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Oral Answers to Questions
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Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)
1. What steps she plans to take to amend the licensing regime affecting the sale of alcohol.
Gordon Henderson (Sittingbourne and Sheppey) (Con)
2. What steps she plans to take to amend the licensing regime affecting the sale of alcohol.
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mrs Theresa May)
The Government are taking forward proposals in the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill to reform the alcohol licensing regime. These include charging a fee for late-night licences, making it easier for communities to have their say on local licensing matters, doubling the fine to £20,000 for those found persistently selling alcohol to children and overhauling the temporary event notices so that existing loopholes can no longer be exploited.
Fiona Bruce
The Cheshire ArcAngel team does excellent work to combat under-age drinking and sales to under-age drinkers, including working with responsible retailers. Licensing officers inform me, however, that current procedures make enforcement action unwieldy and protracted, even when a sale to an under-age individual has clearly occurred. Will the Minister look into enforcement difficulties, such as problems identifying which salesperson to prosecute, the tactic of a swift change of a named licence holder making closure notices hard to apply and the omission of a power to require mandatory staff retraining?
Mrs May
I thank my hon. Friend for that question and join her in commending the work of ArcAngel in Cheshire. The work that it does is similar to that of other groups throughout the country. Certainly it is important for us not only to change the legislation to ensure that the things I set out in my original answer occur, but to ensure that enforcement takes place properly. I am sure we will be happy to look at the particular issues that she raises in relation to the difficulty of enforcement.
Gordon Henderson
A few weeks back, I spent a Friday night out on the streets of Sheerness with my local police licensing officer, backed up by a team of community policemen, checking out licensed premises in an effort to combat alcohol-related antisocial behaviour. I was deeply impressed by the licensing officer’s professionalism and the dedicated way he went about his business. Does my right hon. Friend agree that, as police forces look to reduce the number of back-office staff, one area that should not be cut is licence enforcement?
Mrs May
I thank my hon. Friend for his question and commend him for going out with the licensing officer to see what is done in practice. Of course, licence enforcement is an important part of policing. It is not for us to tell chief constables how to allocate their resources, but they will look to ensure that they have the right mix of police officers and police staff to ensure that the licensing law is abided by and enforced.
Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)
As the Home Secretary knows, 50% of crimes are alcohol-related, according to the British crime survey. May I welcome the Government’s proposals for a minimum price for alcohol? They are of course in keeping with the recommendations that the Home Affairs Committee made last year, but will she look at the level of pricing? She is putting it at 21p per unit, whereas health campaigners say that it should be 50p per unit. Let us make this a genuine exercise, not just a box-ticking exercise.
Mrs May
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his question, and I also commend the Home Affairs Committee for its work in this and a number of other areas. He refers to a minimum price for alcohol, but we are banning below-cost sales of alcohol, and we have set that cost at VAT plus duty. That is slightly different from a minimum per unit price for alcohol, but it is important to recognise that, in relation to cracking down on problem drinking, we have taken not only that step but a number of other measures of the sort that I set out in my earlier response.
Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
In reviewing the Licensing Act 2003, is the Secretary of State satisfied that police forces and local authorities throughout the country are using their existing powers as much as they should? Does the late night levy proposal, aimed at reflecting the cost of policing the late-night economy, risk being an additional tax burden on local businesses while the policing that they receive in return still falls as a result of the 20% cuts in police budgets?
Mrs May
I refer the hon. Lady to the actions of the Labour Government in introducing alcohol disorder zones. Yes, we are reviewing the Licensing Act 2003 that they brought in, because far from introducing the café-style culture that Tony Blair said it would bring, it did the exact opposite. Sadly, we have yet again seen increases in incidents relating to alcohol, and in admissions to hospital owing to alcohol-related injuries. That is why the coalition Government are taking the steps that are necessary to deal with problem drinking and giving local areas the ability to deal with their licensing problems.
Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)
I welcome the Government’s commitment to tackling the debilitating impact of alcohol abuse. By how many do the Government expect the recently announced measures to reduce the number of alcohol-related deaths? If they are unsuccessful in that, will the Government consider banning alcohol sales below a cost that includes production and transport costs?
Jim McGovern (Dundee West) (Lab)
3. What assessment she has made of the effects on Scotland of the limit on immigration.
The Minister for Immigration (Damian Green)
A full impact assessment covering the whole of the UK will be published when we lay new immigration rules in March to implement the changes that will introduce the new limits from April. As the hon. Gentleman knows, immigration is not a devolved matter.
Jim McGovern
I thank the Minister for his response. In my constituency, there are two universities and a number of successful science and technology companies. I have been presented with cases at my constituency surgery in which promising employees and students have been rejected simply because the immigration limits have been reached. Those people are highly qualified and would be of significant benefit to the Dundee and UK economies. How can we simply turn them away?
Damian Green
As the hon. Gentleman knows, the purpose of the limit is to meet the need to control Britain’s immigration system in a way that enables businesses to bring in the skilled workers that they need. I remind him and employers in Scotland that the unemployment rate in Scotland is above the UK average, at 8.4% compared with 7.8% for the UK. We should have regard to the needs of Scottish workers when companies look to recruit.
Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)
When one of my great-grandfathers left the Gordon Highlanders as a pipe major, he could not find work in Scotland. Like many Scots, he came south to England. If there are job vacancies in Scotland, should people not be thinking of moving the other way? Is it not a bit strange for the Opposition to be on the one hand bemoaning unemployment levels, and on the other hand campaigning for higher immigration levels?
Damian Green
My hon. Friend makes exactly the right point. It was the previous Prime Minister who made the unfortunate point about British jobs for British workers at a time when British workers were not taking the majority of the jobs available in this country. This Government are determined to balance the economy better in many ways, in particular by ensuring that as many of the available jobs as possible are available to workers in Britain and, indeed, Scotland.
Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)
I think that everybody in Scotland is getting tired of the complacent response on these issues. The Minister has managed to unite all businesses, all universities, the health sector and all employers in Scotland in opposition to the immigration cap, because of the damage it will do to the Scottish economy. When will he acknowledge that Scotland’s population issues are entirely different from England’s? Will he accept that one cap does not fit all when it comes to immigration?
Damian Green
There are indeed differences in Scotland, and one is that unemployment in Scotland is higher than in England, and higher than the average for the rest of the UK. I dare say that those who are complaining about this matter do not include workers in Scotland, and do not include the unemployed in Scotland.
Julie Elliott (Sunderland Central) (Lab)
4. What funding her Department plans to provide for youth services during the comprehensive spending review period.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Lynne Featherstone)
As the Home Secretary told the House during oral questions in December, the Home Office does not provide youth services. However, it does contribute towards local youth crime prevention work, including youth offending teams and family intervention work. We will continue to fund activities that divert young people from crime and will set out our plans for future funding in due course.
Julie Elliott
Northumbria police are proposing massive cuts in support staff, which will take front-line officers off the streets, including those who work on youth crime prevention, to do back-room jobs that are currently being done by support staff. Will the Minister explain how that will not result in the level of crime going up in Sunderland and Northumbria?
Lynne Featherstone
Our challenge is to use the resources that we have in the most effective way possible by freeing up officer time to deal with crime. Front-line services will always matter most to the public. It is up to the local force in Northumberland how to deploy its forces, but other forces are increasing their front-line staff, so perhaps Northumberland should follow suit.
Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)
I accept what my hon. Friend the Minister says about her Department not having direct responsibility for the matter, but can she assure me that it and the police will contribute to the review of youth provision led by the Department for Education? There is a lot of learning and expertise in community engagement to be gained by the Home Office and the police.
Lynne Featherstone
I absolutely agree with my right hon. Friend. There is a lot that we can learn, and we will listen to all that comes out of the review and work with the Department for Education. As he will know, youth services are provided by that Department and not the Home Office, but we work closely together.
Alun Michael (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)
But does the Minister understand the basic principles of the matter? Youth services are essential to directing young people into positive engagement, and they are better and more cost-effective for the Home Office than dealing with the consequences after young people have got involved in crime. Will she and other Home Office Ministers understand and pursue that, in the way that was suggested in the Justice Committee’s report on justice reinvestment?
Lynne Featherstone
That is exactly why the Department for Education’s early intervention grant, worth £2.2 billion in 2011-12, is in place. Early indications of how local areas might make best use of that grant were given in December 2010. It will give them the flexibility to target funding on early interventions, which, as the right hon. Gentleman said, are absolutely vital.
Julian Smith (Skipton and Ripon) (Con)
5. What assessment she has made of the challenges faced by police forces required to police large rural areas.
The Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice (Nick Herbert)
Rural areas can present challenges for policing because of their geographical size and the remoteness of their communities. The Government’s reform programme to reduce bureaucracy will help policing in rural and urban areas alike.
Julian Smith
I thank my right hon. Friend. Will he urge police forces to work much more closely with fire services and others to share back offices and facilities in rural areas and save taxpayers’ money?
Nick Herbert
The short answer is yes. Police forces could make huge savings by collaborating with each other and with other authorities. An example is the proposed national police air service, which will save £15 million a year once it is fully in place. I hope that police authorities will agree to it.
Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Lab/Co-op)
Would it not be a mistake to prop up rural police funding by plundering the police resources of urban areas? For example, many people in my constituency are worried about the future of Sherwood police station. Why are the Government cutting the most from the least well-off communities?
Nick Herbert
I agree with the hon. Gentleman that that would be a mistake, and we certainly do not make funding allocations on that basis. Of course police forces have had to make savings, but we have decided that the fairest approach is to ensure that all forces make an equal share of the savings. The majority of grant is, of course, allocated according to the formula.
Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)
Although co-operation among forces, and indeed between the police, ambulance and fire services, is essential, as the Minister correctly suggests, does he not agree that there is a real risk that if a rural police force such as mine in Wiltshire were to co-operate too closely with, say, Bristol on one side or Swindon or Reading on the other, resources would be pulled out of the rural areas and into the urban ones? Keeping a rural police service is extremely important.
Nick Herbert
I strongly agree with my hon. Friend about the importance of keeping rural policing services. In the end, these are matters for the determination of chief constables, who must remain operationally independent and allocate resources properly, and their police authorities. We do not seek to interfere with that, but we do seek to drive savings where they can be made by greater collaboration between forces.
Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)
The chief constable of North Wales says that it will be impossible to protect front-line services with cuts of £22.6 million over the next four years. Will the Prime Minister please tell us—[Interruption.] I apologise for what may appear to be a promotion. Will the Minister explain what assessment he has made of those figures?
Nick Herbert
That is easily the nicest thing that has been said to me since I have been in this job—indeed, it may be the only nice thing.
I want to discuss these issues with the chief constable of North Wales. We believe that by making significant savings in their back and middle offices, by sharing services and by improving procurement, it is possible for police forces to deal with funding reductions while protecting front-line services. It is up to the police authority and the chief constable to do everything they can to ensure that that is the case.
Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)
6. What recent progress has been made towards the Government’s commitment to reduce net migration.
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mrs Theresa May)
We have already announced that we will introduce a new permanent limit on non-EU economic migrants, with a reduction in visas from tiers 1 and 2 in the next financial year from 28,000 to 21,700. Those changes to the economic routes will be introduced in April. We are currently consulting on changes to tighten the student route and will consult on family and settlement later this year.
Gareth Johnson
I am grateful to the Home Secretary for her answer. I am sure she agrees that reducing net immigration is essential to the United Kingdom. How successful was the points-based system in controlling immigration to this country?
Mrs May
My hon. Friend is right, and that is why the Government have the aim of reducing net migration to tens of thousands from the hundreds of thousands. Of course, it reached the hundreds of thousands under the points-based system that the previous Government operated. However, the problem was not the points-based system, but the fact that the previous Government had no proper policy for ensuring that immigration was brought under control. This Government will ensure that immigration is controlled and that net migration is reduced.
Shabana Mahmood (Birmingham, Ladywood) (Lab)
What is the exact reduction that the Secretary of State will achieve in the net migration figures this year and in each year up to 2015 to fulfil the firm pledge, which she appears to have again relegated to the status of an aim, to cut net migration to the tens of thousands by 2015? [Interruption.]
Mrs May
As one of my hon. Friends just said, “Nice try.” Of course, I am unable to give the hon. Lady an exact figure for net migration this year. There will be people across the world who have not decided whether they want to apply to come to the UK, and people in the UK who have not yet decided whether they want to leave. Nobody knows exactly what that figure will be.
Mr Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
7. What steps she plans to take to control student immigration from non-EU states.
Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)
11. What steps she is taking to control levels of student immigration from non-EU states.
The Minister for Immigration (Damian Green)
The Government launched a public consultation on proposed changes to the student visa arrangements on 7 December 2010. The proposals will result in a more selective system and reduce the numbers to support our aim of reducing net migration to sustainable levels.
Damian Green
It is an extremely important part of the overall reduction that we need. Taking action on students is particularly important as they make up roughly two thirds of non-European economic area immigrants, and the number of student visas issued has been rising in recent years. Getting a proper grip on the out-of-control system that we inherited requires action on all the main routes of immigration, and that is precisely what the Government will do.
Andrew Selous
Will my hon. Friend reassure me that in future there will be robust checks on the departure of all foreign students whose visas have expired?
Damian Green
Yes, we are proceeding with the e-Borders system, which already manages to track the journeys of roughly 55% of those who come in and out of the country. By the end of the Parliament, that figure will be up to mid-90%. My hon. Friend identifies a key problem: it is not just a question of who comes but of how long they stay and whether they go at the end of their stay.
Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)
In taking the action on students about which the Minister has spoken, will he acknowledge the importance of non-EU students to British institutions of higher education and learning? Will he ensure that he clamps down on the bogus colleges that have violated those students’ expectations?
Damian Green
I am happy to agree with both points in the hon. Gentleman’s question. Of course we want our universities to flourish and the brightest and best students to come to this country and study at good, genuine institutions. However, we are already cracking down on the bogus colleges and on those that do not provide a proper education. The significance of the distinction between those two things, which the hon. Gentleman rightly makes, is that more than 40% of those who come here on student visas study at below degree level. Often, the public perception of a student as somebody who studies at a university is simply wrong in the case of those who come here from abroad on student visas.
Mr Gerry Sutcliffe (Bradford South) (Lab)
But if, as the Minister says, 40% of students are on below-degree courses, his policy could have a major impact on the funding of colleges and universities. Has he had discussions with Government colleagues about the impact of achieving the 40% reduction that he is apparently looking for?
Damian Green
I welcome the hon. Gentleman to his first Home Office questions as the Labour party’s immigration spokesman. Yes, of course we have extensive discussions within the Government on the effects of the controls that we will introduce. He will have seen that very surprising numbers of people come here to do sub-degree courses not at public further education colleges but at privately funded colleges. He will be aware that there are many hundreds of those colleges, and that they are—frankly—of variable quality.
Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)
8. What estimate she has made of the change in the level of crime since 1997.
The Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice (Nick Herbert)
The two main measures of crime—the British crime survey and police recorded crime—provide either a partial or confusing picture of trends in crime since 1997. It is crucial that we have a measure of crime in which the public have confidence. That is why we have asked the national statistician to lead an independent review of how it is produced.
Barbara Keeley
The picture of crime in Greater Manchester is neither partial nor confusing—between 1998 and 2009, the number of police officers rose by 1,200 and crime fell by a third. However, with the cuts imposed by this Government, Greater Manchester police will lose 1,400 police officers. Our chief constable told the Select Committee on Home Affairs that that will mean changes to policing, fewer police on the streets and a lesser service. What does the Minister—in his current role or any future exalted one—plan to do if the Government’s cuts lead to a rise in crime, as my constituents fear they will?
Nick Herbert
I should first of all point out to the hon. Lady what the chief constable of Greater Manchester police actually said. He said that
“the end result will be more resources put into frontline policing and a more efficient and effective service for the people of Greater Manchester.”
If she is going to mount her attack on the basis of police numbers falling, perhaps she will reflect on the fact that police numbers in Greater Manchester fell in the last year of the Labour Government.
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
Under the previous Government, more than 4,000 new offences were created—an average of 28 new offences for every month of that Government. Does my right hon. Friend agree that we should not have a deluge of new offences under this Government?
Nick Herbert
I agree with my hon. Friend that the previous Government’s record was repeatedly to introduce criminal justice Bills and to create more and more offences. This Government want to ensure that the police can focus on crime fighting rather than on form writing and the bureaucracy that they were landed with by the previous Government.
Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)
As the British crime survey was established by the previous Conservative Administration to produce greater accuracy in assessing levels of crime, why does the right hon. Gentleman not show the same courage as the former Home Secretary, now Lord Howard, and simply admit that crime went up inexorably until 1995, and that since then, on the Conservative’s own measure, crime has consistently fallen to one of the lowest levels that we have seen in three decades?
Nick Herbert
I note that on the right hon. Gentleman’s measure, crime started to fall two years before the advent of a Labour Government. He knows as well as I do that the British crime survey excludes important crimes—those against young people and property—and we therefore believe it is important that we have measures in which the public can have confidence. That is why we have asked the national statistician to conduct an independent review of those matters. I urge him and Opposition Members to join us in giving evidence to the national statistician. Let us reach a measure in which we can all trust and have confidence.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that a DNA database, CCTV cameras and having as many criminals in prison as possible all contribute to a reduced level of crime? Would he like to comment on what impact the Government’s plans will have on levels of crime in future?
Nick Herbert
As so often, I do not agree entirely with my hon. Friend. Of course, the national DNA database and CCTV are important, but it is equally important that there is proper governance of them and that we achieve a proper balance between civil liberties and crime-fighting measures.
Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to be working once again opposite the Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May). I am only sorry not to be asking my first Home Affairs question of her.
The Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice said that there is no link between the number of police officers and the level of crime. However, the Birmingham Mail has reported that some parts of Birmingham have already seen a recruitment freeze, a cut in the number of officers in the neighbourhood team and a significant increase in the number of burglaries in the past nine months. The local police, who are being put in a very difficult position by the Government, have said that they are struggling to fight crime in the area as a result. Does he still stand by his claim or will he admit, to the police and the public, that he has got it wrong?
Nick Herbert
May I first welcome the right hon. Lady to her post? I look forward to debating these issues with her, although I hope she will not follow the poor example of her successor—[Laughter.] I mean her predecessor. I hope that she will not follow his poor example by partially quoting Government Members. I did not say that there was no link, and she should know that. Instead, I should point out something said by somebody with whom I believe she has regular conversations: that this was a tighter environment for police spending, and would be under any Government. That was what the new shadow Chancellor said to the Home Affairs Committee on 22 November 2010, when he was shadow Home Secretary.
Jo Swinson (East Dunbartonshire) (LD)
9. What factors she took into account in reaching her decision to merge the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre and the national crime agency.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (James Brokenshire)
Protecting vulnerable children is an absolute priority for the Government, and we believe that the work of CEOP is central to ensuring that children are protected at a national level. Whatever final decision we make on the future status of CEOP, we will carefully take full account of the particular characteristics needed to ensure that CEOP continues to thrive in the future.
Jo Swinson
CEOP is well respected for the excellent work it does, including in improving protection on social media—for example, the panic button on Facebook. The resignation of Jim Gamble will cause great concern to many parents, so what reassurance can the Government give that child safety online will be prioritised and enhanced under the new structure, and certainly in no way compromised?
James Brokenshire
I thank the hon. Lady for her comments because they allow me to underline the Government’s gratitude for the continuing work of CEOP and the importance that we place on it. That has certainly been highlighted by the thematic assessment that it is undertaking of the appalling incidents uncovered as a consequence of Operation Retriever. We are looking closely at the specific characteristics that need to be retained to ensure that CEOP continues to thrive, including a clearly delegated authority for its budget, operational independence and the ability for external partners to continue to work alongside it. We regard CEOP as very significant, and will continue to support it.
Paul Goggins (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)
On that last point, I am sure that the Minister will acknowledge that one of CEOP’s great strengths is the partnerships it has created with the private sector and children’s organisations. What evidence can he give to the House, therefore, that under his proposals CEOP will continue to be able to raise about one third of its running costs from sources outside Government?
James Brokenshire
An important point to make is that some people have suggested that were we to decide that CEOP should form part of the new national crime agency, it would in some way change its characteristics. The right hon. Gentleman will know probably better than most that CEOP is already part of the Serious Organised Crime Agency, where it has been able to attract partners from the voluntary and community sector as well as the private sector. We are clear that that relationship needs to be maintained into the future, whatever the format or wherever CEOP sits when we finally reach our conclusions in the current review.
Vernon Coaker (Gedling) (Lab)
Cuts in police officer numbers will mean reductions in the numbers of specialist officers and specialist units. CEOP has been a great success, working with others to protect children. Children’s charities such as the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children and people such as Sara Payne oppose its merger with the new national crime agency. The Chair of the Home Affairs Committee has also expressed concern, and CEOP’S chief executive has resigned. Why are they all wrong and the Minister right?
James Brokenshire
We are still considering this issue, but the Home Secretary has said that her preferred option would be for CEOP to be part of the national crime agency, because of the strong links and the need for enforcement capability. However, we recognise the other functions that CEOP performs, which is why we are considering the matter carefully. It is also why I set out clearly the relevant factors and characteristics that we recognise in CEOP, and why we will ensure that it is protected.
Nicky Morgan (Loughborough) (Con)
12. What steps she plans to take to reduce the burden of regulation on police forces.
Sajid Javid (Bromsgrove) (Con)
18. What steps she plans to take to reduce the burden of regulation on police forces.
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mrs Theresa May)
We have removed central targets by scrapping the policing pledge and the public confidence target, and we will be abolishing the assessment of policing and community safety. We are also working with Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary to develop new, light-touch monitoring arrangements for police forces that will allow us to focus on performance, at the same time as reducing the inspection burden.
Nicky Morgan
I thank the Secretary of State for her answer. Police community support officers and police officers are a valuable resource in the communities that they serve in Loughborough and surrounding villages. Does my right hon. Friend agree that where savings need to be made, Leicestershire police force and others should be looking at the back office for those savings, not the front line?
Mrs May
I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. It is possible for police forces to make significant savings in the back office, and that is where they should look first. We are helping them by scrapping the stop form and reducing what needs to be recorded on the stop-and-search form. We will save 800,000 hours of police time a year.
Sajid Javid
My local police force, West Mercia, finds itself involved in increasing amounts of social work. Although that is to be commended—such compassion is good—it draws resources away from fighting crime. Will my right hon. Friend commit to reviewing regulations and working with her Cabinet colleagues to look at the issue carefully and ensure that social work is carried out by dedicated social services, so that the police can focus on fighting crime?
Mrs May
I have made it absolutely clear to the police that their aim is to cut crime, but of course they work with other agencies, in a variety of ways, on the issues that they deal with. The important thing is that when such work takes place, it leads to effective action, whatever that action should be, and not, sadly, what used to happen, as we saw from HMIC’s report on the response to antisocial behaviour. All too often, meetings and partnership meetings took place just for the sake of it, rather than something being done on the ground to benefit people.
Mr Bob Ainsworth (Coventry North East) (Lab)
The Home Secretary appears to be continuing with the trend of what she has been saying, which is that the cuts in the police budget can be met by back-office cuts and reductions in regulation. In the west midlands there have been huge reductions in back-office staff and a freeze on police recruitment. Does she believe that the chief constable is just a fool, or is she in denial?
Mrs May
I was interested that the right hon. Gentleman’s initial comment was that he was grateful for some consistency from a Minister. Perhaps that was more a comment about the Labour Government, of whom he was a senior member, and the policies that they introduced. What I would say to him is indeed what I have been saying since I came into this role. It is possible for police forces to make significant savings in their budgets by making savings in the back office. HMIC reported that simply ensuring that all police forces met average efficiency levels could save 12% in their budgets, which does not take into account issues such as procurement, IT procurement and the potential for a two-year pay freeze, were that to be agreed by the police negotiating board.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
One way to reduce the burdens on front-line police is to have a team of support staff in place to do many of the tasks necessary to bring about successful convictions. Does the Home Secretary not understand the anger and dismay of people across Greater Manchester, who are set to lose not only almost 1,400 front-line police officers, but 1,500 support staff? Will she think again?
Mrs May
One way to release the police to do the job that the public want them to be doing, on the front line, is to get rid of the bureaucracy that was introduced by the last, Labour Government, which ties too many police officers up behind a desk, so that they are not out there on the streets.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
13. What recent estimate she has made of the effects of the outcomes of the comprehensive spending review on police numbers in south Wales.
The Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice (Nick Herbert)
It is for the police authority and chief constable to determine the number of officers in south Wales within the available resource. The Government are determined to help forces protect the front line by reducing costs and bureaucracy.
Kevin Brennan
It is quite clear that there are going to be huge reductions in the number of police officers in south Wales and elsewhere. Will the Minister tell the House exactly when the Conservative party decided that it was no longer interested in being known as the party of law and order?
Nick Herbert
I do not accept what the hon. Gentleman says. We have to deal with a budget deficit bequeathed to us by the previous Government. The police service spends some £13 billion a year, and it can contribute to the savings that have to be made. Those on the Labour Benches have conceded that police forces can save more than £1 billion a year without affecting the front line.
Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)
14. What funding her Department will make available during the spending review period for the implementation of family intervention projects.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Lynne Featherstone)
From April 2011, funding decisions on specific early intervention priorities, including family intervention projects, will be devolved to local areas. The Department for Education’s new early intervention grant, worth £2.2 billion in 2011-12, will give local authorities the flexibility that they need to plan how best to use central Government funding for local services according to local priorities.
Mrs Hodgson
Earlier today, the former shadow Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), said that, without Andy Coulson, the Government would lack any idea about what the priorities of the general public were. I can inform the Minister that one of the major priorities for most of the general public is antisocial behaviour, and that family intervention projects are a proven way of nipping that problem in the bud. Can she guarantee that, even without the man-of-the-people guidance of Mr Coulson, important but low-profile projects such as family intervention projects will continue to be a funding priority?
Lynne Featherstone
I am not sure that the hon. Lady was listening to my earlier response, in which I said that the Department for Education had already allocated £2.2 billion for 2011-12. There will be almost £2.3 billion in 2012-13. I do not think that that suggests that we do not think this is important.
Simon Kirby (Brighton, Kemptown) (Con)
Does the Minister agree that, in the past, there has been far too much duplication in the public services, and that a more holistic approach would not only benefit families but save money?
Lynne Featherstone
My hon. Friend is entirely right. A great deal of money is spent on chaotic families, who, up to now, have had a series of agencies trying to help them. The move to a single key worker will save an enormous amount. The original estimate was between £250,000 and £300,000, but with a specially allocated key worker and early intervention, the cost could be as low as £14,000.
Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)
15. What estimate she has made of the likely change in the number of UK Border Agency staff as a result of the outcome of the comprehensive spending review.
The Minister for Immigration (Damian Green)
The UK Border Agency has estimated that the number of UK Border Agency staff will reduce by about 5,200 during the spending review period.
Kelvin Hopkins
We deal with hundreds of immigration cases in my constituency every year. While the situation undoubtedly improved under the previous Government, there are still substantial delays in the UK Border Agency’s dealing with cases. May I suggest to the Minister that we need an increase in staff, not a reduction?
Damian Green
I am interested to hear that those on the Labour Back Benches are still calling for public spending increases. It will be interesting to see what those on the hon. Gentleman’s Front Bench say about that. He is wrong in several respects. The UK Border Agency is getting better, and it will get better still. It will do that in two ways. First, we will replace the costly and outmoded paperwork that it depended on in the past with the appropriate use of new technology. Secondly, the very use of that technology will mean that we can better target our resources of people and money on those who are most likely to cause harm to the UK. So we will be able to provide a better service, even with fewer staff.
Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)
What estimates has the Minister made of the number of staff that would be required if the UK Border Agency got its decisions right the first time?
Damian Green
My hon. Friend makes a very good point. The higher the quality of the initial decision making, the fewer resources of money and people will be needed later. Part of the reason for having the new technology—new ways of applying for visas, for example —is that we will be able to use senior and more experienced staff to take the initial decisions, so that more of them can be got right first time.
Mr David Crausby (Bolton North East) (Lab)
16. What estimate she has made of the number of police officers in Bolton (a) on the latest date for which figures are available and (b) at the end of 2014-15.
The Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice (Nick Herbert)
Bolton Metropolitan borough division had 527 police officers on 31 March 2010. It is not possible to forecast the position in 2014-15. It is a matter for the chief constable and the police authority to determine the number of police officers and other staff that are deployed to Bolton.
Mr Crausby
Well, the Minister might be in denial about the numbers in 2014, but the rest of us know that under this Government there will be fewer police officers in Bolton in that year than there are now. After all those years in opposition making a case for having more bobbies on the beat, how can this Government retain any credibility without admitting that fewer police officers will mean more crime?
Nick Herbert
Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will pay more attention to what the chief constable of the Greater Midlands—[Hon. Members: “Greater Manchester”]—police is saying. I am sorry, I mean the chief constable of the Greater Manchester police. He told The Bolton News that cuts would not affect the front line and went on to say that there was “no reason” why crime should go up. He pointed out to the Home Affairs Committee that some of the force’s headquarters operations had got too big and that some police officer numbers had been kept artificially high. He said that they had lots of police officers doing administrative posts just to hit that number.
Gavin Shuker (Luton South) (Lab/Co-op)
17. What recent assessment she has made of the extent of the activities of the English Defence League.
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mrs Theresa May)
The Government work with a range of partners to assess the activities of the English Defence League and its impact on communities, in order to inform Government policy on tackling extremism, promoting integration and managing public order challenges.
Gavin Shuker
On Saturday 5 February, the English Defence League will rally in Luton, leading to the biggest police operations in Bedfordshire’s history. Although there are undoubted concerns about short-term public order offences, does the Home Secretary share my concern and that of many of my constituents about the long-term effects on community cohesion resulting from this extremist group?
Mrs May
I do indeed share concerns about the EDL, its actions and its impact on communities when it marches. As I understand it, Bedfordshire police are looking very carefully at the policing arrangements for the march in Luton. We should all be aware of the damage that the EDL’s divisive message can do to communities.
Paul Uppal (Wolverhampton South West) (Con)
Can the Home Secretary do anything to address the issue of the internet, which is having the effect of radicalising young people on both sides of the political spectrum?
Mrs May
My hon. Friend has raised an extremely important issue, to which we need to pay close attention. It is much harder these days—precisely because of the internet—to ensure that young people do not find themselves exposed to these radicalising messages, and we have sadly seen some individuals radicalised by access to it. This is a matter that the Government take very seriously; we are talking with partners about it.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
T1. If she will make a statement on her departmental responsibilities.
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mrs Theresa May)
At the end of last year, Parliament passed the Identity Documents Act 2010, which the Home Office introduced to scrap the previous Government’s regime of intrusive, ineffective and expensive ID cards. In 2011, we will take further steps towards restoring the rights of individuals, eliminating wasteful bureaucracy and making the police service more accountable to local people.
Bob Blackman
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on the steps she is taking to sort out the chaotic immigration system that she inherited. Issues of concern include students who come to this country on a temporary basis, but fail to leave; and people who come as visitors, who overstay their welcome and then attempt to transfer to permanent status. What moves is she making to break that link?
Mrs May
We are making a number of moves. As my hon. Friend the Minister for Immigration said in response to an earlier question, we are looking at the student visa route and ensuring that we can stop abuses pertaining to it. We are also looking at stopping people here on a temporary basis moving on to a permanent settlement basis. Last year, 62,000 people who came here to fill temporary skills gaps then moved into permanent settlement. That is not right.
Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)
I shall ask the Home Secretary about the counter-terrorism review. On Thursday, the Minister for Immigration had to be dragged to the House to tell us Government policy on pre-trial detention. He told us that emergency legislation would be kept on hand in the Library of the House. The old powers lapse at midnight, yet as of half an hour ago, there was still no draft emergency legislation in the Library. On Sunday, the Deputy Prime Minister told the media that control orders were being abolished and at lunch time today, the BBC—not this House—was briefed that the new measures would include tagging and overnight residence requirements and would look a lot like control orders. This is a chaotic, shambolic and cavalier process. Where is the draft legislation? Will the Home Secretary now tell us what is happening with the legislation and with control orders, and will she take the opportunity to apologise for this shambolic process on such an important issue?
Mrs May
First, may I welcome the right hon. Lady to her new post as shadow Home Secretary? I am sure that she will enjoy the post. She is the third shadow Home Secretary I have faced in my nine months as Home Secretary. For her sake, I hope that she stays longer in the role than her predecessors have.
The right hon. Lady makes a point about process and refers to the 28-day pre-charge detention issue. May I say to her that the previous shadow Home Secretary clearly supported the Government on taking pre-charge detention down from 28 days to 14 days? Earlier today, the shadow Home Secretary was unfortunately unable to answer the question whether she supported 14 days’ pre-charge detention. If she is interested in chaos, she should look at sorting out her own policy.
Sarah Newton (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)
T3. Will my hon. Friend the Minister meet me and Detective Inspector Snell to learn how Devon and Cornwall constabulary have been able to tackle the growing incidence of child sexual exploitation, so that the Government can develop a holistic plan of action to tackle a most serious situation involving thousands of children in every part of the country?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (James Brokenshire)
I thank my hon. Friend for raising the point and for highlighting the work of Devon and Cornwall police on Operation Lakeland, which led to the conviction of six men jailed for sexually abusing girls in Cornwall. I would be happy to meet her and the detective inspector to learn from their experiences. She will be aware of the thematic review that the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre is undertaking in relation to this area of policy. I am also discussing with the Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), some of the significant matters highlighted by the recent report by Barnardo’s.
Hazel Blears (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)
T2. Contrary to the assertion of the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice, the chief constable of Greater Manchester, Peter Fahy, has said that £134 million of cuts will have a significant effect on front-line policing. He has gone on to say that police stations across Greater Manchester will now have to close. Does the Minister think that police stations are front-line? Will he tell us which police stations in Greater Manchester will close and when?
The Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice (Nick Herbert)
The closure of police stations is an operational matter for the police, but the right hon. Lady should know perfectly well that under the previous Labour Government some 400 police stations closed. What responsibility does she accept for that?
Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)
T4. In my constituency, there is a healthy appetite for more policemen actually on the beat. Will the Minister join me in welcoming the fact that the chief constable of Gloucestershire has reorganised his force and has increased the number of policemen on the beat, from 563 to 661?
Nick Herbert
I welcome the action taken in Gloucestershire. The chair of its police authority has said that
“we are making sure that what we do is increase our capacity to police and not increase our costs.”
That shows that it can be done. Other forces are either protecting neighbourhood policing or even increasing it. I note that the chair of Gloucestershire police authority is also the chairman of the Association of Police Authorities.
Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab)
T6. Year after year, my constituents tell me that their greatest concern is fear of crime. That is why they have fought hard to get 10 safer neighbourhood teams. Because of the cuts, the local police force is now consulting not on merging back offices or services, but on cutting those 10 safer neighbourhood teams down to two or three. Does the Minister believe that those cuts will help my constituents fear crime less, or make them less likely to be victims of crime?
Nick Herbert
I have had several discussions with the Mayor, the deputy Mayor for policing and the acting Metropolitan Police Commissioner, all of whom are absolutely committed to protecting neighbourhood policing. We are all convinced that it is possible to drive considerable savings in policing, including the Met, in the back and middle office, so that the visible and available policing that the public value can be protected.
Karen Lumley (Redditch) (Con)
T5. I congratulate the UK Border Agency on its work. At the weekend, it caught five illegal immigrants on the French border who had been making their way to my constituency in a lorry. I welcome the increased border policing on the other side of the channel, but what further steps will the Department take to ensure that stronger measures are introduced to deter those who try to smuggle people into the United Kingdom?
The Minister for Immigration (Damian Green)
I am delighted to hear that the effective controls that we are reinforcing at the border are having a beneficial effect in my hon. Friend’s constituency. She asked about further measures. I am happy to tell her that only a couple of months ago, at the Anglo-French summit, I signed a new treaty with my French counterpart which commits both countries to increasing the strength of our existing controls in Calais and extending them to other parts of the French coast. That means that we will be equally tough on any activity that is displaced from Calais to other parts of France. We are ensuring that our borders are much better controlled than they were in the past.
Mr Dave Watts (St Helens North) (Lab)
T8. Is the Government’s position that the number of police officers and community support officers in this country has no impact on crime levels?
Mrs May
Both the Policing Minister and I have responded to that point on a number of occasions. We have made it absolutely clear that there is no simple link between the number of officers and the level of crime. There are instances throughout the world in which police forces have increased their numbers and crime has risen, and other instances in which police numbers have fallen and crime has fallen.
Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con)
T7. Last year, nearly half of all violent crime in Devon was alcohol-related. That represents 4,568 instances of completely avoidable violence. I welcome the introduction of a ban on below-cost sales of alcohol as a first step, but does the Minister share my fear that, because it involves only VAT plus duty, it will not go far enough in tackling this serious problem? What other measures will be introduced to tackle alcohol-related crime?
James Brokenshire
My hon. Friend is right to highlight the link between alcohol and levels of crime. In fact, 50% of violent incidents are associated with alcohol. Our proposal to ban below-cost sales on the basis of duty plus VAT constitutes an initial package. We will introduce further measures to deal with licensing and other issues involving problem pubs and other alcohol outlets, and also with problem practices. That is precisely what the duty plus VAT element is about.
We will continue to monitor this complex area of policy. In particular, we will consider the rate of duty in the context of super-strength lagers, which have been associated with problematic behaviour.
Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)
T10. Why are the Government—unlike the Governments of other European countries which are increasing the support for the victims of trafficking—proposing to reduce the period during which a victim of trafficking will not face deportation from 45 days to 30 days?
Damian Green
The hon. Lady knows that the United Kingdom is committed to working with others, including our European partners, to tackle human trafficking. She was present for the debate in which I said that later in the year we would announce a new strategy on trafficking as a whole. That strategy will enable us not only to build on the work of the last Government in relation to caring for the victims of trafficking—which I commend—but to become much more efficient at prevention, in particular by acting overseas, so that fewer and fewer people are trafficked in the first place. That is the most effective action that we can take to reduce the incidence of this dreadful crime.
Julian Smith (Skipton and Ripon) (Con)
T9. How concerned is the Minister about the increase in family violence towards young women who adopt values that are contrary to the beliefs of their families?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Lynne Featherstone)
Obviously the Government are very concerned. Any form of violence is unacceptable, and tackling violence against women and girls is a key priority for us. Work to tackle all forms of honour-based violence is included in the strategic narrative that we launched on 25 November, and further information about our approach to the issue will be provided in the supporting action plan that we will publish in the spring.
Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)
Further to the Minister’s answer on safer neighbourhood team policing, will he give a commitment that by this time next year there will continue to be a dedicated ward sergeant for every safer neighbourhood ward team, as now?
Nick Herbert
The hon. Lady should know that we cannot give commitments like that. The previous Government would not give commitments on police officer numbers. These are operational matters for the police. I point out to her that we have protected the neighbourhood policing fund, including by ring-fencing it for the next two years, because we value neighbourhood policing.
Greg Mulholland (Leeds North West) (LD)
Alcohol disorder zones did not work and they also penalised well-run community pubs that did nothing to contribute to alcohol-fuelled disorder. I am pleased that the Government are listening on this, but can the Minister reassure the House that the new late-night levy will make allowances for late-night community pubs, be that for one-off or once-a-year events, such as new year, or for staying open a little later at the weekends, as my excellent local, the Manor House in Otley, does? Will he assure us that they will not be penalised by a blanket charge?
James Brokenshire
The hon. Gentleman has rightly highlighted those responsible premises that act appropriately and reflect their communities. Our proposals in the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill on the late-night levy are intended to be an additional tool for local communities to decide what is appropriate for their area. We are learning from the cataclysmic failure of the previous Government’s alcohol disorder zones. They were simply incapable of being implemented, and it was therefore not surprising that nobody took them up.
Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)
Is the Home Secretary aware that in last Thursday’s exchanges on counter-terrorism there was criticism from those on her side, as well as those on our side, about the leaks to the media? Is it not important that the House of Commons should learn first of these things? That certainly has not happened in this case. Why on earth can we not have a statement today, instead of waiting until Wednesday or some other time?
Mrs May
We made absolutely clear to the House the procedure that we were going to follow on announcing the results of the counter-terrorism legislation review. On 13 January, my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House explained that a statement would be made this week, and last Thursday, in my absence abroad, the Minister for Immigration said that a statement will be made on Wednesday. Not only will that statement set out clearly the results of the review, but it will be accompanied by the publication of the review and the report of the independent reviewer, Lord Macdonald.
Jessica Lee (Erewash) (Con)
At my Friday surgery, I had the real privilege of meeting a constituent who volunteers at the local rape crisis centre. I say that not least because she, herself, has been a victim of the horrific crime of rape and has, none the less, given up her time to train and support others. Would my right hon. Friend like to thank volunteers who really do conduct themselves in this impressive way and give back to our communities on this difficult subject?
Lynne Featherstone
I thank my hon. Friend for her question. I think that Members on both sides of the House would acknowledge that volunteers do an incredible amount of work. That is particularly noticeable in the violence against women sector, where so many organisations work closely in small groups, particularly with minority communities. I thank her constituent for the work that she does.
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
Nottinghamshire is set to lose more than 300 police officers over the coming four years. What guarantee can the Minister give my constituents that crime in our city will continue to fall?
Mrs May
We have answered a similar question on a number of occasions, both today and previously. First, there is no simple link between the number of officers and the level of crime. Secondly, the decisions that the hon. Lady’s local force is taking about the deployment of particular police officers and about the number of officers and staff it has are operational matters for the police to address, within the resources available to them. We know that it is possible for significant savings to be made from the back and middle office without affecting front-line policing.
Mr Speaker
Order. I could happily listen to my colleagues’ questions and answers all afternoon, but I am afraid that we must move on.
Points of Order
(13 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. This Chamber was told on Thursday that the draft emergency legislation would be placed in the Library of the House. The matter was raised in an urgent question and on a point of order from my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford South (Mr Sutcliffe), yet it is not there. The BBC has been told that the counter-terrorism review is now complete. What can you do to assist the House and to get the Home Secretary to give a statement to the House this afternoon, not on Wednesday, on the counter-terrorism review and the location of the emergency draft legislation before the old powers run out at midnight tonight?
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mrs Theresa May)
I am grateful for the opportunity to do so. We will place draft emergency legislation in the Library of the House—[Hon. Members: “When?”] We did not say that it would be placed in the Library before the current legislation lapsed. Emergency legislation is available for the use of this House in the intervening period, if necessary, and that is section 25 of the Terrorism Act 2006. The correct legal process for reducing the period from 28 days to 14 days is to allow the existing legislation to lapse because that was the sunset clause put in the legislation by the last Labour Government.
Mr Speaker
In that case, we should leave it where it is for today—[Interruption.] Order. The shadow Home Secretary has raised a point of order and comment has been made on the matter. Those accounts are before the House and I do not think that there is anything further I can do at this stage.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
The Home Secretary said the opposite of what was said last week.
Mr Speaker
Order. I say to the hon. Gentleman that these are at least in part matters of debate and argument. The point has been made very clearly by the shadow Home Secretary, expressing concern not merely on her behalf but on that of many others. The Home Secretary has replied to that point.
Mr Tom Watson (West Bromwich East) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. We hear serious allegations that two former Prime Ministers were concerned about phone hacking. Have you had notice of a statement from the Home Office to see what steps it is taking to establish whether the current Prime Minister and his Chancellor were also victims of News International’s phone hacking?
Mr Speaker
I have received no such notification and the hon. Gentleman has put his point on the record. I know that he and the House will appreciate that I have a responsibility to protect the important business that will follow these points of order.
Andrew Miller (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker.
Mr Speaker
Order. The hon. Gentleman can raise a separate and unrelated point of order.
Andrew Miller
During two successive business questions, I have raised an issue with the Leader of the House relating to the failure of the Department for Transport to answer questions that have been properly laid in this Chamber. Last Wednesday, for the first time in my 19 years here, I used the device of an answer for today. It still has not been answered. Will you please use your good offices to ensure that the Department for Transport does its duty towards this House?
Mr Speaker
The pledge that appeared to have been made to the hon. Gentleman does not appear to have been fulfilled, as far as I can tell. At any rate, the hon. Gentleman has used a device to try to extract a reply and it has not been forthcoming. The dissatisfaction that he has expressed will have been heard. As of now, my best advice is that he should get over to the Table Office and pursue the issue further. If he needs to revert to this House again, I do not think, on the strength of his 19 years’ experience, that he will hesitate to do just that. That is perfectly proper.
European Union Bill (Programme)(No. 2)
(13 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Minister for Europe (Mr David Lidington)
I beg to move,
That the Order of 7 December 2010 (European Union Bill (Programme)) be varied as follows:
1. In paragraph 2, for ‘five days’ there shall be substituted ‘six days’.
2. In paragraph 4, in the Table, for the entries relating to the proceedings required (so far as not previously concluded) to be brought to a conclusion on the fifth day there shall be substituted the following:
Proceedings | Time for conclusions of proceedings |
Clauses 15 to 17, Schedule 2, new Clauses relating to Part 2, new Schedules relating to Part 2, Clauses 19 to 22, remaining new Clauses, remaining new Schedules, remaining proceedings in Committee. | The moment of interruption on the fifth day. |
Any proceedings on consideration. | Two hours before the moment of interruption on the sixth day. |
Proceedings on Third Reading. | Two hours after the commencement of proceedings on Third Reading or at the moment of interruption on the sixth day, whichever is earlier. |
As the House will be aware, the Government have proposed a small number of amendments to the European Union Bill and they will be debated, subject to your grouping of those amendments, Mr Speaker, in greater depth and at the relevant time.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
The Minister must be in absolute despair. In his very good ConservativeHome article, he said that this House would scrutinise this important legislation—the most radical since we went into the European Economic Community—but clearly we will not be able to do that today, because a number of amendments and clauses will not be reached. Is he not disappointed that the guillotine has not been lifted tonight?
Mr Lidington
As far as I am aware, it has not been a question of a guillotine. We have the normal 10 o’clock rule in place. As my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) is aware, the Government were keen to ensure that the House had sufficient time to consider this important legislation. We therefore proposed five days for the Committee stage in the programme motion that was tabled on Second Reading. That had been agreed in advance through the usual channels. My recollection of that day’s debate is that there was no attempt to divide the House on the programme motion at that time.
With all respect to my hon. Friend, I am conscious that he cares passionately about the Bill and about the relationship of the United Kingdom with the European Union. He has strongly held, honourable and principled views on that matter, and I am sure that if he catches the Speaker’s eye in the course of today’s proceedings, he will speak trenchantly on the subject, as he has done on other occasions recently. But when it comes to a debate, there is also a duty on all Members of Parliament to consider the time available for the various amendments that have been grouped together, and to measure their own contributions to that debate accordingly.
Mr William Cash (Stone) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that if there were any attempt during the proceedings on the programme motion or at any point during the day that might give rise to suspicions that Members were talking matters out in order to prevent important business being arrived at, his words might sound rather hollow?
Mr Lidington
I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash), who has been here for a long time, knows that a balance needs to be struck between the time that is needed to examine important political and constitutional issues fairly and in the depth that both the House and the general public would expect, and the time that is available for debate, bearing in mind the many other priorities that the House has to consider. I would say gently to my hon. Friend that I believe that he spoke at some length—more than 60 minutes—during the first day’s proceedings in Committee. I hope that so far he has not had reason to complain that his contributions are being crowded out.
Mr James Clappison (Hertsmere) (Con)
Is my right hon. Friend aware that there are no fewer than 29 amendments, some of which are Government amendments, before we reach the fourth or fifth group, which contain the provision relating to whether there should be a referendum in the case of the accession of a new member state? That provision is extremely important, and without proper scrutiny being given to that, it could hardly be said that the Bill had had proper scrutiny in the terms that my right hon. Friend described? Would he regard it as unsatisfactory if we did not scrutinise that question, which is important for many, many people?
Mr Lidington
It would be improper for me to comment on the selection or grouping of amendments, which is properly a matter for the Chair and not the Government. My hon. Friend is right to say that the question of the possible need for a referendum on accession treaties is a matter of importance. I hope we get the opportunity to debate that in the course of today’s proceedings. One of the consequences of the programme motion, which I support, is that the House will get the opportunity of a sixth day of consideration. There will therefore be opportunities for my hon. Friend and other Members in all parts of the House to table further amendments and new clauses when we reach Report.
It would have been open to the Government, having decided to table amendments and hoping—I believe not unreasonably—that those amendments might be accepted by the House, to have said to the House, “Well, we now have to make provision for a Report stage, so what we suggest is that we curtail the Committee stage from five days to four, and that we have Report and Third Reading on the fifth day.” If it would be of some assurance to my hon. Friend, I want to make it clear that we had no thought of doing that.
We decided at the start that it was important to continue with the full five days in Committee that we had promised all parties in the House, so in order to provide for a debate on Report we have allocated an additional, sixth day for debate on Report and Third Reading. If, by some chance, the House decides not to accept any of the amendments tabled by the Government or other Members and to leave the Bill unamended in Committee, that sixth day would be available for a full parliamentary day’s debate on Third Reading.
Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)
There seem to be three issues on which the Minister must guide the House: first, whether the Government thought that there would be no amendments and, therefore, no need for debate on Report, which seems a rather odd thing to have assumed in the first place; secondly, whether he believes that the extra day is sufficient for debating on Report any amendments that might have been made by then and any that might not have been made; and thirdly, whether he intends to avoid debate on matters on which there is substantial interest in the House. I do not intend that to be a criticism, but I would be grateful if he would comment on those three issues.
Mr Lidington
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention and will deal with each of his three points in turn. On the question of amendments, the terms of the original programme motion provided that on the fifth day we would deal with the Committee stage and with remaining stages, so the assumption was that if there was a need for a Report stage, there would be provision for it. The Government have looked closely and carefully at each of the amendments that have been tabled, from whichever side of the House they came. As I hope to have the opportunity to explain when we debate the substance of the Bill and the various amendments selected for debate, we have been influenced in our policy and in the amendments that we have tabled by the amendments that have been tabled by Back Benchers.
On the question of whether the additional day will allow adequate time for debate, I ask my hon. Friend to look at the provision of time overall for consideration of the Bill. I think that a full day for Second Reading, five complete days in Committee and a full day for the remaining stages is a pretty fair allocation of time. I am confident that it will be possible for all the important issues that colleagues on both sides of the House wish to see debated to be debated within that time, but how long Members take to debate each group of amendments or how long they spend on particular clause stand part debates is, of course, a matter for them and for the House. The Government have no intention of trying to constrain debate artificially. I very much hope that we have time to consider all the important issues that have been raised in the amendments.
Mr Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)
This is a fascinating and intriguing Bill. There have been times in the past few weeks when, because I have had trouble sleeping, I have simply reached for a copy of the Bill to read and have been off in a wink. There are a number of important points to make. The Government have tabled several significant amendments that need to be debated and considered fully in due course by the House. They are in part concessions to comments that have been made by Government Back Benchers. One of the amendments due for consideration today relates to the treaty change for which the Germans are pressing strongly. Amendments have also been tabled due to the complexity of the Bill. From the start, one of our criticisms has been the Bill’s undue complexity, and that point has been borne out, because the Government have tabled amendments to try to clarify things. There has been tremendous debate among lawyers in the Foreign Office and elsewhere about whether the Bill is compatible with existing legislation, and that simply underlines the fact that the Bill is an extremely complex piece of legislation.
We have had one day in Committee of the whole House, and during the course of the debate we heard that there are grave reservations about the inadequacy of the explanatory notes. I hope that the Government will rewrite them, given that we have an extra day, and come forward with a full and comprehensive explanation for the changes that they are bringing about.
In the light of that, and because of our belief that we need the maximum amount of time to debate the Bill, we have no objection to the motion.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
I appreciate that I am eating into our time in Committee of the whole House, but that is due to an unfortunate manoeuvre that the Government now use instead of adding on time for the programme motion. If the Government had been serious about scrutiny, they would have moved a motion to lift the moment of interruption, and there would have been no point in filibustering, because everybody would have known that the debate could continue until any hour. To the people outside, it must seem extraordinary that Members of the House of Lords, who on the whole are much older than Members of this House, can speak and debate through the night, but that this House effectively has a guillotine on its proceedings. This is exactly what the previous Government did when they were in power; it is exactly what we said we would not do when we were in power; and it is an utter disgrace.
Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)
The days of the guillotine started before the 1970s, when the then Labour Government began using it for all kinds of things that most people did not want. They were in effect a minority Government, passing legislation that was not doing any good to anybody, and there were great objections to the guillotine. Some of the greatest speeches were made by Michael Foot defending it and by Conservatives attacking it. Since then, we have carried on with it for some 35 years.
I do not agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone), and today is not necessarily the day to suspend the rule and go on through the night. On this issue as on others, one or two of us, if we speak for 60 minutes, have only just cleared our throats and are perfectly capable of going on for two or three hours. That would not resolve whatever issue the Government are trying to resolve.
What matters most to me is that if the Government are deliberately, and rightly, adding extra debates for the Committee’s consideration, there should be injury time. That will not happen all the time, but on this Bill I welcome the fact that the Government have made the change voluntarily and at an early stage of the Committee’s proceedings. We are coming up to day two of Committee of the whole House. I praise them for making an early change and recognise it openly.
What worries me is the issue raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Mr Clappison), who asked, “Is there a possibility that, because of how the programme operates, certain major debates will not take place?” That is what I hope we were addressing in opposition and will not do in government. We should say, for example, “What would a Backbench Business Committee do if it was considering the issues that should be debated?”
I am not concerned about the Speaker’s groupings; I am concerned that there should be debates on any issues that most people in the House say should be debated. So I put it to those on both Front Benches, that Back Benchers on both sides of the House expect there to be debates about the issues that we believe matter most. There obviously needs to be room for the particular enthusiasm of one Member, if they can get a relevant amendment accepted and debated, but, on those amendments that are clearly accepted as important to the whole House, let us not reach the point at which, by some chance or design, they are not debated.
Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)
I add my concern to that of other hon. Members over the time allocated for the Committee of the whole House. I suspect that had the Bill been referred to a Committee that was not of the whole House, more time would have been available to discuss the amendments. Given that this is a constitutional Bill of great importance, it is right that it be considered in Committee of the whole House, but we should have at least as much time as would have been given to a Committee not held on the Floor of the House. Given that more people are likely to want to speak in a Committee of the whole House, surely that time should be expanded even further. I therefore echo what other hon. Members have said.
I am one of the Members—perhaps rare beasts now—who regret the introduction of the guillotine and the way in which it has been used in recent years. Time and again we miss out on speaking, are curtailed in what we want to say and cannot speak at the length that we think appropriate, because of the time limits. I have argued on many occasions that we ought to have two-day debates for Second Reading, because it deals with the principle of the Bill. Time and again, large numbers of people want to speak and are not able to. I therefore echo what other hon. Members have said.
Claire Perry (Devizes) (Con)
I enter this debate with some trepidation, because there is the most complicated series of amendments and proposals that I have seen in my short career as a parliamentarian. I will make a couple of points. First, when we are debating critical legislation that sets out for the first time since 1973 how we define our relationship with Europe, I find it astonishing that fewer than 10% of sitting Members are in the House and that the Opposition Benches, in particular, are rather empty. Given that we are debating a shortage of time and a lack of ability for people to be heard, it is extraordinary how few people have bothered to show up.
Secondly, I urge hon. Members from all parts of the House to focus on the fundamentals of the debate, rather than on the time-wasting proposals that the Opposition parties have tried to table. I am still confused about whether the Opposition parties support or oppose the principle of the Bill. I think that perhaps they support the principle, but cannot bring themselves to stand up and say so. I hope that we will have a debate on the fundamentals of the Bill over the next few hours. I therefore hope that we will pass the motion and proceed to the debate.
Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
I rise briefly to plead that we do not divide the House on this matter, because time is pressing. However, I am prepared to forecast that we will not get beyond the first group of amendments today. The Bill, if about nothing else, is about what might trigger a referendum, and the first group is concerned with that matter. It is extremely likely that we will not discuss much else today, given that that is the heart of the Bill. That suggests that the timetable motion is ill-conceived. Although it is generous of the Government to add an extra day, that does not resolve the problem we will have today, which is that it is most unlikely that we will discuss anything about clauses 2, 3, 4 or 5, the new clauses relating to clauses 1 to 5, or anything else. That is not what was envisaged when we discussed the strengthening of Parliament in the previous Parliament. A great disadvantage of these very curtailed debates on contentious pieces of legislation is that there is an incentive for people to use up the time for the convenience of the Government, rather than to provide a platform for those who actually want to discuss the Bill.
Mr Cash
Does my hon. Friend recall the speech made by Mr Speaker only last week, in which he drew attention to the necessity not only to maintain the sovereignty of Parliament, but to ensure that the Government are held properly to account? That was from Mr Speaker himself—a most unusual, but very important speech. What we may witness today would be in defiance of the principles that he enunciated.
Mr Jenkin
I agree with my hon. Friend. We have yet to find a way of respecting the Government’s right to obtain their legislation in reasonable time, subject to the consent of the House, and of reasonably limiting the time spent on debate, while ensuring that all parts of the Bill are debated properly. We do not want to start following the example of the other place, where a tiny minority of Members are brutally filibustering, but we do need to improve the procedures that we have today. It is a sad comment on the state of the House of Commons under this new Government, who purported to believe in something called “new politics”, that we are carrying on the old politics implemented by the Labour Government.
Chris Heaton-Harris (Daventry) (Con)
I rise rather sheepishly, because I almost feel partly responsible for the Government adding an extra day. Some of their amendments have taken over from ones that I had previously tabled, so I find them quite important.
I am particularly pleased that the Government have tabled amendments 57 and 58, which are about the European public prosecutor, because they had inadvertently left a gap in the Bill relating to opt-in arrangements under the EU treaties. They are now closing that gap. They have also tabled the important amendment 60, relating to the common foreign and security policy, so I am pleased that we have the extra time for debate.
I understand what hon. Members have said about what will happen later today, but from a personal point of view I have been chasing amendments such as those that I have mentioned for quite some time, to close the gaps in the Bill, and I am very pleased that the Government have paid some attention to what I and other hon. Members have said.
Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)
The accession of new member states can be fairly insignificant numerically, but there could be an extremely large new member state, with a population probably larger than Germany’s. For the House to pass a Bill such as this without having reached the point of discussing the matter would be an abdication of duty. Will the Minister undertake that, should we not reach that point today, he will find time for the House to return to the matter for however long it takes?
Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)
I will not often rise in sympathy with the hon. Members for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) and for Stone (Mr Cash) during the passage of the Bill, but I share some of the fears that they have expressed. One is that, as the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart) and others have said, some very significant issues might not be reached today, especially in light of how the grouping of the amendments has panned out.
I am obviously not criticising Mr Speaker at all, but he has wisely included a very large number of amendments in the first group, covering three different clauses and various arguments. I suspect that that is likely to lead to a long and convoluted debate. That will almost inevitably take up a large part of our time, so we might not reach issues such as enlargement, which, as the hon. Lady said, could be very significant.
My other fear is that debates such as today’s, by their nature, can sometimes be hijacked by what one could unkindly call filibustering. Reference has been made to the shenanigans up the corridor in the other place in recent weeks, which I am afraid are not an enlightening example of how to conduct parliamentary business. If the other place has traditionally conducted itself in a more gentlemanly way, with such things not being allowed to disrupt debate, it has certainly failed that test in recent weeks. I therefore reluctantly accept that there is an argument for having guillotines and knives, to prevent a debate of such importance from being hijacked in that way.
However, I ask the Minister to reassure all of us that, as the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston said, if significant issues cannot be debated today and are cut off by the guillotine, we will have some opportunity to address them later in the process, at the very least by allowing significant time on Report. I hope that the Minister will welcome debate on enlargement in particular at that time.
Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)
I, too, rise to welcome the fact that the Government have agreed to add a sixth day. The Bill is receiving better consideration than many such Bills, and so it should, because it is an important constitutional Bill.
Notwithstanding that, I have sympathy with my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone), who would like further time to discuss the Bill because of its immense constitutional significance. I personally regret that we will not reach discussion of the ambit of the Parliament Act, because it is right that the House has time to consider what happens in our Parliament, including in another place, and the sort of behaviour that we have witnessed of late, particularly by former members of the Labour Whips Office, who are behaving most disgracefully.
Mr Jenkin
Perhaps my hon. Friend is going on to say this, but I would have thought that he would be disappointed that we will not have time to discuss amendments 48, 49, 50 and 51 on holding an in/out referendum, which he champions. Personally, I do not champion it, but does he not regret that we are most unlikely to be able to discuss those amendments?
Charlie Elphicke
I agree with my hon. Friend. What will we discuss? A wrecking amendment, tabled by the Labour party, which cheated the nation of a referendum in the past.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. If it was a wrecking amendment, it would not have been selected. I remind the hon. Gentleman that amendments are selected with due consideration.
Charlie Elphicke
I defer to you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and apologise for using language that was perhaps too simple. Of course, the amendment could not be a wrecking amendment; it is an amendment that would bring destruction on the Government’s intent and purpose in the Bill. I hope that I remain in order with that description.
I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin), who makes an important point about the time that is needed to discuss the purpose of referendums and whether we should have a national debate—perhaps a referendum?—on whether to hold an in/out referendum. It seems that we will not have time to discuss that today. I hope that, at some point—perhaps not in the Bill, but sometime—the House will be able to discuss that properly.
Mr Douglas Carswell (Clacton) (Con)
Will my hon. Friend share with the House whether his Whip asked him to take part in the debate?
Charlie Elphicke
I should be delighted to share that information with the House. For the record, my Whip did not ask me to take part in the debate; he simply asked me whether I intended to rebel—I think he had some interest in that matter. As my hon. Friend probably realises, when we discuss in/out referendums, one is slightly off-piste in the context of the general approach of both major parties. Nevertheless, the House should have time to discuss the matter at greater length. [Interruption.] I will ignore the sedentary chuntering that tempts me to digress from being in order. I recognise that the clock is ticking and I do not want to eat further into the time for debate.
Mr John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Several Members on the Government Benches have referred to proceedings in another place. Page 435 of “Erskine May” clearly states:
“Members are restrained by the Speaker from commenting upon the proceedings of the House of Lords.”
For the guidance, particularly of newer Members on the other side of the House, could you give a ruling on that point?
Mr Deputy Speaker
There should be no criticism of the other House. We can all learn from that.
Mr Lidington
With the leave of the House, let me reply briefly to some of the main points. I do not want to take up much time.
I found it difficult to take seriously the strictures of the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr David) about the Bill’s alleged complexity. If there is complexity in the Bill, it flows from that in the Lisbon treaty, which he and his party, when in government, negotiated, supported and rammed through the House.
Members from both sides of the House made important points about the amount of time available. I am grateful for the acknowledgement of the Government’s offer of a sixth full day. I point out that, with no statements or urgent questions today, roughly six and a half hours are available for debating the motion and proceedings on the amendments. There is a balance to be struck between time available and Members’ self-discipline in the length of their speeches.
On Report, hon. Members on both sides of the House will obviously have the opportunity to table amendments and new clauses to raise subjects that they believe need further debate or that they think have been overlooked and ought to be debated. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart), who has been in the House since 1997—almost as long as I have—knows well how the rules of order operate and how to draft an amendment to maximise its chances of selection and of being high up in Mr Speaker’s groupings on Report. I am sure that Back Benchers on both sides of the House will be happy to take her advice on the canny ways of achieving those objectives.
A number of hon. Members, including the hon. Lady, mentioned the question of accession treaties. It is obviously for the Chair and not for me to determine whether the content of any speech is in order. I simply point out that the first group of amendments includes proposals to remove the exemption conditions altogether from the Bill, but the exemption conditions include an exemption for accession treaties. I invite the House to draw its own conclusions, but I hope that it supports the motion.
Question put and agreed to.
European Union Bill
(13 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
21:59 - The Committee divided: - Ayes: 220 / Noes: 329 - Question accordingly negatived.
22:15 - The Committee divided: - Ayes: 239 / Noes: 310 - Question accordingly negatived.
Mr Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)
I beg to move amendment 85, page 2, line 6, at end add—
‘(7A) References to “the Committee” are to the European Union Referendum Committee as established by section [European Union Referendum Committee] below.’.
The Chairman of Ways and Means (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 86, in clause 2, page 2, line 10, leave out
‘a statement relating to the treaty was’
and insert
‘the treaty and a statement relating to it were’.
Amendment 1, page 2, line 13, leave out ‘or the exemption condition’.
Amendment 92, page 2, line 16, leave out from ‘until’ to end of line 22 and insert
‘the referendum procedure set out in subsection (2A) below has been completed.
‘(2A) The referendum procedure is completed if—
(a) a decision has been taken by either or both Houses of Parliament not to hold a referendum, whether by agreeing with a recommendation from the Committee that a referendum is not required or by disagreeing to a recommendation from the Committee that a referendum is required; or
(b) a referendum has been held throughout the United Kingdom, or where the treaty affects Gibraltar, throughout the United Kingdom and Gibraltar, and a majority of those voting in the referendum are in favour of ratification of the treaty.’.
Amendment 2, page 2, line 23, leave out subsection (3).
Amendment 87, in clause 3, page 2, line 29, leave out
‘a statement relating to the decision was’
and insert
‘the decision and a statement relating to it were’.
Amendment 67, page 2, line 32, leave out paragraph (c).
Amendment 3, page 2, line 32, leave out
‘the exemption condition or the significance condition’.
Amendment 68, page 2, line 34, leave out subsections (2), (3) and (4).
Amendment 93, page 2, line 36, leave out from ‘until’ to end of line 42 and insert
‘the referendum procedure set out in subsection (2A) below has been completed.
‘(2A) The referendum procedure is completed if—
(a) a decision has been taken by either or both Houses of Parliament not to hold a referendum, whether by agreeing with a recommendation from the Committee that a referendum is not required or by disagreeing to a recommendation from the Committee that a referendum is required; or
(b) a referendum has been held throughout the United Kingdom, or where the treaty affects Gibraltar, throughout the United Kingdom and Gibraltar, and a majority of those voting in the referendum are in favour of approval of the decision.’.
Amendment 4, page 2, line 43, leave out subsection (3).
Amendment 5, page 3, line 1, leave out subsection (4).
Amendment 64, page 3, line 3, leave out from ‘4’ to ‘and’ in line 4.
Amendment 65, page 3, line 4, leave out ‘(1)(i) or (j)’ and insert
‘(1)(a), (d), (e), (f), (g), (h) (i), (j), (k), (l) or (m)’.
Amendment 66, page 3, line 4, after ‘(1)’, insert ‘(g), (h)’.
Amendment 88, in clause 4, page 3, line 8, before ‘(1)’ insert—
‘(A1) A treaty or Article 48(6) decision which falls within this section shall be subject to the procedure of determination by the Committee and both Houses of Parliament as to whether a referendum is required’.
Amendment 89, in clause 5, page 4, line 10, leave out
‘the required statement before Parliament’
and insert
‘the treaty and the required statement before the Committee and before Parliament’.
Amendment 90, page 4, line 14, leave out
‘the required statement before Parliament’
and insert
‘the decision and the required statement before the Committee and before Parliament’.
Amendment 7, page 4, line 17, leave out subsections (3) to (5) and insert—
‘(3) The required statement is a statement that there will be a referendum on that treaty.’.
Amendment 91, page 4, line 19, leave out subsections (4) and (5).
Amendment 11, page 4, line 24, at end add—
‘(6) If the Minister’s opinion is that the effect of that provision in relation to the United Kingdom is not significant the Minister must seek Parliamentary approval for his opinion.
(7) Parliamentary approval is given if—
(a) in each House of Parliament a Minister of the Crown moves a motion that the House approves of the Minister’s opinion; and
(b) each House agrees to the motion without amendment.
(8) If the Minister fails to obtain Parliamentary approval for his opinion the significance condition is not met.’.
New clause 9—European Union Referendum Committee
‘(1) There shall be a Committee, to be known as the European Union Referendum Committee, to examine—
(a) any amendment of the Treaty on the European Union or the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, whether by simplified or ordinary revision procedure;
(b) any decision already provided for in those treaties, as set out in Schedule 1 to this Act;
(c) any treaty or Article 48(6) decision as defined in section 4 of this Act; and
(d) any decision as set out in section 6(2) or 6(4) of this Act.
(2) The Committee shall report to Parliament in respect of each such treaty amendment or decision as to—
(a) whether it involves a significant transfer of power or competence, and if so
(b) whether it requires a referendum to be held.
(3) When the Committee has reported its view as to whether or not a referendum is required, a Motion shall be moved in each House of Parliament to give effect to that recommendation.
(4) If both Houses agree to recommend a referendum, a referendum shall be held accordingly.
(5) The Committee shall consist of no more than 19 Members, drawn from both Houses of Parliament, none of whom shall be Ministers of the Crown.
(6) The members of the Committee shall be nominated by the Speaker of the House of Commons and the Lord Speaker of the House of Lords respectively, in accordance with the Standing Orders or Resolutions of their respective Houses, and subject to the approval of their respective Houses.
(7) Members of each House shall be members of the Committee until discharged by their House or if they cease to be a Member of that House or if they become a Minister of the Crown.
