industrial west of Scotland where people settled either as a consequence of the highland clearances on the one hand or the Irish potato famine on the other. The policeman would be a native Gallic speaker and the miner would be a native Gaelic speaker. Often the two communities existed in complete oblivion of each other. It was probably not until I went to university that I was aware that I had actually been brought up in a Scottish town because all my heritage had been Irish. One of the reasons for making that point is that there were very few black people in that community. The only black people were Pakistani shopkeepers, and only a couple of handfuls of them at that. They transformed the community because, for the first time ever, you could get a pint of milk after six o’clock at night.

Thirty years later, I was elected as the Member of Parliament for that community. What was interesting was that the demographic had barely changed. What had changed was that those Pakistani shopkeepers were extremely wealthy small businessmen and absolute pillars of the community. But the real eye opener for me when I moved on to the Scottish stage was realising the sense of alienation, particularly among the Chinese community, who operated pretty much in isolation. The most shocking thing I found as someone trying to engage other women in the political process was the extent to which Pakistani women were completely blocked out from the opportunity to participate politically. At the time it caused me to look hard at how you get people from minority communities to engage in the political process. The light bulb moment was the recognition that it was not just about language, although that was significant. I was helped enormously by people like my colleague from the other place, Mohammad Sarwar, who helped to engage the Labour Party in the Pakistani community in Glasgow.

I also discovered the extent of suspicion of the political process. That was because of people’s backgrounds and fears, which were perhaps linked to the reasons why they had left their countries to come and settle in the United Kingdom. Some of them were second and third generation, but they were frightened of the consequences of being seen to be part of a political system and perhaps of taking the wrong decision as to which party to support, thereby being disadvantaged in the community.

21:30

I was enormously impressed by the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Boateng, just as I was the other night, when he emphasised how important it is for us, as the country that boasts that it has in this Building the mother of all Parliaments, to be able to set examples. The Deputy Prime Minister has called this the greatest piece of constitutional reform since the Reform Act 1832. Were the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, to look at some of the issues contained in the amendment of my noble friends Lord Boateng and Lady Thornton, he would have the opportunity to table a “Wallace of Tankerness” amendment to the constitution, which would help to make this society a much more engaged and co-operative one in which to live. The more I have listened to this debate, the more I have found myself thinking about issues such as compulsory voting. If we are to reach out to communities that feel detached from the political process, we give them an opportunity to play a much fuller part in society.

We have so far seen no movement in this House or the other place on this legislation. It is regrettable, because opportunities are being missed to change the nature of political debate and engagement in this country. I urge the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, and his ministerial colleagues to look seriously at the amendment, although not necessarily to give us an answer tonight. The action proposed in it would require a significant advertising campaign, perhaps using the new technology that the noble Lord, Lord Maxton, knows so much about. It would certainly require the leadership of the Secretary of State, as the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, set out. This is an opportunity to do something that should span every political view in this House—except perhaps one or two that we shall not mention here—and make this a much more inclusive and democratic society.

[Lord Maxton]

My Lords, I am not an expert on the new technology, despite what some people think. In terms of this Chamber, I am the one-eyed man in the kingdom of the blind. Just in case the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, thinks that he has inspired me to my feet, I say that it was not him but the Minister—the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace. On several occasions now, in response to these debates, he has mentioned using databases in relation to the register. That gives rise to two questions.

First, which registers and databases will he ask local authorities to use? They will obviously use their own records, such as school records, local housing records and perhaps their leisure facility records. Can they use social security records? After all, many of the people about whom my noble friend has spoken may be registered as unemployed or registered for social security in some form or other. Will the local government registration officer be able to use social security records to reach them? The Government may be able to instruct them to do so, because they control social security and other areas of that nature. However, there are bodies in between that are public—they are financed by the taxpayer—but which are responsible neither to local government nor to national government. I have in mind in particular the National Health Service, which is run by a series of trusts and organisations that are supposedly at arm’s length from government. Will GPs’ records be available to returning officers? Can they go to a GP and say, “You must tell us all those who have just reached the age of 18”? GPs will know the names and addresses if they are registered. Can they, more controversially, go to an A&E hospital and say, “These people come to your hospital with accidents. Can you give us the records of where they live and the date on which they were born?”? I do not know the answer, but the noble Lord has suggested that on several occasions.

Equally, a large number of these databases are in private hands. Obviously, you can ask community organisations, but you can only ask; you cannot instruct—or are the Government intending to take powers to instruct local authorities to approach banks, local community organisations and local sports organisations that are not directly funded? Where do you go on this? How far will a local authority go?

That gives rise to the second question. If you listened carefully—and I will read carefully what the Minister has been saying—the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, implied that local authorities will positively draw up a register based on these databases. They will go to the databases to find out who left school and where they live and put them on the register. Is that what they intend to do?

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

Is it not fair to say that this whole complex exercise could have been avoided if the Government had simply introduced national identity cards?

[Lord Maxton]

My noble friend, inevitably, gets there before me. I will come to that in a minute.

Is it the Government’s intention to draw up the register based on these databases, which local authorities will be able to go into, and therefore add large numbers of people who have not registered to vote? If the Government are not going to do that, what is the point of going into the databases? There is no point at all.

The Minister has implied that the Government are drawing up a register from the databases and then basically saying to people, “You’re on the register. If you wish, you can prove to us that you do not live there any more and come off the register”. However, as my noble friend has quite rightly said, all this would have been solved—and considerable sums of money saved in the longer run—if we had introduced compulsory national identity cards and a national identity register. Each local authority could have used that and drawn up its own register without any bother whatever.

That would not have been the only use. You could then use the card itself to vote electronically wherever you wished. That would have increased the number of people taking part in our democratic process, which would have been to the major benefit of our whole electoral system.

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

This is an important issue. The debate has been greatly assisted, first, by the very forceful and well researched way in which my noble friend Lord Boateng introduced it; secondly, by the exceptional speech of my noble friend Lady Liddell of Coatdyke; and thirdly, by the speech just made by my noble friend Lord Maxton. He asked the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, quite a number of pertinent questions about what he has been saying in response to this collection of amendments—namely, “We are doing a bit of data matching and we want to see how the pilots go”. We need to know the legal basis of data matching and the consequences of data being matched.

This issue raises important points of principle. Those outside this Chamber may think that this debate is about political parties’ different views on the methods of selecting boundaries for constituencies and voting systems. If we are genuinely about to introduce a new system for identifying constituencies, there must be a real sense that that connects with the people who currently do not connect with our democracy.

The statistics that my noble friend Lord Boateng referred to make it clear—I do not believe that this is seriously an issue in this Chamber—that members of the BME communities in this country are underrepresented on the electoral register by comparison with white British electors. The figures produced by the Electoral Commission find that overall registration levels among the BME communities stand at 69 per cent compared to white British electors at 86 per cent. I do not think there is any dispute that that is a bad figure and that efforts should be made to increase the levels of electoral registration by BME communities—though I wait to hear from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness.

The much missed Robin Cook said that democracy is not just a method by which we select those who govern us but also a system of government that expresses our values. Diversity is one of the critical values of our country, as is that there should be genuine equality. In producing an electoral reform described by the Deputy Prime Minister as the most significant since 1832, the least that could be done is for the legislation to have some explicit recognition of the problem relating to registration of BME groups. Surely it is at least as important to reach the hard-to-reach groups as it is to go through a technical change in the way that we define the constituency boundaries in this country.

The response of the noble and learned Lord has been twofold: he does not want it to be fixed on information that is out of date—I hope I dealt with that before dinner—or on an indeterminate date. I indicated that there was a determinate date, which seemed to cut the ground from under him. His second answer was that it must be done before the next election. Why? Does he regard it as more important to do it before the general election than to ensure that people are reached who are not now being reached by our electoral system? If he has the time, can he explain why the next general election is so critical? Is that to do with party politics or with crafting a good system? Ultimately, we will be judged—not just this House but Parliament generally—by whether people believe that we are producing a system that is trying to reach the whole of our community rather than simply serving the electoral interests of one or other party. That is why it is important that the noble and learned Lord at least makes some effort to explain why he thinks the next election is more important than reaching the hard-to-reach groups.

My noble friend Lord Boateng proposes that Parliament express a view that this is important. He suggests that the Secretary of State should approve a process by which hard-to-reach groups, especially BME communities, are reached before we move to the next phase, the boundary review. The noble Lord, Lord Lester of Herne Hill, says the responsibility for that lies on political parties. I accept that but registration should be separate from political parties. Yes, all political parties should make their contribution but nobody doubts that those responsible for registering people on the electoral register—the electoral registration officers and local authorities—also have a responsibility for it. That is why, without disputing the responsibility of political parties, it is important that the state undertakes its responsibilities as well. I know from my experience as a Minister that you really get the state to change its view of things by making the things that the Government want conditional on some improvement in the delivery of public service or public policy. The effect of the amendment would be that the boundary changes would be introduced only if there was an improvement in the registration of BME groups.

21:45

If the noble and learned Lord has a better suggestion as to how such an improvement should be made, I would be very grateful to hear it. From his comments so far—which he made before dinner—I understand that the data-matching pilots that are going on in respect of the registration of people in the private rented sector and of young people would, he believes, be better than our proposal that the Secretary of State should be required to approve a report stating that the people involved in electoral registration have brought about such an improvement. So far, I am unconvinced by what the noble and learned Lord has said. I do not in any way disrespect the efforts that he has made, but I would like to hear why he thinks that such efforts are a better way of improving electoral registration among the BME community than what my noble friend Lord Boateng proposes.

It seems to me that we disagree neither on the desired outcome nor on the existence of the problem, but the proposals that the noble and learned Lord has made and the pilots that he says are going on seem trivial by comparison with the problem; I say that with the greatest respect to him. Therefore, I very much hope that he will explain to us, first, why it is more important to improve the register by the date of the next general election than to improve the registration of BME communities and, secondly, why the proposal contained in the amendment is worse than the Government’s data-matching pilots.

[The Advocate-General for Scotland (Lord Wallace of Tankerness)]

My Lords, I think that we could legitimately ask why, in amendment after amendment from the Opposition, such efforts have been made to ensure that the next general election is fought on boundaries based on such an outdated electoral register. Perish the thought that those efforts are motivated in any way by thoughts of party-political advantage—I would not suggest that of the noble and learned Lord. Amendment after amendment has been designed to frustrate our attempts to ensure that the next general election is fought on boundaries that are determined by an electoral register that is far more up to date—by up to 10 years more—than the electoral register that would be used if the opposition amendments were agreed to.

Let me give the noble and learned Lord some reassurance. Whereas his proposals would mean that the 2020 general election would be fought on boundaries based on an electoral register for which the relevant compilation date would, if we allow one year, be 2011—I see the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, nodding that that is his position—the Government’s position, and the position in the Bill, is that the relevant qualifying date for the electoral register that will be used for determining boundaries for the 2020 election will be December 2015. That will allow even more opportunity for the registration of young people, people in the private rented sector and people from black and minority-ethnic communities. In fact, we are going further than would be possible under the amendments that the Opposition have moved today.

