Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
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The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Strathclyde)
My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord McNally I beg to move that the House do again resolve itself into Committee on the Bill. In moving this Motion, it may be helpful to set out the Government's intention in relation to progress on the Bill; there has been a little recent comment in the press.
The Government announced as long ago as July last year that there would be a referendum on 5 May to decide the system to elect Members of the House of Commons at the next general election. The Government also made clear our desire to reduce the number of seats in the House of Commons at the same election. The Bill subsequently passed all its stages on the Floor of the House
In this House, we are now on day nine of Committee on the Bill. Although it is right that this House undertakes proper and detailed scrutiny of the Bill, it is also right that the House deals with legislation in reasonable time. The Bill was introduced to your Lordships' House on 3 November, and began Committee on 30 November. The Opposition's approach has been consistently and deliberately slow. This time last week, the House debated the Bill for six hours, dealing with just two amendments. That is not good scrutiny; there is no precedent for moving so slowly. I have had many representations from noble Lords on all sides of the House in recent weeks who are concerned about the slow progress on the Bill. The Opposition have dragged their heels; they have had their fun; it is now time for this House to behave responsibly.
For this House to stand in the way of a referendum on 5 May would be extremely serious. The Electoral Commission is clear that in order for the necessary provisions to be made to hold a referendum on 5 May, Royal Assent for this Bill should be granted by 16 February. In order to give proper time for Report and Third Reading, I believe that the House now expects us to make substantial progress towards completing Committee today. I beg to move.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
My Lords, perhaps I may respond briefly to what the noble Lord the Leader of the House said. The Bill has two parts: Part 1 provides for the introduction of an alternative system for electing the House of Commons, subject to a yes vote in a national referendum; Part 2 provides for the reduction in the number of House of Commons constituencies from 650 to 600 and the adoption of new rules for determining constituency boundaries that are designed to introduce equality in the number of electors in each constituency.
As Members will know, the Bill has been described by Mr Nicholas Clegg as the most important constitutional reform since the Great Reform Act 1832. There is no dispute that the Bill is of far-reaching constitutional significance. The Bill passed through all its stages in the Commons, where it was the subject of a guillotine Motion, between September and 1 November 2010. As the noble Lord the Leader said, in your Lordships' House the Bill had a Second Reading over two days at the beginning of November and has so far spent eight days in Committee before today. Six days in Committee have been spent considering Part 1. It will, as is normal, spend longer in this House than in the other place.
The Electoral Commission announced that the Bill has to have Royal Assent by 16 February 2011 to allow the referendum to take place on 5 May 2011. Last Thursday, without consultation, the Government fixed a third day on Tuesday this week for consideration of the Bill in Committee, making three consecutive days for its consideration this week. They have also made arrangements with the House authorities consistent with there being an all-night sitting tonight. I read in the Sunday Telegraph yesterday that the Cholmondeley Room and the Attlee Room are being prepared to be dormitories for male and female Peers. Your Lordships will be concerned to know that the Sunday Telegraph did not indicate which was for male and which was for female Peers.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
On the question of splitting the Bill, the advice I have received is that it is not open to this House to send back to the Commons a Bill that has been divided into two unless the Government give their consent to that. That position was made clear by my noble friend Lady McDonagh and that is why there was no vote on it. The Government did not give their consent. However, if the Government consent to it, it is possible for that course to be taken.
Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, the noble Lady, Lady Saltoun of Abernethy, asked an extremely good question a few minutes ago. She said, “Why the urgency?”. Of course, the answer is that last July, when the Government announced their intention to bring this legislation forward and published the Bill, there was no urgency. There was no urgency when it was debated in another place. There was no urgency when it came here. The situation has become urgent because the Labour Party has decided to go on a marathon go-slow on the Bill ever since we started Committee.
Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall
I hope that the Leader will allow me to point out to him that that was not the question that the noble Lady, Lady Saltoun, put to him. The question was, “Why should the referendum date be the date that it is?”—not “Why has it taken so long to get to this point?”, but “Why is the date the date?”. That seems to me to be a question that he has not yet addressed.
Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, my point still stands. The Government made an announcement soon after the general election that there would be a referendum on 5 May. I really wonder whether it is right for this House to stand up and suddenly say that should not be the case, when there was plenty of time for the Bill to be properly scrutinised.
I move on to reply to the other points that were made. The noble and learned Lord said that we are trying now to rush the Bill through and that there has not been enough consultation with the Opposition. Ever since the Bill arrived in the House, the usual channels—government and opposition—have been trying to come to an agreement, but there was an absolute refusal by the Labour Party, right from the start, to engage in trying to decide the number of days in Committee.
It is said that we have been planning an all-night sitting. I have no desire to have an all-night sitting, or a very late sitting. It is entirely in the hands of the Opposition how long we stay here this evening. The noble Lord, Lord Richard, for whom, as a former distinguished Leader of this House, I have the utmost respect, said that the trouble with all-night sittings is that it encourages the Opposition—he did not quite say to behave even more badly, but it was sort of what he meant. We could not go any slower than we have done over the course of the past eight days.
Let us deal with the substantive point, the issue of splitting the Bill. The noble Countess, Lady Mar, was right in one part of her memory—we did debate splitting the Bill in a Motion put at the very start of the legislative process. That Motion was withdrawn after a debate, but I think that the noble Countess’s point stands. Both the issues that we are dealing with in the Bill are about how MPs are elected to the House of Commons. The Bill will give voters, for the first time, a say in the way in which they elect their MPs and will mean that fairer boundaries and more equal constituencies can be put in place for the general election in 2013.
Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, may I just finish this important point? Noble Lords opposite have said that we should split the Bill and that we should not have included these two issues in one Bill. Yet the last Government’s Constitutional Reform and Governance Act, introduced to this House last year, included provision on 13 different areas ranging from a referendum on the alternative vote to freedom of information, ratification of treaties and so on. It seems odd to me that, in opposition, noble Lords opposite have so quickly become concerned about these two reforms with a common theme comprising the same Bill. Even worse, we have the noble Lords, Lord Touhig, Lord McAvoy and Lord Browne of Ladyton, who voted entirely happily, without interruption, in proceedings in another place when an amendment was brought forward on Report and yet, as soon as the Bill comes here and they have been translated into Members of the House of Lords, they take an entirely different view. I now give way to the noble Lord.
Lord Hughes of Woodside
I thank the Leader of the House. He speaks about urgency in choosing 5 May of this year. That might have been reasonable in previous times, when an election could be called at any time by the Prime Minister. However, the Prime Minister has said that there will be no election for five years, so what is the urgency about having the referendum on 5 May of this year?
Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, that is right. Like the noble and learned Lord, I have sat through many of the debates that have taken place over the past nine days and I have sympathy for the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and other Members—not just on the Cross Benches, but in all parts of the House—who wished to take part in this debate and feel that they have become excluded from it because it has taken so long. The truth is that the Labour Party has a political objective to break this key coalition Bill, stop the referendum and stop the reduction in the number of MPs.
Baroness Royall of Blaisdon
My Lords, forgive me but, on a point of information for the House, I respectfully remind the House that the House as a whole adopted an amendment, moved by my noble friend Lord Rooker, which would enable the referendum to take place on any date before 31 October. That was the will of this House.
Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, I entirely agree with what the noble Baroness has said.
The Lord Bishop of Chester
In the year of the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible, I am sure that the old ways often are the best. My only point is that the arrival of the internet has changed much and that that should be the subject of reflection. However, the thought that an agreement would be reached by some scientific, objective process is fanciful. As the noble Lord, Lord Baker, wisely said, there is a judgment to be made. My judgment is that, into the fourth hour of this debate, the law of diminishing returns suggests that the Minister should now speak.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
My Lords, I am pleased to take the cue from the right reverend Prelate, because it is fair to say that, while not everyone has yet had the opportunity to speak—
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
My Lords, I think that the cue was given to me by the right reverend Prelate and I intend to respond to it. I think that the Committee has heard sufficient—
Lord Bassam of Brighton
Does the Minister not recognise that the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, has not had the opportunity to make his intervention?