(8) The Committee shall elect a Chair from among those of its members who sit in the House of Commons.
(9) The Committee may determine its own procedure, which shall be broadly in line with that followed by Joint Committees of the two Houses.’.
Mr David
The week before last, the Committee enjoyed an excellent debate on the sovereignty clause of the Bill. Perhaps surprisingly, there was a high degree of consensus on the need to ensure that Parliament remains central to our democracy. Indeed, it must be said that even the Government appeared to acknowledge that there was at least a genuine debate on whether Parliament owed its sovereignty to common law or whether sovereignty was a fundamental right. Consequently, we look forward to seeing how the Government rewrite the Bill’s explanatory notes to acknowledge that debate.
That makes it all the more surprising that part 1 of the Bill so profoundly departs from the consensus established in the House that Parliament is central to this country’s democratic process. The Government do that by proposing that most extensions of EU competence or power, even relatively small ones, should be subject to a referendum if the change has a material impact on the UK’s relationship with the EU.
The Government set out in the Bill in mind-numbing detail umpteen scenarios when a referendum might be triggered. The Opposition believe that there is a case for referendums to be held on important constitutional issues. For example, in government, we introduced referendums on devolution in Scotland and Wales, and indeed, there will be a further referendum in Wales on 3 March.
Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)
With reference to the hon. Gentleman’s remarks on holding referendums on fundamental matters that affect the UK, does he regret not giving us a vote on the Lisbon treaty?
Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)
I am sorry, but having written the constitution and having read the Lisbon treaty, I think that it is sheer sophistry to go on like this. May I just—
The Chairman
Order. We are not dealing with the Lisbon treaty. Can we please stick to the amendments before us?
Mr David
With all due respect to my hon. Friend, it was not she who wrote the treaty or the constitution; she made a contribution, as did many people.
We support a referendum on the alternative vote system, and we believe that a referendum should be held if ever there is a European constitution or if any Government favoured Britain’s joining the single currency. I remind the Committee that Baroness Thatcher declined to hold a referendum on the Single European Act, and that the Foreign Secretary voted against a referendum on the Maastricht treaty when he was in opposition.
Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)
The issue is that the Labour party promised a referendum and then reneged on it when in office.
Mr David
I will stick to the point. It is really important that Members recognise that there is a fundamental difference between the constitution and the treaty of Lisbon. I am more than happy to explain those differences, with your permission, Mr Hoyle, but I know that you want us to pursue the issue under discussion.
Mr David
I do not think that is the case at all. There are certain principles at issue that it is important we consider. One of the things that has marred the debate about Europe is the fact that too much expediency has been demonstrated. We need to talk about principles, and I would argue that an important one is at stake here. We have to make it clear that we are talking about political consistency, of which there is little among Government Members. Only in January last year, an hon. Gentleman said:
“The Conservatives want a referendum on the bulk purchasing of paper clips. That is nonsense. It does not stand up to any serious scrutiny, and I do not believe that if they were in government, they would put forward this proposal.”—[Official Report, 19 January 2010; Vol. 504, c. 238.]
I am tempted to have a competition to see whether anyone knows who might have said that, but I will just tell the Committee instead: yes, it was a Liberal Democrat, and yes it was the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr Davey)—so much for consistency; so much for principles.
One of our main concerns about the Bill is the proposal that referendums could be held on highly technical issues that are not of constitutional significance. I am not suggesting that a future Labour Government would want to change the European treaty, but are the Government seriously suggesting that we should have a referendum on changing the voting system in the Council of Ministers on the environment from the special legislative procedure to the ordinary legislative procedure ?
Claire Perry (Devizes) (Con)
I appreciate the point that the hon. Gentleman is trying to make, which is that there is a lot of complexity and a precise attempt to define the conditions under which referendums would be held, but surely it is better to ask the British people to make up their minds than to wriggle out of one fundamental promise on the whole constitutional question of whether we should be signed up to the Lisbon treaty. My constituents would far rather have the opportunity to vote on these things than have 13 years of broken promises.
Mr David
With all due respect to the hon. Lady, it was her party that reneged on the commitment to have a referendum on the Lisbon treaty. Government Members could have had a referendum had the Government kept their promise, but it was they who decided not to have one despite their commitment to do so.
Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman will forgive me, but my recollection of the history is that the treaty was ratified and then it became impossible to have a referendum on it. Would new clause 9 not enable a Government to make a promise at election time to hold a referendum and then wriggle out of it under the cover of some committee, as the previous Labour Government did?
Mr David
This party does not make promises which it breaks. [Laughter.] I would point out to Government Members that, as I recall, there was a clear commitment on the Lisbon treaty. The hon. Member for Devizes (Claire Perry) cannot get out of that by saying, “Well, it was already endorsed. It was ratified. We couldn’t do anything about it,” because they could have done. If the Conservatives had wanted a referendum on a treaty change, they could have had one. It is political will that this Government lacked.
Although I am not suggesting that a future Labour Government would want to change the Lisbon treaty, are this Government serious about introducing some of the changes that they claim they want to introduce? Are they seriously suggesting that we should have a referendum on the voting system for introducing a European patent, for example? Are they seriously suggesting that we would have a referendum on how judges are appointed to the European Court? [Hon. Members: “Yes.”] It seems that some Members are quite happy to have referendums, even on the proverbial paper clips. But seriously, the place to make a decision on the merits of any potential changes that are not of constitutional significance is in Parliament.
Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)
Is it not in fact remarkably important to have a detailed Bill that sets out all the conditions? The habit of Europe has been to accrete power by stealth; therefore, when added together, things that seem to be minor turn out to be creating a European Government, about which the British people should have the choice.
Mr David
There are two problems with that intervention. The first concerns the issue of detail. We have already seen the Government getting themselves into a right knot, bringing forward new amendments to plug some of the gaps that they have left. My guess is that, even at the end of the day, if this Bill goes through, there will still be gaps. The other issue concerns constitutional creep, and I will come to that point later, because there are exceptions in the Bill, which I will touch on.
The role of Parliament should be absolutely central to the issue of Europe—and, indeed, to all our deliberations. It is Parliament that should formally and properly consider such issues; it is Parliament that should devote the time to focused debates and deliberations on the pros and cons of any change; and it is Parliament that is accountable to the people. Hopefully, before too long there will be a House of Lords that is wholly or partly elected, and then both Houses will be answerable to the people for their actions. That is surely the essence of representative democracy. Indeed, in recent times the most authoritative inquiry into the role of referendums has come from the Lords Select Committee on the Constitution, whose report was published last year. After hearing from many witnesses, the Committee concluded:
“The balance of the evidence that we have heard leads us to the conclusion that there are significant drawbacks to the use of referendums.”
It continued:
“Notwithstanding our view that there are significant drawbacks to the use of referendums, we acknowledge arguments that, if referendums are to be used, they are most appropriately used in relation to fundamental constitutional issues.”
That report is important and should be acknowledged. However, it is not just the opinion that that House expressed that is significant; the evidence that was submitted is also important. In an important appendix to the report, it was pointed out that the distinguished commentators David Butler and Austin Ranney had noted that
“while the vast majority of democracies”
throughout the world
“have held referendums, only a few have institutionalised them, and used them in anything other than an ad hoc fashion. The vast majority of referendums are held at founding moments: decisions about joining a state or federation, accepting or rejecting new constitutions, or making constitutional revisions.”
If the Bill reaches the statute book in its present form, not only will it be at odds with common sense; it will also be out of step with most of the world’s democratic states. And before any Members think that the Lords Constitution Committee was packed with Labour Peers, I would simply point out that they were in a minority on the Committee.
In the second excellent report produced by the European Scrutiny Committee, chaired by the hon. Member for Stone (Mr Cash), one of the key witnesses, Professor Simon Hix, lucidly made the case for the limited, rather than widespread, use of referendums. I would not agree with everything that Professor Hix argued, but he was absolutely right when he said:
“Referendums are a legitimate tool, but often they are not regarded as legitimate unless they are on major constitutional questions. In a democracy we believe that ultimately sovereignty resides with the people, so it is legitimate that referendums should be used for major constitutional changes.”
Professor Hix was correct in his argument about major constitutional issues. He was also correct to question the wisdom and legitimacy of referendums on much smaller, technical issues.
Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)
I understand the logic of my hon. Friend’s argument, but, given the profound changes since 1975 in the prospectus set out by members of all three parties in the House, is there not now a thirst among the public for a referendum, either on whether we should be in or out of the European Union or on some of the other issues of major constitutional significance—from the Single European Act to the Lisbon treaty—on which they have not been consulted?
Mr David
I have to say that I have not had one constituent come into any of my surgeries since the last election—or, indeed, during the last Parliament—to raise this issue with me. People are concerned about their jobs, their livelihoods, and, under this Government, their falling standards of living. Those are the issues that we should be focusing on. Nevertheless, we are addressing the issue before us today, the European Union Bill.
George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) (Con)
On the subject of what we were sent here to do, I can assure the hon. Gentleman that the people of Mid Norfolk sent me here to speak up against their powers being given away without their consent. He quoted the evidence to the European Scrutiny Committee. In written evidence, Professor Philip Allott, professor emeritus of international public law at Cambridge, said:
“The Bill has a whiff of revolution about it. It is a Boston Tea Party gesture against creeping integration…So far as I know, no other member state has anything remotely approaching the degree of parliamentary involvement which the Bill would create”.
The Bill might not be perfect, and it might not be the ideal mechanism, but does the hon. Gentleman acknowledge that the Government are trying to ensure that the creeping integration that my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) referred to earlier is prevented in future?
Mr David
I have read all the evidence submitted to the Committee, and the significant point about that particular quote was the use of the word “gesture”. The Bill is a gesture, and I will say more about that later. It is a gesture to placate hostility to the European Union among Government Back Benchers, but it is not a serious, considered piece of legislation.
Mr William Cash (Stone) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman has referred to Professor Hix’s evidence to the European Scrutiny Committee. Will he note that the professor also said that previous EU amending treaties—Maastricht under a Conservative Government and Amsterdam and Nice under a Labour Government, as well as the Lisbon treaty—should all have been subjected to referendums? If the conditions of the Maastricht referendum campaign, which I founded and which had about 750,000 signatures, had been implemented by the Government at the time—let alone those for Amsterdam and Nice—is it not right to say that we would not be sitting here today discussing this nonsense?
Mr David
I am aware of all Professor Hix’s comments, and I was careful to say earlier that I did not agree with all his remarks. The point remains, however, that he is fundamentally opposed to the idea of having a multiplicity of referendums, for the reasons that he outlined to the Committee.
Charlie Elphicke
The hon. Gentleman will correct me if I am wrong, but I believe that Professor Hix also went on to say:
“I think there should have been a referendum on Maastricht, on Amsterdam, on Nice…on the Lisbon treaty”.
That is surely significant. The Bill is all about ensuring that, having been cheated of referendums on those treaties in the past, we can now have referendums on other matters, enabling the House to give greater consideration to them before passing away powers to Europe. The committee proposed in the hon. Gentleman’s new clause 9 would not achieve that.
Mr David
With all due respect, I must point out that the hon. Gentleman has made exactly the same point that the hon. Member for Stone (Mr Cash) has just made. I therefore give him the same answer: I was careful to say earlier that I did not agree with all of Professor Hix’s comments, but the central thesis that he presented to the European Scrutiny Committee was that there should be referendums on major constitutional issues, not on the minutiae of legislation as is proposed in the Bill, and this Bill is what we are now debating.
Mr David
What I am saying is that if some of the questions implied by the Bill were put, no reasonable human being, including Members in this House, would understand what on earth the debate was all about. Nobody would. Debating how many angels can stand on the head of a pin might be okay for the middle ages, but it is unlikely to enthuse people in 21st century Britain.
Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)
I may well be more in sympathy with the hon. Gentleman’s position than some of my colleagues on the Government side, but is he not aware—I appreciate, as he said, that he might have some difficulty understanding all of the Bill—of the “significance” provision in clause 3(4)(b)? Surely that is designed to guard precisely against the possibility of having referendums on minutiae.
Mr David
It is interesting to hear the hon. Gentleman refer to the exceptional clause in that way. I will come on to the very interesting point that he has raised, which I am sure would not be shared by many Conservative Back Benchers.
Let me pursue my argument. These two factors—the lack of proper debate that having a referendum on a small technical issue would mean, and the low turnout—might lead to a questioning of any referendum result. For example, I cite Professor Hix again in his evidence to the European Scrutiny Committee, when he referred to the example of Texas. I heard a Government Member earlier making a sedentary comment about the USA, so let us look at this example from Texas. It has referendums in local communities on whether smoking or drinking should be banned. I am sure that everybody understands the questions, but they have a referendum on the same issue every year. Why? It is because people keep on questioning the validity of every year’s result because the turnout is so low.
The Bill implies that this Parliament can bind future Parliaments, but we all know that this cannot be done constitutionally. It is an interesting point, as the Government have made it clear that they do not intend to test the legislation. Perhaps one of their amendments might do so, but generally speaking, they do not intend to use this legislation—it is intended for something in the future. I would argue very strongly that there is a constitutional question mark over that.
I also believe that the Bill weakens the role of Parliament because it obliges Parliament to pass on much of its decision-making capacity. Yes, it is true that the Bill gives additional responsibilities to Parliament in some areas, which we will debate at a later stage. The Bill’s most important impact, however, will be to weaken the role of Parliament. I would even suggest that the Bill’s whole approach is crudely populist and fraught with practical problems and constitutional risks.
Kwasi Kwarteng (Spelthorne) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman’s comments seem to be a diatribe against all referendums anywhere and are not specific to the Bill. Of course a referendum is populist; it is the most direct form of gauging the popular will. The approach of his argument seems a complete waste of time.
Mr David
That is completely untrue. My argument is that there is a clear distinction between important constitutional issues and detailed minutiae. We can argue about the constitutional issues, but there is a big difference between them and a referendum on a raft of detailed minutiae. That is the big difference, which the Bill fails to acknowledge. The Bill is about having referendums on not the big issues, but the small, relatively unimportant ones.
Ms Gisela Stuart
It might come as a great relief to my hon. Friend to learn that I totally agree with him on this occasion. The Bill would weaken Parliament. Does he not find it extraordinary that a Bill that is meant to strengthen Parliament has in clause 5 a provision whereby, if in doubt, the matter will be given to the courts, which we cannot even remove in the way we can a Government, so it is an abdication?
Mr David
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention; she makes a good point. However, the matter might not be quite as she has said. I will address that point later in my contribution, if I may.
Amendment 85 seeks to reaffirm the role of Parliament by giving it the power to consider and decide whether a proposed European change is significant enough to hold a referendum on. A special committee of both Houses—we call it the referendum committee—would be established, and it would consider the fine detail of the Government’s proposal. A recommendation would then go to both Houses, and if both Houses agreed that the change was important enough to warrant a referendum, a referendum would be held.
Stephen Gilbert (St Austell and Newquay) (LD)
Will the hon. Gentleman tell the Committee what would happen if one of the Houses of Parliament took the view that a referendum should take place, and the other took the view that it should not? Is that not an inherent contradiction in the Opposition amendments?
Stephen Gilbert
I understand the hon. Gentleman’s purpose, but it is conceivable that the House of Commons would reach one view on whether a referendum is required, and the House of Lords would reach another view. How do the Opposition intend to settle that discrepancy?
Mr David
Before too long, we hope, both Chambers would be elected. Therefore, we believe that it is important for Parliament to speak with one voice. Under our amendment, Parliament would be centre-stage in the whole process. Parliament, and Parliament alone, would decide whether a referendum ought to be held, which is far preferable to referendums being decided according to abstract criteria under this ill-conceived Bill. It is also far better than allowing the Government to make the decision.
Claire Perry
I am intrigued to know whether the workings of the proposed committee would have come into force when the previous Government decided, without, I believe, a debate on the Floor of the House, that the Lisbon treaty was not the same thing as the EU constitutional treaty and therefore could be signed. At that point, would his committee have intervened, given the definitional question of whether it was an EU constitutional treaty, as Open Europe and most of the country believe that it was?
Mr David
I have argued consistently that that was not the case, but the new Committee, drawn from both Houses, would consider all changes that occur inside the European Union and that have a direct impact on the United Kingdom. We can discuss what is significant and what is not, but my point is that the proposed Committee would come to a considered view on what was important and what should warrant a referendum.
I emphasise this point because we are concerned about the extent to which the Government will have discretion to decide what goes to a referendum. We are concerned because we fear that the Government’s rhetoric does not match the reality of their Bill. I am sure that the Minister is absolutely sincere in his intention to give the electorate the maximum ability to vote on a range of European minutiae, but let us just suppose that the Bill is smoke and mirrors. The nature of the proposals before us could turn out to be more apparent than real.
By common agreement, the Bill is one of the most complicated pieces of legislation to come before the House of Commons for many years. As we all know, in legislation the devil is always in the detail, and this Bill contains one heck of a lot of detail. Some Members, including those on the European Scrutiny Committee, have suggested that the Government may be looking for wriggle room. In particular, there has been reference to clause 3(4), the so-called “significance” subsection, which allows the Government to avoid a referendum if they believe that certain EU sanctions or obligations are insignificant. If I were a Government Member, I should consider that very ominous, as little detail is provided.
The Minister for Europe (Mr David Lidington)
Given the concerns that the hon. Gentleman has just expressed, will he please explain why the Opposition amendments, and in particular new clause 9, would extend the significance test so that the Committee that he proposes would consider whether a decision to join the euro, or a decision to scrap British border controls, was significant enough to warrant a referendum at all?
Mr Stephen Dorrell (Charnwood) (Con)
Will the hon. Gentleman address the question asked by my right hon. Friend the Minister a bit more seriously? New clause 9(2) makes it clear that the Opposition are suggesting that there could be significant transfers of power that did not merit a referendum. Will the hon. Gentleman give us an example of a significant transfer of power that he thinks should not merit a referendum? The principle is there in his new clause.
Mr David
There is a fundamental point here. We are not second-guessing Parliament’s view. These are essentially subjective statements. I think it wrong for the Government to pretend that there can be predetermined formulas that will suit any eventuality. They know in their heart of hearts that that is not possible in the real world, which is why they have come up with the “significance” subsection.
Mr Dorrell
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, who is being very patient. However, he is not second-guessing the Government; he is proposing an amendment to the House of Commons. He is proposing that there should be a dual key before a referendum is held. First, a proposal should be significant; secondly, his committee should recommend a referendum. That implies the possibility of a significant transfer of power that would not require a referendum. It is his proposal; I am simply asking him to explain it to the Committee.
Mr David
What I am saying is that it depends on how “significance” is defined. I propose that, rather than our accepting a formula stating what is and what is not significant—which, as the Government themselves recognise, would fall at the first hurdle—responsibility for deciding what is important should be in the hands of parliamentarians. That would mean a transfer of decision-making power from the Executive to Parliament, of which we are in favour.
Ms Gisela Stuart
In our system the Government are drawn from the largest party in Parliament, and our Committees have a tendency to reflect the composition of Parliament. Would my hon. Friend’s committee also have an inbuilt Government majority?
Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)
Will the hon. Gentleman give way on that point?
Mr David
No, I have made my decision.
I have referred to the significance provision but, as if that were not enough, the Bill also contains the exemption condition. If the significance provision is the smoke, the exemption condition is surely the mirrors. With a striking lack of clarity, clause 4(4) refers to “the codification of practice”—one hon. Member mentioned that earlier. That could lead to a significant extension of competences by European Union institutions, yet the Bill does not provide for a referendum on such matters.
Clause 4(4) then stipulates that changes that apply
“to member States other than the United Kingdom”
should not attract a referendum. That may appear reasonable but, given that this country is an integral part of a single European market, it is impossible to say with any degree of certainty that anything happening in the rest of the European Union would not have an important impact on this country.
In addition to all that is the most amazing exemption. In a Bill that claims to be about giving the electorate the ability to make decisions on important changes affecting this country, the
“accession of a new member State”
is expressly excluded in that regard; accession will not trigger a referendum. Where is the logic in saying that we can have a referendum on whether or not a voting system should be changed for the appointment of judges, but not on whether Turkey joins the European Union? Does the Minister seriously suggest that Turkey joining the European Union would be of no consequence? Does he seriously believe that the membership of Turkey, a country of more than 70 million people, will not affect the United Kingdom’s vote in the Council of Ministers? The Minister is a nice chap, but surely he cannot honestly believe that Turkey’s membership will not have a significant impact on Britain’s role in the European Union?
Martin Horwood
I understand the point that the hon. Gentleman is making, but surely the issue under discussion is the transfer of power to Europe and that transfer triggering a referendum. What powers does he think would be transferred from the British to the European level in the event of Turkey joining the European Union?
Mr David
The ultimate decision-making body in the European Union is the Council of Ministers, where, broadly speaking, votes are exercised according to the size of a country relative to other countries. I am suggesting that if a large country such as Turkey joins the European Union, the influence of the United Kingdom will inevitably diminish—that is absolutely simple and straightforward. Given the logic of the Government’s argument for this Bill, I find it incredible that that circumstance is painfully excluded.
Chris Heaton-Harris (Daventry) (Con)
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his wholehearted support for the amendment that I tabled on this issue, which, alas, we are not going to get to later this evening. Are we not assuming that Turkey would want to join the European Union? Given the direction in which its economy is going and given that it is already a member of the customs union, it would perhaps be very wise of Turkey to take a step back and have a look at where it is going. I was wondering whether this approach is a complete change in Labour party policy on this area, and it would be fascinating to know whether the party is for or against Turkish accession. Has the diminution of powers at the Council, whereby the previous Government gave away so many powers in different qualified majority voting circumstances that it sends shudders down the spine, led to Labour Members beginning to tighten up and see that we really should not have given away some of these powers?
Mr David
Perhaps I should not have given way on that point. I want to go on to make it absolutely clear that the Opposition would like to see Turkey join the European Union. There are a host of positive reasons for that to happen. Our position on the European Union and Turkey’s membership has not changed, but I cannot understand how the Government can say on the one hand that they believe in holding referendums on EU changes that affect the UK and on the other that they are against holding a referendum on such a huge issue of great importance to this country. The Government cannot have their cake and eat it.
Mr Dorrell
May I bring the hon. Gentleman back to the subject of his amendment? Does it follow from what he is now arguing that if the committee existed he would anticipate that a proposal that Turkey should join the European Union would constitute a significant transfer of power or competence? Does he think that in those circumstances, if the committee reached that conclusion, the decision would require a referendum to be held?
Mr David
It is not for me or anyone else in the debate to say what the committee should or should not decide. I am saying that the Bill expressly excludes a referendum on Turkey’s accession, irrespective of whether it is considered important or not, as a matter of principle. The Bill says that there will not be a referendum on Turkey’s accession no matter how important it is. That is illogical.
Kwasi Kwarteng
The simple question that Government Members wish to ask the hon. Gentleman is whether, under his committee, the proposed referendum on Turkish membership would take place. It is incumbent on him to explain how the proposal that his party has made will work in practice. That is what we are trying to get to.
Mr David
Who knows who will be on the committee? Who knows what opinions will be expressed? Who knows on what terms Turkey will join the EU, if it ever does join? The big difference is that we are suggesting that there should be proper, open-minded consideration. We are against a closed book on the issue, which is what this Bill suggests.
Kwasi Kwarteng
I am reminded of a constituent of mine going to a doctor who gave her some very powerful medicine. When she drank the medicine, she asked, “What will happen to me?” The doctor gave her a reason, but the hon. Gentleman’s answer reminds me of the doctor saying, “I don’t know what will happen to you if you drink this medicine. I do not know what condition you will be in after you have drunk the medicine. I cannot possibly tell you how it will work out.” That seems analogous to the hon. Gentleman’s position.
Mr David
I do not think that it is.
Members have asked about our rationale in tabling the amendment. I believe that we have explained it logically and systematically, but I ask the Minister: what is the Government’s rationale in specifically excluding a referendum on accession? Will the Government respond to that? What is the rationale? This is a debate but there is silence from Government Front Benchers—I can only conclude that there is no rationale. There is not, is there?
The situation is quite simple. The Government want Turkey to join the European Union. They consider that to be of tremendous foreign policy importance and they will not allow a referendum to get in the way. That is the truth and they should accept it.
Martin Horwood
First, I apologise for saying that I was in sympathy with the drift of the hon. Gentleman’s argument. I am certainly not now. I am very puzzled. A minute ago, he was arguing that we should be wary of having too many referendums. He now seems to be arguing for another one. Does he want more or fewer referendums?
Mr David
Once again, the hon. Gentleman is not following the debate very closely. What we are saying is that these issues should be considered—watch my lips—carefully by a special committee drawn of both Houses. What we are against is a predetermined conclusion that, irrespective of the circumstances, there should not be a referendum on Turkish accession. Although I challenged the Minister to explain the rationale, he declined to do so. I am sure the Committee will draw its own conclusion.
Mr Dorrell
May I ask the hon. Gentleman a simple question? Is he in favour of a referendum on Turkey’s accession to the European Union?
Mr David
No. I will move on. It is important that we realise that as well as the significance provision, the exception provision and the specific exclusion of a referendum on accession of any kind, our good friend the explanatory notes make matters worse and add to the obfuscation of the Bill.
I shall quote from the explanatory notes. Although they are wholly inaccurate and unsatisfactory, they are of some significance. They state that the so-called list in clause 4(4) is “illustrative rather than exclusive,” and they continue:
“In other words, there may be other types of treaty change which do not transfer competence or power from the UK to the EU and therefore do not trigger a referendum.”
What are the other types of treaty change? Has anyone got any ideas? Has the Foreign Office been rubbing its crystal ball? It is not good enough. There should be a clear indication of what the other types of treaty change are.
Mr Cash
The shadow Minister referred earlier to the meaning of the word “significance”, and he has just mentioned it again. Is he aware that the “Oxford Dictionary” defines “significance” as
“having a particular meaning; indicative of something”,
and goes on to give as an example,
“in times of stress her dreams seemed to her especially significant”.
Does he know something we don’t?
Mr David
No, not yet.
When I first read the Bill, I was worried about this complicated piece of legislation, compounded by the lack of clarity about the meaning of “power” as opposed to “competence”. I was concerned that it was a potential paradise for lawyers. As I am not an enthusiast for judicial activism, that worried me. I was also worried by the comments of the Foreign Secretary in the Second Reading debate.
Then I delved deeply into the how and why of judicial reviews, and in particular the circumstances in which they are held and the criteria that they examine. The House of Commons Library, as always, provided excellent objective information, and with forensic precision the European Scrutiny Committee carefully examined whether, in the case of the Bill, judicial reviews are likely.
Kwasi Kwarteng
I shall try again. In the context of the Bill, does the hon. Gentleman believe there should be a referendum on Turkish accession to the EU?
Mr David
No, I will not give way.
I asked the House of Commons Library whether a judicial review was likely. The European Scrutiny Committee’s conclusion was that
“re-course to Judicial Reviews is a more illusory safeguard than the Explanatory Notes imply.”
That is important. Surely it would be sensible for the Government to set out clear criteria for reviewing the reasonableness of a Minister’s decisions. More importantly, the European Scrutiny Committee report tells us that the courts have already ruled that decisions by Government on whether to hold referendums are political decisions and that the courts have therefore been reluctant to get involved.
That was borne out by the Wheeler case in 2008, in which the divisional court was asked to review the previous Government’s decision not to hold a referendum on the Lisbon treaty. It concluded that the issue lay
“so deep in the macro-political field that the Court should not enter the relevant area at all”.
If that was the case in the past, it is certain to be the case in the future.
Stephen Phillips (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)
Is not the distinction that the Bill envisages that, were a Minister to decide that something was not of significance, even though it was of significance, that could be reviewed by the courts in a judicial review? Surely the hon. Gentleman would agree that it is those provisions in the Bill that create the difference and distinguish the Wheeler case and that it is for that reason that the explanatory notes are to at least some extent correct.
Mr David
Part of the problem, as was mentioned earlier, is that we are talking about a Government making subjective decisions, and the courts have ultimately said that such decisions are political. Given the lack of clarity and the level of obfuscation in the Bill, my contention is that the courts are likely to come to exactly the same conclusion in future.
Graham Stringer
I share my hon. Friend’s worry about judicial review and the interference of the courts in what should be the business of the House. Given that, does he intend to support amendment 11, tabled by some of our hon. Friends, because it would get over that point?
Mr David
The Committee will have to wait to see how we will decide to vote.
I should like to finish the point about judicial reviews. Why do the explanatory notes refer to the so-called safeguard of judicial review on no fewer than four occasions? The reason is obvious: it is an attempt by the Government to give the wrong impression. It is yet another example of smoke and mirrors. The Minister has already promised to amend the woefully inadequate explanatory notes in one respect, but I urge him to rewrite them with regard to judicial reviews.
Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)
On the significance test, why has the shadow Minister skipped over the idea that anything that was judged to be significant would end up being a matter for an Act of Parliament anyway?
Mr David
We have not skipped over the issue at all. While we recognise that some people might have a different view on what is significant and important, we suggest that rather than subjectively expressing a view on what is significant, it should be for a purposeful and deliberative forum representing both sides of the House to come to an objective decision on what is of significance, according to the priorities of its members, because they are accountable directly to the people.
Neil Carmichael
Is that where the hon. Gentleman’s proposed committee would ride to the rescue and perhaps solve the problem?
Mr David
The important point to stress is that it would not be our committee, but Parliament’s committee. We are not saying that it should be a partisan body; its membership should be drawn from all parties in this House and from the other House. To allow the Executive simply to make their own decisions on what is or is not important and on what should or should not have a referendum is to undermine the sovereignty of Parliament.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
There is a slight contradiction. The hon. Gentleman is worried on the one hand about judicial activism and Parliament giving away its sovereignty, and on the other that the judicial review will not be operative anyway. It cannot really be both ways around. He also says that the committee will come to its decision, which will be voted on. Is he promising that when the vote takes place neither House will be whipped, so it will be genuinely independent, or is it just going to be part of the great party machine?
Mr David
On judicial activism, I read the explanatory notes, and they gave me the impression that I should not worry if the Government decide not to have a referendum, because there will be the ultimate safeguard of judicial reviews. The notes made that point not once or twice, but four times, and many Members said, “Fair enough; we will have an opportunity to challenge a decision in the courts because we believe that right is on our side and the strength of our argument is self-evident.” That opportunity does not really exist, however, because all the evidence suggests that all the Government are proposing, as the European Scrutiny Committee concludes in its report, is an illusory safeguard. At the end of the day, the Executive will decide in many, many areas whether there will be a referendum.
Mr Dorrell
The hon. Gentleman cannot get away with that. Some of my hon. Friends are concerned, as he appeared to be, about the threat of judicial activism, but as my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) says, if the judges are not going to engage in the issue, it will be a matter for the House of Commons, not for the Executive. The Executive make a recommendation; it is the House of Commons that decides.
Mr David
No, because other Members want to contribute to the debate.
In conclusion, this tortuous Bill is problematic in the extreme. This part of the Bill in particular undermines the centrality of Parliament in Britain’s democracy. The convoluted clauses setting out when a referendum will be held are not only complex but contradictory; the significance and exemption clauses place a question mark over the Government’s true intentions; and the false impression given in the explanatory notes about judicial reviews is truly reprehensible.
We have tabled amendments that would significantly alter and, we believe, improve this ham-fisted Bill. Central to our main amendment is a belief that Parliament should be at the very heart of our democracy, and such an approach would ensure that the long-standing principles of representative parliamentary democracy were truly upheld. Without the amendment, this part of the Bill is at best a ragbag of half-baked inconsistencies and at worst a recipe for constitutional chaos.
Chris Heaton-Harris
Before I make the couple of points that I want to make, I suggest to the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr David), as a Welsh Member, that referendums are quite important to people, that people understand simple and basic details and that they can understand, within the questions set, technical and important points. Democracy evolves, it always has done and it always will do, and through the Bill we suggest that referendums are a solid and sensible way forward. We trust the people who elected us in the first place to take a view, if asked, on the issues that the legislation raises.
Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend know that the most recent referendum in Switzerland, a country renowned for holding referendums on technical and specific issues, had a turnout of 58%—a very high turnout, and probably somewhat higher than the vote many Labour MPs representing Welsh seats received—demonstrating that people will vote when they have to?
Chris Heaton-Harris
I thank my hon. Friend, because every time he stands up, he educates me with a fact that I do not know.
The Labour proposals, in particular amendment 92, seek to redefine the referendum condition for UK ratification of amending treaties. As I will spell out in a couple of minutes, the proposed referendum committee would have to ask both Houses for agreement. As my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Stephen Gilbert) said, there must be agreement by both Houses before there is a referendum. The amendments are anti-referendum, anti-people and anti-common sense.
Currently, the referendum condition is that an Act approving an amending treaty must provide that its approval will not be effective until the ratification of the treaty has been supported in a referendum. Under amendment 92, the referendum condition would require an Act approving a treaty to provide that its approval will not come into force until the whole procedure has been completed. If the hon. Member for Caerphilly is to be believed, that procedure would involve the European Union referendum committee delivering a recommendation on whether a referendum should be held, both Houses of Parliament opposing or agreeing to the holding of a referendum, and a majority being in favour of ratification in a referendum on the treaty. The Bill’s main alternative, which is the exemption condition for UK ratification of amending treaties, would remain intact. That means that an Act approving an amending treaty could state simply that the treaty did not fall within clause 4—the definition of a transfer of competence or power—and a referendum would not be held.
Essentially, the hon. Member for Caerphilly is selling us a sop. There would be a whole procedure to go through, but a clause that says that there might not be a referendum would not be amended. Amendment 92 is not clear. It is probable that the redefined referendum condition would be met if an approving Act required a referendum to be held on the amending treaty, and if that produced a supportive result, without the EU referendum committee having made a recommendation on whether a referendum should be held. By seeking to amend some parts of the Bill and to leave other parts standing, the hon. Gentleman is confusing the point. I suspect that that is a deliberate ploy, because I am not convinced that the Labour party is willing to trust the people with decisions about significant moves in Europe. I am not convinced that many hon. Members understand the significance of the amendments.
Amendment 88 suggests that the intention behind amendment 92—both were tabled by Labour Front Benchers—is that no referendum should be held unless the European Union referendum committee has delivered an opinion on whether there should be a free public vote. Amendment 88 makes it clear that all amending treaties or article 48(6) decisions, which simplify provisions, that fall under clause 4 must be referred to the procedure involving the EU referendum committee and both Houses to determine whether a referendum is required. In other words, even treaties or article 48(6) decisions that are deemed to fall under clause 4, which require a referendum under the Bill, would be exempted from a referendum under the Opposition proposals. Again, that would take away the British people’s chance to have a say in these important areas.