[Baroness Thornton]

Is the Minister saying that the 3.5 million people who are not on the register will need to wait for five or six years? Whether or not they are allowed to register, the fact is that those people are not currently on the register. Does he think that it is acceptable to make those people wait for five or six years before they can participate in our democracy? What is he saying?

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

I am beginning to wonder whether the noble Baroness understands what electoral registration is about. No one is being denied the opportunity to participate in our democracy by registering. The noble Baroness has suggested that, somehow or other, the Bill will disfranchise people. If people register to vote, they will have the opportunity to vote—although whether or not they in fact vote is a matter for them. I think that there is common ground on both sides of the Committee that we ought to encourage registration.

The proposal that has been made by the noble Baroness’s party is that we should use a relevant qualifying date of 2011, which would mean that the 2015 election boundaries would be fought on data dating back to 2000. I am indicating that we can go better than that. Rather than require that the 2020 election be based on data from December 2011, the Bill will mean that we will use data from December 2015. I very much hope that, during that period, we will have made the kinds of steps forward that have been called for from all sides.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

I am getting slightly confused. No one is suggesting doing away with rolling registration. Therefore, at any time a person can get on the register and it can be as up to date as the people coming in. We are saying that there should be a big effort to get people on to the rolling register, so all these things about 2011 for 2020 are a load of nonsense.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

That just confirms that the noble Lord does not actually understand what this is about. No one is disputing the importance of the rolling register and of getting people on the register to vote. The point of these amendments and of this part of the Bill is the relevant date by which the Boundary Commission has to have regard when determining what the size of constituencies will be. That does not detract in any way from trying to increase the amount of registration, so when it comes to—

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

My Lords—

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

No, I think I have been very patient. I have been remarkably patient.

[A noble Lord]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker—

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

Well, there is no Speaker here. We are not arguing any case that would prevent any member of the public registering to vote prior to the 2015 general election. Nothing that we are arguing in any way interferes with that, so why does the noble and learned Lord keep suggesting that we are?

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

I have not suggested that. If that was the impression that the noble Lord got, I have to correct him. I have not suggested that anyone is standing in the way of having people registered for the 2015 election. With respect, I have not yet heard anything—

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

I am trying to be helpful. When I raised this on Monday, the Minister said that it was helpful. Would it not be much easier to separate registration from the decision of who we should take account of on the boundary? I suggest in Amendment 89C, which we are going to consider eventually, that we should take account of those people who are eligible to vote. We know the figures for that and if we take account of them, it separates it from the question of those who are registered to vote.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

We will come to Amendment 89C but there is a relevant point that the noble Lord, Lord Boateng, made in moving this amendment. He conceded that, for the reasons that I have already given, it was not likely to be accepted but he still made a pertinent point about addressing the underregistration of people from black and minority ethnic communities. That is a pertinent point which we wish to address; I give him that wholehearted assurance.

To take on board the question of the data matching, I found that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, dismissed that. We have not actually heard much that is constructive coming from the Opposition Benches about what they would do after they had 13 years in government to do something. If there is a deficit at the moment, it is not the responsibility of this Administration. I suspect that those who are protesting so much have much on their conscience to protest about, because they did precious little during that period to try to make sure that the deficit has been made up. What we have done, in a short period, is to try to identify some measures—practical measures.

I do not believe, as the noble Lord, Lord Lester, said, that putting it into statute is necessarily a panacea. I believe that there is practical action on data matching. What we will be doing, if I can make it clear in answering some of the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Maxton, is comparing the electoral register with other public databases—I think that I made it clear in the past that they were public databases not, as he was suggesting in his inquiry, private databases—to find people missing from the electoral register, to see how effective that is in boosting its completeness. Based on these trials, we will decide whether to roll that out more widely.

The noble Lord asked about GP records. We are looking into that, although it will be accepted that there are sensitivities around health records. On private records, I have indicated that that is a matter for the public sector although, as other noble Lords have mentioned in this debate, we want to engage the voluntary sector in trying to boost registration. It may well be that engaging the voluntary sector in that way will give us access to other records as well. We will be using match data to identify people and invite them to register. Ultimately, however, it is up to the individuals themselves whether they register but that is what we will be aiming to do. In addition to that, a series of events is planned over the next few months, as part of the introduction of individual registration, where we will consider with stakeholders what further steps can be taken to engage with underrepresented groups.

The noble Lord, Lord Boateng, asked specifically about Operation Black Vote. I am advised that we are talking to groups representing the black and minority ethnic communities as part of the move to individual registration, including Operation Black Vote. He asked if there would be an open door, and I can confirm that the Government will be happy to consider ideas regarding who we should talk to among the black and minority ethnic communities in order to improve registration. I am not suggesting that we have a monopoly of wisdom on this. We are certainly open to the idea. The noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, and my noble friend Lord Lester indicated that there was a role to be played here by the Equality and Human Rights Commission. It is not exclusive, as has been suggested by some who are misinterpreting what my noble friend had to say.

The noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, mentioned broadcasting. At the most recent election, the Electoral Commission used broadcasting to try to get across in different languages to different minority groups. I see no reason why that should not be pursued. There is a variety of ways in which we are trying to do this.

The noble Lord, Lord Boateng, said that determination was needed to do this. I assure him that we are determined to try to address this problem. I believe that it can be done with the sort of practical measures that I have outlined and by there being a willingness and an openness to hear from others who have positive suggestions—indeed, from young people, as the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, expressed earlier. That is more practical than anything that we have heard from noble Lords opposite, with the exception of national identity cards, which this Parliament has debated and rejected.

I say that we can always do more, and this Government intend to do more. That is not to say, though, that a boundary review, which will prevent constituencies being even more out of date than they are at present and votes being more unequal than they are now, should not take place. I therefore urge the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Boateng]

My Lords, my fear that my “ZZZ” amendment might have induced torpor in the Minister was clearly quite misplaced; his response was more triple X than triple Z. Nevertheless, it was welcome in its passion, a passion that I think we all share on this issue. I return to the point made with force by the noble Lord, Lord Lester, that we all ought to be able to share in the ends—to enhance registration and improve the effectiveness and completeness of the register—even though we may disagree about the means. I am seeking, and I am grateful to all noble Lords who have contributed to this debate, to find some consensus on the means by which we may proceed, to ensure that the register is complete and that it is effective for the purposes that it has to fulfil if the reforms proposed in the legislation are to achieve their ends, which are to enhance our democracy.

I have listened carefully to what the Minister has said. I welcome the fact that he is focused very much on practical action. That is necessary and will make a difference. I welcome the fact that he has said that his door is open; I take that as an invitation to me to see him, together with representatives of Operation Black Vote, which, as Members on all sides of the House know, is an entirely non-partisan body that has been consulted widely by Government, in the past and currently, on these issues. I thank him for that and will take him up on it before we complete our consideration of the Bill, so that he might seek a way of incorporating the concerns that have been raised in the course of this debate into the delivery of the reforms that the Bill is meant to bring about.

22:00

There is a way forward that the intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Lester, has suggested to me. It embraces the points that have been made by the Minister and puts to bed completely the suggestion that what lies behind this amendment is a desire in some way to stymie the Bill. That is not what lies behind it. It would be possible to envisage wording in the Bill that required the Secretary of State, the Boundary Commission and the Electoral Commission—all of which have functions to perform in the course laid down by the Bill—to take into account, in performing their functions, such guidelines and advice on electoral registration as were issued by the Equality and Human Rights Commission. That body is accountable to Parliament and was set up, as the noble Lord, Lord Lester, has indicated, by Parliament, with specific duties and responsibilities in this area. It is not unreasonable, therefore, to require the Secretary of State, the Boundary Commission and the Electoral Commission, in exercising their functions under the Bill, to take into account guidance delivered by the equalities commission.

I suggest that on the Floor of the House at this stage as an indication to the Minister and those who advise him that, on the basis of what I have heard from him today and the helpful contributions from all sides of the House, it would be my intention in seeking a meeting with him to urge that course of action on him. He might then bring back to the House on Report just such a requirement on the Secretary of State, the Boundary Commission and the Electoral Commission. That would meet the concerns on all sides of this House about the shared ends, without in any way delaying this legislation and the exercise of those bodies’ powers and functions in delivering the reform on which the Minister is set. I very much welcome his nodding in assent. That is the course that I intend to embark on. Having heard the Minister, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 58ZZZD withdrawn.

Amendment 58ZZZE

Moved by

[Lord Bach]

58ZZZE: Clause 10, page 8, line 15, at end insert—
“( ) For the avoidance of doubt, the financial provision in section 16 includes any additional resources which a Boundary Commission deems necessary to complete its duties under subsection (2).”

[Lord Bach]

My Lords, we change topic now and come to a short amendment, which deals with the question of resources for the Boundary Commission. The purpose of this amendment, which is in my name and that of my noble and learned friend, is to gain a degree of reassurance from the Minister that the Government are committed to doing all they can to ensure that what can only be described as the dramatic boundary review proposed is carried out smoothly and effectively, and has the necessary resources.

It has always been a huge task to redraw constituency boundaries. It was the responsibility for many years of the Boundary Commission. However, there is a huge difference in the review planned by the Bill. In usual periods, boundary commissions will indeed look at all constituencies, but in many cases no significant change—or no change at all—would be recommended for a large majority of those constituencies. However, reviewing the boundaries, as is the intention, on very tight mathematical rules, and the crucial factoring in of a large reduction in the number of Members of Parliament, make the Boundary Commission’s task significantly harder. There will be much more work.

In giving evidence on the Bill to the other place’s Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, the boundary commissions said that the task was achievable but difficult. I think that is a fair summary of their evidence. The point is that every single constituency will change as a consequence of this boundary review, as set out in the Bill. There are numerous potential manifestations of redrawn constituency boundaries; that is just a statement of the obvious. What is also obvious is that the task itself is immense. I hope the Committee agrees that the timescale of the task makes this boundary review very different from those that have occurred in the past.

As the Bill stands, the task facing the boundary commissions must be completed by 1 October 2013. The Government recommend that after that a review should occur every five years, but the first major change has to be completed in considerably less than three years’ time. We argue that it follows that the resources required will be greater than what the boundary commissions are used to having at their disposal. Will the Minister reassure the Committee that the boundary commissions will be granted all the necessary resources that the commissioners, who after all are the experts in this area, deem necessary for delivering the task that the Government are asking them to do? It would be helpful if he could remind us out of what budget the resources that are necessary for this inquiry come. If extra resources are found to be necessary in due course, out of what budget will they come? In other words, we are asking him to fill in the details for the Committee. I beg to move.