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
When I rose earlier, there seemed to be a mood that I should perhaps give way to the right reverend Prelate, which I was happy to do—
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
But, equally, I think that there was feeling around the Committee that the time had come when this matter—
Lord Bassam of Brighton
This is an iterative conversation. The noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, has not made a contribution to this debate. It is entirely in order for him to speak at this particular moment.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
My Lords, it is entirely in order for me to speak at this moment. This being a Committee of the House, no doubt the noble Lord can speak afterwards. I do not think that anyone would suggest that it is not in order for me, having heard three hours and 10 minutes of the debate, to try to respond to some of the points that have been made.
The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester said that, being a theologian and a bishop, he was used to round numbers. I am only delighted that I do not have to argue a case for increasing the size of the House of Commons to 666.
The proposal of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, is for a House of Commons of around 650 seats rather than the 600 set out in the Bill. His amendment would not, however, set a fixed size for the other place; he used the word “anchored”, which is different and relates to the fact, as one or two noble Lords have indicated—possibly even the noble and learned Lord himself and indeed the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey—that there has been, over a period of years, a ratcheting up in the number of Members as the present arrangements are applied. It is possible that that could continue under the system proposed in the amendment, although the number would start at 650.
We are entitled to draw attention to the executive summary of the report that the British Academy commissioned on the Bill, which indicates:
“This new set of rules that the Boundary Commissions must apply is clear and consistent, and will ensure that equality of electorates predominates in defining Parliamentary constituencies while the frequency of redistributions will ensure that general elections are not held in constituencies defined on electoral data as much as 18 years old.”
The Bill’s proposal that the number of seats should be fixed such that the number could not increase over time is one benefit that will flow from our proposal.
Lord Wills
The noble and learned Lord is right that the Answer goes some partial way towards reassuring me, but I am afraid that it does not go all the way because he has not actually answered all the questions that I asked him. I also asked him about modelling that might have been done by the Conservative Party or within the Liberal Democrat Party. Can he confirm or deny that point? Equally, if he wants to have a look at the issue—I will accept his own reassurance on this, just as I accept the reassurance given by his colleague the noble Lord, Lord McNally—and make inquiries of those political parties and then come back to me, I would be perfectly happy with that. Can he address those particular questions now please?
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
I seem to recall that I started to get into this territory last week on the same circumstances. I was quickly told by a noble Lord opposite that I speak here for the Government rather than for an individual political party. I am unaware of any modelling that shows a political bias to the Labour Party or the Conservative Party and I am certainly unaware of what bias there might be to the Liberal Democrats. I have reflected on the point that both coalition parties were committed to a reduction in the size of the House of Commons and, although that pledge was qualified by the context in which it was made by the Liberal Democrats, I think that there is a general view that that should be the direction of travel.
Another issue that has generated considerable debate is the relative increase in the workload of Members of the other place. I think that the noble Baroness, Lady Liddell, called for some scientific analysis of that, but my noble friend Lord Baker of Dorking indicated that, in his experience from having been first returned as a Member of Parliament in the 1970s, I think, there is a considerable difference in the resources that were made available to Members of Parliament by the time that he left the other place. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester mentioned that there are now opportunities for Members of Parliament to communicate electronically with their constituents in a way that has never been possible before. It is a continually changing scene.