New clause 9 would establish the referendum committee and the procedure for deciding on referendums on treaties and certain decisions, including article 48(6) decisions. It would report to Parliament in all cases on whether an amending treaty or relevant EU decision
“involves a significant transfer of power or competence, and if so…whether it requires a referendum to be held.”
In other words, only if the Committee judged there to be a significant transfer of competence or power would it provide an opinion to Parliament on whether the referendum should be held. For all other decisions, it would not have to report to Parliament. That is a recipe for keeping decisions on which the British people might want a say behind closed doors in this place, rather than for adding more transparency.
Chris Heaton-Harris
That is not what is contained in the hon. Gentleman’s amendment. Perhaps we can have this conversation elsewhere at a later date, because I do not wish to take up the Committee’s time, but the Labour amendments would confuse the situation. Rather than open up the chance of our having referendums, they would close it down. I would like to think that we will not have to vote on amendment 85, but I fear that we probably will.
I wish to talk about the significance condition in the Bill, and about amendment 11, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Mr Clappison)—an important amendment on which we should divide. The British people have given up on politicians and political parties a bit when it comes to Europe. They elect representatives to this place on party platforms that do not necessarily reflect their views on Europe, because matters European do not stack up in their priorities at a general election. People make decisions based on reforms to the health service, education, defence and a bunch of other matters, and when we ask them how significant Europe is in deciding how to vote, we find that it falls way down the list. They are therefore trusting us, in a way, to do a job for them when we discuss the matter in the House. We, the political classes of this country, and I as a former MEP, have let the people of this country down.
The hon. Member for Caerphilly might say that the Lisbon treaty was not the constitution, but the fact is that the British people do not trust anybody on these matters now. They think that we are all the same, and that whatever we say will simply not happen. As the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart) put it, we are all in favour of referendums when we are in opposition, but we are certainly not when we are in government. I welcome the Bill, because we can say to the British people that that has stopped.
There are matters in the Bill on which a Minister must judge whether something is “significant”. I understand the fact that it sets out 44 vetoes, 12 decisions and eight ways of increasing EU competences on which a referendum will be mandatory and there will be no significance test. I hope that the Minister will say in what situations the significance test will be used, because I should like clarification of that point.
I believe that the significance test will apply when there is a possibility of conferring on an EU body or agency new powers or the ability to raise sanctions against the UK. There is a whole list of exciting and interesting EU agencies, and I understand that the European Agency for the Management of Operational Cooperation at the External Borders having an extra competence might not seem a huge issue for the Committee. However, I should like the decision to be taken by the House, not by a Minister. Such decisions are best taken by the Members of this place and those of somewhere else a bit further away. I should like the Minister to state why he believes such minor matters, as it were, do not warrant debate in the House.
Mr James Clappison (Hertsmere) (Con)
My hon. Friend is making a compelling case. He is talking about minor matters, but does he agree that the Government concede that they could be significant enough to warrant a referendum? The question is not whether they are significant enough, but who decides whether they are significant enough. Would a Minister alone or the House make that decision?
Chris Heaton-Harris
I concur with my hon. Friend. Although I completely trust the Minister, I am slightly concerned that, in future, the role might be played by a Minister who was not so interested in those matters.
Ms Gisela Stuart
As a former Member of the European Parliament, the hon. Gentleman knows that the decision-making process on those minor amendments is infinitely longer in the European Parliament than in the House. I cannot remember how many Ministers for Europe there were in the 13 years of Labour government, but although I hate to say it, collective memory in this place is vested not in the Minister for Europe, but in the civil service. It is not even a Minister who makes the decision, but the civil service.
Chris Heaton-Harris
I concur with the hon. Lady. Several manoeuvres have taken place under previous Governments to determine who is Minister for Europe. The incumbents do not often stay in the role for long. Either they are, like the current incumbent, sufficiently ambitious to move up the ministerial pay scale, or they could easily be a journeyman on the way out. There is a historical context to some decisions about conferring a competence on an EU agency, and one needs to know what the agency was formed to do in the first place. I perceive such conferral as part of the mission creep in Europe. The European Commission, in establishing so many new agencies on such a regular basis, creates its own quangocracy.
When I was a Member of the European Parliament, it was difficult to police the spending and powers of an agency that the European Commission set up. Indeed, it was more difficult than policing some of the agencies and quangos that Governments of different complexions established in this country. If those agencies grab power and take more competences—even for a valid reason at the time—it is important that the Minister of the day understands the historical reasons for setting up the agencies and the intended limits on the powers. I was present when Eurojust and Euro-magistrate were set up—all part of the European public prosecutor, which I look forward to debating tomorrow, and all part of a significant salami-slicing approach of taking powers away from individual member states, and building something that nobody particularly wanted.
I understand that any ministerial decision on the significance test has a kind of double lock. It has been drawn as narrowly as possible, and I would therefore like the Minister to answer a couple of questions. First, I want to check whether any treaty change will require an Act of Parliament. I should like to think that Parliament will have every opportunity to vote for a referendum on such a change. That is why I support amendment 11. Secondly, the decision on significance is subject to judicial review to ensure that decisions not to hold a referendum only on genuinely insignificant matters are backed.
Those matters are important because, as I said, they are about getting the British people to trust the decisions that we make on Europe again. No member of the public wants decisions to be made behind closed doors, without reasonable explanation. I emphasise strongly to the Minister that the amendments are not about trust in him, his ability to undertake the role or his decisions. I would like clarification that Parliament will have a say because that is what we were sent here to do.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash) has tabled some tempting amendments to which the Minister and the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston alluded. In amendment 1, my hon. Friend manages to do a fantastic decapitation job on the Bill that would basically put all changes up for referendum. Although there is validity in my hon. Friend’s reasoning—he has seen through the years a lot more of what goes on in this place than I have—I do not want everything to be decided by a referendum. The British people will not take that. They want Parliament to say, “These are important decisions and there will be a referendum, a debate in both Houses, or an Act and a vote,” and the Bill makes such provisions. We can then choose whether to amend a measure so that it is subject to a referendum because we believe it to be so important. If we think that a subject is insufficiently important, we can decide not to have one. I am tempted by amendment 1, but I am simply unable to support it for those reasons.
I was tempted by amendment 1 because of the accession exemption, which the hon. Member for Caerphilly and a number of hon. Members mentioned. I tabled an amendment on accession to the EU that we will not decide on today, just as we will not decide on many amendments that have been tabled. Amendment 21 is exactly as the hon. Gentleman described it. It would mean that a 3.5% dilution of our voting powers on the European Council triggered a referendum. That is a catch-all—it is completely designed as such—so that we would have a referendum on the accession of big countries.
Given that, amendment 1 all of a sudden comes back into play and I am once again tempted. I would much rather have had a comprehensive and sensible debate on clauses 4 and 5 today or tomorrow or in extra time.
Mr Cash
I understand where my hon. Friend is coming from, but there is a difference between significance and the opinion of the Minister on the one hand, and the question of exemption on the other. Clause 4(3) says that certain matters are forbidden territory. I am tempting my hon. Friend by saying that that whole category of exemption should clearly be removed, even if there will be a debate on what is or is not significant.
Chris Heaton-Harris
I understand what my hon. Friend says and I am quite sorely tempted, but my problem, as I described earlier, is the minutiae that might be sucked in under amendment 1.
Mr Cash
I understand my hon. Friend’s reasoning, but the specific exemptions are set out in clause 4(4)(a), (b) and (c). I understand that he would not want my proposal to go too far. The British people expect these things, which after all include matters such as Turkey and treaties of the type proposed by the French only the other day, not to be exempted. The British people would be left out and not taken into account on such decisions and treaties, yet they would have the most incredible impact on them. I shall explain that later.
Chris Heaton-Harris
I always appreciate the lessons that my hon. Friend can teach a humble new Back Bencher and member of the European Scrutiny Committee, and I very much look forward to receiving them, but he makes a salient point. This is about what the people who put us here expect. That is why I ask the Minister please to listen to what hon. Members say about the significance clause and amendment 11. The proposal is not against him; it is about enhancing Parliament and its transparency.
Mr Cash
Amendments 1 and 3 stand in my name. My comments boil down to what I said in my interventions on my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris) and were somewhat anticipated by the Minister earlier. In a nutshell, I see no reason why clause 2 should refer to an exemption condition or subsection (3) should state:
“The exemption condition is that the Act providing for the approval of the treaty states that the treaty does not fall within section 4.”
Without any further let or hindrance, clause 4(4) would exclude from those arrangements that would result in a proposal for a referendum
“the codification of practice under”
the treaties already established
“in relation to the previous exercise of an existing competence”,
and
“the making of any provision that applies only to member States other than the United Kingdom”.
That is, I think, an incredibly important point. Also, as we have debated already, it would remove
“in the case of a treaty, the accession of a new member State”,
which in this case would include Turkey. In the context of what the Government clearly want to exclude—in other words, their positive policy decision not to allow the British people a referendum on certain treaties of immense importance—they are disavowing the very intentions and principles that underpin the Bill.
I have made that point before over the question of sovereignty, where there is a massive contradiction between what is on the tin and what is in the Bill. I say again that those of us who spoke in favour of the sovereignty of Parliament won the argument, but that was not on the tin and it was not what the Whips—or, indeed, the Prime Minister—wanted, so it was voted down. That does not reflect particularly well—if I may say so—on our democratic system. We are faced with exactly the same point here. We are told on the tin that we will have a referendum on important matters—that is the general idea as explained in the Foreign Secretary’s article in The Sunday Telegraph only a week ago—but on examination in Committee, it becomes perfectly obvious that certain kinds of treaty will be excluded. I have mentioned the example of Turkey, but I want to give another specific example of the kind of treaty that would be excluded.
Mr Cash
I think that my hon. Friend can wait, if he does not mind.
I want to give an example that deals explicitly with a matter of immense importance that is coming up in the lift. In fact, it is not merely in the lift; the lift has come up and the doors are opening. Monsieur Fillon, the French Prime Minister, came over to see the Prime Minister specifically about this issue, and I have here the exclusive interview in The Times with Monsieur Fillon. I also had the opportunity to meet the French Minister for Europe and discuss the matter with him personally and privately.
There is no doubt about what they want or what they intend, which is effectively a twin-track treaty, which is a treaty entered into by us and the rest of the European Union—that is, with all 27 member states, in order to legitimise it within the framework of the treaty arrangements—so that they get their treaty and, within that treaty, an arrangement specifically designed to exclude the United Kingdom, even though we would be gravely affected by it. It would apply only to those other member states.
Clause 4(4) refers to
“the making of any provision that applies only to member States other than the United Kingdom”.
They look like innocuous words, but what do they actually mean? That exemption condition—in other words, no referendum, to put it bluntly and simply—means that there would be no opportunity for a referendum if the other member states agreed to go down that route. They may well do that, despite all the protestations to the contrary, some of which were rather subtly indicated by the Prime Minister in his press conference, albeit without excluding the idea of any such treaty; rather, it was merely on the supposition that that might not affect us as much as we believe, or as I believe the British people would believe if they saw it in black and white. What do those provisions include? In particular, they include arrangements of that kind relating to fiscal, political, social and employment measures, not to mention other matters that would affect the relationship between us and the rest of the European Union. A massive juggernaut would be created, through a form of extremely enhanced co-operation between those member states, that would have an enormous impact on the United Kingdom.
I have been looking at the balance of payments between us and the other member states. The figures, which I got from the Library, only bring us up to 2009, before the catastrophe that hit Europe occurred, and they are alarming. The imbalance in the balance of payments between us and the other member states has been moving critically in the wrong direction. I could give the precise figures—I may do so later—but we only have to consider the following example, which was on the “Today” programme this morning. If one had listened to the programme, one would have heard about Belgium, which is in massive crisis, with protests and people on the streets, and no Government for 22 months. Greece is in absolute chaos, with protests and implosion, while Ireland, with its political crisis, is totally imploding. Spain has 4 million unemployed, with 40% youth unemployment and people on the streets on a massive scale today. Similar problems are also occurring in Italy, and there have been riots and serious unrest in France, too.
The bottom line is that Europe is not working according to the economic governance that has been prescribed. Yet under what is proposed, the opportunity to address the very kind of treaty that would enhance the ability to confront us with a massive juggernaut of policies that have been going wrong—policies that would undermine the opportunity to grow from our 45% to 50% investment in Europe—would be severely depleted. That would be the most damaging kind of treaty that could be entered into. Indeed, as I said in The Times on the day that the French Prime Minister came over, it would be the kind of treaty that I would expect our Prime Minister to veto on behalf of the British people. However, we cannot have confidence that that would happen, because of the argument being presented. This Bill was introduced on 11 November, when we know that treaties of the kind that I have just described were already being anticipated, however damaging and disastrous they would be for the very people of this country who, if they knew the facts, would say, “I insist on a referendum on any treaty relating to arrangements of this kind.”
It would be an abomination for us to be confronted with the kind of arrangements that are being put into place—arrangements that would be so damaging to our growth and our relations with the European Union. That is why I say that this exemption provision has to be taken out of the Bill, for precisely the reasons that I have given. I do not need to enlarge on that point, but I absolutely insist that these provisions should be taken out. I look to the Minister, if he thinks that I am wrong, to give me a reasoned answer as to why.
Ms Gisela Stuart
I rise to speak to amendment 11, on which I hope the Committee will have time to vote. The amendment goes to the heart of what is wrong with the Bill. There are plenty of other things wrong with it: it is inconsistent, and all kinds of other things, but let us leave that aside for the moment. The hon. Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris) made an important point when he said that there was not a particularly clear party political divide on Europe, and that there were pros and cons on both sides. Very few people vote for their Member of Parliament because of the candidate’s view on Europe. They do, however, have a sense that, in a parliamentary democracy involving the Crown in Parliament, the House will ultimately have to decide on these matters.
What worries me about the whole construct of the Bill, which purports to strengthen Parliament, is that it will actually do no such thing. There is a sense of “Oh God, make me virtuous, but not in this Parliament”, and, because one Parliament cannot bind another, God knows what will happen in the next one. However, the default position will introduce the judiciary into the proceedings. It was bad enough that, when we were discussing parliamentary sovereignty, we were seriously asking whether it was a common law concept that would be open to judicial interpretation. It is not. The default position is that there must be a substantive vote in the Commons, and that that must be the ultimate decider if there is any doubt. There are manifold reasons why people have lost trust in the political process, but it is true to say that all parties have a tendency to behave differently once they are in government. They are much less inclined to ask the people than they were when they were out of government.
I am fundamentally in favour of the accession of Turkey to the European Union, but I would not like to go out and campaign in a referendum on that question. The Bill calls for referendums on significant changes. At the time when Turkey might accede to the European Union, its population will be larger than that of Germany. It will be the largest country in the EU by population, and its voting weight would therefore be larger than that of any other country. Anyone who argued that Turkey’s accession did not represent a significant change would be living in cloud cuckoo land.
Kwasi Kwarteng
My issue with a referendum on Turkish accession is that it would not really be within the jurisdiction of the House. Yes, we can hold a referendum on any transfer of powers from this country to the EU, and potentially veto that transfer. However, if the rest of Europe wanted Turkey to join the EU, we would have very little recourse to any action such as holding a referendum. That is my objection to the point about a referendum on Turkish accession.
Ms Stuart
I genuinely do not want to be patronising, but I might be about to sound patronising. An accession treaty would still have to be decided on by this House. We would have a say on whether Turkey would join. We might also go further and ask the people whether it should happen. Also, on the question of the transfer of new powers, there are very few areas—apart from the questions of a European standing army and joining the euro—in which the European Union does not already have powers in some shape or form. So this is not just a question of new powers; it is also a question of the strength of powers. If there were a question on the accession of Macedonia, I could argue that that was so insignificant that it would not affect our powers. However, the accession of a country such as Turkey is massive. So, to respond to the hon. Gentleman’s question: this House—or perhaps the people—will decide whether Turkey joins the European Union, because the accession of a member state that would be larger than any of the others represents a significant change.
I shall return to amendment 11. There is so much wrong with this place, and my lungs are still full of dust, so my voice will go at any moment. I am sure that that will be a great relief to quite a number of people, not least those on my own Front Bench.
Amendment 11 states:
“If the Minister’s opinion is that the effect of that provision in relation to the United Kingdom is not significant the Minister must seek Parliamentary approval for his opinion”,
and the approval must be on the basis of a substantive vote. If we make this open to judicial review—I am fully aware that some argue that judicial review is never on the substance, but only on whether the Government misled themselves in the process or incorrectly applied the law—we need to be aware that if this House allows decisions to be taken outside, it will weaken itself.
Martin Horwood
Is not the logic of the hon. Lady’s position that the significance condition in clause 3, talking about the simplified original procedure, should have been in clause 2 and then applied to all issues relating to referendums? Why, then, was that not a Labour amendment instead of the rather strange committee-based structure that Labour Front-Bench Members have proposed?
Ms Stuart
There are plenty of inherent inconsistencies both in the original Bill and in the amendments. I was involved in the tabling of amendment 11, which makes it clear that if there is any doubt, it should be resolved by this House.
As a final observation, in our Parliament, the Executive always has a permanent majority. We can rely on the strength of this House only if there are sufficient Back-Bench Members who defy their Front-Bench Members. I see the Conservative Benches full of Members, so let me point out frankly that tonight provides them with a chance to show whether they have the guts and the courage of their convictions. They said all sorts of things in the process of their election and now they have an opportunity to defy their Front-Bench team, support an amendment tabled by a majority of Members of their own side and restore faith to this place.
Mr Clappison
What a great pleasure it is to follow the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart). As to the generality of her comments, I found nothing in what she expressed to the Committee to contradict my experience over five years of the European Scrutiny Committee. I intend to be as brief as possible, because I know that other Members wish to speak and that important amendments on other issues are due for debate later. I am sure that my hon. Friends share my wish to debate those important issues, particularly accession.
Let me say a few words in support of amendment 11, on which I shall seek a separate vote and hope I am lucky enough to achieve it. By way of introduction I should say that, in seeking to establish that a referendum is required before certain steps are taken, the Bill is a great improvement on the existing position. The Bill is also a significant improvement in requiring other steps, such as an Act of Parliament or a vote of this House where a referendum is not required.
I am genuinely concerned, however, that there remain some very significant gaps in the scheme of the Bill, and I believe that it is at this point in our detailed scrutiny that we should try to fill those gaps. It will be very disillusioning for all those whom we have promised and have led to expect that there will be a referendum on great transfers of power or great decisions in the European Union if that referendum does not take place. We want to do all that we can to avoid that sense of disillusionment. It is against that background that I seek to deal with the problem of the significance condition, to which hon. Members have referred.
Simply, amendment 11 would give Parliament a vote on whether certain transfers of power to the European Union are significant enough to warrant a referendum. As the Bill stands, the decision on whether matters are significant enough is in the hands of the Minister alone, subject to a challenge in the courts. Parliament does not get a say, however, at least on the question of whether there should be referendum.
Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
I am listening carefully to my hon. Friend, not least because I put my name to his amendment. If the significance condition was not met, and therefore the Government were not proposing a referendum, do I understand correctly that legislation would still have to be brought to the House? If so, would the House not get an opportunity to give an opinion on whether the significance condition was met in any case? Will he clarify that?
Mr Clappison
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for putting his name to my amendment, and it is indeed the case that, whether or not the significance condition is met, there will have to be an Act of Parliament to give approval to what is proposed. However, there would be no requirement for a vote in the House on whether to hold a referendum, and there should be such a requirement in the Bill. I will endeavour to explain how relying on an Act of Parliament would be very inferior. If hon. Members want an illustration, they will see none better than all the vicissitudes of parliamentary process that we are experiencing this afternoon in trying to amend the Bill. For example, if this evening we do not reach the question of whether to hold a referendum on an accession treaty, the matter will fall, and unless it is chosen for debate on Report, again subject to all the vicissitudes of the parliamentary process, it will simply not get considered, even though it is very important. That might also happen in future, and that is why relying simply on amending parliamentary legislation is very inferior to putting a requirement on the face of the Bill.
Mr Dorrell
Is there not an important difference, however, between the circumstances today and those that would prevail in the context of future legislation that the Government concluded was not sufficiently significant? Putting such a killer amendment to the Bill would mean that no Member who would have supported that amendment if it had been called should have any reasonable basis to support the Bill on Third Reading.
Mr Clappison
The point could also be made that we have a very friendly Government who have given us five days—we would have liked a bit more time—for debate in a proper way. Those of us who can remember the treaty of Lisbon being taken through the House will remember how guillotines can be applied and how very important issues can go without being debated at all. I seem to remember that we debated the entire foreign and security policy and the question of common defence in about 45 minutes.
Mr Dorrell
I do not think my hon. Friend will remember a Bill going through the House without going through Third Reading.
Mr Clappison
There is that point, but I think that my right hon. Friend would find that it is all subject to the vicissitudes of parliamentary process, and such a reliance is inferior to placing a requirement in the Bill. In future, if the argument were advanced for a referendum, he and I might see a Minister stepping forward to the Dispatch Box and saying, “It is all very well hon. Gentlemen arguing for a referendum. When we had the European Union Bill, it was decided not to make it a requirement for Parliament to have a vote, and to leave it to the Minister alone to decide whether the matter was significant.” To coin a phrase, that would be a killer argument.
Mr Jenkin
May I put it to my hon. Friend that if we accept the premise of my right hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Mr Dorrell) that there is no point putting the amendment in the Bill because the Act will have to come before Parliament in any case, we might as well ask, “Why are we bothering with the Bill at all?” The whole basis of the Bill is to ensure that the Government’s feet are held to the fire over the definition of the treaty. The whole business of significance is totally malleable. If my right hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood does not understand that we need to treat such matters differently from how we treated them in the past, I honestly expect to see him in the Opposition Lobby on Third Reading.
Mr Clappison
My hon. Friend makes a very fair point. Why are we making all the other requirements for a referendum clear on the face of the Bill if we can simply tack something on to Report or Third Reading? Why are we bothering to go through the whole process? To leave out this question, when we are making all those other requirements, would leave a significant gap, and in times to come we might contemplate with some regret our failure to fill in that gap. I cannot see the great problem with requiring a vote of the House to approve a Minister’s opinion. On these Benches, and probably in other parts of the House, Members stood on a manifesto that promised greater parliamentary scrutiny, and this is an opportunity to fulfil that promise. I can see no great obstacle to doing that.
Mr Cash
In supporting amendment 11, may I ask my hon. Friend whether he is aware, as I became recently when the Finnish delegation came over, that Ministers in Finland—and certain other member states—have established a very good practice whereby they must appear before the Finnish Parliament’s equivalent of the European Scrutiny Committee to ensure that there is compatibility between what goes on in Parliament and what the Minister decides on such important matters?
Mr Clappison
With his great experience, my hon. Friend makes an important point, and there are similar arrangements in the Danish Parliament. The House should seek to have the best arrangements possible. I welcome right hon. and hon. Friends’ movement in the right direction, but if they do not move on this point, they leave a significant gap in future. Briefly, I will try to explain how big a gap that could be.
There are only two clauses that cover a statement of significance by a Minister and to which the significance test applies. The others all concern competences or changes in the voting procedure. However, these two clauses are very important, as they cover the transfers of power that are apt to be made under the simplified revision procedure of article 48(6) referred to in clause 4. I will give way to the Minister for Europe, who is looking very interested in these points, if he disagrees with me. The powers that Ministers decide are significant enough to warrant a referendum, if they are transferred to the European Union, are those that will come to the House as a result of the simplified revision treaty. That important procedure was introduced specially by the treaty of Lisbon. I will give way to any Member, including my right hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Mr Dorrell), who wants to disagree. That procedure made it easier and quicker to make constitutional change, and to bring about a transfer of power from nation states to the European Union.
We have spent some time debating whether we should have had a referendum on the treaty of Lisbon, the treaty of Maastricht, the treaty of Amsterdam or the treaty of Nice. However, under the simplified revision treaty, a treaty in those forms is not required. There is no requirement for a convention and all the other lengthy procedural steps that preceded the treaty of Lisbon. It is simply a matter that can be agreed between the member states at a Council meeting, and then approved by the individual Parliaments. The whole point of the simplified revision treaty was to make it quicker and easier to integrate powers in the European Union. It is a sort of “speeding up of European integration” provision. The provisions that are subject to a ministerial test of significance are the ones that will ensure that these matters are brought before the House. They embody the procedure of simplified treaty revision. There are only two of them, but they are very important. All the other provisions—or at least the preceding ones, which deal with competence—would require a full constitutional process under the ordinary treaty revision procedure with which we are all so familiar.
Mr Clappison
I shall give way first to the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) and then to my hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke), who has been waiting very patiently.
Martin Horwood
Surely the whole point of the simplified revision procedure is that it relates to changes that are relatively uncontentious and therefore insignificant. That is quite an important factor. Moreover, as even those changes will require an Act of Parliament, they will be subject to a vote in the House of Commons.
Mr Clappison
We have just been debating the hon. Gentleman’s second point, but I shall say more about it shortly. However, I think that if he studies the Bill he will find that if he votes in favour of the clause, he will be voting in favour of the possibility of a referendum if the Government consider the effect of the provision concerned to be significant enough. It is not a question of whether it might be significant enough, otherwise the clause would not be in the Bill. If a Minister says that it is significant enough there will be a referendum, and I welcome that. It is a question of how we decide whether it is significant enough for a referendum. Should we leave that decision to a Minister, or should it be made by means of a vote in the House of Commons and the other place?
Charlie Elphicke
I find amendment 11 very attractive, because it would ensure that the Minister was subjected to a vote in both Houses. But what would happen if sweeping powers were passed to the European Union which anyone would describe, objectively, as significant, if both Houses were whipped to ram the legislation through, and if they did so? Where is the backstop to ensure that the British people are not cheated out of a referendum in such a case?
Mr Clappison
It would be a matter for this House and the other place to express their opinion and to vote for a referendum. That is in addition to all the other procedural steps contained in the Bill. It is not a case of either/or. We propose a further process: indeed, a further safeguard against the granting of significant powers to the European Union, as well as the powers for which the Bill already provides. I know that my hon. Friend is concerned about that issue.
Mr Clappison
No doubt the hon. Gentleman will try to persuade me that the Bill does not say that that is significant enough for the holding of a referendum. I think that, if he reads the Bill carefully, he will find that it is.
Martin Horwood
The hon. Gentleman is being very generous with his time.
Surely even provisions that the Minister considers to be insignificant must be subject to a vote in the House of Commons, as an Act of Parliament will still be involved, and surely the backstop referred to by the hon. Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke) is the ability of Members to vote against the Bill concerned and defeat it if they disagree with it so strongly.
Mr Clappison
I do not wish to be unkind to the hon. Gentleman, but I believe that I dealt with that point in my reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Dover. As I have said, this is not an either/or situation; the amendment provides an additional safeguard. I repeat that the powers that are transferred may or may not be significant, and this House and the other place may or may not vote in favour of the transfer. It is a question of whether the decision is made by Parliament or by an individual Minister—a Minister of the Crown, as the Bill puts it.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
As my hon. Friend knows, I have considerable sympathy with his amendment, but I wonder whether he may be looking a gift horse in the mouth. Given that an Act of Parliament is superior to a resolution of the House, if a resolution of the House were rushed through with remarkably little time and heavily whipped, it would be a great deal harder to insist on a referendum when the stage of the Act of Parliament was reached. Although, on first reading, I rather like my hon. Friend’s amendment, I am increasingly concerned that if it were passed, those of us who wish to insist on a referendum would have a harder task to fulfil.
Mr Clappison
My hon. Friend has clearly given the matter great consideration, but I think that he is wrong, and that if others agree with him, they are wrong as well. The procedure for which my amendment provides is exactly the same as that which the Government propose in other parts of the Bill relating to other transfers of power, including those relating to the title V provisions on justice and home affairs. If my proposed procedure is defective, so is the Government’s proposed procedure, because the terms of the amendment are the same as the Government’s. If the Minister’s opinion was that the effect was not significant enough to warrant a referendum and Parliament did not agree with that opinion, there would have to be a referendum, because the significance test would not have been met. That provision is in the Bill, so I do not think that it could be any stronger.
Mr Cash
The opinion of the Minister will in fact be the opinion of the Whips, who will wish to ensure consistency in the Act of Parliament to which reference has been made. For practical purposes, my hon. Friend is right. If Parliament has said that it does not approve of the opinion of the Minister, it will be an awful lot more difficult for the Bill to be whipped; and if the Whips did that, they would be in defiance of the very sovereignty to which I have referred repeatedly during our debates on the Bill.
Mr Clappison
My hon. Friend is right. The amendment follows the scheme of the Bill. Unless a Minister says that the transfer of power is insignificant, there will have to be a referendum, because the significance condition will not have been met. The amendment provides that if the significance condition is met because the Minister says that the transfer is sufficiently significant, there must be a vote in the House to prove that what the Minister has said is correct, and if the significance condition is not met, there must be a referendum.
Broadly, the question is this: does Parliament decide, or does a single Minister decide? The Government propose that a single Minister should decide, but, as my hon. Friend knows, there is a fall-back position, namely that the Minister should be challenged not in the House but by means of judicial review. I find that somewhat strange, as did some of the distinguished academic witnesses who gave evidence to the European Scrutiny Committee.
Under the Bill, if one of our constituents is aggrieved by what the Government propose, his recourse will be not to his Member of Parliament but to the courts, through judicial review. I think that that in itself sends a very odd signal. What should I tell a constituent who comes to my surgery and complains about the European Union, as some of my constituents do when it introduces a regulation that has an adverse effect on their jobs or companies, or when they disagree with some transfer of power? Should I say, “I am sorry. You may want a referendum, but you have come to the wrong place: you need to visit the solicitor’s office down the road”? I do not think that that is a very satisfactory state of affairs. We are told that clause 18 entrenches parliamentary sovereignty, but I think that if we adopt the proposal in this clause, we will bypass that.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
A Minister’s decision can be subject to a judicial review, and, under the Bill, the House would have an opportunity to insist on a referendum. If, on the other hand, the House voted against a referendum in a resolution, that would not be subject to judicial review, because procedures in the House cannot be reviewed by any court. I am beginning to think that the Government’s proposal for an Act is a stronger safeguard, because the Minister’s decision could be challenged and then voted on as part of the legislative process, whereas if the House were whipped to oppose a referendum, that would not be subject to any judicial review.
Mr Clappison
I fear that I must part company with my hon. Friend if he is suggesting that our democratic safeguard should lie in recourse to the courts rather than to Parliament. I am afraid that I must put Parliament first. In any event, as was demonstrated by evidence given to the European Scrutiny Committee by esteemed legal experts, it is very unlikely that a challenge to a decision by either a Minister or the House of Commons would succeed in a judicial review. I think that we are being led down a blind alley. In my opinion, even if the possibility of a judicial review of a ministerial decision had been contemplated in the explanatory notes or in ministerial statements, judges would be extremely reluctant to challenge a political decision on the significance of a particular transfer of power. I also believe that the fact that we are contemplating such a step as the main challenge to a Minister’s decision risks undermining the House of Commons while not providing any further safeguard.
Mr Cash
Although the Committee has rightly said that a judicial review might be considered unlikely in certain circumstances, the key question is what Parliament has said about the circumstances in which a referendum should be required. We should bear in mind above all else the fact that we in Parliament should decide what is in the interests of our own constituents. We are here to give them the opportunity on these matters—that is part of the Government’s overall case which, regrettably, fails on a number of tests as we go through these proceedings. The object of the exercise is to ensure that the people of this country have the right to decide on matters relevant to their daily lives. Regrettably, the fancy franchises being thrown up by these exemption conditions and significance arrangements are invading the central question, which is whether the people of this country should be allowed to decide after we have made our judgment on their behalf.
Mr Clappison
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that point. The long and short of it is that the Bill provides that unless the significance condition is met and it is decided that a transfer of power is not significant enough to warrant a referendum—some transfers of power will not be significant enough, whereas others will be—there will not be a referendum. As the Bill stands, the Minister alone will decide whether that condition has been met and this House of Commons will not have the chance for a separate vote, before an Act of Parliament, on whether a referendum should be held. Even if someone were lucky enough to find the time and all the rest of it to table an amendment on this during the consideration of a Bill, it is unlikely such an amendment will succeed if this is not contemplated in this Bill. The Minister would simply say, “The Government of the day decided that there were certain occasions when a referendum would be required and this was the procedure for dealing with a referendum in these cases. It was decided that a Minister’s opinion was the test of significance or not, so this does not apply.” I do not see such an amendment being a successful avenue or a good defence to which to turn.
My amendment would provide an important safeguard, which is in addition to there being an Act. I welcome the provision for an Act, because that is a good thing. To be fair, an Act of Parliament is not required in these circumstances at the moment, because the transfers of power under the simplified revision procedure are simply subject to the resolution of both Houses. The Bill’s proposals are therefore a step forward, but we could do so much better. If we do not make the change that I am proposing, we will be leaving a big gap.
Nick de Bois (Enfield North) (Con)
I am very attracted to amendment 11, but I am struggling to understand one thing. It has been debated, but perhaps my hon. Friend can give me some clarity on it. He rightly says that an Act of Parliament will be required, but a Bill that is whipped will surely get through. Why does he believe that his amendment will be any more successful here?
Mr Clappison
For the same reason that placing something in a Bill is a stronger defence—it has stronger legislative authority—than leaving it to chance in the future. My amendment is a safeguard in addition to the Act of Parliament that will be required, and including in the Bill requirements on a referendum would make things legislatively stronger.
We come back to the question outlined by my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin), “Why put any of these requirements in the Bill and why provide these 44 situations where a referendum is required, given that each time we have an Act of Parliament for a treaty change, as we would have to have, we could simply do the same thing then?” That argument is being run in certain quarters, but it makes a mockery of the whole Bill. I do not want to be too unkind to those who promote that argument, but I merely say that it was fully ventilated during the European Scrutiny Committee’s deliberations and it was dismissed, and not only in one report. We produced a majority and a minority report, which disagreed on almost everything but agreed that a change needed to be made on the significance test. When one understands the two spectrums of opinion in the European Scrutiny Committee, one can see the measure of achievement in uniting the two.
Mr Cash
It seems inconceivable that if parliamentary approval for the Minister’s opinion were denied precisely because of the arguments that have been heard in the House of Commons, the Government would then say, “We are going to enact this anyway. Parliament has said that it disagrees with the Minister’s opinion that such and such applies, but we are going to pass this by way of an Act of Parliament.” That is just not real. The real decision would be taken on the assessment of the opinion of the Minister and that would be properly gone into if my hon. Friend’s excellent amendment were accepted.