[Lord Soley]

I support my noble friend on the Front Bench. The Government could give important reassurance on this. The amendment does not ask directly for more funds now but recognises that what the Government are imposing constitutes a complex and continuing problem for the Boundary Commission, which already struggles at times to deliver what it needs to deliver on time. We all know that at present, when the Government are looking for savings in all these areas, there is a danger that the Boundary Commission will be expected to carry out a task that is beyond it. It seems to me that the wording of the amendment is so reasonable that it would be unreasonable for the Government not to give an assurance that if the Boundary Commission needs more money, it will be given it. It is important in that respect.

[Lord Grocott]

My Lords, I seek some figures from the Minister, although he has indicated that he will not give any and has adhered to that stance so far when responding to amendments. Time and again before the election the parties that are now in government said that the reason for reducing the number of MPs was to reduce the costs of democracy. I was never able to work out how that would happen, principally because I knew the cost of a normal Boundary Commission review from Questions that I had posed to my noble friend Lord Bach when he was a Minister long before this was ever an issue. From memory, I was told that it was around £13 million. When pressed on the matter, Nick Clegg has said that the saving to the Exchequer of reducing the number of MPs by 50 would be about £12 million. As I knew that there would have to be an advanced Boundary Commission, it was obvious to me that the cost of the Boundary Commission alone would be more initially than the savings gained from that reduction in the number of MPs, so there are no savings in the costs of democracy.

What I did not realise in those early stages was quite how frequently Boundary Commission reviews would be required under the legislation. We now know, should the Bill become an Act, that because the Minister rejected our various proposals to extend the period between boundary redistributions, those redistributions would be roughly twice as frequent as they are now. They now occur between every eight and 12 years; if the Bill is enacted, they will happen every five years.

Unless my basic maths is completely wrong, the savings to the Exchequer from the reduction in the number of MPs will be £12 million, while the cost of a Boundary Commission review will, I assume, remain at about £13 million, but reviews will occur twice as frequently. I am even being generous to the Government in that respect, because if all these reviews are to be accelerated, they will presumably be costly. More commissioners will be needed to do things quickly.

It is therefore not unreasonable—although I fear that the noble Lord, Lord McNally, appears to indicate that he thinks it is an unreasonable request—for us to know the cost of the Boundary Commission reviews, given that they will occur twice as frequently. Given that the Government’s principal justification has been to reduce the cost of democracy, we ought to bear in mind that the cost of the referendum will be about £90 million.

We know well enough that all areas of public expenditure are being very closely scrutinised as to whether they are necessary, and it is reasonable to ask these questions. If I do not get a response now, I shall have to table a Parliamentary Question on the subject. If the noble Lord cannot provide the figures now, perhaps he would be kind enough to tell the Committee in due course what they are. What are the costs of the Boundary Commission? How much more will they be when the reviews are twice as frequent as they are at present? Can he confirm in passing—I am sure that it is easy for him to do—whether cost of the referendum will be £90 million? If those figures are anything like what I estimate, and I do not have the noble Lord’s resources, can I at least appeal to him and his colleagues on the Front Bench never again to say, as a justification for this legislation, that he is “reducing the cost of democracy”?

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

My Lords, the weakness in this amendment is the first five words:

“For the avoidance of doubt”.

There is no doubt. The 1986 Act and this Bill already make provisions for the payment of the commission’s expenses, including any additional resources necessary to complete the review referred to in this clause. In evidence to the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, the secretary of the English commission, which of course will have the most sizeable task to complete, told the committee that the commission has been working closely on the question of funding, in discussion with its sponsoring departments. Those departments are the Cabinet Office for England and Wales, the Scotland Office for Scotland, and Northern Ireland Office for Northern Ireland.

In addition, the secretary of the commission confirmed that he was confident that sufficient resources would be available to complete the review. It is the Government’s view that this is the best approach—a dialogue between each of the commissions and their sponsoring departments to ensure that their funding is appropriate. We have no doubt that the review will be conducted with a careful regard—I repeat, a careful regard—to public money. That matter, of course, can be examined at a later stage. However, there is no doubt that the commissions will have the resources that they need to complete the review, and the 1986 Act and this Bill already make provisions for that. I therefore urge the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Bach]

I thank the Minister for his reply. I thank my noble friends Lord Soley and Lord Grocott for their contributions and support for the amendment. My noble friend Lord Grocott pressed the Minister, and I should like to press him a little further about whether this whole enterprise will make democracy more expensive or cheaper.

A great deal was made some time ago of the £12 million being saved by reducing the number of elected Members of Parliament by 50. However, as my noble friend demonstrated clearly, there are additional costs in the new proposals, not just with the referendum itself but also with the Boundary Commission. Will the price of democracy go up or down as a consequence of these reforms? The Committee and the country are entitled to know. As I said, this is a probing amendment. I am grateful to the Minister, and beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 58ZZZE withdrawn.

Amendment 58ZZZF not moved.

22:15

Amendment 58ZZZG

Moved by

[Lord McAvoy]

58ZZZG: Clause 10, page 8, line 20, at end insert “and the Lord Speaker of the House of Lords”

[Lord McAvoy]

My Lords, I was asked to move this amendment on behalf of my noble friend Lord Foulkes of Cumnock, who asked me to express his apologies for not being here. I am sure that he is sorely missed by all noble Lords. This is a probing amendment. Nevertheless, it is a relevant role for a revising Chamber to scrutinise legislation, to point out flaws, hopefully to get them dealt with, and to seek more information from the Government on how they arrived at the composition of the Bill that they have put before Parliament.

I arrived with some trepidation to attempt vainly to fill the shoes of my noble friend Lord Foulkes of Cumnock. I would have been filled with even more trepidation if the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, had still been on the Front Bench. The fierceness with which he dealt with previous speakers filled me with fear and trepidation. I felt quite intimidated when my noble friend asked me to move the amendment. I have never seen the noble and learned Lord in such a—shall I use the word?—crabbit mood. He was very fierce and gave the appearance of being a wee bit intolerant and authoritarian in questioning a Member’s right to put forward amendments. I feel that I have escaped the hangman’s noose now that the noble and learned Lord is not on the Front Bench to deal with me. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord McNally, will be gentle with me.

My noble friend Lord Foulkes of Cumnock was eagle-eyed in spotting something that reflects—perhaps I am dipping my toe into the pool of controversy here with what might be seen as a vicious attack on the Government—the rushed nature of the Bill. Why has the legislation not caught up with changed realities? To say that this should go to the Speaker of the House of Commons but not the Lord Speaker of the House of Lords does not recognise the new reality. Legislation goes through both Houses of Parliament. This is not a major thing that will bring revolution. Nevertheless, in terms of respect, thoroughness and exactitude, this seems daft. I am trying to clarify whether this has been missed or whether it is a deliberate omission—and if it is the latter, why has it been done? It does not reflect the fact that we are a bicameral Parliament. This should come before the Lord Speaker as well.

In asking these questions of the government Front Bench, I hope that I do not get torn to pieces or ripped apart because I have the temerity to speak to an amendment. The only thing that I can think concerning the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, is that he has been working very hard and perhaps is a bit tired. However, the hour is not our choice; it is the Government’s choice.

I just want to be clear about what we are looking for here. Is the exclusion of the Lord Speaker from the Bill just an act of omission or is it deliberate? If it is deliberate, I should like to know the reason. If it is a mere act of omission because of the rushed nature of the Bill, will the amendment be accepted and placed in the Bill?

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

I congratulate my noble friend Lord McAvoy on his courage in moving the amendment. The absence of the reference to the Speaker of the House of Lords—the Lord Speaker—presumably means that it is not intended that there should be a debate on the report in the Lords. Presumably the argument is that, by giving the report only to the Speaker of the Commons and not to the Speaker of the Lords, the Government envisage a debate in the Commons but not here. However, it would obviously be important for both Houses to debate it. As we said earlier in our debates, this House has tended to be more effective in relation to Boundary Commission reports—1969 has been referred to. I am glad to see that the noble Lord, Lord McNally, is about to respond. I do not know where he was in 1969. He may well have been helping the then Home Secretary, who was perhaps responsible for trying to go round the corner in relation to the Boundary Commission report. I think that it would be good for democracy if both Houses debated such reports produced by the Boundary Commission. Is the fact that the Lord Speaker is not referred to intended to mean that the focus should be on the Commons, or is there no such intention? If the Government are happy for both Houses to debate the report, might a way of indicating that be by saying that the report should go to both Speakers?

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, first, I reassure the noble Lord, Lord McAvoy, that he and I have bonded—I think that that is the only word that can describe it—since he came to this House. If my noble and learned friend Lord Wallace of Tankerness should be threatening in any way, the noble Lord would find me between him and my noble and learned friend in an attempt to protect him.

We have had a fair amount of paranoia during the Committee stage of this Bill. The Opposition have suspected us of rigging this and that, but the simple fact is that the report is delivered to the Speaker of the House of Commons in his capacity as the ex officio chair of the Boundary Commission. He then lays it before Parliament on receipt, which ensures that Members of both Houses have the opportunity to read it. The laying process involves papers being received in the Journal Office and reported to the Commons in the daily Votes and Proceedings, and to the Lords in the daily minute, after which they are said to have been laid on the Table of the House. Therefore, Members of both Houses are able to see them. I have no doubt that, once they are laid on the Table of the House, there will be usual channels discussions to enable a debate in both Houses. There is nothing up my sleeve and no mystery here; this just involves the basic procedures of the workings of the Boundary Commission. I hope that the noble Lord will withdraw the amendment.

[Lord McAvoy]

My Lords, I am still not sure what the obstacle is. I have heard the noble Lord, Lord McNally, describe the process and I understand what he says about the Boundary Commission, but I am not sure why the report should not be at least on the agenda here before the Lord Speaker. Is the Minister able to clarify whether there is a legal obstacle to doing that? If there is no legal obstacle, I do not see—

[Lord McNally]

It is totally unnecessary.

[Lord McAvoy]

I do not agree with the noble Lord. I will not push the point too hard in case the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, tries to get between the noble Lord, Lord McNally, and me, although I am reminded of what happens to people who stand in the middle of the road—they get knocked over.

It is a bit obstinate of the Minister not to take on a simple act of courtesy and respect for the House of Lords. At least I have been spared the hectoring and barracking that the three noble wise men on the Front Bench subjected my noble friends to previously, so I shall sit down before getting mauled any further. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 58ZZZG withdrawn.

Amendment 58ZZA

Moved by

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

58ZZA: Clause 10, page 8, line 33, at beginning insert “Subject to subsection (5AA) below,”

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

I start by reminding the House why we are here at this time of night because members of the coalition may have forgotten. I am sorry that we find ourselves debating the Bill at this time of night but we do so only because the Government have failed to treat it as a constitutional Bill and subject it to the procedures that Parliament has repeatedly stated should apply to constitutional Bills.