For me, the reason why a scientific analysis could never bear fruit—apart from the fact that it would produce 650 different responses—was evident in the exchange that took place between the former, esteemed Speaker of the other place, the noble Lord, Lord Martin of Springburn, and the noble Lords, Lord Rooker and Lord Campbell-Savours. The noble Lord, Lord Martin of Springburn, indicated that, as a Member of Parliament post devolution, if he received an issue that was properly the matter of the Scottish Parliament, he passed it on to the MSP or, if it was a council matter, to council officials. He also said that he did not answer everyone on a petition. Frankly, having been a Member of the other place—indeed, for a short time, I was the Member of Parliament for Shetland but not the MSP for Shetland—I would have done exactly the same in those circumstances. I do not think—although I may have done so once or twice—I generally made a habit of responding to everyone on a petition. However, the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, immediately took issue with that point, as did the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours. If two very senior former Members of the other place can take issue with the position of the former Speaker of the other place and both sides are being absolutely honest in their approach and about how they would do their work, how in the world is anyone going to quantify or evaluate what the workload of a Member of Parliament should be? There would be a wide divergence over what individual Members of Parliament think should be the case.
At the end of the day, the judge and jury in such matters are one’s constituents, when one seeks re-election. They know how well a Member of Parliament has represented their interests over the previous lifetime of a Parliament.
Lord Winston
The noble and learned Lord has addressed the question that I was about to ask. Is it not the constituents who matter? Is not that one of the issues with which we are faced? Should we not try to assess this in a more rational way? I do not really think that the analysis needs to be scientific, but it should be based on evidence. Earlier, the noble Lord, Lord Baker, cited Germany and one or two other places, where there is a completely haphazard and arbitrary method of representation. Perhaps if we were to have a really satisfactory Parliament, we would try to research what would be ideal to ensure that constituents are represented and looked after better.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
In my experience, different Members of Parliament have different ways in which they think they should address their constituents’ problems and issues. It would be invidious to say that one was right and one was wrong, because different people can take a different approach. That may relate to the character and personality of the individual Member of Parliament, which may also determine what is right and what is wrong. At the end of the day, the constituents should decide.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean
Is not the different behaviour of the Members of Parliament determined by the size of their majority? When I had a majority of 503, I would have written to everyone whose name appeared on a petition. If you have a safe seat, you take a different view. Generally speaking, I think that all Members of Parliament work for their constituents, but it does not half concentrate the mind when you have a small majority.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
My noble friend makes a good point. The noble Lord, Lord Rooker, said that he honed his skills when answering every petition when he had a majority of about 400, although he said that he also did so when he had a majority of 18,000. That just shows that there are different approaches. I do not think that anyone has the answer for what is absolutely right and what is wrong, but a scientific inquiry would not find an answer either—other than possibly 650 different answers.
Lord Campbell-Savours
On the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, if the issue is that in safer seats the whole process of representation is conducted in a different way, surely there should be an evaluation as to what extent there would be considerably more safer seats arising out of a reduction to 600. If it could be shown that there would be more safer seats, that may be a very strong argument against the change.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
Even given a very short time to think about that point, I think that that is something of a non sequitur. There may be other ways in which we want to debate having safer seats.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, asked how the gender balance would be affected by the proposals. The equality impact assessment attached in an annexe to the Bill suggests that the effect would be neutral, but it is fair to say for the record—she asked about the commitments of the respective parties to diversity—that the Liberal Democrats have instituted a campaign for gender balance to provide encouragement and support, through a range of training, for women who are standing or considering standing for Parliament. The Conservative Party has a five-point positive action plan based on clear principles to guarantee that more women and ethnic minorities are selected for winnable seats. More pertinently, I recall from debating the Equality Bill in this Chamber before the election—now the Equality Act—that there are now specific duties on political parties.
Someone asked about the timing of the measure and suggested that it was not so urgent. However, if the Boundary Commission is to get on with its work of making proposals and recommendations in a report by 1 October by 2013 so that the 2015 general election can be fought on boundaries using an updated constituency electoral register, clearly there is a timing issue here as well.
I conclude with the words of my noble friend Lord Baker that these proposals to reduce the number of MPs to 600 would not impair the workings of democracy in the United Kingdom by having a smaller House of Commons. I commend that view to your Lordships' House and, on that basis, ask the noble and learned Lord to withdraw his amendment.