Mr Clappison
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Hon. Members will just have to face the fact that although the Bill is a step forward and contains very good provisions, we must not leave gaps. If we leave this gap, we leave a get-out clause to be used in the future. Given the volume of change that could come through the simplified revision procedure, that could prove very important indeed and we may regret our decision in time to come. I cannot see what the enormous problem is with having this requirement in the Bill. I am used to hearing the argument that something could be done in a better way and to hearing technical arguments, but my experience is that when such arguments are put before the House, they usually have little real basis. If we want to have something, we should vote for it. I see no reason of policy or substance that is an obstacle to my proposal. Perhaps the Minister will tell us why. He has been very reasonable and persuasive on many other points in the Bill.
Mr Clappison
He has been very charming and dealt with things in a very satisfactory and open way.
Mr Clappison
He has been friendly. He has been a model of charm and ministerial competence, but he has not yet produced any credible reason why we cannot have a vote in Parliament to decide whether something is significant enough to trigger a referendum, as opposed to leaving it simply to a Minister. What is wrong with trusting Parliament?
Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)
I rise to speak to the amendments standing in the names of my Labour Front-Bench colleagues. People elect their MP to speak up for them in Parliament and that is what they expect us to do. They expect us to speak up, to do business for them and to do certain work for them because they have put us here and they cannot spend every minute of every day looking at every detail that they want us to look at. They expect the party in government to tackle the problems of the day. When I say that the general public do not want numerous referendums on technical matters it is not because I doubt their ability to study the issues and make up their own minds—they could of course spend their time doing that. What people tend to say to me is, “Nia, it is your job. You’ve been elected to do this. We want you to look at these things and tell us the best ways forward.” That is not because they cannot do this themselves. They expect us to do the nitty-gritty work on the legislation.
Chris Heaton-Harris
I understand where the hon. Lady is going with this argument, but is what she is describing not exactly what she is asking the people of Wales to do in a certain referendum in March?
Nia Griffith
Indeed. I shall be dealing with that point shortly, because it is very important. There is a huge difference between the attitude now in Wales and the one prior to 1999, when people were very excited and enthused about the setting up of a new institution, there was a lot of media coverage and a lot of people were talking about it. With five weeks to go before the vote on 3 March, people are not particularly interested. They are saying, “This is a technical difference. If it is a matter of making the process better and simpler, so that things can be done in the Assembly rather than in Parliament, could you not just get on with that and do it?” That is not because people are not interested, because they do not appreciate what the Assembly is doing or because they do not accept that we have different ideas about how to run the health service and education and about how to protect the education maintenance allowance; it is because referendum fatigue is setting in. People are saying that on the big issue they want to have a vote—they want to say that there is going to be an Assembly—but on the technical issue they are saying, “You are telling us that there are better ways of doing things. We would like you to look at the detail, rather than for us to have to do that all the time.”
Mr David
Does my hon. Friend agree that an important issue is involved in the case of the Welsh referendum? It concerns whether the Welsh Assembly will have primary or secondary powers, which is an important constitutional issue. Despite that, it is very difficult to get people engaged and to encourage them to make a decision according to the arguments on that constitutional point.
Nia Griffith
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is the problem. The referendum is about the technicalities and that is why it is so difficult to get the media and press interested and so difficult to make it the ordinary subject of conversation in pubs.
Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)
Does the hon. Lady agree that when it comes to issues that are in the national interest, both the public and the media will be engaged?
Nia Griffith
Absolutely. That is the important point and that is why we are calling for a committee to be set up. That would provide the opportunity for the issues to be discussed. If the subject were important and interesting, there would be media interest and lots of lobbying and, as with any work that is done in Committee, the issue would become one that people considered. The whole point of having any committee is that it can make that difference. Committees can do the work on the detail. An innocuous little detail can turn out to have a major impact and that point can be uncovered in Committee. Likewise, something that seems quite big to start with will, when it is considered in detail, be shown to do not much more than maintain the status quo.
Stephen Gilbert
As I understand the Opposition’s proposals, there will be one committee comprising Members from both Houses, who will then separate and go back to their relevant Chambers to carry the argument in favour of or against a referendum. Perhaps the hon. Lady can enlighten me given that her Front-Bench spokesman was unable to do so. What will happen in the event of a clash between the Houses?
Nia Griffith
It is very clear. The idea is that if one Chamber does not think there is a need for a referendum, there will be no referendum. If both Chambers think there is such a need, there will be a referendum. Clearly, the committee’s recommendations will be considered and we will ask whether the matter is of major significance. One would expect any matter of major significance to create excitement in both Houses.
Stephen Gilbert
So whereas the coalition proposes to legislate to ensure that the people have a referendum, the Opposition are proposing a committee of Members of the two Houses, both of which have a veto, which will mean that we might not have a referendum at all. Is that the position?
Nia Griffith
The hon. Gentleman has to understand that the committee will make recommendations and it is not about what the committee will say. When the committee comes back, we will not all automatically do what it says; it will make recommendations. My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart) talked about collective memory, what it is and how important it is. The people on the committee might well have an enormous amount of experience and the people who are likely to want to be involved or to consider the detail will have done so previously. As she pointed out, ministerial teams often change and have to pick up a brief very quickly, so they will not necessarily have that knowledge.
The idea is that the committee should consider the detail, sift out what really matters and make a recommendation, but the Houses will not have to take that recommendation at face value. If the issue is of major significance, surely by that time some interest will have arisen, people will be doing their own research and people will be coming to the Chamber with plenty to say.
My constituents are saying to me, “You do the nitty-gritty and sort out the bits and pieces. When you have done that, you can tell us whether you think that this is a matter of major significance.” That is the idea—the committee would bring that information to the House, and this House and the other place would make the decision.
Kwasi Kwarteng
My understanding of the hon. Lady’s position is somewhat unclear. Is she saying that her constituents have delegated to us the responsibility and have therefore no interest in the outcome of a debate on the referendum?
Nia Griffith
I am saying that my constituents say that there is often detail to be considered before we can decide whether a change will have a major impact. In the Bill, there seems to be great confusion about what a power actually means. We do not seem to have clarity in the Bill. My constituents are saying, “This is the sort of work that you need to do. When you, in Parliament, can tell us whether you think an issue is significant the door is open for a referendum if that is what you think best.”
Mr Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)
On the point about when the decision is made, will the hon. Lady enlighten me on the time scale over which the joint committee would report? It is part of a ratification procedure and there needs to be some defined time scale that I do not see in the amendment.
Nia Griffith
The hon. Gentleman raises a significant point. One difficulty about European legislation is that dealing with these issues often takes an enormous amount of time. Often, developments take place over a considerable amount of time whereas a referendum gives a snapshot of the mood of the country at one time. That might mean that people vote on different issues. It is important that the committee would have the opportunity to go through the issues and decide what is and what is not important. The hon. Gentleman knows as well as I do the situation in respect of Europe, what has to be decided and how it has to be ratified.
Martin Horwood
Given that we are all agreed that any change would be subject to an Act of Parliament, what is to stop Parliament as a whole subjecting the change to such scrutiny and even possibly suggesting an amendment on a referendum as the Act went through? I am sure there would be many volunteers on the Government Benches to draft the amendment.
Nia Griffith
Perhaps it would be better to have a cross-party committee and to take the matter away from the partisan approach. There are many areas on which there is cross-party agreement on Europe and many issues on which feelings are not particularly partisan. I suspect that there are more differences between Members on the Government Benches than there are between Members on the Opposition Benches and others on the Government Benches.
Graham Stringer
Is not the constitutional position normally that this House is superior to the other place on manifesto commitments, on finance and on secondary legislation where the law is already decided? Is it not a flaw of new clause 9 that we are giving a veto to the other place on whether we consult the electorate? That is an extraordinary position.
Nia Griffith
I am sure that my hon. Friend will enlighten us a little more on his position later. The important thing is that we are talking about the sovereignty of Parliament and the opportunity for us to have that debate and to have a say. Frankly, I think we all agree that there is a role for a committee to sort out the detail.
In many areas, there is general consensus that we do not want to see swathes of power wafted away to Europe. My right hon. Friend the shadow Chancellor has always made a very forceful case for keeping out of the euro and I dare say that many Government Members agree that that is a good position to take. We are trying to provide the opportunity for greater safeguards and for a committee to consider matters that would sift out the unnecessary and trivial, focus on the issues that matter and ensure that we have the discussions that we need.
Charlie Elphicke
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for being so generous in taking interventions. As I understand it, she is saying that she was sent here by her constituents to do the detail, work out the complicated stuff and then tell them whether they need a referendum. Were she selected by Mr Speaker—by an entirely independent process, and not by the Whips, as would seem to be the case—to be on that committee, what sort of detail would there need to be to make her say, “Yes, I vote for a referendum on this issue”? What kinds of subjects does she think would merit referendums?
Nia Griffith
We have spent a considerable time in the European Scrutiny Committee listening to experts on particular issues. We would need to ask what powers are being given away, what would not be the same as it is now and where the qualified majority vote would become a simple majority. We would need to ask, “Is that acceptable? Is there an issue of sovereignty? Would we be giving away something that we have always had in this Parliament to a European super-structure?” Those are the things that we would want to consider in detail. The whole point is that the committee makes a recommendation; the committee does not simply live by its own views. I have had few letters or e-mails from anybody about a referendum, even during the last Parliament when there was quite a fuss about it in the media. I must have had three or four letters or e-mails throughout the five years of the previous Parliament, when the matter was quite an issue in the press, so I do not think it is such a huge and exciting topic out there as the hon. Gentleman might think.
Chris Heaton-Harris
I thank the hon. Lady for giving way again; it is very kind of her. Following on from the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke), the hon. Lady said that the shadow Chancellor had kept us out of the euro. He has ensured that we will never be able to go in, because of our massive level of debt. Would a debate on entering the euro go before the committee before anybody could decide on it in either House?
Nia Griffith
I will address my remarks to the question before us. The issue that the hon. Gentleman raises is much wider and would merit full debate in the House before any decisions were made. It may well be outside the remit of the Bill. It is a matter that any Government would want to discuss thoroughly. I can hardly see it being a popular move without proper discussion and consensus.
We need to remain in Europe. We do not want the label that Giscard d’Estaing threw upon us in the Lisbon treaty discussions, when he said that the UK would opt out of this and opt out of that, and that we were for ever opting out. We got a reputation as the country that cried wolf all the time and did not engage with the serious issues. It is important that we do not become the spoilt child of Europe. We must take our part; we must stand up and be counted; and we want a mature and sensible approach to what merits a referendum and what does not.
In conclusion, I fully support the idea of a special referendum committee being set up, which would have as its remit to look into the necessary factors and then make a recommendation to both Houses about whether a referendum were needed.
Charlie Elphicke
I see the Bill as a ground-breaking and essential force for good. It is important to understand that the context of the Bill is the reaction of many people throughout the land against the denial of a referendum on an EU constitution renamed and rebadged as the Lisbon treaty, but not changed.
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith), and a privilege to hear from a Member of Parliament who has not had the ire of constituents come down upon her head for not standing up for a referendum on Europe. I congratulate her on having a constituency which is clearly full of people who are delighted with the European Union and delighted never to be consulted by means of a referendum. It is a fine constituency that she has. No doubt she has the odd housing claim—
Mr David
Surely the hon. Gentleman recognises that people are not concerned about constitutional abstractions. They are concerned about their jobs, their children’s education and their health. Those are the issues that matter to people. If he does not realise that, he is not in this world.
Charlie Elphicke
The shadow Minister for Europe makes a fair point. In my constituency, yes, people’s prime concern is that Labour all but closed the hospital down and that we will be getting a new hospital. They are concerned that they lost jobs and money. They worry about how they will get by, and about the massive amount of borrowing and taxation. I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman. My right hon. and hon. Friends in the Government are trying hard to sort out that difficult problem. That will take time.
Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)
I take issue with my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Mr David). Constitutional matters underlie everything else that happens. For example, constitutionally we chose not to join the euro. Had we joined, our economy would now be utterly wrecked, but in fact it will survive.
Charlie Elphicke
I thank the hon. Gentleman, who is highly knowledgeable and skilled in European matters, for making the point far better than I could. I was about to make it myself. Yes, of course schools, hospitals and the economy matter, but what also matters is our sense of nation and our independence as a member state in the European Union, not as a state in a federation. That is essential, and it is essential that we were not in the euro, for the exact reasons that he set out.
Had we been in the euro, we may well have found ourselves in the predicament that we see across the Irish sea or in southern Europe, given the reckless borrowing that took place over the previous decade, which brought our country to the brink of bankruptcy. I, for one, am glad that we did not join the euro. It is the one thing on which I congratulate the new shadow Chancellor and the former Prime Minister—preventing Tony Blair, when he was Prime Minister, from going into the euro. It was the only spark of light and quality in that Government. I am hard pushed to think of any other.
I return to the Bill, having been led astray by those gentle and generous interventions. I shall begin by focusing on clause 11. My hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Mr Clappison) made a series of powerful points about the primacy of Parliament. His argument was that we cannot trust the Ministers of the day because they have their own agenda. If they do not consider a matter significant, they will certify it as not significant. Some check and balance is needed. There must be a resolution of both Houses of Parliament.
When I first thought about that, I found it attractive, but on reflection my concern is that if the Minister considers a matter not to be significant, he will toddle down to the Whips Office and have a chat to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury. He will say, “Look, chief, this isn’t significant. Let’s just whip this vote through the Commons, whip it through the Lords and push it through.” That is what would happen.
Charlie Elphicke
I defer to my hon. Friend. His independence of mind and spirit is well known, and his championship of the cause of our nation in the matter of Maastricht is well recognised and on the record of the House. I would be proud if I were half as strong, resolute and bold as he is. I hope the day will come. It is, as everyone knows, a feature of the working of our political process that there will be heavy pressure in both Houses for a Government to get their agenda through.
Chris Heaton-Harris
There is history here, is there not? Were we not told as a nation by a former Minister for Europe, the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), that the charter of fundamental rights had no more significance than The Beano? The charter is now incorporated in the Lisbon treaty and we are all suffering from it. A judgment call by a Minister about what is significant could turn out to be very important indeed.
Charlie Elphicke
I entirely agree. I remember in times past the former Prime Minister, Tony Blair, saying that the Scottish Parliament was a parish council, but it has far more sweeping powers than that. He was making a point about sovereignty and saying that it would not change anything, but a considerable amount of devolution has been given to Scotland. In the same way, the movement towards ever-closer union, which we have seen latterly in the Lisbon treaty, has highlighted the fact that although we are told, “It’s okay, it’s a small step, it won’t make any real difference,” it makes a massive difference.
I will be corrected if am wrong, but I think that about seven of every 10 of our laws are now effectively made in Europe. I have costed that and found that the European Union costs each and every household in this country an average of about £2,000 a year in taxes, which is a substantial sum. The hon. Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins) rightly said that our constitution and how we interrelate with Europe are important matters. If he wants to intervene on that point, I will give way.
Kelvin Hopkins
The hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) made light of the matter in saying that we would not obey the Whips, but surely the important point is that when the House makes a decision, we as individual MPs with individual votes that will go on the record must account to our electorates for that. It is possible that the Whips will bully, cajole, press and threaten—I have no experience of these things, of course—but our responsibility is to our electorates. In my constituency, a mini-referendum was won by those calling for a national referendum on the Lisbon treaty, and it was publicised on television and elsewhere. On something as fundamental as constitutional change relating to the European Union, the electorate do care. We are accountable to our electorates first, even though we pay lip service and tip our caps to the Whips from time to time.
Charlie Elphicke
I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman. My central concern with clause 11 is that a Minister could say, “This isn’t significant,” and sign over some massive power. The Act of Parliament will then be whipped and rammed through both Houses. An individual, perhaps a constituent of mine in Dover, might then take issue with that because they think that it is significant. How will that constituent have a say? The Bill’s current protection is judicial review, but if we had a whipped vote of both Houses and a resolution that the matter was not significant, that would weigh in the minds of the courts.
I will go further: on this matter I am a renegade among many of my hon. Friends who say that the courts have no place interfering in the business of this House. I am an old-fashioned lawyer, and I take the view that the courts are an important check and balance in our democracy. Perhaps it is just me, but in respect of our political system wishing to ram something through and take away our rights, I always thought that the purpose of the rule of law was to hold back the Executive and act as a check and balance. The purpose of the rule of law—I think this started with Magna Carta, and it has continued in legal documents written since—and the purpose of the courts is to hold back that express, overweening Executive power and ensure that the subject has their say and stands up for their rights. I do not seek to oust the jurisdiction of the courts in determining whether a significant condition has or has not been met, which I think is an important part of the Bill and an important check and balance.
Martin Horwood
The hon. Gentleman is making a powerful case, but surely the ultimate sanction should not be with the courts, but with Parliament. Having an Act of Parliament as part of the process must be the check. He is not really describing a legal check on the Executive; he is implying that it is a legal check on Parliament, which surely rather threatens the constitutional arguments that some of his hon. Friends made last week in relation to the Bill.
Charlie Elphicke
My hon. Friend makes a fair point, so let me to clarify my position. We will hopefully have an Act of Parliament that will state that there will be referendums in the case of matters that are of significance. A Minister might then come along and say that he does not think that a matter is significant. An individual will be able to go to the courts to seek a judicial review, saying that they think that the matter is significant on objective criteria. The court will then rule on that ministerial decision. That has to be right.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
What exactly will the courts do on a judicial review? Will they say that the Minister has not followed the correct process in coming to his decision, or will they try to overturn his decision? My hon. Friend is a lawyer, so I would be grateful for his explanation.
Charlie Elphicke
I believe that they would refer the decision back to the Minister to take into account relevant considerations, which would prevent a perversity. For example, if a Minister were to say that joining the euro was not significant, and if there were no other checks and balances in the Bill, an individual might decide that the matter was very significant and seek a judicial review. The courts would then tell the Minister that that was a perverse and an unreasonable decision.
Charlie Elphicke
With respect to the hon. Gentleman, I think that that is increasingly less likely to be the case.
Michael Ellis (Northampton North) (Con)
In a judicial review, the courts would be concerned about any abuses of power and about whether a public body might have taken decisions that were ultra vires, meaning that they were beyond the powers of that body. The courts have recently been involved in reviewing decisions relating to the royal prerogative. As far as judicial review is concerned, the courts will not interfere with primary legislation or the decisions of this House. It seems perfectly reasonable, therefore, that the administrative courts could act as a safeguard in relation to secondary decisions, such as those taken by a Minister of the Crown on whether a matter is significant.
Charlie Elphicke
I completely agree with my hon.—and learned—Friend, who makes the central point. He will correct me if I am wrong, but I believe that until recently the courts shied away from reviewing the exercise of prerogative powers. These days, they are far more gung-ho in acting as a check on the decisions of the Executive. We should be in no doubt that the significance condition set out in the Bill is the decision of a Minister, meaning a decision of the Executive. As such, it is amenable to judicial review. In that way, we have the check and balance, which gets us out of the problem that concerns me: the issue of whipped votes being used to ram legislation through Parliament under some future Government. That does not apply to the current Minister, because he is a fine Minister who will use the powers correctly, but what if a future Minister has a more Euro-enthusiastic approach?
Charlie Elphicke
Perish the thought. Were such a Minister to make such a decision, my constituent would be able to challenge it and ensure that there was a more objective assessment.
Charlie Elphicke
The shadow Minister knows from our discussions on clause 18 that it is not possible to do that. Nevertheless, were he to become Minister in future and find the Act tiresome in holding back the floodgates of his Euro-enthusiasm and desire to embrace the greater Europe, he could dispense with the Bill by repealing it. However, he would take a political hit in doing so, because he would be taking away from the British people their right to have a say on the treaties that would follow. Therefore, he would have to be pretty forthright with the electorate in an election manifesto. If he was not, he would be open to the questions and ire of a large section of the British public who would regard that as an issue of concern.
Without further ado, it is right that I discuss new clause 9, which was tabled by the Leader of the Opposition, the shadow Foreign Secretary and the shadow Europe Minister. As far as I can see, it proposes a total watering down of everything in the Bill. I have been told by the Clerks that I am not allowed to describe it as a wrecking amendment, but I believe that I am allowed to say that it would, in my humble opinion, wreck the Bill, as far as its purpose and intent are concerned.
Richard Fuller
Does my hon. Friend agree that new clause 9 demonstrates that the Opposition have not learned the lessons from when they duped the electorate about the proposal for a referendum? In the new clause, they seek to hide the decision-making authority in a committee, but we do not know who the members would be, in what proportion they would be drawn from either House, whether all of them would be elected or whether they would be whipped. In short, it would lack the clarity that the British people want on such a decision about their future in relation to the European Union.
Charlie Elphicke
My hon. Friend makes exactly the point that concerns me most. New clause 9(5) states:
“The Committee shall consist of no more than 19 Members”—
19 great and good—
“drawn from both Houses”.
But would it include my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash), who is so learned and knowledgeable about European matters? Some future Government, operating that selection mechanism, might find that his services were not required, that he was more trouble than he was worth, and that he would talk for too long—perhaps for longer than an hour in Committee—and tie up everyone. In such a manner, they might not include him. I, however, can think of no Member who knows more about the matter than he, except perhaps the hon. Member for Luton North.
Kelvin Hopkins
I absolutely protest. The hon. Member for Stone (Mr Cash) knows infinitely more than I do.
Charlie Elphicke
Shortly after my hon. Friend the Member for Stone, the hon. Gentleman is a true expert, and whenever he rises to speak I listen with interest and learn.
Would the proposed committee include, for example, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart), who is highly knowledgeable but does not always take quite the on-message view that her pager instructs? Would it include my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin), or his constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Clacton (Mr Carswell)? I can think of no more expert people to sit on such a committee, but, if the new clause were passed and the Bill changed as advertised, those people—who are so expert and know so much about matters européenne—would not find themselves on it. I have a sense that the Front-Bench teams of whoever was in power, might not include such people. For that reason, new clause 9 is a Trojan horse. Its purpose, in my humble opinion, is to take power away from the people and to stuff it upstairs in a committee; and that, in essence, is the wrong thing to do.
Stephen Gilbert
Is there not another problem? Today, we have teased out of the Opposition the fact that the new clause would effectively give the other place a veto. If the House of Lords decided that it did not want a referendum but the House of Commons decided that it did, we would have stalemate and no referendum.
Charlie Elphicke
My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. The House of Lords was once a thoughtful, revising Chamber that would have orderly debates and not detain business excessively, but some of the new arrivals seem to have changed the way in which it operates. I am told that the Standing Orders and courtesies of this House prevent me going any further into all that happened in the House of Lords, but we have all read the news and seen the number of marathon sessions, and it is incumbent on some of its newer Members to think of the health of some of its older Members and to be a little more considerate than they have been of late. My hon. Friend is right about the House of Lords: whether we go further into or come out of Europe is a matter that should start in the House of Commons, because this is the House of the people.
Michael Ellis
Is my hon. Friend struck by the fact that the Opposition appear to wish to increase the power of the unelected Chamber, as it is currently constituted, in a way that one has not seen since at least the Parliament Act 1949 and potentially the Parliament Act 1911? Through their proposed change, they seek to give the House of Lords the power, in effect, to overrule the wishes of the House of Commons.
Charlie Elphicke
I entirely agree. My hon. Friend makes a strong and forceful point.
I have another concern about new clause 9. My hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex, as I have said, fought valiantly for the people to have a say on the Maastricht treaty. If Maastricht were refought and the matter reconsidered, is it likely that out of the Opposition’s proposed committee a referendum would come forth? Many of us have some doubts about that. My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary in former times made the case that the Amsterdam and Nice treaties should also have been subject to a referendum. If we had had such a committee system, would there have been a referendum? Can the shadow Europe Minister, the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr David), tell us whether there would have been a referendum if his committee system had been operational?
Charlie Elphicke
We come to the vexed question of Lisbon, when the push for a referendum reached its apogee and the people felt that they were outrageously cheated. If there were a Lisbon question once again, and if the facts were the same or similar, could the new clause 9 committee be relied upon to sit and, in making a determination, to ensure that we had a referendum? If a Government had said in their election manifesto, “We will have a referendum on this matter, the committee will sit, and we will make sure that it recommends a referendum,” would the committee then do so? Some people have grave doubts, because of the Whips’ system, and that is why the new clause should not be the preferred way.
The Bill’s measures on a referendum lock are the way forward. The amendments are all about breaking up that lock, and they would take us back to where we were with the Lisbon treaty, which was rammed through both Houses. The new clause is a concern for that reason. It would water down the referendum lock and leave us with significance tests writ large. Do we want that, or do we want to ensure that the British people have a referendum guarantee? That is very important.
Mr Buckland
Does my hon. Friend agree—I tried to make this point earlier to the hon. Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith)—that in the new clause there is an absence of any time scale for a report by the committee to the House? In itself, that significant omission would lead to more delay and obfuscation and not deal properly with the matter at hand.
Charlie Elphicke
I agree strongly. That is the risk: the whole thing could be buried in committee. The new clause is also slightly defective, given that it would allow the committee to
“determine its own procedure…broadly in line with…the Joint Committees of the two Houses.”
That is not sufficiently precise. I defer to those more expert in how such committees are set up, but I am concerned about the defects in the drafting of the new clause.
The Government’s Bill, which the new clause seeks to amend, sets out strict and exact tests on what a referendum would be and details how it would bind Ministers in terms of the law of the land. Those provisions would not be in place if the new clause were passed. We would end up with the classic old Whips’ fix, and we would not have the people’s guarantee.
I believe—because I am a bit old fashioned—in government for the people, by the people and of the people, that that should not perish from this earth, and that my constituents should have a say on the great matters of our times. Given that, the Bill is important and the right step towards more public power. The people and their sovereignty should be recognised, and they should be given that say, which time and again they have been cheated of—to my mind, unacceptably.
New clause 9 would give Parliament more power; I believe in giving the people more power in our modern age. I do not agree with both Houses of Parliament having a veto on a referendum. I do not think that the House of Lords should have a veto on a referendum, particularly given the substantial concern that recent events have given us about what goes on there.
Kwasi Kwarteng
Does my hon. Friend agree that the signal being sent by the Labour party is contemptuous of the electorate? It is trying to set up a committee that, in its good grace, will decide whether the people should have a referendum.
Charlie Elphicke
Yes, I agree. The Opposition are in a fix, and new clause 9 is designed to deal with that. On the one hand, they dare not oppose the idea in principle of a referendum and of allowing the British people to be consulted. They are slightly embarrassed by the Lisbon matter. On the other hand, they do not want to come out and say it. We have what can only be described as a devious amendment to stick it all up in committee. They claim that they are all in favour of referendums, while trying to squash the rights of the British people to have a say in a referendum. That is wrong in principle, but it indicates the Opposition’s lack of confidence in their position. It indicates that they do not feel that they are winning the debate on giving the British people a say.
Ben Gummer (Ipswich) (Con)
My hon. Friend should not be surprised by that, given that two Members on the Opposition Front Bench orchestrated the coup against Tony Blair, which put an unelected Prime Minister in place, much to the detriment of our nation.
Charlie Elphicke
That is a very important question. It shows the respect that the new Government have for our democratic process, for consulting the people and for taking bold steps in the national interest—not just bringing Britain back from the brink of bankruptcy, but ensuring that the British people have a say in referendums.
Austin Mitchell (Great Grimsby) (Lab)
I want to speak briefly. The hon. Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke) might have a more sceptical view of Europe, living so close to it in Dover, but I agree generally with his views on Europe. He was sceptical about the strength of the committee proposed in new clause 9, but he would also be justified in being a little sceptical about the intentions of his Government, because the Bill is weaker than it needs to be and will not provide the strong defence that I think we need against the further aggrandisement of European power. I say as a warning: do not trust anybody in matters European.
Although I support and will vote for amendment 11, I am puzzled by new clause 9. I am not sure what it means, nor why it invokes so many decision-making processes. I do not know why it does not invoke the Mothers Union and the Privy Council as well.
As with all European debates, this debate has skirted around the main issue, which is that the Government always get their way on matters European and steamroller what they want through the House. This country has a system of government by party, in which the Executive effectively control the legislature. Party loyalty means that, whatever platform MPs are elected on—whether it is Eurosceptic, Euro-enthusiast or “don’t care two stuffs about Europe”—they get dragged along by the chariot. Government by party guarantees that.
Europe has a remorseless power to drag us in. It is rather like the conversation between Brer Rabbit and the tar baby—punch it, and we are stuck. The drive to ever-closer union drags us in, because Ministers never want to rock the boat or be disruptive. They do not want to stand and fight on any particular issue. Even the courageous and esteemed Yorkshireman who holds the position of Foreign Secretary is now beginning to say nicer things about Europe in the dulcet tones of his Yorkshire accent. That is a symptom of the way in which this Government are being drawn in. Instead of making a stand on the increase in the budget by 2.9%—it will go up because there are in-built drivers that will make it rise—they accepted the remorseless rise in contributions. The cost of implementing all the regulations must now cost the country about £40 billion a year, which is as big as the cuts that the Government are trying to make.
Each party gets drawn in. Ministers do not like confrontation, so we go down the path remorselessly. I do not know who said, “Talk tough and carry a big stick”, but Ministers talk tough and carry a feather duster. They come back from Europe waving the feather duster saying, “I didn’t get exactly what the House of Commons or the people wanted. I had to make compromises, of course, so I went along with this. Believe me, it is only a small increase in the power of Europe. We can trust them. This will cause no problems and will be acceptable.” Disastrous consequences follow. That is how Europe progresses. In this country, we always discover the extent of the disaster and the damaging consequences of the concessions long after the event. The classic example is the common fisheries policy, which was sold as an accommodation to Europe that would not be difficult or cause many problems.
Austin Mitchell
I am not sure that I should give way to a Member who does not represent a fishing port.
Kwasi Kwarteng
I am very grateful for the hon. Gentleman giving way, notwithstanding my not representing a fishing port. I want to know the position taken by the hon. Gentleman and his party on the idea of the referendum lock. In all his eloquent words, I have not worked out his position on that question.
Austin Mitchell
When the hon. Gentleman has been here longer, he will appreciate that my position is not exactly the same as that of my party’s Front Benchers. My position is sensible, austere and Eurosceptic, and I am anxious for the consultation of the people on any matters that involve the sacrifice of power to Europe. We should have had a referendum on the Lisbon treaty—I concede that point. I and other hon. Members argued for it strenuously at the time, but we were overruled. That was a retrograde step that made the treaty and its provisions less acceptable to this country, because the people felt that they were being imposed on them. I am in favour of referendums, and I do not think that the Bill is strong enough in that respect.
Stephen Gilbert
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way, and I do represent a fishing port. Does he agree with David Blackburn of The Spectator that the Bill
“would introduce a watertight referendum lock on future EU treaties”—
perhaps salt-watertight—
“I doubt whether the Lady herself could have done much better in the circumstances”?
Austin Mitchell
All I can say is that David Blackburn must be more naive than I thought.
I was giving the example of the CFP, which was sold to us as harmless. We were told that it would lead to effective conservation because everybody would be involved, everybody had access to our waters and everybody would make decisions collectively. However, it led to the decimation of our fish stocks and the looting, frankly, of about £3 billion-worth of fish and jobs. There is nothing that we can do about that, because it happened under Ted Heath, who used to come down to the House in every fishing debate and justify his mistake. It is all in the past, and we discovered the problem only later. That is what happens.
My hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith) argued that people are not interested in the details, which is certainly true. We in Grimsby are perhaps more interested than people in Wales in all matters European, particularly to do with fishing boats, but people are not interested in details. The consequences of what happens are interesting, however, because they cause the loss of jobs and employment.
There was a provision in the Lisbon treaty—was it article 121?—stating that aid could be invoked by majority vote in the event of threats to the euro from natural disasters. It has now been invoked for aid to Ireland, which will drag us into making huge contributions not only to Ireland—the Chancellor of the Exchequer projected that as a one-off—but to the other states that follow in the domino-like collapse that will happen. The consequences of concessions that are said to be of no damage, of no great moment and unimportant become clear only later. The Bill provided an opportunity to resist that process, but disappointingly, it is not strong enough.
When we consider the amendments, we should view the European situation with a certain amount of scepticism. The committee referred to in new clause 9 would be controlled by the Whips and by Government, whatever we are told about the intentions behind it. I am suspicious of proposals to modify European powers that come from Euro-enthusiasts such as my party’s Front Benchers. What is in it for them? They want Europe to have its way, and the new clause is a way of allowing that while appearing to protect us.
I support amendment 11 and shall certainly vote for it if there is a vote—I hope there is, because I want to support it. However, we cannot be sure that, if the House were faced with a choice of whether to reverse a Minister’s decision that an issue was not worth a referendum, it would take the decision independently. Debates such as today’s give a clue as to what would happen. We happy band of Eurosceptics, including most of the Members present, have argued consistently, been right all along and warned of the consequences of what has happened. Those disastrous consequences have emerged, but nobody has said, “Oh, my God, we should have listened to the Eurosceptics on this matter.” People have constantly abused us for rocking the boat and as dissenters and just a nuisance, but we are right, and we are right to fight.
However, we cannot be sure that we will win the fight. Should a matter be referred to the House under amendment 11, the House would be whipped as always and Members would see their careers relying on voting with the Government. They would think, “I shall get a powerful position even more quickly, as a Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Minister for Bathing Pools, or I shall be given a junior ministerial job in charge of seeing that library books are returned promptly”—if any libraries are left open under the Government’s proposals. Ambition, love of the party and support for the party will always whip people into line. Amendment 11 would not put a roadblock in Ministers’ way; it would erect another hurdle that they would be forced to jump. That would be salutary for them, because the more hurdles they jump, the more exhausted they will get and the greater the chance that we will eventually prevail.
Neil Carmichael
It is a great honour to participate in this important debate.
Members have mentioned the number of people who come into their constituency surgeries to talk about Europe. I am not overwhelmed with European issues in my surgery, but I do hear a lot of concern about Europe when I go to businesses and large organisations in my constituency. They are getting concerned about regulation, excessive interference and so on, and they think—and are sometimes right to think—that it all emanates from the European Union. It is therefore important that we give due consideration to the need to allow the electorate as a whole to speak about Europe. That is why the Bill is so important. It will, once and for all, stop the disgraceful situation of a Government promising to have a referendum on a significant change—the treaty of Lisbon—and then failing to do so. The Bill will prevent that, and quite right too.
Martin Horwood
There has been some discussion about the risk of votes being whipped. Does my hon. Friend agree that there is a greater risk of a vote in committee being whipped under the system that Labour Members propose, because the Executive can handpick the membership, than there is for a vote on the Floor of the House?
Neil Carmichael
Yes. My hon. Friend the Member for Dover went through the possible Members who could serve on the proposed committee, obviously with a slant towards those who are participating in the debate and are interested in the European Union. The point is much the same—the committee’s membership would matter. The shadow Minister has not explained how it would be formed, managed and so on. However, we can assume that whipping would take place. That is not helpful.