[A noble Lord]

Oh!

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

I shall read from a report of the Constitution Committee of this House, to which I know the noble Lord will wish to defer, although he may wish to do so on his feet. It unanimously said that in general,

“it is a matter of principle that proposals for major constitutional reform”—

which is what this is; remember the Great Reform Act 1832—

“should be subject to prior public consultation and pre-legislative scrutiny. We recognise that there may exceptionally be good reasons for departing from this principle, but the perils of doing so are well illustrated in the present Bill”.

The case for proceeding rapidly with one part of this Bill is far stronger than the other. That is why I am on my feet tonight. Let me make it absolutely clear that I object, as a Member of this House, to the way in which this Bill is being driven through Parliament when it has huge constitutional significance. Everybody, including all the officers of the House who are probably worried about what is going on in the Chamber, should be well aware of that.

I now turn to the amendment, which is very interesting. It was born not in my mind but that of our very brilliant Jessica, who has been a considerable help in providing research support to a number of us during the course of the Bill. I shall refer to it as the Jessica amendment. It has been adopted by me because it gives me the opportunity to help the Liberal Democrats. I am glad to see that the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, is in his place because he may wish to intervene. I was thinking of him specifically when the amendment was tabled.

[Lord Greaves]

Considering the quality of debate I have listened to in the past hour and a half, the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, might want to go home and go to bed.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

I am in all in favour of the noble Lord going home to bed. All the Government need to do is accept that this is a constitutional Bill and proceed on that basis. They have not done that, so I find myself having to move amendments of this nature.

It gives me the opportunity to argue the case for a recalibration or readjustment in the relationship between the two elements in the coalition. The relationship at the moment is unbalanced; it is one-sided. In questions on the Statement on banking yesterday, the noble Lord, Lord Oakeshott, drew attention to the way in which the arrangement in the coalition agreement is unbalanced and favours the Conservative element.

22:30

The Bill is a product of a coalition with two very different objectives. The Liberal Democrats wanted electoral reform; the Conservative element of the coalition wanted a reduction in the number of seats. However, in the introduction of what the Liberal Democrats want, they show a very opportunist desire in pursuing a system that they have never believed in, never subscribed to, and repeatedly argued against over all the years that I can recall. They have argued in the Electoral Reform Society and outside that it is an utterly inadequate system. It is a product of the coalition. They want that; and the Conservatives want, as I said, a reduction in the number of seats.

However, the introduction of AV is dependent on two factors: a yes vote in the referendum, and the passage through Parliament of orders bringing in boundaries. I add a third: in my view, the introduction of AV should also be dependent on turnout thresholds or question approval thresholds, but that is a matter that we have already debated.

The reality is that if the boundaries do not go through, voting reform is blocked. The noble Lord, Lord Tyler, may want to confirm that. What could delay the boundaries going through in the way that the Government want? There could be legal challenge. There could be judicial review. My noble friend Lord Soley, in a very interesting debate on 20 December, was pressing the Government precisely on the question of judicial review and the circumstances in which it might arise. There could be delay as a result of public dissatisfaction, leading to the petitioning of Parliament. No one has thought of what might happen then.

As I understand it, the Government are proposing in separate legislation some arrangement whereby electors will be able to petition Parliament. What happens if an electorate within a particular constituency decide to petition Parliament against the recommendation of the Boundary Commission? Would that in any way influence what the Boundary Commission recommends? Technically, that could happen in the course of an inquiry which, under the Bill, may well not take place. To what extent could a local referendum-based petition or local petition objecting for the arrangements for the boundary review for a particular constituency affect the final decisions by the Boundary Commission?

There could also be further legislation in Parliament. When I say further legislation, the coalition agreement appears to be holding at the moment, but we do not know what the future holds. A couple of weeks ago, my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer moved an amendment which worried me—I am sure that he does not mind me saying that. It was to insert an amendment in Rule 45B(4) in the Representation of the People Act 1983—rules which deal with amendments to primary legislation. I think that my noble and learned friend was concerned that the Bill provided for amendment of primary legislation, whereas I was in favour of that. Even at this stage, it is possible—we do not know what is going to happen over the coming months—that there may be some desire to change the Bill's provisions which require amendment in primary legislation. Again, that could delay and hold up the publication by the Boundary Commission of the draft Orders in Council.

What all this means is that there are circumstances in which if a boundary review has not been given final clearance by Parliament, a change to the voting system is blocked. I would call that a very one-sided agreement between the coalition parties. If the Conservative element does not get its boundary changes, the Liberal Democrats do not get their AV. I keep on repeating this because it is very important that they understand that that is precisely what happens. But what happens if the Liberal Democrats do not get their AV? The answer to that question is that the Conservative element in the coalition still gets its boundary changes.

Let me tell the Liberal Democrats what that could mean for them because Lewis Baston of Democratic Audit did some work on these matters. His article is entitled “Do Turkeys Vote for Christmas? Yes, when it comes to Liberal Democrat MPs and the boundary review for Westminster constituencies. Nick Clegg’s party will lose a fifth of all its MPs”. It states:

“Lewis Baston of Democratic Audit models the effects of a smaller House of Commons and finds that while we cannot be completely certain of the outcome at this stage, it could well be disastrous for the Liberal Democrats”.

Are they getting the message? This is not a very good deal for them. If they lose their system, they still get the boundary review. They might have to revise their position. They get the new boundaries under which, as I will now show, they lose. The document states that,

“the first detailed model of what the new constituencies might look like shows that the worst hit party will probably be taken by the Liberal Democrats, as my first Table below shows. It is possible that the ‘reduce and equalise’ policy could end up being what is known in Ireland as a ‘Tullymander’—an electoral change introduced for partisan reasons that backfires on its authors”.

Under the modelling he has done, the Conservatives lose 21 seats, 7 per cent of their total, Labour loses 13 seats, 5 per cent of our total, and the Liberal Democrats lose 12 seats, 21 per cent of their total.

“The model redistribution was undertaken using the rules proposed in the government’s Bill, giving special treatment to two island seats in Scotland and then distributing the 598 other seats across the four nations. Constituencies were then allocated to the English regions, and the entitlement of each county was calculated ... The Liberal Democrats are badly affected by the upcoming boundary changes for two reasons. First, their seats tend to be geographically isolated rather than clumped together … Changing the boundaries of Liberal Democrat seats will tend to pull in areas of neighbouring seats, where the party’s vote is much lower. Second, on average, Liberal Democrats have much smaller majorities than Tory or Labour MPs ... Their seats are therefore less able to withstand adverse boundary changes ... In terms of the numbers of Conservative and Labour casualties of redistribution, there are several reasons for this surprising result. One is that the journalistic standby of the ‘depopulated inner city’”—

let us get it all on the record so that we all know what he says—

“is largely a myth ... We do not know how the Boundary Commissions will choose between the different schemes that are within the rules. Accordingly, we looked as hard as we could at all other possible extreme results based on essentially the same template, with boundaries systematically tweaked to their maximum extent within the rules so as to boost one or other of the top the three parties”.

We will not go any further. I think I have made my point that it is a bad deal for them. It was negotiated in the heat of the moment, in the panic conditions of trying to create a Government. It does not say much for the deal.

I want to help the Liberal Democrats. The Jessica amendment puts a little more balance into the coalition’s agreement on the Bill. It would mean that the Government do not get their boundary changes approved unless the referendum has approved the new voting system. Now why would I want to do that? It is very simple. At the moment, the Conservative element in the coalition has no incentive whatever to change the voting system. All of them, or nearly all of them, as we know, are completely opposed to it. They are already lining up the expenditure and the personnel to take part in a national campaign to block electoral reform. They are being assured of substantial support in the national media.

If the Liberal Democrats want their Conservative partners to be more flexible, more supportive and more understanding of their position, they have to give them a little bit of an incentive. The Conservatives need an incentive. What better way to do that than to arrange the Bill in such a way as to deny the Conservatives their boundary changes unless they tone down their opposition to electoral reform? Surely that must commend itself to the noble Lord, Lord Rennard. He wants to see that case, that argument, against electoral reform, which he knows is coming. He is the guru for the Liberal Democrat party on this issue. Surely he wants to maximise the support for the change and reduce the emphasis from the other element of the coalition that will argue against the change.

If the Conservative element in the coalition is really driven down this route, the first thing it will want to do is ditch Queensland AV because it is well aware of the dangers in it. That is where I come in. I know that many Tory MPs support the electoral system that I have been promoting throughout this Bill, so if the noble Lord or the Liberal Democrats want to see a change in the Tory position away from opposition at least towards mild support for the proposition of electoral reform, what better than to choose another AV system that will deliver the kind of support or remove the opposition to electoral reform which they know may lead to defeat for their case?

There may be those who dispute what I said when I said that some Conservative Members of Parliament were winding us up and asking us to argue passionately against this Bill. Indeed, some of them went as far as to say, “Block the Bill”, but we do not want to block it; we simply want to amend it. The noble Lord, Lord McNally, who is not in his place, said from a sedentary position, “Name them”. I can name some of them, although not those who have talked to me, because they are on the record in the House of Commons Hansard. Their speeches are to be found in the debate on an amendment moved by Mr Christopher Chope, MP for Christchurch. In moving the SV system—my system, which I have been pushing—from the Conservative Benches in the House of Commons, he said:

“Were my amendment to be carried, it might make it easier for those who want to secure a yes vote in the referendum—that is the irony of my amendment—because it will actually make the system much simpler to understand … However, it is a lot more satisfactory than the full alternative vote system, which is what is proposed in the Bill … That leads to a very undesirable system, in which not even the person who came first or second past the post is elected, but instead somebody who came much further down the running order, all on the basis of the lowest common denominator, which is the wrong way to choose representatives to this House”.

Miss Eleanor Laing, another Conservative Member, said:

“My hon. Friend's amendment is therefore technically and linguistically absolutely correct. If the system is to be called the alternative vote system, the sense of ‘one of two’ must come into it somewhere, not the sense of ‘one of four or five’”.—[Official Report, Commons, 19/10/10; col. 837-38.]

There were a number of further interventions, including one from Mr James Clappison of Hertsmere and another from Mr Robert Syms of Poole. That was in an empty House.

I know from conversations with those on the Conservative Benches that many of them are prepared to support the supplementary vote. I am giving the Liberal Democrats a way around this problem. All they have to do is go to their coalition partners and say, “Hang on, this deal is a bit unbalanced. Perhaps we should just accept the amendment being moved by Lord Campbell-Savours because it redresses the balance and gives us a bit more of an opportunity to win our referendum. It will also get you off our backs because we know that you”—that is, the Conservative element of the coalition—“loathe intensely the proposal that is in this piece of legislation”.

I come back to why we are here. We would not be debating this issue at this time of night if all these issues had been dealt with during prior scrutiny of the Bill, but there was no prior scrutiny. That is why we have to scrutinise it in detail now. It is because of the stupid way in which the Government sought to proceed with this legislation. I beg to move.

22:45

[Lord Soley]

I am pleased to follow my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours because he has put his finger on one of the critical issues that has made me feel very angry and frustrated throughout this process. We are dealing with a constitutional Bill that changes the nature of the House of Commons without all-party agreement and without any independent assessment of it, in a way that we would look askance at if it was happening in a country that was emerging from the communist world. We would not accept it. Why is that? It is because we know that normally you change the numbers of a Parliament either by all-party agreement or after some independent assessment.

My noble friend has pointed out the central constitutional issue here and has drawn attention to the fact that we all know that we are debating this because of the political deal between the Liberal Democrats and the Conservative Party. I understand that. Indeed, the rather weak argument can even be made that it was put to the electorate before the general election inasmuch as the Conservative Party campaigned on the basis of a reduced membership of the House of Commons. You could also argue, again weakly in my view, that the Liberal Democrats had put before the electorate a view that the electoral system ought to be changed, although not to the system that that has been put into this Bill. My noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours has made the point that this is a very strange deal for the Liberal Democrats. It may be strange, but it has been my view for some time that it is a very clever deal struck by the Conservative Leader, David Cameron. What we have here is a deal in which the Conservative Party and the current Prime Minister get a majority in Parliament and the Liberal Democrat party gets a once-and-for-all opportunity to commit political suicide. It is in the process of doing that; you can see it happening before your eyes.

Do we have to worry about that? From time to time people both within and outside this House ask whether this issue is mainly just a party political one. The problem is that while it is party political, it is so because the constitution is being changed in a way that disadvantages other parties—and not just the Labour Party, incidentally. It is that issue on which we need to focus and make the core of our debate.

My noble friend, with his newly christened Jessica amendment—I rather like that title—makes the very fair point that if this deal has been done for political reasons, which we all accept it has and I acknowledge that that is a perfectly reasonable thing for two political parties to do, how on earth have we ended up in a situation in which one party gets the guaranteed reduction in seats in the House of Commons and the other party may or may not get a type of electoral reform that it does not really want anyway? It is a very strange deal. My noble friend is saying that if we are to go down this road, at least the other half of the deal ought to be delivered.

Personally, I am much more relaxed about voting systems than many of my colleagues. I quite literally have not yet decided whether I would vote for first past the post or an alternative vote system. I am becoming much more educated in the arguments since listening to the debates over the past weeks, but I do not have a strong commitment to either side. It is all too easy to know the problems of the current system but then not to look at the problems that emerge from other systems. Our attention has been drawn to some of those.

As my noble friend has so ably and forcefully pointed out, a political deal has been struck between two political parties to enable them to stay in government. Under it, the constitution of the United Kingdom and the structure of the House of Commons will be changed in a way that favours one political party. That is what is so deeply unhealthy about it. We will turn—I hope, on Monday; I do not suppose that we will get there tonight—to amendments that address this issue again. As one would expect from a previous Minister with his experience, the noble Lord, Lord Wills, made an excellent speech on his amendment. It was so detailed that it could have been plonked into any Bill. The amendment would strike at the very heart of the political deal between the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties.

I would have no trouble supporting the amendment, although, frankly, it is really a matter between the Liberal Democrats and the Conservative Party. However, if we are to be forced to change the constitution of the country on the basis of half the deal, it should at the very least be done on the basis of the other half of the deal being delivered. At the moment, there is no evidence of that, and the Liberal Democrats, for reasons that are totally beyond me, have made the politically fatal error of putting forward their half of the deal in a way that makes it highly unlikely that they will get it. One cannot guarantee that they will not get it, because the electorate might vote for it, but the referendum will be hard fought. You then have to ask what they are doing making such a deal and whether it really is just for the sake of getting a few seats in government.

[Lord Lipsey]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, has made a powerful case for why his amendment is in the interests of the Liberal Democrats. I shall make a case, probably not quite as powerful, for it being in the interests also of the Conservative Party. The Conservatives to whom I talk are all absolutely confident that AV will be defeated in the referendum. I do not happen to agree with them, but they are very confident.

Let us just think what the situation would be if the Campbell-Savours amendment, or “Jessica’s law”, did not apply and the Liberal Democrats were defeated in the referendum. What would then be the situation of the Liberal Democrats? They would have lost AV, which they are relying on to deliver them extra seats at the next general election, as everyone agrees it would. However, coming along the line will be the 5 per cent rule and the equalisation, and what is also agreed is that those rules will hit the Liberal Democrats much harder than any other party. According to Democratic Audit’s calculations, they would lose 11 of their 57 seats, whereas Labour and the Tories, with many more seats, would lose 18 and 17 respectively. It would be a real reduction in the proportion of Lib Dem representation in the House of Commons.

I do not know what bedlam the coalition will be in if and when we get to such a stage. I do not expect that the coalition will be very politically popular; it will need to last to have any chance of regaining its political popularity. In those circumstances, what will the Lib Dems do? If the Boundary Commission review comes into force, as it will in 2015, they will be faced with a loss of seats as a result not only of losing votes but also of the redistribution. The sensible thing to do, therefore, would be to find the nearest and quickest excuse to bring this coalition Government to an end and to adopt a sauve qui peut stance in a general election where they might preserve more seats than they would in a general election eventually to be held under the new system proposed by the Government. It would not suit the Tories to have a general election in the middle of this Parliament, because they would be extremely unpopular, and no doubt deservedly so. I come to the conclusion that it is very strange indeed that this side is arguing for the amendment, although I see no nods of agreement on the other side with any of the arguments that we have put forward.

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

The amendment would mean that you would get the constituency boundary changes only if the AV vote was yes. I do not support that, but it is an inevitable consequence of the loose language in which the coalition puts this. On 20 December, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, said:

“Indeed, as my noble friend Lord McNally has said on a number of occasions, this Bill is about fair votes and fair boundaries. It shows that the two are, in fact, linked. It shows how the two will be linked because it will shape the way in which the other place will be elected in 2015”.—[Official Report, 20/12/10; col. 882.]

My understanding of this Bill is that, if the AV vote is no, you still get your constituency boundary changes. Am I wrong? Please confirm that. If I am right, why did the Minister say that on 20 December?

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

Because we are going to win the referendum.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, for his amendment. I particularly thank all noble Lords opposite who have shown such concern for the interests of the Liberal Democrats and the Conservative Party. It has been very touching. On behalf of the Liberal Democrats and my Conservative colleagues, let me say how appreciated it is.

When we eventually got around to it, the motive behind this amendment was that it got us back to the supplementary vote, which was the product of what was, I am sure, a stimulating dinner party in 1989. To be fair to the noble Lord, he has persisted in this throughout these debates.

The amendment would provide that the first boundary review, which would create fewer and more equalised constituencies, would not have effect until the referendum had taken place and only then if the electorate had voted yes. As Members of the Committee will be aware, there are differences on these Benches on the merits of the alternative vote system and first past the post. We have made no secret of that. However, both parties in the coalition are agreed that the public should choose which system we use and should do so in a referendum.

Linking the boundary changes to the referendum would effectively mean asking more than that, as the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, said. If we change the Bill in the way proposed by the noble Lord, we effectively make a vote against the alternative vote a vote against the boundary changes, too. He described that as a way of incentivising the Conservatives to support the alternative vote. If the referendum result were to be no, it would prevent the modest and sensible reduction in the number of seats, for which the Bill provides, from taking effect. The amendment would see the existing constituency map, with its inequalities in electorate size based on data from, as far as England is concerned, 10 years ago, continue until those data were even older.

As a democrat, I would be bitterly disappointed if the people voted no in a referendum on the voting system, but I would accept that that was the vote expressed by the people. It would be wrong to use that as an excuse to break off an agreement.

[Lord Tyler]

I wonder if my noble friend has noticed that for hours in this Chamber we have been told that the whole Bill is a political carve-up to enhance the potential support for both coalition parties, yet for the past half hour or so, with commendable and encouraging concern for our political support, we have been told that it is nothing of the sort and that the proposals in the Bill will have a neutral effect on the Conservative Party and Labour Party in the future and will damage the prospects of the Liberal Democrats. Will Members opposite withdraw all their accusations of gerrymandering that we have suffered for hours and hours in the Chamber, not just today but on many previous occasions?

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

I had reflected on that. I thought that it was somewhat ironic that, having been lambasted, as my noble friend said, for allegedly bringing forward legislation of a partisan nature, we were accused of having partisan advantage as a basic motivation for supporting the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours. That was a perverse argument.

[Lord Soley]

The noble Lord, Lord Tyler, is wrong. What was said is that the Liberal Democrat party has campaigned for years for a different voting system in the belief that it would increase its majority. The alternative vote system is not a full system but would improve its position. Similarly, the Conservative position, as has been indicated in a number of statements over the years by the Conservative Party, is that 600 seats instead of the current number would increase the proportion of its MPs. Both parties have stated that these systems are to their advantage.

23:00

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

I am sorry if I got in the way of a dialogue between the noble Lord, Lord Soley, and my noble friend Lord Tyler. The noble Lord said that we Liberal Democrats put this forward to increase our majority—if only we had a majority to increase. I doubt that the amendment would achieve in the long term what the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, intends, because it would have an impact only on the first boundary review. Irrespective of the outcome of the referendum, the outcome of the second boundary review, to be held on the same rules with 600 Members of Parliament, would be implemented. It would only mean a stay of execution, if that is how he wishes to put it.

I have indicated, as have noble Lords opposite, that this agreement was reached by the parties. It allows the people to have their say on which voting system they will use. It will also allow the election that takes place in May 2015 to be held on the basis of boundaries that are far more equal than was the case at the last election or would be the case if we did not pass the Bill. In these circumstances, I ask the noble Lord to withdraw the amendment.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

To explain, it is the second review that worries me. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, looks on it favourably. The second review will be under a system of individual registration. That will be extremely damaging to the work historically done by the Boundary Commission. As my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer of Thoroton mentioned, there will be huge variations in registration levels in the various authorities throughout the United Kingdom because of problems in securing reasonable returns under individual registration arrangements by local authorities. To reply to the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, on this issue of gerrymandering, I have never accused the Government of gerrymandering.

[Lord Tyler]

Everybody else has.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

No, I am sorry, but that is not our case. Our case is that to handle legislation in this way is an abuse of procedure in the House of Lords. Were the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, sat on this side of the House—as he was until last May—he would be getting up and arguing precisely that case at this time of the night. He knows that it is an abuse of procedure. What is happening is that the Liberal Democrats feel that, in the longer term, they will gain seats. We are not talking about gerrymandering. The reality is that the Liberal Democrats will pick up seats, but only under that portion of the Bill that deals with AV. Under the other portion of the Bill they will lose seats.