I am also concerned about the role that new clause 9 would give the House of Lords, given the events of the past few weeks. We need to put that down as a marker when considering how the Bill would unfold if new clause 9 were accepted.
My hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland) is concerned about timing. He is absolutely right. He is a lawyer, and lawyers love time. [Interruption.] I have watched the clocks tick by myself. New clause 9 does not deal with that.
I tabled an amendment to get clarification on what constitutes a decision in the context of the outcome of a European Council meeting. That is important, and I hope that the Minister, when winding up, will explain what sort of decisions we should consider following a European Council or a meeting of the Council of Ministers, and when a decision is actually a decision.
We must acknowledge that the Bill will be seismically important to our relationship with Europe. It will also make a dramatic difference to the way in which the House and the Government deal with Europe in connection with the electorate. Far too often, people have found out about decisions some time afterwards. They have not felt included in that decision making, and consequently and because of their concerns, they have felt angry about the decision.
I am convinced that we will shape a much better relationship with Europe if we have the courage to explain more and to engage people more effectively. The Bill will do that without new clause 9 and other amendments that would stop us from ensuring that Parliament is the first port of call for the necessary key decisions, and that the people are always consulted when those decisions are pivotal.
Kelvin Hopkins
I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak and I apologise to hon. Members for being unable to be present throughout the debate. I was delayed elsewhere in the House on European business.
I want strongly to support amendment 11, which the hon. Member for Hertsmere (Mr Clappison) tabled and to which I was pleased to add my name. He made a powerful speech, which I want to echo and support.
It has been suggested that we might be governed by committees and that big decisions should be taken by a committee. I do not want a committee to make decisions about what is significant and what is not. Parliament should make those decisions, particularly this House. I am a unicameralist and therefore not so concerned about the other place. I believe that we should make the decisions in this House and be accountable to our voters because they clearly and rightly have strong feelings about the European Union.
I do not wish to be governed by judges, either. I worry about the constant reference to matters going to judicial review. I want the House, not judges, to make the decisions. As judges in the Supreme Court in America die, they are replaced by judges appointed by the President. If several judges die or retire at the same time, and a President of a particular persuasion appoints people in his own image, one has, for a generation or two, a Supreme Court that takes a particular view. Let us suppose that Tony Blair had had such a power. He would not have appointed lawyers with my views, but Euro-enthusiasts to a Supreme Court. For a generation, we would have been bogged down by a Supreme Court dominated by people who took a particular view of Europe.
Lawyers are supposed to be independent and to make balanced judgments, but one lawyer commented to me about the European arrest warrant, “Oh well, it’s part of the European project, so we just say yes.” We should not act in that way. We should consider matters individually, not say, “The euro’s part of the European project, let’s say yes to it”, or, “The CAP’s part of the European project, let’s just nod it through.” We do not do that. Britain has taken a strong position on many things that relate to the European Union, and we should continue in that way.
I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith) on 90% of politics, but not on Europe. Portraying Britain as the naughty boy or surly youth of Europe, who is always being difficult, is wrong. I think that we are right and they are wrong. We have taken stands on subjects such as the euro, which is now in serious trouble. We are not being anti-Europe. We take a particular view about how economies should be run. I believe that separate currencies are necessary shock absorbers for running economies.
Mr Jenkin
The Maastricht treaty was pushed through the House on the basis of our having an opt-out from the euro, and therefore that it would not affect us. Yet, even though we are not in the euro, we are deeply affected by the disaster that that treaty is inflicting on our continent.
Kelvin Hopkins
The hon. Gentleman is right, and I apologise for momentarily forgetting the name of his constituency—Harwich and North Essex—earlier. I agree with him. We have been right so often. When I argue about the European Union, I do not do that in nationalist or theological terms. I ask people to consider the effects on the European economy, which has grown more slowly than it would have done without the euro.
Kelvin Hopkins
Indeed. The hon. Gentleman is right again. Many of those who protested most strongly against matters in the European Union are people of the left—trade unions, working-class people, the unemployed, minorities and so on. We should not portray a right-left divide; the debate is about democracy and what works.
Martin Horwood
Is not the lowest unemployment in the European Union in Germany? Last time I looked, it was in the eurozone. Are not the countries that are particularly vulnerable those with large structural deficits? The problem is not particularly to do with their membership of the euro.
Kelvin Hopkins
That is interesting. We could have a long debate about the strength of the German economy relative to other countries in Europe. One thing that Germany wanted from the European Union was to get rid of barriers to its exports, particularly to France. Germany focused its efforts over generations, from Erhard onwards, on wisely ensuring that it had a massive and strong manufacturing base. We have not done that. If we had shown more of an Erhard approach to our policies—and Erhard was no socialist, but a Christian Democrat—we might have had a stronger economy.
As part of the post-war settlement, it was important for the west that West Germany—like Japan—succeeded, so it was allowed for a long time to have an undervalued Deutschmark, which gave it a competitive edge, behind which it built massively strong industries. That is the history. If one looks at the documentation—I used to write and read a lot about such things—one will see that the German surplus was a problem even in the 1970s. It has managed to sustain that for all that time, which was wise. Had we been a bit wiser, we might not have been in quite the weak position that we are in now. Every second car driving along the road is made in Germany, but where has our motor industry gone? We still have some of it, but it is nothing like Germany’s. Germany has been very clever, and I cannot blame it at all.
Kwasi Kwarteng
What does the hon. Gentleman say to the idea that even if amendment 11 were made, it would not bolster parliamentary sovereignty, because Government Whips will just whip through decisions about what is significant?
Kelvin Hopkins
The hon. Gentleman seems to be saying that everybody does what the Whips tell them, but that is not the case. If he looks at the history of the 13 years of Labour Government, he will find that there were rebellions—significant differences of view between certain Back Benchers and the Whips—on many serious votes, the most important of which was perhaps the Iraq war, when 139 Members, including me, voted against the Government, despite the Whips.
Kelvin Hopkins
The decision in favour of going to war was made with Conservative support. In the end, we are accountable not to the Whips. Clearly, we have a party system, and we are elected as party politicians, which I understand. By and large, on most things, we are guided by the Whips, but on some matters of fundamental principle, such as giving further powers to the EU or going to war, we must say, “What I believe and what I believe my electorate want is more important even than what the Whips advise.” I hesitate to say that while my Front-Bench colleagues are listening, but in the end, we must occasionally take a stand.
Kelvin Hopkins
We must take all those things into account when we make our decisions, but we make those decisions and stand by them, which I like to think I have done. I have regretted one or two things, but the hon. Gentleman is right. In defence of two-party Government—or our party system—I do not believe that we are elected as individual anarchists. We are here to represent a philosophy and interests in society. I am not by nature an anarchist; I am a collective democrat. That is where I stand.
The most important aspect of amendment 11, which is in the name of the hon. Member for Hertsmere, is that it would have an impact on the EU, which the hon. Member for Stroud (Neil Carmichael) mentioned. If the EU wants to push something through that it suspects will be unpopular in this Parliament, it might not proceed if the provision in the amendment were in force, whereas if it thinks it must win over only the Minister, the Prime Minister or the Executive, it might think it will get away with it. If it knows that its proposals are likely to go to a referendum and that their significance will be voted on by the House, it will be a little more careful.
That impact on the EU is more significant than giving decisions to ourselves because we like to make decisions. The EU will be much more careful about its proposals if it thinks that they might be subject to a referendum in Britain, because it knows very well that the justifiably strong degree of Euroscepticism will come to the fore, that there could be a problem, and that it might not win. If the EU thinks that there is a chance of not winning a referendum, it will not risk it. A referendum is much more likely to be risked if a decision is made in this House rather than by the Minister. That is the way of things.
Finally, I want to draw a parallel. I mentioned the excessive centralisation of power in British politics, particularly in No. 10 Downing street, the Prime Minister and his little entourage, but the other thing that is wrong is secrecy. I was a strong supporter of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. When it was going through Parliament, the Government proposed an amendment to the effect that we could have freedom of information except when the Minister says no. My good friend Tony Wright, the former Member for Cannock Chase and Chair of the Select Committee on Public Administration, led a rebellion. We did not win, but we made our point. He was very much a politician of the moderate left who would go along, by and large, with the leadership—he was not as critical as I was. He was an architect of that Act, and quite strongly in favour of it, but he was quite shocked when that qualification was proposed. Ministers are fine people who do a great job, but in the end, this House must make serious decisions about things, not just Ministers. I very much hope that the hon. Member for Hertsmere presses amendment 11 to a Division, and I certainly wish to vote for it.
Nick Boles (Grantham and Stamford) (Con)
I should like to share with hon. Members why I think the Bill is the most significant thing that the Government will do in this Parliament. The House knows that I am a strong, enthusiastic supporter of the Government. I cheerfully look forward to voting for the Localism Bill, the education Bill, the Health and Social Care Bill, and many others that we will debate in next few years, but I do not exaggerate it when I say that this is most significant thing that we will do, because it is the “Thus far and no further” Bill.
Hon. Members on both sides of the Committee have said that this Bill will start a debate on Europe in the country, but they are wrong. The country has had its debate on Europe. It made up its mind a very long time ago, and said, “Thus far and no further.” Unfortunately, Parliament and previous Governments did not listen to the country and did not understand that that is the country’s decision. They continued to try to evade the will of the people by ratifying treaties of which the people wanted nothing.
The Bill is the Bill that says, “We have finally listened. We finally understand, and we will not put through any treaty, or any change or shift in sovereignty and power, that you, the people, do not want.” That is why I believe —only somewhat mischievously—that the Bill should be viewed as a tribute to the indefatigable efforts of my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash), who sadly is no longer in his place. Although he and I disagree on many things—I will go on to say why I disagree with his amendments—it is clear that his achievement in the Bill is greater than the achievement of almost any Back Bencher I can remember, and probably greater than almost any Minister any of us can remember. For nearly 30 years, he has led the campaign to say, “Thus far and no further!” Tonight and on future nights when we debate the Bill, he will get his way, and he will have given to the British people what they want and what he has always wanted to give them—the right to say, “Thus far and no further!” Were he not quite so hale and hearty and not quite so obviously going to survive and outlive me—he will still be here long after I leave this place—I would even go so far as to suggest that the Bill be called the William Cash memorial Bill.
Having made that case, I want to say why I believe that the Opposition amendments are damaging in so many ways. Their amendment 85 is a poison pill—a poison pill coated in the sweet chocolate of parliamentary sovereignty and power, but a poison pill nevertheless. By moving the amendment, they are trying to seduce the great defenders of parliamentary sovereignty on the Government Benches into creating the possibility for them in the future to undo and reverse the effects of the Bill. They know that if they refer a decision to this committee of theirs, there is a chance—they cannot absolutely be certain who will be on it or how it will vote—that they can control it, whereas they know for a fact that there is no chance of controlling the British people. That is why their amendment is pernicious and insidious. That shows the view the Labour party has of the views of the British people on this great issue. It is that approach that informed its entirely insincere promise of a referendum on the European constitution—happily just before an election—and the attitude that led it to scuttle around, to persuade its European partners to take out a couple of things, to rename it a “treaty” and then to declare that there would be no referendum after all.
Government Members, as well as Opposition Members such as the hon. Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins), who is so brave and forthright on this issue, should not be fooled by the amendment. I know that we are not allowed to call amendments “wrecking” amendments, but this amendment surely is designed to undermine the entire purpose of the Bill.
James Wharton (Stockton South) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that it is exactly this sort of parliamentary fancy footwork that has undermined the public’s trust in this place to deal with European matters?
Nick Boles
I agree wholeheartedly with my hon. Friend. Indeed, one of the most important things about the Bill—this has been eloquently addressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke) and others—is that it is an important step in rebuilding the trust of the people in Parliament to do, broadly speaking, what the people want, especially on great questions of independence and the constitution. It is vital that we do this. That is why it is so important that the Bill sets out in such painstaking detail exactly which changes will lead to a referendum. Frankly, we cannot ask people to trust us on this anymore. We, as a class—not just a party—cannot ask people to take our word for it when we say that there will be a referendum on anything. If they are to believe us, we need to put it into law, take it through both Houses of Parliament and make it very difficult to go back on.
George Eustice (Camborne and Redruth) (Con)
I have been a long-standing supporter of referendums and the role that they can play in strengthening our democracy. My first role in politics was campaigning for the Referendum party, way back in 1997, in favour of a referendum on the euro. The reason why I think that referendums really can work is that they bring some brutal common sense from the British public to complicated debates. They are also cross-party campaigns. I remember campaigning against the euro—it is great to see the hon. Members for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins) and for Great Grimsby (Austin Mitchell) in their places—and that was a cross-party campaign. That can be incredibly important for our democracy. It is good for the public to see politicians from different parties working together on issues where they have a shared conviction, rather than simply campaigning across party lines. For that reason, referendums can be incredibly important.
It is also important to note that referendums are about issues rather than personalities. We hear a lot of people complain these days about personality politics and the presidential nature of certain elections where it is all about the tie or the suit that the politician is wearing, rather than the issues that they stand for. Referendums cut right through that. They are about the issue, and people focus on that issue rather than on politicians. For all those reasons, I think that referendums have an incredibly important role to play in strengthening our democracy, and I welcome this step forward.
I listened intently to Opposition Members’ contributions about their new clause 9. I was struck by the comment from the hon. Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith) that there was referendum fatigue. Well, the last referendum we had on Europe was in 1975, when I was about four years old, so there is hardly fatigue with European referendums. In fact, the situation is completely the reverse. The opinion polls were clear: the public wanted to have their say on the Lisbon treaty, the euro, the constitution and all the major treaties that went through, but they were denied that say.
I take issue with the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr David), who claimed that the EU is well down people’s list of priorities and that we should therefore not have a referendum on EU issues, because what really motivates people are issues such as education and the economy. He is absolutely right that the EU is very low down the list of things influencing people’s voting intentions in a general election: polls show that it is around 12th or 14th in people’s lists of priorities. However, that is exactly why we must have referendums on such constitutionally important issues. People do not hold Governments to account on such issues at the ballot box, because there are bigger issues at the forefront of their minds. However, as the hon. Member for Luton North made clear, that does not mean that such issues are unimportant. They are vital constitutional issues that have a knock-on effect on a range of policies. The only way to get public discussion and engagement with European issues is through a referendum. We would then get a discussion that simply would not happen in a general election.
A lot has been said about the problem of binding future Parliaments, and about how having such referendums would be unconstitutional. However, that misses a crucial point. The fact is that ever since the European Communities Act 1972, Parliaments have indeed been bound. There has been an open door for encroachment by the EU into the UK’s legal system. That is why we need to rebalance the position. We need a bulwark against the 1972 Act and those Acts that followed it. We need something that will act as a brake. I do not think that what is proposed would weaken Parliament; rather, it would strengthen it, bringing it much closer to the people whom Parliament should represent and dealing with the problem caused by the 1972 Act.
I also disagree with those who say that people do not understand or that the public are too ignorant to deal with such issues. There is no evidence of that. If we had a referendum on such issues, both campaigns would need to distil the arguments down into a clear set of messages, but sometimes that is what is needed.
Claire Perry
Like my hon. Friend, I listened to the opening speeches from both sides of the Committee. Was he struck, like I was, by the fact that Labour is not only the party of deficit denial, but the party of referendum refuseniks?
Mr John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)
Will the hon. Gentleman remind us which party has given the country a referendum on the European Union?
George Eustice
I give credit to the Labour Government of some 35 years ago for giving us that one and only referendum.
Mr Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
I was there, and I recall campaigning for a no vote and voting accordingly in the referendum. Although the right hon. Member for Warley (Mr Spellar) is quite right that the then Labour Government offered us a referendum, they then campaigned against. No Bill is perfect, but the reality is this: whichever treaties we may have signed up to, each and every one would have been caught by the provisions of this Bill, thereby generating a referendum. That is a powerful procedure to put in place for the future.
George Eustice
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that issue, and I completely agree with him. I know that some on the Government Benches are concerned that the Bill does not go far enough and that there may be ways for future Governments to circumvent its provisions. However, as someone who has been a staunch Eurosceptic for 13 years, I have to say that we have waited a long time for such legislation. I believe that the Bill offers an incredibly strong lock, which will apply to any transfers of power. Indeed, clause 4 gives a list of no fewer than 13 circumstances in which a referendum would automatically be triggered. It is important that people recognise that and, on this side of the Committee, realise that the glass is not half-empty; rather, in my view, it is almost full to the brim. Of course there are areas where one might say the Bill could be improved, but it is fundamentally an incredibly good Bill that we should be getting behind.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
I think that the Bill is a load of hogwash but, be that as it may, does the hon. Gentleman think that if Turkey is to accede to the European Union—in which case there would have to be an accession treaty, which would have to go through its processes in the UK—there should be a referendum in Britain?
George Eustice
No, I personally do not agree with that, and there is a good reason why. What the Bill should aim to do is prevent the handing over of power from this country to the European Union. I want sovereignty for this Parliament; I do not want this Parliament to interfere in the decisions of other countries. However, once we start saying that we should have a veto on the accession of countries such as Turkey, we start to get into that territory.
George Eustice
Because rather than allowing such countries to join—and we have already expanded the number of countries in the European Union—we would then be saying that every country should have a veto on future accessions. I do not think that that is right. Let me also just say that Turkey is a moderate, Muslim country, and a great example of a successful secular democracy, which we should be supporting and encouraging, rather than sending signals that suggest that we are against accession.
As I have said, I have campaigned for referendums for a long time. In my time campaigning against European integration, it is fair to say that I have seen a lot of referendums promised and then subsequently taken away.
Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)
I am interested that the hon. Gentleman would not agree to a referendum on Turkey, which is a simple proposition for the British public. Would he have agreed with a referendum on, for example, the establishment of the European Systemic Risk Board or the European Securities and Markets Authority, or on authorities affecting occupational pensions and so on? Those changes have created pervasive powers across Europe over our financial systems, so they are important. Is he saying that he would have referendums on those authorities, which are quite complicated to understand, but not on whether Turkey is in or out?
George Eustice
It depends: if there was an extension of competences, then yes, of course.
Coming back to the areas where those now on the Opposition Benches have promised referendums, we have to look at what drives first the promise of a referendum and then the withdrawal of that promise. Back in 1997, the only reason this country was promised a referendum on the euro was that the Referendum party stood for election, posing a threat to the then Conservative Government and the Labour party. For that reason, both parties promised a referendum. As it turned out, that promise was the only thing that kept this country out of the euro. What did we have after 1997, in the first few years of the Labour Government? We had years and years of speculation about whether there would be a referendum. I can remember working on the anti-euro campaign and looking at what the media were saying. There were dozens and dozens of stories—we added them up—that opened with the line, “In the strongest signal yet that Britain is going to join the euro, Tony Blair has signalled that a referendum is just round the corner.” Let us remember all the acres of coverage and the huge sum of money that was spent analysing those five so-called tests, when all along they were simply a political fig leaf.
Then we had the European constitution. A referendum on it was promised, but for no other reason than the political interests of the Labour party. Labour was concerned about the threat to its position in the 2004 Euro-elections, and for that reason—that is, simply for tactical, self-interested reasons—promised a referendum out of the blue. Having got those elections out of the way and having won in 2005, Labour then withdrew the offer of a referendum on the EU constitution and the Lisbon treaty. We were then subjected to a further couple of years of endless talk about Tony Blair’s red lines and what the Government were doing to protect the national interest, with endless speeches trying to explain why the Lisbon treaty was not the same as the EU constitution, when to all intents and purposes it was. Throughout all that, the decision on whether to hold a referendum on those issues was dictated by political interest and calculation, and we need to move on from that.
Countries such as Ireland have done this much better than we have. How sad it is that, all too often, we have had to rely on the people of the Irish Republic to stand up for the interests of European people. Why have we not been able to hold referendums as automatically as they have been held in Ireland?
Mr David
I would like to put a pretty fundamental question to the hon. Gentleman. If a Government were to say, “There will not be a referendum during this Parliament, because we will not introduce any measures that would trigger one,” what would be the point of this legislation?
George Eustice
I am not sure that I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point. If any major transfer of power from the UK Parliament to the EU were proposed, a referendum would automatically be triggered.
Mr Swayne
I certainly understand the thrust of the argument. Is it not the case that any future treaty revision will be constrained by the understanding that there would be a referendum in the United Kingdom that it would be impossible to win? Would not that, in itself, exert a powerful discipline on the development of the European Union, in that it would need to either curtail its ambition or, more importantly, make an accommodation with the British people and the British Government that was more in line with what we thought we had joined in 1975?
George Eustice
My hon. Friend makes a valid point. Having this legislation in place will change the nature of the pressure on the Government and influence their negotiating position.
I want to talk about the concerns that have been expressed about the “significance” clause. I recognise the argument of those who suspect that it might give Governments a way out, so that they could backslide away from a promise to hold a referendum in certain circumstances. I do not buy into that idea, however. I agree with what Martin Howe, QC, a distinguished Eurosceptic, has said on this. He has spent years studying these issues. If we want to make this legislation durable, and if we want it to last more than five years and to become an established convention, we need to ensure that there are no excuses that a future Government of a different party might be able to use to repeal it. There is a presumption that holding lots of referendums on very small, insignificant issues would give our opponents an excuse to repeal it, and we really cannot accept that.
Geraint Davies
Does the hon. Gentleman think that there should be a limit on the number of referendums held over a particular period, given that they could result in a certain weariness among the electorate, as well as incurring a certain cost? Does he also think that referendums should be binding if they do not achieve a certain turnout of the electorate?
George Eustice
If there were fatigue because we were holding too many referendums, that would mean that we had been attempting to pass too much power to the European Union. I hope that the requirement to gain public consent for handing any such powers to the European Union will dissuade Governments from recklessly throwing away the power of this House.
There is a lot to commend amendment 11, and I have listened with great interest to the debates on it today. It is far superior to new clause 9, in that it does not attempt to water down the pledge; it provides it with an extra belt and braces. It would apply only when a Minister judged that a change was not significant. When such a judgment was made, Members of Parliament would have to support it. That proposal has a lot going for it. It would strengthen the presumption in favour of holding referendums. For all those reasons, I am quite attracted to the amendment.
I listened carefully to what my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) said earlier about the fact that the proposal might make it less easy to have a judicial review. He suggested that a motion in the House might undermine the chances of a judicial review. That was a valid point. I was not convinced, however, by the argument that a better way to deliver this would be to table an amendment to the Act of Parliament that would be required in relation to the referendum. We all know what happens to the majority of amendments that are tabled in the House. We have only to look at the amendments tabled to this Bill to understand that. The immediacy of the proposed motion, linked to a statement by a Minister, has a lot going for it. Having said that, I also understand the counter-arguments regarding judicial review.
The Bill does exactly what Eurosceptics have wanted for a very long time, and we should stand behind it all the way. I completely reject new clause 9, because it is an almost weasely way of getting round the purpose of the Bill. It would significantly water it down, taking power away from the voters and giving it to politicians. The idea that some committee of 19 people should be the arbiter of these matters rather than having an automatic trigger for a referendum is absolutely crazy. I completely reject the new clause, but I believe that amendment 11 has a lot going for it.
Michael Ellis
I welcome the Bill. I embrace it with open arms; I actually cherish it. It goes further than any other piece of legislation to check the further encroachment of European power and hegemony into the United Kingdom. It ought therefore to be embraced as the landmark Bill that it actually is. Many people in Britain feel disconnected from how the European Union has developed and the decisions that have been taken in their name over the past few decades. Someone would now have to be in their 50s to have had the opportunity to vote on a European Union issue in the United Kingdom. It is time that a check was made on the ever-increasing and ever-encroaching power of the European Union, and this Bill does that in a way that has never been done before by any Government of any hue in this country.
The Bill gives people more control over the decisions that Governments have tended to make. It also provides for a referendum lock over future powers. People in this country are tired of the European Union telling us that we must have straight bananas or not use imperial measurements. Ironically, it is the European Union that has been imperious in its outlook for some considerable time. I recognise the Bill as a measure that will, at last, provide a check to that ever-encroaching power, and I welcome it with open arms.
The Bill requires the consent of the British people, through a referendum, for any proposed treaty change. It goes further, however. It is not just about treaty changes in the big sense. So-called mini-treaty changes would also require the people’s consent, and even bridging clauses would activate the referendum requirement. It is a substantial and sizeable measure, and I agree with the point made earlier that my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash) can claim considerable credit over many years for standing up for the British parliamentary sovereignty that we cherish so much. I congratulate him on that.
Geraint Davies
The hon. Gentleman mentioned parliamentary sovereignty, but does he agree that the Bill is tantamount to an abdication of parliamentary sovereignty? Instead of taking the decision here to veto a change in Europe, we are simply passing the ball to the general public, who might find some of the complexities—the hon. Gentleman mentioned the sort of nuanced changes that can be made to treaties—difficult. To be fair, people come to this House with a knowledge of and focus on these issues and what we are doing is throwing away that sovereignty. An Irish referendum might end up being decided on the issues surrounding abortion, for example, which had nothing to do with the case in point. It is absurd.
Michael Ellis
It is extraordinary—although not surprising from Labour Members—to hear that the general public should not be consulted on these matters. This Parliament derives its authority from the public, which Labour Members would do well to mention.
Geraint Davies
It would follow, then, that we should have a referendum on every Bill we pass and every decision we take. The hon. Gentleman’s position is absurd and untenable.
Michael Ellis
This Bill is about checking the European Union in its encroachment of sovereign powers. It is not a routine measure, such as the ones the hon. Gentleman mentions. It is not an abrogation of the rights of this Parliament to give the people a referendum to prevent further encroachment of sovereign powers.
Kwasi Kwarteng
My hon. Friend is making the point—the hon. Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) seems not to have absorbed it—that on the issue of European politics, the House of Commons, our Parliament, is simply not trusted. Time and again, as my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice) pointed out, we promised referendums, but failed to deliver them. In this specific case, it is quite right to have a referendum lock on any further treaties. This is not an argument for having referendums in general, but a specific point about our relations with Europe and the capacity of this country’s people to make their views felt. I think that the public generally feel that the House and the political class as a whole have been bad at listening to them. The idea that we are abrogating responsibility through this referendum is foolish. What we are trying to do is to re-engage with the public.
Michael Ellis
My hon. Friend is quite correct: this is not an abrogation, but a reaffirmation of people power. In enacting the Bill, this Parliament, which represents the people, will give the public the rights for which they have been screaming for so long over further EU encroachment.
Claire Perry
Does my hon. Friend agree that the hon. Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies), in representing 50% of the Labour Back-Bench Members who have bothered to show up for this debate, perhaps demonstrates the disdain with which the Labour party regards the Bill and Parliament, proving once again that Labour Members do not believe in listening to the people on such crucial matters as our constitution? I would prefer to see referendums on many more issues, including abortion, which was mentioned by the hon. Gentleman. We should not be scared of the voice of the people in the way that the Labour party so clearly is.
Michael Ellis
My hon. Friend is quite right; I entirely endorse what she says.
Geraint Davies
I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for generously giving way again, but I must correct the record here. I am completely in favour, for example, of the March referendum in Wales on the extension of legislative powers to the Welsh Assembly, and I am in favour of having referendums on other devolution issues. I am not against referendums in themselves; what I am against is having endless referendums on every little change in Europe. People in Parliament are more empowered and more informed to be able to take those decisions. That is why I view it as an abdication of sovereignty.
Michael Ellis
The hon. Gentleman should read the Bill; it is not about every little change, but “significant” changes. The reality is, as hon. Members demonstrated earlier, that the general public have, sadly, lost faith and confidence in this institution on the issue of Europe. They had been led to believe—by no less than the Labour Government in respect of the Lisbon treaty—that they would be given a say prior to the Bill, but they were not given the referendum they were promised. In fact, it is clear that the promise made was insincere. That has gone some way towards alienating the general public from the legislative assembly of this country. Now we need to satisfy the general public that they will have a say in any further encroachment of EU power.
Mr David
The hon. Gentleman said earlier that the Bill was about giving this country’s people a voice on significant changes. I have already tried to ask the Front-Bench team, but the Minister would not respond, so let me try again to ask about the Government’s rationale for deliberately excluding one of the most important changes that will affect the European Union and Britain—the accession to and possible membership of the EU by Turkey. Why is that excluded?
Michael Ellis
With great respect to the hon. Gentleman, a new country—whether it be Turkey or any other—joining the EU does not mean that more decisions will be shifted to the EU. Nor does a new country joining the EU mean the giving up of vetoes. That is the difference. Conservative Members have always supported the widening of the EU, and a wider EU has changed it for the better by bringing in free-market allies such as the Czech Republic. I hope and expect Turkey to join, and I would encourage it to do so.
Sarah Newton (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that in the event of Turkey joining the EU, we—unlike Labour Members—can exercise the transitional arrangements. If there are concerns about a great deal of people coming into this country, we can put limits in place, as indeed our colleagues have done in other European countries. That is something that Labour Members abysmally failed to do when they were in government.
Michael Ellis
That is absolutely right. Conservative Members have learned lessons from previous enlargements and we will not allow full free movement of workers from all new members, carte blanche, as soon as they join. We should require, it seems to me, complete fulfilment of all the membership criteria, particularly on criminal justice enforcement, for example. Labour messed up on that previously and this country suffered.
I respectfully submit that there has previously been a fundamental lack of understanding of sovereignty issues in this country. One example I would venture to provide is Labour’s creation of the Supreme Court. The very name is a misnomer, I submit, because in this country the law is not as it is in the United States where the American Supreme Court in Washington DC is empowered to say that the Government’s legislation is unlawful and to strike it down. The US Supreme Court can overrule Congress, but in this country Parliament is sovereign. Labour thus showed a fundamental misunderstanding of the British constitution when it called the institution that took over from the House of Lords judicial committee “the Supreme Court”. The law in this country is not supreme; Parliament is supreme and Parliament gives the law its authority, not vice-versa, unlike under the American system.
That brings me to clause 18, which is crucial and reaffirms that Parliament has ultimate sovereignty over European law.
Michael Ellis
I was not present for that, so I shall forbear making further reference to the matter.
The Labour amendments to the Bill are nonsensical. They seek to take away power from the people, and even from the House. They seek to empower a committee, and it was Winston Churchill, I think, who said that wars are not won by committee, and nor would this type of legislation be won over by committee. With great respect to the Whips, such a proposal would involve them having greater sway, over how a committee might be constituted and what might result from it. The public need to be satisfied, and a referendum will at last satisfy them that they will have a say. Labour’s suggestion of involving a committee is erroneous and on the wrong track entirely.
I am also anxious that other amendments do not weaken the Bill. Amendments tabled by my hon. Friends might have the opposite effect from that which is intended. By creating too strong a test as to what is substantial, and requiring a referendum on almost any issue, we might bring European Union institutions to a standstill—[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] That might be the wish of hon. Members, and I respect that, but I do not agree with it, as it is not the way forward. Subsequent Governments—not Her Majesty’s Government as currently constituted, who would never buckle under such pressure—might be put under disproportionate pressure from other member states of the European Union to alter and interfere with the Bill once it is on the statute book. With respect to hon. Friends who take such a view, that might indirectly have an effect of weakening the Bill and leading to diplomatic crises.
On the significance test, Labour seeks to have a significance test on everything, which would not work. I was fascinated by one Labour amendment suggestion to give greater power to the other place. I venture to suggest that it is 100 years since the House of Lords has had greater authority than the House of Commons, yet the Labour party proposal of a veto on a referendum is tantamount to giving the unelected House of Lords, illustrious and greatly respected though it is, a right over and above that of the House of Commons. That would be an entirely unhealthy position. The Labour party does not dare oppose the principle of the Bill, as it knows it will have the support of the vast majority of members of the public, but nor does it want to accept it, as it wants to oppose for the sake of opposition.
The Bill sets out 44 vetoes, 12 decisions and eight different ways of increasing the European Union’s competences, and there will not be a significance test on any of those. One would hope that that would have the effect of placating those on the Government side of the House who are concerned about the significance test.
Michael Ellis
I am afraid that that is not relevant to the Bill.
Matthew d’Ancona has said:
“Imperfect though it may be, the bill is a dramatic punctuation mark in the history of Britain's relationship with the European Union.”
Opposition Members ought to accept that. They ought to acknowledge that the Bill is a ground-breaking, landmark piece of legislation which will do that which has not been done in this country for decades, and give the general public the rights that they so obviously desire in relation to the European Union and further expansion of its powers.
Martin Horwood
Thank you for calling me, Mr Brady. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for, I believe, the first time.
Let me begin by saying, as a Liberal Democrat, that my perspective on Europe is subtly different from that of some of my Conservative colleagues. However, I am at one with them in believing that the debate is crucially important, and that it goes to the heart of our democracy at both United Kingdom and European Union level. I think it important for these issues to be debated.
It is a matter of some pride to me that most of the robust intellectual debate seems to have taken place on the coalition Benches, although there have been some quality interjections from Opposition Members, most of whom are not present now. Partly for that reason, I think that amendment 11 is unnecessary. Every treaty change suggested in the Bill will be subject to debate and vote in the House. As was pointed out by the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg), who is no longer in the Chamber, an Act of Parliament is the ultimate constitutional lock. It is unlikely that the Whips could somehow force through such proposals, especially given what has been said today. One of the healthy features of the coalition—I say this with the most deferential respect to my very good and right hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael)—is that the Whips do not seem to have quite such a stranglehold on debates and votes as they did in the last Parliament, of which I was a Member—
Martin Horwood
I see no signs of the hon. Member for Stone (Mr Cash) giving way to the Whips on anything. Meanwhile, I happily give way to him.
Mr Cash
Leaving that aside, let me suggest that, according to the sequence of events provided for by the excellent amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Mr Clappison), the question of the Minister’s motion and its approval by Parliament will arise before Third Reading, and almost certainly before Report. For practical purposes, therefore, the House of Commons will have decided the question. Surely the hon. Gentleman is not honestly suggesting that, its approval having been required, Parliament would vote against the proposal on Third Reading. Surely that would not make sense.
Martin Horwood
I do not quite follow the hon. Gentleman’s argument. I suspect that the Minister’s decision would almost certainly precede even First Reading. Following the introduction of a Bill and after the Minister had decided whether the proposed change was significant, it would be up to Parliament to amend the Bill and call a referendum if by any chance it considered that necessary. As has already been pointed out, this Parliament cannot bind its successors.
In view of the time, I intend to concentrate on the amendments tabled in my name, but I also want to say a little about the Labour amendments. The hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr David) said, rather harshly in my view, that the coalition was displaying—I think that I am quoting him correctly—weak-kneed, ill-thought-out populism. May I indulge in a gentle return of serve? The Labour party seems to have tried to find some reasons to oppose a Bill that it obviously wishes it had thought of first, come up with a number of reasons that appear to be mutually contradictory, and settled on the grand solution of a committee that it cannot explain.