I should make it absolutely clear in moving my amendment that I have always supported much of the Liberal Democrat position on electoral reform—certainly over the past 10 or 12 years. I have had many discussions with the Liberal Democrats over the years. My noble friend Lord Lipsey is a passionate supporter of AV and my noble friend Lord Soley said this evening that he is wavering. It may well be that the arguments being deployed by the few interventions that come from those Benches, along with the interventions of my noble friend Lord Lipsey, are beginning to convince him, although I suspect that if he goes into detail on this Bill he will end up in exactly the same position as I did when I looked at the matter in 1989.

To get the record straight, it was not a dinner party but a dinner table in the House of Commons dining room. Mr Brian Sedgemore, the late Mr Roland Boyes, Mrs Ann Clywd and I had a dinner where we argued about whether we could change the electoral system. The result of that was the inquiry that I undertook.

I thank my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer of Thoroton for his speech, which I understood to be asking a series of questions. Did he get answers? I wonder whether the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, might care to rise to his feet to answer those questions specifically. The speech of my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer was brief and precise and contained no embroidery of language. He asked specific questions, to which I believe he deserves answers.

Notwithstanding the failure of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, to get to his feet to answer those questions, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment. I suggest to the noble Lords on the Liberal Democrat Benches that they should send Jessica a bunch of flowers, which I am sure she will appreciate, for the work that she has done on their behalf.

Amendment 58ZZA withdrawn.

Amendment 58ZZB not moved.

Amendment 58ZA

Moved by

[Lord Lipsey]

58ZA: Clause 10, page 8, line 39, leave out “may” and insert “must”

[Lord Lipsey]

Perhaps noble Lords may take this as a sign to take their tea break—at this time of night, they might require something a bit stronger—as Amendment 58ZA is really a probing amendment. The amendment seeks to probe what to me is a puzzle.

If the Boundary Commission makes proposals for a change to the draft order in council, would it not be right to say that the Minister “must”, rather than “may”, accept the Boundary Commission’s proposals? In all our efforts on the Bill, one of the great things that we are trying to protect is the independence of the Boundary Commission. However, the Bill is drafted in a way that suggests that Ministers would have the discretion—the word used is “may”—on whether to accept the Boundary Commission’s recommended modifications. I suspect that the word “may” is used by accident, but if its use is deliberate it is disgraceful.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, for Amendment 58ZA. When I first read the amendment, I immediately identified what he was driving at and had some considerable sympathy for it. He is absolutely right that, if the Government could simply disregard a modification that the Boundary Commission suggested, that would not be acceptable.

I am afraid that the issue comes down to textual analysis. Amendment 58ZA proceeds on the assumption that Clause 10(6)(5B) confers a separate discretionary power whereby the Government may decide whether to include a modification that has been requested by a boundary commission. However, we do not consider that to be the effect of new subsection (5B) of the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986. Rather, new subsection (5B) explains how the modifications referred to in new subsection (5A)—the two subsections need to be read together—can come to be included in the order in council. On that basis, the inclusion of requested modifications is part and parcel of the requirement to give effect to the Boundary Commission’s recommendation, as provided for in new subsection (5A). Therefore, the Bill requires the Government to include such modifications in the order in council.

I should perhaps also point out that the noble Lord’s amendment might make it less clear that the Government are not permitted to make any modifications other than those requested by the boundary commissions.

I hope that the noble Lord is satisfied with that answer. I readily acknowledge that the matter is textual. After reading the subsection several times, I was persuaded that new subsections (5A) and (5B) need to be taken together and that there is nothing malign intended. No doubt the noble Lord will want to read what I have said, but I am certainly prepared to consider—although I am already satisfied with the wording, which we have discussed through—satisfying myself further on the matter. However, on that basis, I ask the noble Lord to reflect on what I have said and to withdraw the amendment.

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

I completely understand the point that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, has made that the draft Order in Council can be modified only if the Boundary Commission requests a modification. However, is the implementation of the modification optional if such a request is made? The wording of the Bill appears to suggest that the Minister has discretion on whether to accept any modifications that have been requested.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

With respect, I think that the point that the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, made was whether Ministers have such discretion. It is certainly my understanding that the power is not intended to be discretionary. The intention is that, if a boundary commission wants a modification, Ministers will be obliged to incorporate that modification in laying the Order in Council. The two new subsections (5A) and (5B) need to be taken together. New subsection (5B) describes the circumstances in which a modification would be made.

As I have indicated to the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, and indeed to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, I will read this again. I have done so already and I am satisfied that there is no malign intent that would oblige Ministers to follow a request from one of the Boundary Commissions, but I am willing to give it further reconsideration and others will no doubt look at it and read it.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

I am looking at the Explanatory Notes to Clause 10 of the Bill. It seems to be very clear that discretion is left to the Secretary of State in laying,

“before Parliament a draft of an Order in Council for giving effect to the recommendations in the boundary reports”,

to accept or not to accept the modifications that the Boundary Commission may wish.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

That is perhaps a good reason for us to examine it again. I have indicated what the intention is and I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, for flagging this up. It will give us an opportunity to be satisfied that the wording reflects the intention.

[Lord Lipsey]

I am most grateful to the noble and learned Lord and if I gave any impression that I seriously thought that there was an attempt to get away with anything, I withdraw that unconditionally. I accept that it is, as he says, a textual matter. In fact, he has kindly promised to reread the clause and check that he is satisfied with it, as will I. Actually, I have found it more effective than taking two Sleep-eze to get off at night—so, after tonight’s debate may be a very good time for him to apply his mind to it. After I read his remarks, I will return to it on Report if I want to. In the mean time, I thank him for considering this so carefully and beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 58ZA withdrawn.

Amendment 58ZB not moved.

Amendment 58ZBC

Moved by

[Lord McNally]

58ZBC: Clause 10, page 9, line 7, at end insert—
“( ) In Schedule 1 to the 1986 Act (the Boundary Commissions), in paragraph 5(d) (assessor officers of the Boundary Commission for Northern Ireland)—
(a) for “and the” there is substituted “, the”;(b) at the end there is inserted “and the Chief Survey Officer of Land and Property Services”.”

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, Amendment 58ZBC adds the Chief Survey Officer of Northern Ireland to the list of assessor officers of that commission. At present the Chief Survey Officer advises the commission but does not hold the formal status of assessor. The Chief Survey Officer’s counterpart in the other nations of the United Kingdom—the director-general of Ordnance Survey—is an assessor to the other commissions, and the Boundary Commission for Northern Ireland has requested of us, in its report for the last boundary review, that the position in the other nations be replicated in Northern Ireland. This we now do in this amendment and I beg to move.

[Lord Soley]

Can the Minister tell us whether this was also the request of the Assembly in Northern Ireland, or of an officer? I was not quite sure what he was saying on that.

[Lord McNally]

It was not from the Assembly but from the Boundary Commission for Northern Ireland, which simply asked that the status of the Chief Survey Officer of Northern Ireland, who is doing the job anyway, be given this formal status. We are happy to do that.

[Lord Soley]

I am sorry to pursue it, but the reason I pick it up is simply because of my past knowledge of Northern Ireland, which is now a little dated, but where things such as boundaries were very contentious, to put it mildly. Obviously, the officer in charge would have wanted to be treated in the same way as in Scotland and Wales, for example. I understand that but I would hope—I do not know whether the Minister knows this—that the Assembly took a view on it. In other words, that it is not an initiative by the officer but the Assembly itself recognising that it is being grouped into line, because there may well be two different views within the Assembly on whether they ought to be treated in precisely the same way as Scotland and Wales. It has always been one of the things that has bugged the politics of Northern Ireland. I just want some assurance; it may be that the Minister cannot give it to me now, but it would be quite useful to know whether this was a simple request by the officer to the Government here or one approved by the Northern Ireland Assembly. If he cannot answer it now, I am happy to have it later but we need to have some indication, if he would not mind.

[Lord McNally]

When I moved this amendment, I thought, “This is the one bloody thing I’m going to move all night which the conspiracy theorists will not be able to work into their paranoia”. I have no idea, but I suspect that since it is a report of the Boundary Commission for Northern Ireland, it has gone before the Northern Ireland Assembly. It has simply been a request for us to give this man the same status as his British counterparts. I will make inquiries and if I find that beneath this is some seething sectarian dispute, I will report back to the Committee.

23:15

[Lord Soley]

I am grateful to the Minister. The reason why this point is important is that things do not always get picked up in the way that they need to. This is not just some minor point. I have seen problems before with anything to do with the Boundary Commission or elections in Northern Ireland; the Minister must know that. He should have known, as soon as he saw an amendment with the words “Northern Ireland” in, that it could be contentious. It is not really a matter for now, but for the comfort of the Government they need to make sure that the Assembly was signed up for this.

[Lord McNally]

I will take comfort in it. It is still seared into my soul—we should count ourselves lucky here—that I once had an order in the other place that involved Northern Ireland. There was me, the government Minister, and five Ulster Unionists, and we finally got away at about 2.20 am. I take the noble Lord’s Gypsy’s warning; I will check on this, and if there are any worries I will bring it back to the House.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

Before the Minister sits down, I want to pick him up on his use of the term “paranoia”, which he has used a couple of times.

[Lord McNally]

I can give the noble Lord evidence. There has been bullying by—

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

May I just make my point?

[Lord McNally]

No.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

I ask the Minister and his colleagues on that side of the House to understand that there is deep and genuine concern on our side that great quantities of constitutional legislation are being driven through Parliament by the coalition, which has no mandate for it and has not offered the public or the political system as a whole the opportunity to consider it in advance of its introduction. The legislation is being driven through on a fast track. We have a responsibility to guard the constitution, and if the Minister considers that our objections to the process that the coalition Government are adopting are paranoid, he is being extraordinarily obtuse and insensitive.

[Lord McNally]

This side of the House has treated serious amendments seriously, but I invite any future historian to read Hansard and then they can make their judgment.

[Lord Tyler]

I wonder if my noble friend might note that amnesia, rather than paranoia, seems to be the prevailing atmosphere. Only a few months ago, those over on the other side were pushing the Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill through this House, with no pre-legislative scrutiny for huge chunks of it, trying to do so at great speed before the general election. Amnesia, not paranoia.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

I want to raise the issue of these reports. I have done two inquiries, but I have never seen the Boundary Commission documentation, which I presume must be made available to inspectors during the course of their inquiries. What happens here? When the commission issues its review and sends it first—if I remember correctly—to individual Members of Parliament in political parties, it provides a report, but I have never seen that document. This is important, because in constituencies in places such as Cumbria—the noble Lord, Lord Henley, who lives near Carlisle, knows exactly what I am talking about—the boundaries of the mountain ranges that separate parts of Cumbria are critically important during the course of consideration of boundary reviews. I wondered in what circumstances individual Members of Parliament are entitled to have access to the documentation produced by the survey officers for Land and Property Services in Northern Ireland, and for the Ordnance Survey within the United Kingdom.

[Lord Bach]

Perhaps I can make a short contribution. I assure the Minister that we do not intend to vote against his amendment. I want him to understand that and feel relieved about it. I want to ask him this, though: what is an assessor officer? What are his or her functions, please?

[Lord McNally]

I am relying now on my responsibilities, which I think the noble Lord once shared, as the Minister for the Land Registry.

[Lord Bach]

That was not eight months ago; it was many moons ago.

[Lord McNally]

I am misleading myself. I mean the director-general of the Ordnance Survey, who is an assessor. I suppose, using common sense, that if you are drawing lines on maps, it is worth having somebody who knows about maps to give advice.

Amendment 58ZBC agreed.

Debate on whether Clause 10 should stand part of the Bill.

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

I have two questions about Clause 10. We have gone through several points on Clause 10, which changes the review dates. We have not referred to this but Clause 10(5) repeals Section 3(3) of the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986. As I understand it, it deprives the Boundary Commissions of being able to carry out interim reviews between general reviews. That would mean that the Boundary Commission could not do an interim review short of five years to deal, for example, with a significant change in population. What is the reason for repealing that power, which presumably would be of use in certain circumstances?

Secondly and separately, the clause as I understand it does not change the basic structure of how the Boundary Commission operates, which is by producing reports at specified intervals. The reports then define what the new constituency boundaries are. What are the circumstances in which there can be a modification after the Boundary Commission has reported? How is that consistent with a process whereby representations can be made, on the basis of which a final report is issued? I know modifications can be made that can affect the report after it has been produced because this is referred to in the amended subsection (5).

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

My Lords, if I speak for long enough I might get a full answer to the second of the noble and learned Lord’s questions. With regard to his initial question about the interim reviews and the repealing of subsection (3), the reason for this is that the existing legislation reflects the fact that the constituencies may require adjustment during what is, at present, the long period that elapses between full reviews. However, it is believed that if the full reviews are to take place every five years, there may not be a need—certainly there will scarcely be any time—to conduct an interim review. Clause 13, for completeness, makes transitional provisions for the outcome of the interim reviews, which are currently under way in Wales.

With regard to the modifications, the clause allows modifications to the Boundary Commission’s recommendations only in an Order in Council that gives effect to those recommendations at the request of one of the four commissions and with its reasons set out in writing. This was tabled as an amendment on Report in another place, following an amendment that was tabled in Committee by members of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee. It was done to get the substance of that committee’s amendment into proper form. I do not necessarily anticipate that it would lead to any significant change to the proposals that were being brought forward. As I indicated, any modifications would require some explanation in writing, which would be at the behest of the Boundary Commission. I regret that I do not have the views of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee as to why it wishes the original amendment to be brought forward, but my information is that it was in response to that.

If I just keep on talking, I am sure that I will be able to give the noble and learned Lord an even fuller answer to a perfectly legitimate question. As far as we know, the power to make modifications has never been used but has existed since the 1940s. It is envisaged that it may be used to correct an error that comes to light only after the initial report has been made. I hope that that explanation satisfies him.

[Lord Soley]

This is a bad clause. It is not bad simply because of its content but, as has been pointed out on a number of occasions, because it has been drawn up in a way that is designed to meet a short-term political problem and has not been dealt with in the way in which a constitutional reform of this type ought to be dealt with. The Boundary Commission of all things, given its implications for the future of MPs, constituencies and constituents, ought to have been given far more detailed consideration, but the Bill has been brought forward in just a few months following the deal between the two political parties. It is a good example of bad law. It comprises a constitutional change that is underpinned by Boundary Commission reports that were necessarily drawn up in haste. All the things we have heard about the electoral register and the whole electoral registration process indicate the detailed work that should have been done on the Bill in a proper constitutional way either by committee beforehand or through an inquiry. Instead, it has been hastily drawn up and placed before us at short notice.

I have worries about the Electoral Commission and the Boundary Commission being able to complete this task in the necessary detail in the time available. It troubles me that when you rush something like this, you could well get into difficulties with it. I remember the previous time when we tried to change how votes were cast and push things on the Electoral Commission that it was unhappy about. My Government were in power at the time, so I have to accept some responsibility for this. Leaving aside the rights and wrongs of the policy, it resulted in considerable problems on the ground.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

There is a part of this debate that has not been answered, and this is the only opportunity that we have to discuss it—that is, what happens in the event that the public petition over the recommendations of the Boundary Commission by using legislation that the Government say they intend to introduce? What happens if the boundaries were to be changed in my former constituency and 10,000 or 15,000 people went down to the town centre in Workington, signed a petition, gave it to their MP and said, “We object to what has been decided and we want it to be revised”, and the Boundary Commission has taken its decision? I still do not know what happens in those circumstances. I am not exaggerating. It is quite possible that that will happen. It could happen in any constituency in the United Kingdom. I wonder whether my noble friend might give thought to other cases as well.

[Lord Soley]

To some extent my noble friend anticipates me. I was thinking not just of that example. There will be a number of possibilities here of problems on the ground, and there will be either legal challenges or else what we had because of previous attempts to legislate in a rush in areas such as this: confusion, uncertainty and alienated electors who feel unable to vote in certain circumstances. There will be big problems. The point that my noble friend has just made highlights a classic example of them. As I said, there may well be legal challenges. I am sure the Minister will say, understandably, that in that case the courts will decide the matter because that is their role. However, he has to accept that because this Bill is driven by a particular timetable, that timetable may not be met unless the Government ignore the courts’ decisions. I hope that the Government are not prepared to go down that road.

I simply say at this stage that if you put forward a clause such as this, the duty on the Government to look at it in considerable detail is important. I know that Members opposite have sometimes grumbled about time and, dare I say, even got paranoid about it. However, I had better not use that word after the confusion in the previous exchanges, which I assume did not apply to me, although I shall have to read Hansard to make sure. There is a genuine problem, and it is not something that can be just airbrushed out.

23:30

The Minister has given considerable thought to this and, to be fair to him, he has responded in a much more constructive way than the Government have done on some occasions on this Bill. I welcome that, but he must know, as I do, that the Boundary Commission and the Electoral Commission will have problems with this. I am confident from my own contacts—noble Lords know that I am one of the political advisers to the Electoral Commission—that those bodies will deal with the problems, because they are actually effective and good. However, you are up against a time deadline, where just a few weeks here and a few days there can make an awful lot of difference, and you are up against the sort of legal challenges that might emerge. On matters such as Boundary Commission reviews, they really do.

I asked my previous question on Northern Ireland precisely because I know, from past experience, that these matters can be incredibly contentious. I see the noble Lord, Lord King, sitting there. He will know that, too. Although Northern Ireland is a special case that we do not need to involve in this general debate, it would be unwise to assume, particularly given the nature of the new boundaries that are being drawn up, that there will not be challenges of some type.

The Government will also find themselves in difficulty with their arguments about the big society, a concept that has been around for some considerable time. I hear many people saying, “We are doing that already”. However, if you then bring in a system that overrides local communities in a number of different ways, you will invite the local communities to challenge it; and if they get legal representation, they might well take such cases to court.

I hope even at this late stage that when the Minister takes this clause away he will look at it, bear in mind many of our debates on it and make sure that the Boundary Commission and Electoral Commission will be able to deliver on this without having to face sudden legal challenges or problems on the ground that have not been anticipated by the Government.

[Baroness Liddell of Coatdyke]

My Lords, like my noble friend Lord Soley, I oppose the Question that Clause 10 stand part of the Bill. I say to my noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord McNally, that just because you are paranoid does not mean they are not out to get you.

My reason for opposing the clause is primarily based on the lost opportunities. A number of amendments to it have been proposed that would have given us a great opportunity to improve our democratic process in this country. It is an example of how, if time had been taken to include a process of consultation with all political parties involved in British politics, we could have come to an arrangement that would have greatly improved the process of electoral registration.

There is a crisis of democracy in this country. Every one of us who has ever knocked on a door knows that. One of the most irritating things that has ever happened to me in a long career in politics is when I knock on a door and a young woman comes to it, perhaps with two or three kids around her feet, and says, quite proudly, “Oh, no, I never vote. I would not dream of voting”. That is because there is constant publicity around the fact that there is something slightly odd about the way our democracy works.

In a number of the proposed amendments, which I really regret that the Government refuse to consider, we have looked at, for example, improving the franchise for young people and for those who traditionally have not appeared on the electoral register by providing a process that would have improved their registration levels. We had a very powerful debate, led by the noble Lord, Lord Boateng, and the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, on black and ethnic minorities.

If the Government had not been so obsessed with the timescale for this for their own narrow political purposes, there would have been an opportunity to radically improve the Bill and the process of electoral registration in this country, and perhaps all of us who have a joint interest in improving the attitude to democracy in this country would have made some moves forward in reaching out to people to say that we are not all in it for what we can get out of it. It is primarily for that reason that I oppose Clause 10 standing part of the Bill. There is still a considerable amount of the Bill to be gone through, but the clauses that we have discussed tonight represent a huge missed opportunity. Legislate in haste, repent at leisure. It is a very sad day when narrow partisan interests have caused us to miss this opportunity.

[Lord McAvoy]

My Lords, the hour is late and I will do my best not to repeat the points that I made in previous debates. I return briefly to the rush to judgment on this. The process and timetable do not give due consideration to a properly conducted exercise to get people to register. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, criticises the previous Labour Government with some justification—although I wonder when we will stop getting blamed for everything under the sun—for not doing extra registration. That is not entirely true or fair, because various exercises and pilot schemes were done. However, they could have been pursued better. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, is a logical person most of the time—except when he is shouting at people outside the Chamber. However, I do not see the logic or the ethics of saying, “We have the power now, but because you did not do it, we are not going to do it either”. I am sure that he will contradict me if that is not his point.

It is that point that particularly annoys me in this clause, as well as the obduracy of the Government in resisting normal amendments. Once again, I find the whole process skewed and abnormal because it is getting rushed and concertinaed into a certain time for the political convenience of the coalition parties. I would like to put one thing on record. Earlier, my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours indicated that he was moving an amendment that would help the Tories and the Liberal Democrats. That amendment would certainly not have got my support; I would have been in the other lobby like a shot. I do not go along with that at all.