I think that if anyone is guilty of ill-thought-out populism, it may be Labour Members. As has been eloquently pointed out by the hon. Members for Stroud (Neil Carmichael) and for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris) and many others, Labour’s proposed committee would make things less transparent and less democratic. A real habit of the previous Labour Government was removing powers from primary legislation and handing them to committees, to commissions and even to Ministers. These things were not coming back to this place to be voted on; they were often disappearing altogether.
Geraint Davies
Does the hon. Gentleman accept that if the number of referendums available in this Bill were available to every country in the EU, the EU would grind to a standstill—the situation would be completely ridiculous? How can he be an honourable Liberal Democrat and support that?
Martin Horwood
The hon. Gentleman might want to listen to the rest of my speech, because there is some risk of what he describes, and that is the thrust behind our amendments.
Amendments 67 and 68 may look drastic to some of our Conservative colleagues, because they seem to remove a swathe of the referendum provisions from the Bill. However, they seek to tease out the rationale for the referendum lock in the case of amendments to the treaty on the functioning of the European Union using the simplified revision procedure. The amendments do not relate to referendums on changes to the treaty on European Union or even to referendums on changes to the treaty on the functioning of the European Union that do not use the SRP. So the amendments do not seek to remove referendums altogether from this Bill; they ask whether referendums on treaty changes under article 48(6) of the treaty on European Union—the simplified revision procedure—which, after all, was created for relatively uncontentious and insignificant changes in the functioning of the European Union, are really justified.
As a small aside, may I ask the Minister to explain why “transfer” of power or competence “to” the EU is used in the explanatory notes and in some of the language associated with the Bill, rather than “pooling” or “sharing” powers and competences “with” the European Union, which has been the established language until now? To those of us who are fairly relaxed about pooling sovereignty and powers with the European Union when it is right to do so, “transfer” sounds a slightly more pejorative term and its use an example of linguistic drift.
Martin Horwood
That stretches credibility somewhat. The hon. Gentleman has heard in many eloquent speeches from Members on the Government Benches how important the Bill is to our relationship with the European Union and how it offers the possibility of reconnecting the British public with the decision-making processes in the European Union. It is beyond doubt that the Bill will be a significant piece of legislation.
Mr Jenkin
The hon. Gentleman asked the Minister why the Bill’s language is about the “transfer” of competences, rather than the “pooling” or “sharing” of competences, which has been the language used previously. I put it him—the Minister might not put it this way—that the notion of “pooling” or “sharing” competences does not fully explain what has been happening over the years and that those are weasel words. A competence “shared” is, in fact, a competence transferred and a competence fully transferred is not even shared. The correct word to use is “transferred” and I give the Minister credit for doing that.
Martin Horwood
The hon. Gentleman makes a powerful response on behalf of the Minister, but I would say that “transfer” implies a total handing over, not just a partial one, of some UK sovereign powers, as if the European Union were some kind of imperial entity of which this country is a humble subject. That may be what some Conservative Members fear but, as I hope the Minister will confirm, the reality is that the vast majority of powers and competences in the European Union are not exclusive EU competences, but competences shared with member states or merely competences to support inter-state co-operation. We have only to consider an issue such as the environment and climate change to realise that we cannot really transfer competence over that to the European Union alone, because such an arrangement simply would not work.
Mr Jenkin
I am glad that the hon. Gentleman referred to “exclusive” competences. Surely if the EU has gained an exclusive competence, a transfer certainly has taken place. A competence shared with the European Union usually results in European Union legislation. Once the European Union has legislated, it has occupied that policy—that part of the field of legal competence—and the doctrine of the European Court is that the EU cannot give that back; the policy can only then be delegated back to the member state. So “transferred” is a good word to have in the Bill.
Martin Horwood
I disagree with the hon. Gentleman’s perspective. He speaks as if the European Union were somewhere else, but we are part of the European Union. Even the hon. Gentleman is a member of the European Union.
Martin Horwood
Whether the hon. Gentleman likes it or not, as regards formal influence we are one of the four largest member states in the Council and in the European Parliament. In informal terms, we have done remarkably well in supplying civil servants, not least in the new External Action Service, and we have hundreds if not thousands of British citizens working in one way or another within the European Union structures. We do not hand over powers or competences and then have no say on them. On the contrary, as one of the largest member states we have a leading role in the EU. It includes us—and that includes the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) and all his hon. Friends. It is not an alien or a foreign body invading our body politic, but a union of all the peoples and nations of Europe.
You will be able to tell, Mr Brady, that I am less convinced of the need for onerous checks and balances than some of my colleagues, but I would like to say that I am cautiously supportive of the overall direction of the Bill. There is little secret that Liberal Democrats alone would probably not have thought it absolutely necessary, but we recognise its importance to Conservative colleagues. Without doubt there is a disconnect between the British public and the decisions made in their name regarding the part that Britain plays in the European Union.
Mr Cash
Does what the hon. Gentleman just said bear out what we heard from Lord Mandelson, which is that even at the last minute, after the coalition had been to all intents and purposes stitched up, the hon. Gentleman’s leader, the Deputy Prime Minister, was still on the phone to the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) to ask whether he could achieve any further manoeuvring in relation to the European Union?
Martin Horwood
My suspicion is that that is very unlikely to be true, but I suggest that the hon. Gentleman consult Lord Mandelson’s memoirs to find the authoritative account.
There is no doubt that there is a real disconnect between the British public and the decisions made at a European level and an even bigger disconnect between British parliamentary and political life and the workings of the European Union. I am a long-standing pro-European and I have been supportive of many of the important and necessary treaty changes that we have seen in the post-war era. Even as a pro-European, however, I must reflect on the fact that that process has left something of a rift—a democratic deficit—between the British public and the European Union. I hope that many of the provisions for new democratic safeguards and checks on the power of the Executive over major decisions on future UK/EU relations in this Bill will go some way towards filling that void.
It is also worth reflecting on the fact that the Bill’s direction is complementary to many of the innovations in the Lisbon treaty. That is important as regards amendments 67 and 68. The UK is not alone in the Union in recognising that the pace of EU integration has left a dangerous lack of understanding and a disconnection between EU institutions, national Parliaments and European citizens. In fact, I think that was recognised by all EU member states in the Council, by members of the Commission and by Members of the European Parliament long before the Bill was conceived. That concern was translated into quite concrete measures in the Lisbon treaty.
I welcomed those changes in the Lisbon treaty and I guess it is too early to tell how well they will work, but the direction in which the Union is moving is clear. That might render unnecessary the calling of a referendum in all the cases envisaged by the Bill, hence amendments 67 and 68. The Lisbon treaty innovations, which were obscured in the haze of media and Europhobic hysteria about the treaty, should be seen as the foundations on which this Bill is being built. Let me remind the House about some of those innovations, which dovetail closely with the provisions in the Bill and necessitate a certain restraint in calling a referendum on everything that moves—a restraint that we have tried to articulate in amendments 67 and 68.
Mr Cash
Is the hon. Gentleman aware—I am sure that he is, and perhaps on reflection he might like to retract those remarks in the light of the fact that he is sitting in such close proximity to the Minister for Europe—that the same Europhobic utterances to which he is referring were reflected by the entire Conservative party, in unity, opposing every aspect of the Lisbon treaty and insisting on a referendum? I know that his hon. Friends were not doing so; this so-called temporary alliance looks as though it has quite a few splits in it.
Martin Horwood
What we have is not a temporary alliance with splits in it, but a business arrangement between two parties with very different traditions and very different views on Europe. The refreshing thing about the coalition, in contrast to Labour when it was in government and there were accusations of psychological disturbance and all sorts of things going on behind the scenes, is that we at least can be open and honest about our different traditions and perspectives. It is to the credit of the coalition and of the Minister that we have managed to create a Bill that largely satisfies both sides.
Claire Perry
Will my hon. Friend therefore take his argument one step further and recognise that although we may have political differences within the coalition, and there are certainly differences across the Floor, the point of a referendum is that it is not for us to have a conversation endlessly into the night about what we care about? It is about trusting the people and listening to the voices of the people, which is a tradition that both Conservatives and Liberals share.
Martin Horwood
Indeed. That was well put and brings us back to the subject of the Bill and the amendments, which is probably just as well.
I remind the Committee again of some of the provisions of the Lisbon treaty that dovetail with the Bill, and which should give us pause for thought about whether referendums are necessary in all the cases set out in the Bill. Do we need such a hair trigger for referendums when there is the forthcoming European citizens initiative provided for in the Lisbon treaty, which will allow a petition of 1 million European citizens from across the member states to trigger a legislative proposal from the Commission? That is a unique, ground-breaking innovation expressly designed to develop connections between European citizens and the apparently remote EU institutions.
Do we need a referendum at the drop of a hat, or even of a beret, when the Lisbon treaty has created the new yellow and orange card system, which enables one third of national Parliaments—in Britain, this would be done through the scrutiny Committees—to object to an EU proposal if they feel it breaches the principle of subsidiarity? That will require the Commission to reconsider the proposal or force the Council and European Parliament to come to a decision on whether to scrap the proposal or amend it. Do we need to provide for so many referendums, when the new emergency break clauses in the treaties provide national Parliaments and member states with far greater powers than ever before to block a proposal if they consider it to breach or contravene a fundamental component of their domestic legal framework?
Because it is so pertinent to the amendments, I should be interested to know the Minister’s view of how well that new yellow and orange card system is being applied by our own Parliament’s scrutiny Committees. Such innovations could reassure people and remove the need for a referendum on the slightest technical change. Is the Minister aware of any efforts by those Committees to create their own connections with parallel committees or bodies in other European states, or any system of co-ordination with the national Parliaments in the other 27 member states with regard to the orange and yellow card system? That would start to give effect to the proposals in the Lisbon treaty.
Although I welcome the complementary nature of the Bill to the Lisbon treaty changes that seek to reconnect the public and Parliament, perhaps we can go further. That does not have to be in the form of endless referendums. Let me make a few concrete suggestions. Why not hold an extended annual debate on the Floor of the House on the Commission’s work programme, as we do on our own Queen’s Speech? That would seem to be an obvious and welcome opportunity for Parliament to debate the relative pros and cons of forthcoming proposals, and to offer suggestions to the Government of measures that the UK should seek to add to the Commission’s agenda or even delete from it.
Why not ask Ministers who are going to attend European Council meetings to give oral evidence in advance to their respective Select Committees? That would seem a logical way to engage MPs and Ministers with the major issues under discussion at EU level in their respective portfolio areas. Is not that a better way to deal with the many issues that will inevitably arise, some of them highly technical, rather than prompting a succession of referendums?
Finally, what about establishing portfolio-specific EU sub-Committees, such as those in the House of Lords, which we could do by adapting the remit of existing Select Committees? Will the Minister take those ideas into account and perhaps provide an initial response on their appropriateness in improving parliamentary scrutiny of, and engagement with, European matters?
Mr Cash
As Chair of the European Scrutiny Committee, I know that it is universally accepted on both sides of the House, as has already been expressed by the Minister and the shadow Minister, that the quality of analysis that we have given to clause 18 and those proposals has been excellent, and that view has been endorsed by many outside Parliament. I mention that simply because the hon. Gentleman is perhaps moving into territory that he might later regret.
Martin Horwood
I do not always agree with the hon. Gentleman, particularly on matters European, but I pay due credit to his Committee and its work. The level of scrutiny that Parliament now gives European matters is certainly on the increase, which is a healthy trend. I give due respect to him for that.
Amendments 67 and 68 would remove the requirement to hold a referendum on any treaty change under the simplified revision procedure that would pool or transfer power or competence from the UK level to the European level. They would not remove the new requirement for Parliament to ratify every treaty change through an Act of Parliament, so Parliament would have the opportunity to put back the requirement for a referendum if that was felt to be absolutely necessary.
The new procedure that the amendments would create for the UK to support and ratify a treaty change made under the SRP that had already been voted for in unanimity at European Council level would simply be for the Minister to lay a statement setting out what the treaty change was and for the Government then to bring forward primary legislation, which would have to be passed by Parliament. That would not touch the requirement for a referendum to ratify any major new treaty under the ordinary revision procedure.
As I have said, even the Act of Parliament under the SRP could ultimately include a referendum in a particular case. In tabling the amendments, the issue we are raising is whether it is advisable to use referendums on any—I stress “any”—transfer or sharing of power or competence with the EU. The provisions for a referendum lock set out in clauses 3 and 4 seem to cover more or less any future change by the SRP, regardless of its size, content, purpose, necessity, or indeed whether it is in the UK’s national interest.
I appreciate that the obvious counter to that train of thought is that if there is a good case to be made for a future treaty change, the Government and Parliament of the day should be able to make that to the British public, and I accept that there is a strong case for that on major questions. That case is perhaps made more strongly by Conservative Members than by Liberal Democrats, but I recognise that it is an important one. It might even include some issues such as EU membership for countries such as Turkey. My concern is whether referendums are the best way to approach any future change, even if it is only technical and insignificant.
Stephen Gilbert
One area of competence that the EU currently acts in but does not have defined is combating climate change. Does my hon. Friend agree that saying that we need a referendum when that activity becomes defined is a stretch too far?
Martin Horwood
That is a good example of how a completely uncontroversial and essentially technical change might nevertheless, if we are not careful, trigger a referendum. Like the hon. Member for Devizes (Claire Perry), I am an enthusiast for referendums in general and voted for one on the Lisbon treaty and for an in/out referendum at the same time, but those are undoubtedly significant changes.
The House of Lords Constitution Committee has noted more recently that there are some risks and costs associated with referendums. We have held just nine referendums since 1973, although only one has been UK-wide. The Committee conducted an in-depth inquiry on referendums in the UK last year, concluding:
“The balance of the evidence that we have heard leads us to the conclusion that there are significant drawbacks to the use of referendums”.
I do not sense any implied rejection of referendums per se, but there are arguments for using them with restraint and ensuring that they are limited to major issues.
Some of the drawbacks cited in the Committee’s report include, first, that referendums can undermine representative democracy—not a point that I necessarily agree with, but one that some Opposition Members have made; secondly, that referendums are costly—unarguably an important point in the current austere environment; thirdly, that voters show little desire to participate in them; fourthly, that referendums tend not to be about the issue in question—very likely with some of the technical issues in this case; fifthly, that referendums fail to deal with complex issues; sixthly, that referendums never “settle” the issue—despite expectations; and seventhly, that referendums are a “conservative device” or a block on progress. As a result, the Lords Committee concludes that referendums should be used on questions only of “fundamental constitutional change”. Some examples given are, rather alarmingly, referendums to abolish the monarchy, to change the electoral system for the House of Commons and to change the UK’s system of currency.
I have to ask the Minister whether including all SRP changes under the referendum lock in the Bill is in keeping with the Lords Committee’s detailed findings on the use of referendums. Given the current “treaty fatigue” throughout the European Union, SRP is highly likely to be the most common form of treaty change for the foreseeable future. It is highly likely also that future treaty changes will be relatively small and targeted affairs designed to tweak existing treaties rather than to rewrite them substantially. Is it not therefore highly likely that the referendum lock in clause 3 will capture highly specific, arguably complex, limited and uncontroversial treaty changes?
Such changes might, nevertheless, be urgent. For example, in 2007 my constituency was badly flooded, as was much of Gloucestershire, and we benefited significantly from European emergency funds. If, during any future emergency in a part of Europe which technically fell outside the fund’s scope, a treaty amendment were technically required, it would surely be uncontroversial and, in fact, very urgent, so would we seriously say to whichever stricken part of Europe was affected, “Fine, we’ll send aid from the European emergency funds, but we’ll just have to hold a referendum on it first”? That would be inconceivable. My example may be hypothetical, but it is not impossible to conceive of equally uncontroversial and desirable things that the referendum proposal might block completely.
Given the conclusions of the Lords Committee’s report on referendums, can the Minister reassure me that the provisions in clauses 3 and 4 will not produce a plethora of complex and costly referendums that exasperate the public, frustrate proper decision making at European level and are highly vulnerable to hijack by questions that are completely different from those on the ballot paper? Does he agree that the most appropriate democratic check on the use of article 48(6) is primary legislation, as it would give Parliament alone, as the representative of the people, the power to ratify those limited, specific and complex treaty changes that are likely to come under the use of that article?
On the complexity of the referendums that the Bill could produce, can the Minister provide the House with some examples of referendum questions that the referendum lock on SRP treaty changes might create? It is quite difficult to conceive of one so significant that it would justify the use of a national referendum. Can the Minister provide the House with an estimate either of the number of referendums that the Bill is likely to produce in the foreseeable future, or, if that means looking too far into the crystal ball, of the number of SRP changes that are currently in discussion at the European Council or expected to be in the near future? Most significantly in these austere times, can he indicate the expected cost of each referendum on current projections?
The Minister will be aware that the purpose of creating the SRP under the Lisbon treaty was to avoid the need for long drawn-out intergovernmental conferences and painful ratification processes in instances where EU member states wished to undertake targeted and limited treaty changes, particularly uncontentious improvements or enhancements to the workings of the EU for the benefit of all member states. I therefore have concerns over the inflexibility of the referendum lock, and what it will mean in practice. Will the Minister reassure me that the threat or fear of losing a referendum on a treaty change will not prevent future Governments from supporting even uncontroversial and popular changes, and changes that are in the UK’s national interest?
I point out to the Committee that on many occasions in the history of the UK’s membership of the European Union, it has been deemed in the UK’s interest to further pool powers and competence in the European Union. The most obvious example, which should be close to Conservative hearts, is the Single European Act, which was a massive shift away from unanimity voting and towards dropping national vetoes. The European Union was able to dramatically accelerate integration across the internal market—the basic economic rationale that I thought was shared across the coalition Benches. The forward-thinking move to pool and share powers and competence has been of huge economic benefit to the UK and the European Union as a whole. Can the Minister not think of potential instances in the future when further pooling of powers and sovereignty would be dramatically to the UK’s benefit?
In the light of the time and the desire for other Members to take part, I will cut short my planned remarks. In asking the Minister to consider amendments 67 and 68, I suggest that there is a risk of the Bill triggering, on a hair trigger, referendums on every conceivable issue. Liberal Democrat Members, who perhaps do not share some of the fears of those on the Conservative Benches, need considerable reassurance on that issue.
Mr Jenkin
I am most grateful to be speaking under your chairmanship, Mr Brady. I will endeavour to be briefer than some hon. Members have been this afternoon.
We are discussing the trigger for a referendum in the Bill. It is worth pointing out the undercurrent in this debate: some people are speaking because they do not think that there have been enough referendums and others are speaking because they do not want referendums. The official Opposition have got into a bit of trouble with their amendment. My right hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Mr Dorrell) had some fun at their expense, because they tried to present a set of amendments as pro-referendum when their record on referendums is rather lamentable—perhaps as lamentable as ours when we have been in government.
Mr Jenkin
I will not give way, because my point was not designed to provoke the Opposition and I want to press on. The Opposition’s inability to answer the question of how the proposals would help to get a referendum meant that they fell into the trap that was set for them by my right hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood.
Mr Dorrell
Did not the Opposition spokesman’s responses give the game away that Labour is unwilling and resistant to the idea of promoting referendums in the context of the Bill? The purpose of both coalition parties is to open the door to consulting the people on the decisions envisaged in the Bill.
Mr Jenkin
I agree totally, but perhaps my right hon. Friend was a little unwise to draw more attention to himself. Perhaps he will speak later and give way generously, as the Opposition spokesman did to him. I have a few points to put to him about how enthusiastic he is about a referendum, given that he voted against the referendum on the Maastricht treaty and at that stage even opposed the principle of a referendum on the single currency. Who would take that position today?
Mr Dorrell
Given that it is unlikely that I shall have the opportunity to address the Committee and respond to all my hon. Friend’s questions, perhaps we shall have to defer that pleasure for another day. However, I invite him to consider the benefits of a sinner who repents.
Mr Jenkin
I am all for that. I remember my noble Friend, the former Member for North Shropshire, Lord Biffen—he who had whipped through and proposed the guillotine on the Single European Act—starting his speech in a debate on the Maastricht treaty by exclaiming that we all have blood on our hands. The important theme to draw from this debate is that there is unanimity about the democratic deficit at the heart of the whole process of European integration. The people have not been involved or consulted enough.
My hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles) extolled the virtues of the Bill as the “Thus far and no further” Bill and the great victory for my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash), who has campaigned on the matter for so many years—the Bill Cash memorial Bill. My hon. Friend seemed to be saying that the Bill would succeed in stopping the process of European integration in its tracks, even though the much-quoted Martin Howe, QC, has said that although the Bill might fix our place on the escalator, it does not stop the escalator going up.
Mr Jenkin
I will deal briefly with my hon. Friend’s amendments, which deserve consideration and which I will support if there is a vote. The original pledge was that any new treaty would get a referendum—that was what we were told at the Conservative party conference in 2009. That was going to be the real referendum lock. It seems that the proximity of office blunts the senses, and “any treaty” is now only “certain treaties”.
We are now faced with a treaty of enormous significance in the EU—the treaty for fiscal union that Monsieur Fillon came over to propose to the Prime Minister last week. We will be told that it will not affect us, because there is no transfer of competence, no change in voting rights, no imposition of obligations and all the rest, and that it is not significant, so there is no need for a referendum. I remember being told that we could ratify the Maastricht treaty because it did not really affect us as we would have an opt-out from monetary union, but look how it is affecting us. There is no such thing as “Does not affect us”. Of course, if we were not in the European Union and it went ahead with fiscal union, it would affect us, so it will be argued that we cannot object as long as we have proper opt-outs.
The problem is that we are in the EU and under the European Court of Justice. We are in the decision-making institutions and in the legal jurisdiction of what will become a fiscal union. It is impossible for anyone to argue that the development of the European Union can go ahead to such an extent without affecting legal decisions in this country. Yet the Bill excludes any possibility of a referendum on an extremely significant treaty. That provision should have been in the Maastricht treaty—we all argued for that when monetary union was first discussed. We all pointed out that the no-bail-out clause was worth nothing—article 104c is emblazoned on my heart. We all argued that there could not be monetary union without fiscal union. We warned of the consequences of monetary union without fiscal union, and stressed that our opt-out was meaningless and would not protect us from the consequences of the Maastricht treaty. Now we are warning again that we should not allow the treaty to go ahead unless we get sufficient opt-outs and exemptions from the existing acquis communautaire, yet the Bill does not provide for a referendum.
Mr Dorrell
My hon. Friend asserted once or twice from a sedentary position during the debate that it had strayed quite widely in the context of the amendments. It is not clear to me how the French Prime Minister’s proposal for a treaty for fiscal union falls within the scope of the amendments that we are discussing.
Mr Jenkin
Amendment 1 would remove wriggle room for any Government by requiring a referendum on any new treaty. That was promised at the Conservative party conference, but it is not being delivered in the Bill.
I reiterate that if we want to protect ourselves from the consequences of the inclusion of fiscal union in the arrangements for the European Union, we need to separate ourselves considerably from all the other paraphernalia in which we are currently embroiled. Even the Liberal Democrats are beginning to talk about repatriation of powers on some labour market regulations, such as the working time directive. Incidentally, we were told that we had opted out of that, but it turned out that we had not—something else that we were right about when we debated the Maastricht treaty.
If we allow fiscal union to go ahead, it is inconceivable that it will not have an impact on taxation throughout the European Union. Taxation is already a shared competence. It is not difficult for the European Court of Justice to argue that, as tax union takes place in the euro area, in order to maintain a single marketplace and a level playing field—and all the jargon that is regularly used—it will enlarge the EU’s competences over taxation. That is inevitable. I am fed up with warning about what will happen and being proved right. It is time that the House acted on the warnings that it has been given for many years.
I want to consider amendment 11 and the test for significance. The amendment is in keeping with the spirit of the Bill. Its scope is narrow. Clause 2 covers “Treaties amending or replacing” the existing treaties. Clause 3 deals with amending the treaty on the functioning of the European Union. Each relies on clause 4, which provides for a whole lot of tests, including subsection (1)(i) and (j), which are subject to the significance test.
The problem with the significance test was best described by the European Scrutiny Committee. I appreciate that many of my colleagues say, “Oh well, that’s chaired by the hon. Member for Stone. What do you expect? It’s been completely hijacked by the ultra Eurosceptic extremists.” However, I invite hon. Members to consider the membership of that Committee. Its members are a pretty reasonable bunch of people. I happen to believe that my hon. Friend the Member for Stone is a reasonable person, too. Although some of the report was contested, paragraph 98 was supported unanimously by Labour and Liberal Democrat as well as Conservative members of the Committee. Paragraph 98 states, in bold:
“We think the possibility for successful judicial review of a ministerial decision whether a transfer of power under clause 4(1)(i) and (j) is significant will, in practice, be limited.”
That is based on evidence given to that Committee. The problem is:
“The expressions ‘if the Minister is of the opinion’ and ‘in the Minister’s opinion’ in clause 4(4) underline the subjectivity of the process and the difficulty of judicial review.”
My hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke) said that somehow Mr and Mrs Citizen from Dover can toddle into the administrative court to bring an action that threatens the whole Government’s policy when the Minister has opined to the House of Commons that something is not significant enough to attract a referendum. That is absolutely bonkers. My noble Friend Lord Rees-Mogg and Mr Stuart Wheeler are hardly two typical citizens—perhaps they are my hon. Friend’s constituents—but they have both failed to attract the attention of the courts or to engage them in such fundamentally political decisions. The phrase “in the Minister’s opinion ”clearly makes the decision political. It is a political problem. The skill of amendment 11, which stands in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Mr Clappison), is that it brings decisions home to the House of Commons, where political decisions should be made.
The main argument against amendment 11 is that judicial review is superior to the Government’s obtaining the consent of the House of Commons. We do not like rule by judges or judicial supremacy. We prefer democracy, which commends the proposal. The second argument against amendment 11 is even more bizarre.
Martin Horwood
Surely the hon. Gentleman will concede that under the Bill, every treaty change will be subject to a vote in Parliament, because an Act of Parliament will be required for every single treaty change, whether there is a referendum or not.
Mr Jenkin
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that, because it is the only other argument against amendment 11. He is saying, “You don’t need to bring a decision to the House of Commons, because you can’t get a treaty change without an Act of Parliament and the whole issue can be dealt with then.” However, that is an argument against clauses 2, 3 and 4. What is the point of the Bill? The point of the Bill is to bring matters to Parliament or to the people for decision before we legislate to enact a new treaty change. If the Government and the Committee do not accept amendment 11, which would transfer a decision from the courts to the House of Commons, why are we bothering with the Bill at all? The hon. Gentleman makes an argument against the Bill.
Mr Swayne
My hon. Friend will recall that we did not get a referendum on the Lisbon treaty because the House decided that we would not have one. I am entirely with him, and I much prefer in principle for decisions to be made by the House of Commons rather than the courts, but frankly, in that previous case, I have no doubt that the courts would have granted us a referendum when the House denied us one.
Mr Jenkin
I should point out that the only reason why we are not having a referendum on the Lisbon treaty is that the Government decided to persuade their supporters not to have one. My hon. Friend is exactly right that the House of Commons decided not to have a referendum. In the next Parliament, however, the House could decide to repeal the Bill when it is an Act of Parliament. It could decide to overturn a Minister’s decision, or it could accept a Minister’s decision, introduce a Bill to ratify a new part of the treaty, give all sorts of reasons why there should not be a referendum and put that into the Bill. The Bill is no guarantee of a referendum. It creates an expectation that there should be referendums, but that is all it does—it generates a political expectation.
Claire Perry
I feel as though I am putting a toe into a pool full of big fish who have been debating these issues for years, so I hope that my hon. Friend will be gentle with me in his reply. Does the Bill go any way towards making him feel better about the future of the Eurosceptic majority in this country? Is he 10% more comfortable? Is he 20% more comfortable? I believe that this is a very big step in the right direction within the constraints of the coalition and the legal situation that we have inherited. Is it 20%? Is it 50%? Surely he is sleeping a little bit easier at night as a result of the Bill being brought to the House.
Mr Jenkin
I agree that it is better, if only because it generates an expectation and a moment that will come in our history when people say, “Up with this we will not put! We are having a referendum.” To that extent, it is useful background noise, but I put it no higher than that. It is not fulfilling what we promised before the last general election.
Mr Cash
I am sure that my hon. Friend will accept that the real problem is the European Union as it now is. We are not having a referendum on any aspect of the mess that Europe is in. Everybody in the Committee has to accept that the riots, the protests and the collapse of the euro—all these things—are the consequence of the failure of European economic governance that has been predicted from Maastricht onwards. The Bill will do nothing to change that because it does not provide for a referendum on the circumstances that we are now in.
Mr Jenkin
I am grateful to my hon. Friend.
I hear the plea of my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Claire Perry), but I believe that there is a constant danger of us succumbing to wishful thinking. The problem is that this is not the “thus far and no further” Bill; it is the “locking the stable door after the horse has bolted” Bill. What is more, whatever other horses there may be in the stable, there are sufficient holes in the door for those horses to squeeze through, if it is convenient for the Executive to allow it to happen. That is what we will see with the treaty coming down the track for EU fiscal union. The Bill will not increase the happiness of the British people about our present terms of EU membership. The Bill fails to address those terms, but they will have to be addressed at some stage in the future.
I refuse to sign a referendum pledge, as I was recently asked to do, saying, “Let’s have an in-or-out referendum”. That is not the way to conduct this debate; the way to conduct it is for the Government to set out their national interests and negotiate robustly for them in the European Union, rather than to continue appeasing the system to avoid a row. I even accept that we may need to do that for a period, while we are in such a difficult fiscal position, but the moment that the EU is asking for treaty changes for which it needs our consent is the moment we should be asking for concessions in return. We certainly should not carry on transferring competencies to the EU without a referendum, as is provided for in the Bill.
Mr Lidington
We have had a robust debate, and I want to start by thanking all right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the Committee who have taken part, whether through speeches or the numerous interventions.
I want to start with a point on which there was agreement, certainly on the Government Benches. Wherever people stand within the coalition or the spectrum of opinion on Europe in the Conservative party alone, there is agreement that the European Union has developed with too little democratic control and without adequate consent being given by the British people. Indeed, the Lisbon treaty was the first time that the United Kingdom agreed to, and then ratified, a European Union treaty that was not even included in the general election manifesto of the winning party at the previous election.
My hon. Friends the Members for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris), for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles) and for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice) said that we needed to change what the history of the British political world’s handling of European business had done, which is to undermine support for our membership of the European Union and the idea that what British Ministers do in European Union institutions on behalf of the United Kingdom carries democratic consent. We need to restore a sense of confidence among the public in how British Ministers take decisions on Europe on their behalf, and that is what the Bill seeks to do. We want to ensure that the British people are never again denied their say over the transfer of new competences and powers from this country to the institutions of the European Union.
I should say in parenthesis to my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) that although the word “transfer” in the explanatory notes is a reasonable use of layman’s language, I am sure that he will have noted that in the Bill itself we use the term “confer”. We talk about exclusive, shared, co-ordinating and supplementing competences, which are precisely the terms used in the European treaties.
However, my hon. Friend was right to say that this Bill should not be our only means of addressing the democratic deficit in the way that European decisions are made. He was right to talk about the importance of strengthening our systems of parliamentary scrutiny. I am looking forward to seeing how the scrutiny Committees in the House of Commons and the House of Lords use the opportunities presented by the new yellow and orange-card system. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash) has been in regular contact with his counterpart committees in a number of other EU capitals. It is important that that network of contacts between the European Union scrutiny committees in each of the 27 member states continues to develop.
I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham will also have seen the written ministerial statement that I made to the House last Thursday. Although it dealt primarily with issues concerning justice and home affairs measures, it also stated that the Government now wanted to explore—together with Parliament, and therefore with the two scrutiny Committees in particular—ways in which, right across the piece, we can strengthen scrutiny and accountability to the Houses of Parliament for what we as a Government do in Europe on behalf of this country.
Mr Cash
I very much acknowledge the sentiment that my right hon. Friend is expressing, but I am sure that he will understand when I say that listening is not the same as actually agreeing, and that there are circumstances where I would have expected him to be a little more acquiescent in relation to some of the arguments that we have put forward.
Mr Lidington
In those conversations about parliamentary scrutiny, which I intend should begin as soon as possible, I hope that I can find complete agreement with my hon. Friend. However, he will know that if we are talking about arrangements that will govern how both Houses of Parliament deal with European business and the process of scrutiny, we ought to be striving towards a measure that can command broad support in both Houses, and across all the political parties represented therein.
The Bill is a radical piece of legislation to improve how we handle European business. As my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest West (Mr Swayne) pointed out, in a characteristically vigorous intervention, had the legislation been in force at the time, the treaties of Lisbon, Amsterdam, Nice and Maastricht would all have required a referendum before they could have been finally ratified.
The powers in the Bill include a referendum lock on treaty changes or decisions that transfer powers from the United Kingdom to the European Union. That is the case even if the measures used to transfer those competences or powers are the extensive self-amending provisions introduced by the treaty of Lisbon. The powers include requiring that important decisions—even if they do not transfer power or competence—are still in every case approved by an Act of Parliament. I want to put this beyond any doubt: the Bill will mean that any treaty change at all, whether using the ordinary procedure for amending a treaty or the simplified revision procedure, will have to be approved by primary legislation.
This is a vitally needed improvement. Under the European Union (Amendment) Act 2008, Parliament’s control over the simplified revision procedure and other key ratchets is limited to a vote on a Government motion. That is the case even if the simplified treaty changes or ratchet clauses are proposed to abolish something as important as a national veto over foreign policy.
Ms Gisela Stuart
There is something that I genuinely do not understand after reading through the notes. When the Government list all the things that will be covered by the ratchet clauses, is that an exhaustive list? What is the logic behind the list?
Mr Lidington
We shall have a debate on the ratchet clauses later this week when we deal with amendments to those parts of the Bill. I will be happy to go into more detail then, and I hope the hon. Lady will forgive me if I do not answer her question now.
We are giving Parliament and the public the opportunity to hold Ministers to account by spelling out the criteria needed to make a decision on whether the power or competence is transferred, and requiring Ministers to make a statement giving the reasons for their decision. Parliament can challenge this, and, if it so wishes during the legislative process, add further conditions of its own. If the public are dissatisfied with the Minister’s judgment—I stress it will be the Minister’s judgment, not Parliament’s—they will be able to use judicial review to check it further.