My noble friend Lord Soley talked about the constitutionality of the Bill. I am no expert, but I am interested in history and I see examples of electoral systems being manipulated and gerrymandered by political parties for their own purposes. This is a breakthrough in the United Kingdom, because we have a combination of political parties putting through a change that will affect the composition of the House of Commons and is designed to affect the political balance within the reformed House. As we all know, no matter how long it takes—it took 18 years to get rid of the Tories and it took the combined opposition 13 years to get rid of us—sooner or later the pendulum swings, Ministers make mistakes, Governments get tired and the electorate see it. Then the motor of change takes over and the change is effected by the British public. The example has been set, the new Government will tamper with the political system to their advantage and we will end up like some of the emerging African states, where all sorts of things happen. It is not just African states. I do not have much experience of the political system of the United States, but I am told that it is in the hands of the politicians. I genuinely think that it would be bad if that happened. I believe that this coalition Government, or collaboration Government, will regret the haste with which they have conducted the passage of this legislation. It is wrong in principle and I shall certainly be opposed to the tenets of this clause.

[Lord King of Bridgwater]

My Lords, they say that those not inclined to speak can sometimes be provoked to do so by those not inclined to shut up. I was encouraged to make a modest contribution having listened to the noble Lord, Lord McAvoy, who is indulging his new freedom of being able to open his mouth—something which I do not think he enjoyed too much in the other place with his other responsibilities. We had the first honest admission from him—half-hearted and in the guarded language of a Whip—that perhaps there was some justification in saying that the system should be changed and that the allocation arrangement of seats is not right.

[Lord McAvoy]

My Lords—

[Lord King of Bridgwater]

Perhaps I may complete what I was saying; I shall be extremely brief. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Soley, who said that this matter takes time and should have been done some time ago. There is no question that the electoral arrangements of this country have shown a considerable bias in recent elections. The purpose of the amendments —the noble Baroness, Lady Liddell, referred to this—

[Baroness McDonagh]

My Lords—

[Lord King of Bridgwater]

Perhaps I may complete the sentence. The noble Baroness, Lady Liddell, referred to the fact that a number of frightfully useful amendments have been tabled that require all sorts of further consideration to be given in the interests of minority communities and younger people. All sorts of things should be dealt with and full reports should be made on them. No efforts should be made to change the electoral arrangements of this country and the Boundary Commission should do no work until all this important work has been undertaken. I say this simply not as a former Conservative Member of Parliament but as someone who sees the Conservative balance and remembers the 2001 election, in which we won the vote in England. I cannot remember—perhaps someone will remind me—but I think that we ended up with 60 or 90 fewer seats, having received more votes in England. The whole thesis of the Opposition is to keep the situation like that.

The suggestion that we are seeking to gerrymander—I have heard the phrase and the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, referred to it—has been made from the other side of the Committee, although perhaps not by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours. He and I worked together on many occasions quite harmoniously. In that situation, it is absolutely sensible—

[Baroness McDonagh]

My Lords—

[Lord King of Bridgwater]

I am on my last sentence if the noble Baroness will allow me to finish. In that situation, it is perfectly responsible for the Government to deal with the matter. I hear noble Lords opposite saying that they have been dealt with in an aggressive or dismissive way. However, the Ministers on the Front Bench seem to me to have been extremely reasonable and accommodating, as the former Lord Chancellor used to be when I raised issues in the House. That is the tradition of this House. Very difficult issues are being dealt with here. I hope that this House will rise to the occasion and recognise that we have a very difficult problem, which must be dealt with in a responsible and constructive way. I have not spoken previously on this Bill but I think that this House will do itself great damage if it cannot recognise the responsibility that it has to deal with these issues. They are primary matters. A number of noble Lords here would have taken great offence in the other place if they had thought that your Lordships were interfering with issues which they considered to be principally their concern as elected Members of Parliament. I rest my case.

[Baroness McDonagh]

I appreciate that the noble Lord, Lord King of Bridgwater, has not taken part in previous debates but, by getting to his feet, he has exposed the problem with the legislation. The problem is that it is built on a falsehood, which, as he explained, is that there has been a bias in recent elections. There has not. His problem, as he set out in his 2001 example, is that he believes that the Conservative Party takes more votes to get elected than Labour because of a differential size in constituencies. It does not. I shall not do it at this late hour, but in future debates other Members will produce Conservative documentation that they have read. This myth has gone on for many years. It takes Conservatives more votes than Labour to get elected because of the social, economic, demographic issue that in Labour seats we primarily represent those on lower incomes than in Conservative seats and with all sorts of other factors that people appreciate. We have lower turnout and those social, economic demographics are not simply particular to the United Kingdom but are the world over. People being on lower incomes—with less education, language problems, less mobility, shift-working and so on—means that they are less likely to turn out. Irrespective of the changes that the Government make, that will always be the case.

The relative size between Labour and Conservative seats is no different other than in Wales, where the number of seats was defined by a previous Conservative Government in 1986 when they made that requirement because of the geographic consequences of a change in the number of seats.

23:45

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

I rise to respond to the comments of the noble Lord, Lord King, and to say how pleased I was that, for the first time in the many hours of debates on this Bill, we had a contribution from the Conservative Back Benches. I totally agree with the noble Lord that the way in which this Bill has proceeded through this House is more than somewhat regrettable.

The reason why it is regrettable is that everyone agrees that it is a constitutional Bill and that constitutional matters are, or ought to be, above party politics. Everybody would agree that it is very desirable that any constitutional change, if possible at least, should gain the widest degree of consensus between political parties before being pushed through and that reasonable attempts should be made to build up a consensus by the Government who take the initiative to change the constitution in one particular way or another.

There have been at least three very unfortunate aspects to the passage of this Bill. I am not privy to conversations that may have taken place through the usual channels or otherwise, but if they have taken place they have left no trace in the debates that we have had in the past few weeks on this subject. It appears that no attempt has been made even to investigate whether there might be scope for some sort of compromise or negotiation. Of course, everything is not perfect with our electoral system at the moment. Of course, there are enormous anomalies, some of which we have drawn attention to on these Benches, such as the very high levels of non-registration among certain categories of our population. Another anomaly and a problem to which the Government have rightly drawn attention is that our elections take place on the basis of electoral registers that are excessively out of date. That is a real problem.

There is a possibility here for an adult, sensible, open-minded discussion at least to see whether there could be a basis for agreement or consensus on some of these issues. It is deplorable to take a constitutional Bill through this House without any such attempt even being made. If it is made and the Opposition are unresponsive, it will be open to the Government to say, “We tried. We discussed the matter formally and informally but you guys were unwilling to have a serious discussion on the subject”. That is the first reason why I regret the way in which the Bill has gone through the House in this fashion.

Secondly, and why I was so pleased to hear the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord King, it seems to me to be extraordinarily anomalous, artificial and even a little sinister that, although we have all these intelligent men and women of the world on the Tory Benches who we know have strong views on political and constitutional subjects, they have all been completely silent. That is an extraordinary state of affairs. It seems to me that the legislature is not doing its job when half, or at least a large proportion, of it seems to be forced into silence. That seems an odd state of affairs, but it is a feature of our debate that will be very striking to any historian who looks at the record. I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord McNally, is nodding at me when I say that. He may be in a better position than I am to talk to some of his Tory colleagues to see what the inhibition on them is. The noble Lord’s party’s Back-Benchers have taken part. We have enjoyed their contributions. I have sometimes agreed with them.

The third big problem about the way in which the Bill has been taken through the House is the apparent complete lack of any margin of manoeuvre, flexibility or negotiating power on the part of Ministers. We know them; they are able men and women. I remember the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, being an extremely distinguished and able Member of the House of Commons when we both served there. I have to respect the noble Lord, Lord McNally, for the way in which he conducts business from the Front Bench, but even when a moment ago we came across the tiny matter about “may” or “must” in relation to the obligations of the Government to implement the Boundary Commission’s recommendations, it was quite clear that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, had the same difficulty that we had in understanding unambiguously what the text was meant to say.

Surely this is the job of a legislature. If the Government produce a text that is unclear, we improve it; we make a change and we write a simplified, better version in clear English. That is our job. Why do we not do that? Why are the Government so frightened to make the slightest change of one word in the text of the Bill as it goes through the House? What is the point of our having all these discussions for hours if the Government as represented in this House—Ministers in the Lords—have so little room for manoeuvre, so little delegated power, that they cannot make progress on some minor point in the course of our long debates? We will not do a good job on the Bill if those three problems remain.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

The answer to the question that my noble friend is putting is that there is a contractual agreement between two parties. That is what is silencing this debate. Members of one party cannot get up to object because they know that it is a negotiated position with the other party to the coalition. I am in favour of coalitions, but this coalition is in an experimental stage. It has not mastered a way to freely debate within the contractual agreement.

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

I hear my noble friend with great interest. He is postulating a possible cause of the triple malaise which I have just described. I am trying to limit myself to describing the facts as I see them; I am not going in for any normative judgments or hypotheses about why or how the situation has arisen. I just hope that if we all recognise that if there is a malaise or a problem and that the fault is not with one particular section of this House alone, we might make some further, better and more edifying progress on the Bill over the hours, days or weeks—I have no idea how long it may last—as we proceed in this piece of our legislative work.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

My Lords, I thought that my luck was too great to answer just two questions from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, but I will try to keep this short.

Some important issues have been raised. The noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, asked about petitions. As he will be well aware, the Government have not yet published their proposals on parliamentary petitions, so it would be premature to speculate. If, during the consultation period, people submit petitions, the commission would take them into account, as at present. Outside that period, it would be for the Boundary Commission to decide how to respond and whether it was within its statutory duties to do so.

As I think that the noble Lord, Lord Soley, would acknowledge, there is no intention that we should oust judicial review. If a boundary review is delayed past the statutory timetable for any reason—including, for example, because of an attempt to challenge the commission by judicial review—the commission's report would still be valid and its recommendations would still have to be implemented. The courts have in the past shown some reluctance to interfere, and they have made it clear that they would be very slow to interfere with a decision of a Boundary Commission.

I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Liddell of Coatdyke, and to other noble Lords who expressed concern in this stand part debate and earlier, that there is nothing in the Bill or specifically in this clause that is a barrier to trying to take steps to improve the levels of electoral registration. I hope I made it clear that initiatives are being taken. I think there is common ground across the Committee that it is an important thing to do. I share the noble Baroness’s aspiration that we improve the levels, particularly among those groups that we debated earlier that are at present underrepresented on the electoral roll. This clause does not inhibit that, and I repeat the commitment I made earlier for this Government that we intend to take initiatives to try and improve that.

Reflecting on what my noble friend Lord King said, I conclude by indicating that there is an issue, because the longer the period between boundary reviews, the greater the divergence from the quota established at the start of a Boundary Commission’s review. I gave figures in an earlier debate. What we propose to do is set out in this clause and is to have a boundary review whose outcome is to be in place by the time of 2015 election and thereafter to conduct boundary reviews on a five-yearly basis, which will allow for boundaries to be more reflective of a recent state of affairs with regard to the election. With these remarks, I beg that the clause stand part of the Bill.

Clause 10 agreed.

House resumed.

House adjourned at 11.58 pm.