Mr Lidington
My hon. Friend is tempting me to go way beyond the scope of the Bill. At the moment, any legal aid application would be subject to the normal rules that apply to legal aid, which are the responsibility of the Ministry of Justice, and not of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
The Bill comprehensively goes through the nuts and bolts of the treaties to identify how power and competence could be shifted from this country to the European Union. We have deliberately and determinedly taken steps to limit the wriggle room for any Government or Minister in this regard. We are committed to ensuring, as best we can, that the Bill is watertight, with no omissions or loopholes that would allow a future Government to avoid giving either Parliament or the people the control that they deserve.
Let me spell out in a little more detail how we plan to achieve this. Following the agreement of any future treaty change under the ordinary revision procedure—that is, the process involving an intergovernmental conference and, probably, since the Lisbon treaty, a convention of the European and national Parliaments as well as of national Governments—three conditions must be fulfilled before the United Kingdom could ratify such a treaty change. First, the Minister must lay a statement before Parliament. That statement would give the Minister’s decision as to whether the proposed treaty change would involve one or more of the criteria in clause 4 of the Bill, and therefore whether a referendum would be required or not. A change that would transfer power or competence from this country to the EU would be subject to a referendum of the British people.
If the proposal were considered by the Minister not to involve one or more of the criteria in clause 4, it would be considered to meet the exemption condition—in other words, it would not require a referendum to be held. The important point is this: the Minister cannot simply conjure his decision out of the air. He has to obey the law. He has to follow the criteria set out in the Bill, especially those in clause 4 and schedule 1. His statement will have to demonstrate how he has applied those criteria in coming to his decision. He will simply not have the scope in law to make some arbitrary decision in defiance of what is spelled out in the legislation.
Mr Lidington
The points are not vague. I invite the hon. Gentleman to have another look at clause 4 and schedule 1, both of which define in clear terms the various ways in which competences could, within the terms set out in the treaties, be enlarged, transferred or expanded, while schedule 1 sets out in detail a list of national vetoes, the removal of which would automatically trigger a referendum. I gently suggest that the hon. Gentleman studies the Bill a little bit harder.
Mr Cash
Does the Minister not accept that it would be a monumental change if proposals relating to fiscal union, social union or employment union were to be incorporated in a treaty between the UK and other member states—excluding the UK, but none the less having a juggernaut impact upon us? In those circumstances, is that material not so important that we would expect to get a referendum—as would the British people?
Mr Lidington
My hon. Friend is jumping several bridges in assuming that what might be proposed in those hypothetical circumstances would be an amendment of the European Union treaties rather than a separate intergovernmental treaty involving the member countries of the eurozone—and perhaps some others—who wished to participate in the sort of closer economic union that my hon. Friend described and fears.
I hope to say more about this later, but the Bill is based on a very clear principle agreed within the coalition —that the referendum lock should apply where there is a transfer of competence or of power from the United Kingdom to the institutions of the European Union. That is the defining criterion. The different categories of exemption apply where powers and competences are not being transferred from this country. That is the reason for the distinction set out in the Bill. It is not an arbitrary decision, but one based on a very clear principle.
Ms Stuart
I am still trying to understand what the Minister regards as significant. The monetary union is not a debt union at the moment, but it is about to become a debt union. We have an opt-out for monetary union. If the monetary union becomes a debt union, and thus far more significant, surely that is important to us—even though we have an opt-out.
Mr Lidington
If the measures in respect of greater economic union or perhaps fiscal union or shared responsibility for debts were to take the form of a European Union amendment treaty and involved the transfer of competences or powers from this country to the EU, the referendum lock would be triggered. If the eurozone countries choose to do their own thing and have their own intergovernmental treaty, which they can do quite distinct from any move to amend either the treaty on European Union or the treaty on the functioning of the European Union, we would not have a say—not if they chose to go down that route.
Mr Dorrell
Were my right hon. Friend a Minister in one of those European Union countries that might theoretically be considering a fiscal union, and were he offered the prospect of his decisions on behalf of his country being subject to a referendum in the United Kingdom—a country that would not be part of that union—which of the two routes does he think that he might take?
Mr Lidington
By implication, my right hon. Friend has answered his own question. There is a question about national sovereignty and democratic accountability. We would look askance were another EU member to say that some protocol that dealt with the United Kingdom alone should be subject to a referendum in their country. We should be pretty cautious before we set ourselves up and argue that we will insist that we hold a referendum here on a treaty proposal that does not have an impact on the governance of this country, that does not involve the transfer of new powers away from this country, and that leaves the powers of our Parliament and people completely as they are at present.
Mr Lidington
I will make some progress, because many Members have spoken and made different points, which I want to answer.
As the Committee knows, a new system for treaty change was introduced by Lisbon: the simplified revision procedure in articles 48(6) and (7) of the treaty on European Union. That enables the European Council to amend those sections of the treaty on the functioning of the European Union that concern the single market, justice and home affairs and other internal policies. The Bill ensures that the method of treaty change, governed by the simplified revision procedure, is subject to exactly the same accountability and scrutiny as the ordinary revision procedure. The only difference is the significance test, which I will cover in detail later. In passing, I should say that article 48(7) decisions about moving from unanimity to qualified majority voting are caught by clause 6(4)(b) of the Bill and require both an Act and a referendum in accordance with schedule 1.
My hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Mr Clappison) was right when he said that article 48(6) says that the simplified revision procedure cannot be used to enlarge the competences of the European Union. Although that is indeed written in the treaty, we have drafted the Bill to require British Ministers to examine even an article 48(6) proposal, to see whether, despite that treaty language, we would judge it to involve an extension of competence. If the British Government’s judgment was that it did, the referendum lock would apply in those circumstances.
Let me turn to the numerous amendments, many of which severely weaken the provisions of the Bill, either by watering them down so that they are toothless, or by extending them considerably beyond what the coalition programme for government promised. Amendments 67 and 68 would remove the referendum lock altogether, and require only an Act of Parliament to approve a transfer of power or competence from the United Kingdom to the European Union.
Martin Horwood
That is not an entirely accurate representation of amendments 67 and 68, which refer only to changes under the simplified revision procedure.
Mr Lidington
I was going to make the qualification that the amendment applies to measures within the simplified, not the ordinary, revision procedure. I think that that denies the public the chance to have their say on what are, ultimately, important decisions.
My hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham asked a couple of detailed questions. He asked, for example, whether a technical change to allow for emergency flood relief, agreed to by means of the simplified revision procedure, would be subject to a referendum. As he will know, the so-called enabling clause, article 352, would be available in the event of a need to take urgent action within the European Union’s existing competences if that action were taken to attain the EU’s objectives and if there were no explicit provision to authorise that in the EU treaties, and emergency relief and international development are indeed competences that the European Union shares with member states. Clause 8 of the Bill provides for enhanced parliamentary controls prior to any agreement on the use of article 352.
I disagree with the hon. Gentleman on some of what he termed technical changes. I firmly believe that a referendum should be held on any change that would transfer competence or substantive power from this country to the EU permanently.
The hon. Gentleman also asked how many article 48(6) changes were currently being considered. Only one is being considered at present, the one that was promoted by the German Government and agreed at the December European Council. It affects only the eurozone, and as it does not transfer power or competence from this country to the European Union, there would be no need for a referendum.
Amendments 1 to 5 and amendment 7 would ensure that every treaty change required the consent of the British people in a referendum, even if it transferred no further competence or power from this country to Brussels. I suspect that this was not the authors’ intention, but even a treaty change that would repatriate power from the European Union to the United Kingdom would require a referendum in this country before it could be accepted. A treaty change to remove the United Kingdom’s veto over decisions to amend the number of advocates-general working in the European Court of Justice would require a referendum, as would a treaty change to allow Denmark to participate in justice and home affairs measures. The addition of 18 new MEPs before 2014—when they take their seats automatically anyway—for which the Bill provides would also require a referendum.
The issue is this: what is a suitable matter for a referendum? I believe that decisions that change who decides—decisions that move control over an area of policy from the United Kingdom to the EU—should require the consent of the British people; but not every treaty does that. Should a technical change such as the temporary alteration in the number of MEPs require a referendum? If Iceland decided to join the EU, should that require a national referendum? I think that that argument is very hard to justify, and might well discredit the principle of referendums from the point of view of voters. I also see no justification for referendums on treaty changes that do not apply to the United Kingdom. As I said earlier, in democratic terms, those are ultimately decisions for the countries to which the treaties apply, and not for us. No transfer of competence or of power from this country to the EU is associated with such changes.
Ms Stuart
The Minister is simply wrong. If Lisbon caps the total number of MEPs, if the number of MEPs is based on the population, if there is a minimum number of MEPs with “bookends”, and if a country such as Turkey makes a change, the number of MEPs in this country will be significantly lower and our voice will be lower. That constitutes a change of power, and it is no good denying it.
Mr Lidington
If we followed the hon. Lady’s logic, a referendum would be required in this country for any change whatsoever in the distribution of seats in either the European Parliament or the Council of Ministers.
By definition, a referendum in this country would also be required on any accession to the European Union, not just that of Turkey, because every time a new member state joined the European Union they would have a certain weighted share of votes in the Council of Ministers and a certain number of MEPs. I do not think that she is seriously arguing that.
Mr Clappison
The Minister is making a persuasive argument in a courteous way, but I must take him up on this point about the accession treaty. I believe that eight members joined at the same time and what took place then was in many respects a shambles, which would have been avoided by better scrutiny and if the question of a referendum had been on the table.
Mr Lidington
I am going to stick to my figure of 10. It does not make much difference to the principle of the argument, but I believe my figure is accurate. My hon. Friend rightly made a point about problems after some of those accessions, but that makes the case for member states to insist on the rigorous application of the accession criteria before accession takes place, rather than allowing countries in before they are fully ready and equipped and then arguing about it afterwards.
Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)
The Minister is absolutely right on this point and my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart) is wrong, because in the case in question the enlargement of the European Union passed through the House unanimously. The only occasion when a matter such as enlargement should go to the British people is when the House decides that it should go to them.
Mr Lidington
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for that.
I wish now to discuss the significance test. New clause 9 would submit all referendum criteria, all treaty changes and all uses of article 48(6) to a significance test, but even the narrow use of the significance test, as set out in the Bill, has been the subject of a great deal of concern, so I wish to be clear about what it means for the Bill as it stands and to explain why it is needed. The significance test can be used only in very specific circumstances. Clause 4 identifies 13 instances when a treaty change transferring competence or power to the EU would attract a referendum. The significance test applies not to 13, but to two of those instances. Moreover, it can be used only when a decision under article 48(6) is being taken. It cannot be used for treaty amendments adopted under the ordinary revision procedure.
Article 48(6) decisions could seek to confer on a European institution a power to require this country to act in a particular way, or to impose sanctions on the UK for our failure to act in a particular way. Although that could be done only within existing areas of competence, and not within new ones, it would enable EU institutions or bodies to use those existing competences in a different way. A future proposal under article 48(6) to do either of these things would, as a matter of general principle, require a referendum to be held.
Let me give the Committee a hypothetical example. There might be a proposal to allow an EU agency to impose sanctions on a national regulator or to act in a way that compelled British businesses to do something that would increase significantly the burdens on British business and harm the competitiveness of this country. That sort of decision would, in my view, be classed as significant and should attract the referendum lock, but there might equally be instances in the future—my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham was right—where article 48(6) might be used to give a new power to a body in an area that is not significant to this country. For example, it might require a national regulator or some other British organisation to provide an EU agency with a set of statistics annually.
Let us consider, for example, the European Maritime Safety Agency. It was set up to provide member states of the Commission with technical and scientific assistance in the field of maritime safety and the prevention of pollution by ships. If, in the future, it was decided to change the treaty so that that agency could issue binding directions to national regulators and that that would be a permanent cession of authority and powers, that would be a significant power within the meaning of clause 4(1)(i) or (j). If, however, the proposal was to change the treaty to allow the agency to require national regulators to provide it with an annual digest of statistics, I do not think that that would be a significant power under the Bill. That is why we have provided for the significance test.
Amendments 3 and 5 would remove the significance condition from the Bill, so it would in practice require a national referendum on such things as the provision of statistics. I think that most people in this country would accept that such technical changes should be left to the Government, under the scrutiny of Parliament, who of course would still have to authorise the minor treaty change through primary legislation—a formal Act of Parliament subject to detailed scrutiny and capable of amendment in either House. In all those instances the proposal would need to be thoroughly analysed and we have ensured that any use of the significance test would be subject to strong scrutiny and accountability.
When he spoke about amendment 11, my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere took a different approach to parliamentary scrutiny. His amendment would require a Minister to seek parliamentary approval not to hold a referendum on the basis of the significance test, through both Houses agreeing to a motion without amendment. I have a great deal of sympathy for where my hon. Friend is coming from and I do not for one moment challenge his passionate commitment to the duty of Parliament to hold Ministers to account or his wish to see the powers of Parliament over European Union business and ministerial decisions on Europe strengthened and improved. If I felt that his amendment would secure that objective better than the provisions in the Bill, I would be with him on the detail. However, I want to explain why I do not believe that it does that.
First, when a Minister makes the statement required by clause 5 on whether a proposed amendment requires a referendum, they must give reasons why the proposed change does or does not meet the significance test. Those reasons will need to refer to the criteria set out in clause 4, so their reasoning will need to be clearly set out. There is a first measure of protection already in the Bill.
Secondly, the Bill ensures that every proposed treaty change, regardless of whether the significance test applies, would require the approval of Parliament through primary legislation. That would allow sufficient time for Parliament to scrutinise the use of the test to legislate for a referendum if it deemed such a provision necessary.
Thirdly, there is the risk that having a separate debate on significance in the way that amendment 11 proposes could weaken Parliament’s scrutiny of the primary legislation that the Bill requires. That point was made by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) in an intervention. In view of the dynamic of the House of Commons, it would be tempting for a Government who wanted to rush through a particular treaty change to schedule an early debate on the motion not to require a referendum and then, when the ratification Bill came forward and Members of Parliament had had the opportunity to look at the detail, perhaps consider the evidence of a Select Committee, and listen to what outside experts had to say on the matter, they would find their Whips coming up and saying, “We’ve already voted on this. You personally went through our Lobby to support the proposition that a referendum was not required. How can you change your mind and try to insert the requirement for a referendum at this stage?”
The unintended consequence of amendment 11 could be to strengthen the hand of the business managers and to weaken the independence of judgment that Members would be able to exercise under the requirement for primary legislation laid out in the Bill. Amendment 11 would also weaken any prospect of a successful judicial review. Judicial review is not a panacea, but the House should see it as a significant step to give the citizen the right to challenge a Minister’s decision, where that decision is irrational or unreasonable.
There are two important distinctions between what we are proposing here and what we saw in the Wheeler case, to which a number of Members referred in the debate. First, the Minister has to give reasons, and give reasons by reference to the Bill. That opens up the possibility that a court might wish to consider a challenge to the reasonableness of the Minister’s decision. Secondly, whereas in Mr Wheeler’s case the Court was invited to judge the wording of the constitutional treaty against the wording of the treaty of Lisbon and declined to do so, in this case we are talking about a possible invitation to the Court to judge the actions and decision of a Government Minister in his Executive capacity against the statutory duties on that Minister set out in the language of the Bill. Those are important distinctions.
Mr Lidington
No. I want to do justice to the amendments tabled by the Opposition. They have been presented as increasing the role of Parliament. In fact, they do the reverse. The effect of the Opposition amendments, especially new clause 9, is to subject every referendum criterion to a significance test. If accepted, the Opposition’s amendments would leave it open as to whether a move to join the euro was significant, a move to give new competences to the European Union was significant, a move to give up our border controls and take part entirely in a European immigration system was significant, or a move to join a European public prosecutor system was significant.
The hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr David) is trying to persuade us that he is offering new powers to Parliament, when it is clear to anybody who studies the wording of his amendments and his new clause that the intentions are the reverse. The Opposition’s amendments would drive a coach and horses through the Bill. They would deny both Parliament and the people the additional powers and controls which I believe Parliament and people in this country want to see. The Bill is designed to be tough. As academic experts have said when giving evidence to the European Scrutiny Committee, it delivers the referendum lock that we have promised. I will not yield by weakening the Bill in the way that the Opposition propose.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Business without Debate
(13 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Delegated legislation
(13 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. With the imminent disposal of Nimrod, do you know whether any Ministry of Defence Minister has approached Mr Speaker about making a statement to the House in respect of representations made by Government Back Benchers on this matter?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Mr Brown, I have not been informed of any request for a statement to be made by a Minister on this subject, but I know that you are very resourceful and that if you wish to pursue the matter, you will find ways to do it in parliamentary business tomorrow and the day after.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Have you had any advice from those on the Treasury Bench about their disappointment that only the first group of amendments were discussed today, that 26 other amendments and new clauses were not discussed, and that four clauses were not discussed? Have you had any indication, Madam Deputy Speaker, that a programme motion alteration has been brought forward?
Madam Deputy Speaker
I have had no discussion on the progress of business in the House today, which was orderly and within the programme motion. Neither have I had any discussions about any future arrangements for the Bill. However, I am sure that you, Mr Bone, will find ways of pursuing the matter in order to get the answer you are seeking.
Planning Blight
(13 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab)
Early this morning, I joined a group of residents from Colliers Wood in a protest. We travelled up to Piccadilly circus to stage a small demonstration and deliver a letter of demands to people who we think are ruining our neighbourhood—the owners of a building in my constituency that we call the Golfrate tower. This debate is designed to explain our point of view, and to convince the Government that they must do more to help communities such as Colliers Wood in our struggle against landowners who just do not care.
The Golfrate tower is an ugly, 17-storey former office tower block. It is made of black concrete and dominates the view for miles around. It runs along the busy A24 trunk road into London and stands directly above the Northern line. The tower was built in the 1960s, and was designed in the then fashionable style of the Chicago school, which used dark grey cladding and pre-cast concrete. My recollection as a young child was that it was almost as unpopular then as it is now. Even at the time the tower caused considerable controversy, particularly because of its ugliness and the way in which the immense black shard of concrete loomed over the surrounding area. Indeed, it suffered from bad luck even before it was finished. When builders reached the third floor, a construction error was discovered that meant that the tower had to be demolished and built all over again. Many people saw that as a bad omen.
First named the Lyon tower, the building was originally the headquarters of the property company Ronald Lyon Holdings, but was later known as the Vortex and the Brown and Root tower, after the American engineering firm Brown and Root Halliburton, which occupied it from 1971 to 1995. The building has always been hugely unpopular. One elderly Irish resident tells me that he believes that it is God’s retribution for his being involved in laying the foundations that the Golfrate tower should be the first thing that he sees every morning from his bedroom window.
Many people, for perfectly understandable reasons, simply want the building knocked down. In 2006 it was voted London’s most hated building in a BBC poll. In 2005, Channel 4 screened a series called “Demolition”, dedicated to finding Britain’s worst buildings and knocking them down, was presented by Kevin McCloud of “Grand Designs”. The Golfrate tower reached the shortlist of 12, but sadly it cannot be demolished. First, it was worth well over £10 million, and nobody can afford to buy it just to knock it down. However, even more than that, the demolition costs are prohibitive. The Northern line would have to be shut and the A24 would have to be diverted. The compensation would be enormous.
Many residents understand that, even if, like me, they are not very happy about it. Development rather than demolition is the only real solution. In 2005, things started looking up when a company called London Green Development, led by the developer Philip Green, apparently became the owners, and told us that they were keen to develop the tower. Residents were consulted and included, and new and exciting plans were drawn up. The design was excellent, and Merton’s planning committee granted planning permission to turn the tower into just over 200 modern flats, many at prices that local people could afford. There would also be community facilities, such as a library and a police office, and shops. The plan included re-cladding the tower, so that it would be less ugly. However, six years later, work has still not even begun, even though house prices are higher than in 2005. The tower looks even worse now than it did then, and let us remember that that was the year it was voted London’s most hated building.
However, none of that is Philip Green’s fault. No, it is the fault of a company called Golfrate, owned by a man called Asif Aziz. That is who London Green Developments thought it had bought the tower from all those years ago. What seems to have happened is that when planning permission was granted, the value of the site increased and Golfrate refused to sell. A long legal battle ensued. The case went to court and London Green won, but then it went to the High Court and London Green lost. The existing owners, who were already very unpopular, could remain in control. Even without lifting a shovel, they found that their property, which was more rundown and ugly than ever, had increased in value.
Indeed, since the owners bought the tower more than 10 years ago, it has become increasingly rundown. All the tenants gradually moved out, until two years ago it was empty. The tower is now empty, dilapidated and unsafe. Green nets surround the building to prevent crumbling concrete from falling on people below. Last April work started on knocking down the unsightly and dangerous multi-storey car park, until the demolition firm discovered that the area’s electricity substation was on the site. Realising the danger, the firm stopped, leaving us with a quarter-demolished car park surrounded by building rubble that in most areas would become missiles. Thanks to poor security fencing, the car park has frequently been broken into. A pornographic film is said to have been recorded there, and rough sleepers have been known to use it. It is hard to underestimate the blight. People talk about the broken window syndrome, which can bring an area down and increase crime and the fear of crime, but we have it in spades.
So who exactly owns the tower and what are they up to? Googling Asif Aziz throws up a lot of interesting information, as do searches for his companies, Golfrate and Criterion, and the numerous different companies connected to them, such as Yewbelle and Sutherland. Criterion Capital is reportedly worth £620 million. In 2006, Asif Aziz was reported to be Britain’s seventh richest Muslim. He was born in Malawi, and his fortune is thought to have been made in Angola. Aged 16, he is said to have turned up in London one day, out of nowhere, to buy property in an auction. He has been accumulating more and more property ever since. It is not Asif Aziz’s background that concerns me, however; it is what he is doing—or, more accurately, not doing—with his property that has upset residents not only in Colliers Wood but across south London.
I have conducted a little research, and found that the Golfrate tower is not the only grotty building owned by Mr Aziz and his companies. They also own the Trocadero. If Members have not been there recently, I should advise them that it is now a rather grubby and underused building. Once a landmark site at the heart of Piccadilly circus, it is now gloomy, empty and unattractive, with broken escalators and graffiti murals along the subway where the shop windows would be if they had not been boarded up. I gather that even the efforts to let some of the premises to the discount retailer T. K. Maxx have run into difficulty, partly because the Crown Estate also has an interest in the site, and it does not approve.
Other prime sites owned by Mr Aziz’s company include 1, Leicester square and the well-known nightclub, the Fridge, next to Lambeth town hall, as well as numerous locations throughout south London, including Sutton’s St Nicholas centre and shops in Tooting, Streatham and Brixton. Interestingly, in 2008, shortly before Woolworth’s went out of business, it was left with a £1.6 million rent demand after the rent that it had to pay to Golfrate was nearly quadrupled to £900,000 a year and backdated.
Numerous residents around London have complained about Golfrate on activist websites. According to these sites, Golfrate appears to be buying up key town centre buildings and then doing the bare minimum with them. It is almost as though they were being bought simply to go on the books, with no intention of spending further money on maintenance or significant development.
In my constituency, Golfrate owns a number of key sites, and it seems to cause considerable resentment wherever it goes. Cavendish house in Colliers Wood is a three-storey office block. It used to contain the jobcentre, but it moved out. It still contains Colliers Wood library, but it is by far the grottiest library in the borough, with the worst facilities and, not surprisingly, the lowest user levels of any local library. The rest of the building is empty and rundown. The parking spaces are often used by fly-tippers. Also in Colliers Wood, the company owns the former Six Bells pub site. It is currently boarded up and dilapidated, although I gather that tenants have moved into the flat above, despite the fact that planning restrictions usually mean that people can live above a pub only if their work is connected to it. Mr Aziz and his companies also own another derelict block in Morden, the former Crown pub and nightclub. We were informed that that would be turned into the Morden Islamic centre, opening in May 2010. It has yet to open, however, and remains boarded up, dirty and unattractive, resulting in another town centre being blighted.
This is not just about buildings. Golfrate owns and runs a car park in Mitcham, on behalf of high street shops including Farm Foods and Peacocks. In 2009, there was a furore when dozens of motorists had their vehicles clamped or towed away by rogue clampers who changed the parking rules overnight. When I contacted the shops, they were so appalled about what had happened that they forced Golfrate to dismiss the clampers. This all shows that Mr Aziz and his companies have history, and do not necessarily have the best interests of local communities at heart.
A year ago, I organised a local meeting to try to get something done about the Golfrate tower. It was attended by more than 100 residents, as a result of which local resident Phil Richardson established a community group on Facebook: the Colliers Wood Tower Action Group. We were very angry that a multi-millionaire could simply buy up the biggest building in our community and leave it to rot. We got legal advice and were urged to use planning powers under the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 to force the owners to clean up the site and make it safe. After years of inaction, and thanks to the hard work of local residents and local councillors Nick Draper, Laxmi Attawar and Gam Gurung, the London borough of Merton finally used those powers to issue two separate section 215 notices. To be fair, this has helped. The weeds have been cleared and the security fencing is safer and more in keeping with the building, but neither notice has been fully complied with. In particular, the cladding has still not been repaired. Instead, the owners have gone back to the council saying that they now really want to fulfil the planning application that London Green obtained in 2005. Well, the residents will believe that when they see it. We are concerned that this is being used as a ruse to prevent the council from prosecuting them again.
In August, the owners held a meeting with officials at Merton council to discuss the planning application. Claiming that the recession meant that the 2005 scheme was no longer affordable—even though, as I have said, local flat prices are higher now than they were then—they tried to increase the number of flats in the development. When that did not work, they came back to say they wanted to renegotiate the 2005 scheme. Following threats of legal action—as we have seen, Aziz and his companies are not afraid of using the law—the council has been forced to consider a revised planning application. We have been advised that because of that new application, it would be hard to prosecute anyone for the condition of the site.
Faced with a ruthless and clever landowner, the community is powerless. Indeed, as the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors associate director at the centre of excellence said:
“There is no specific Building Control legislation for making a development site visually attractive. Building Controls are more concerned that the site is secure and safe from unauthorised access… Unless there are specific conditions on the planning consent… the authorities have limited power when it comes to enforcement when a project is being constructed or left in abeyance. Many high-profile cases have won high court actions in challenging any enforcement notice issued by the authorities.”
Councils cannot even use development completion notices. A Department for Communities and Local Government report, “Completion Notices”, said that a threat of such a notice should be used mainly as a negotiating tool. After all, a notice has to give a developer at least 12 months to do the work. Even if it is not completed in that time, a landowner cannot be forced to do the work. That is why, according to Heather O’Sullivan, a professional support lawyer at Campbell Hooper, local planning authorities rarely use them, as they
“prefer not to use these notices because the procedure is so time-consuming and the outcome is not sufficiently certain to guarantee the completion of part-finished schemes. Moreover, there are no penalties for non-compliance… and local planning authorities risk being left with part-built sites with no planning consent.
This is the crux of the problem. Most reasonable people can see that Golfrate has no serious intentions for the tower, but because the company is well financed, can afford good lawyers and its site is worth millions of pounds, we cannot take it on. Since buying the site, they have let it get into a worse and worse condition while the values go up and up. Is it right that communities like ours should suffer as a result of companies like Golfrate land-banking in this way? The residents of Collliers Wood say no. We have used the powers that we have; we have caused a nuisance and there has been a bit of progress, but the basic problem has got worse.
Earlier today, the Collier’s Wood action group went to Mr Aziz’s office to deliver a letter of demands and to hold a short demonstration outside his premises. He was not there to see us—well, that is not much of a surprise, as we have invited Mr Aziz to numerous meetings, and he never comes. The action group’s demands are not unreasonable. We want him to repair the building so it is safe, and to re-clad the back ugly exterior in order to make it look better. We also want Mr Aziz to knock down the rest of the car park and convert the whole building into flats in line with the planning approval that was granted nearly six years ago.
At the heart of this, all we really want from Mr Aziz is for him to be a good neighbour—although if we are relying on people like him to behave decently of their own accord, we might have a very long wait. Communities such as those at Colliers Wood need new powers to let landowners like Mr Aziz know that we in our communities, big or small, will not accept the blight any longer. I hope that the Minister will take the side of communities, not unscrupulous multi-millionaires. When the powers that we have are not enough, we need more. When a decade passes and a community is gradually worn down as a result of the actions of ruthless developers, I hope that the Minister will not just stand by. Thank you for the opportunity, Madam Deputy Speaker, to put the case for Colliers Wood.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Robert Neill)
May I congratulate the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) on securing this debate? I am grateful for the chance to set out the Government’s position on “Planning blight and large property owners”, which is the title on the Order Paper.
First, before going into more detail, it is as well to set out the background and to distinguish between planning blight, a term of art describing a form of statutory blight under part 6, chapter 2 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, and the kind of blight that occurs where buildings and sites are left vacant and unmaintained, adversely affecting the environmental quality of an area. It is the latter issue with which we are largely concerned this evening.
The hon. Lady mentioned planning permissions and it is worth bearing in mind that such permissions are normally granted for a period of three years from the date of decision, although this can be increased or decreased at the discretion of local authorities. In determining whether to permit a longer period, local authorities may wish to consider the economic circumstances and the ability of a developer to deliver the development. The Government consider that three years is a fair period to give the developer time to secure the necessary finance and to make arrangements to get on site and proceed with the development. It strikes the right balance between the commercial pressures that developers face and the need of the community to ensure that the development that they are promised materialises.
If developers are unable to proceed within the time period specified by the local planning authority, in certain circumstances they are able to apply for a replacement planning permission. That procedure was introduced in 2009 and its scope was expanded in October last year. A replacement planning permission is similar to a new planning permission but has less arduous consultation and information requirements, because principle and design have already been agreed. Local authorities have a lot of discretion over that procedure and how it applies in individual cases.
If a developer is unable to proceed with work on site, they face the prospect of the cost and uncertainty of having to apply for a new or replacement planning permission. That in itself is a major incentive for developers to get on site and start work within the allotted period. Sometimes, however, even with the best of intentions, things can go wrong for developers. Economic circumstances change, developers get into financial difficulties and projects can get stalled. It is important that the Government do what we can to remove bureaucratic barriers and support developers in delivering the housing and commercial developments that this country desperately needs.
We recognise, however, that there can also be circumstances in which landowners are not interested in progressing developments at all. They might simply try to make a profit on a site by waiting for it to increase in value, and might have no interest at all in what the site looks like in the intervening period. I think that that is the root of the hon. Lady’s concern.
Where sites fall into disrepair, there can be a detrimental effect on local communities. As the hon. Lady rightly says, unused buildings can become a haven for drug users and other undesirable elements. The risk of falling masonry can pose a danger to passers-by, and general degradation of the environment can result. Where a building is dangerous and a threat to the local area, it is worth bearing in mind the provision for local authorities to serve a notice on the building owner to carry out works to remove that danger or demolish the building, under sections 77 and 78 of the Building Act 1984. I do not know whether that is appropriate in the case to which the hon. Lady refers, but the power is available generally to local authorities.
The Government take such degradation of buildings very seriously, and our first priority is to prevent such situations from happening in the first place. The Government have worked hard to prevent developers from building up banks of land, by making sure that they are required to start work on site within a timely period from the granting of planning permission. Where the state of the site has led to the quality of the environment being adversely affected, however, local authorities have a number of remedies available to them. The hon. Lady referred to the provisions under section 215 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, under which a local authority can, in certain circumstances, take steps to make good the loss of public amenity. If it appears that the amenity or part of the amenity of an area is being adversely affected by the condition of neighbouring land and buildings, the authority can serve a notice on the owner requiring that the situation be remedied. Such notices set out the steps that need to be taken, and the time within which they must be carried out.
The use of section 215 notices by local planning authorities is discretionary. It is up to the local planning authority to decide whether a notice under those provisions would be appropriate. The hon. Lady says correctly that at least one extant notice is still in operation in relation to the site to which she refers. For that reason, the House will understand why it is not appropriate for me to comment further on the case.
Other remedies are also available to local authorities when development has already begun and has stalled for one reason or another. For example, a local planning authority can—with the agreement of the Secretary of State—issue a completion notice, which will terminate a planning permission at the end of a specified period if the development is not completed. If it is not completed within the specified time limit, there will be no planning permission for the remainder of the development. Local authorities can take enforcement action once the completion notice comes into effect if the development is resumed at a later date.
A key driver of the localism agenda is giving communities a stake in the future of their areas, and enabling them to achieve real change. We are giving communities the ability and the incentive to plan positively for their futures, and to safeguard the things that matter to them. The measures announced in our Localism Bill should ensure that the desires and intentions that people express in regard to their local environment through the planning system result in real change on the ground, and that developments are delivered in a timely manner to the benefit of all concerned.
I know the hon. Lady will understand that we must strike a balance between the need to support developers in the challenging economic circumstances that we have inherited and the need to ensure that local communities have sufficient power and resources to protect themselves from the loss of amenity that comes with boarded-up and vacant sites. As I have said, discretionary powers exist to help local authorities to achieve that, and ultimately it is for the community to work with them to ensure that the problems associated with vacant buildings are dealt with in a fair, proportionate and responsible way.
Siobhain McDonagh
The Minister’s use of the word “proportionate” suggests that we are discussing parties with equal power, but I hope that I have conveyed our feeling of powerlessness in the face of a large and wealthy organisation that is willing to go to law and has access to expert legal advice. Residents do not have that capacity, and local authorities are often frightened to engage with those who are very litigious.
Robert Neill
The hon. Lady will appreciate that planning policy relates essentially to land use. We cannot have a system that is determined by the economic capacity of the parties as such. What is important is that the local authority, in particular, has powers. While I realise that the scope of individual community groups may be limited, I understand that the London borough of Merton has taken powers in serving section 215 notices in relation to this case, so it has a remedy.
We propose to give local communities much more control over developments of this kind in the first place through our changes to the planning system and, in particular, our concept of neighbourhood planning. I suspect that had neighbourhood plans been established in Colliers Wood, a different view of such developments might well have been taken. The fact is, however, that this is an existing development with an extant permission, and the local authority must deal with the situation with which it is currently confronted.
Siobhain McDonagh
The point is, surely, that if a company has funds that enable it to invest in property and to do nothing with the planning applications that it receives other than sit and wait for the property price to rise, the planning process does not help. What local authorities need are greater powers of enforcement, and greater powers to require developers to be good neighbours.
Robert Neill
A number of steps have been taken in that regard. Until 2004, developers could extend the life of planning permissions by varying time limit conditions attached to existing planning consents. Because of concerns about land banking, the last Government amended section 73 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 in the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 to prevent it from being used to vary such conditions. I have no issue with that. Those sort of steps were taken, and we also have to bear in mind that concern was expressed that action should be proportionate.
In addition, steps have been taken to examine the default length of planning permissions. As I say, the default length is three years, but local authorities have discretion under section 91 of the 1990 Act to grant permission for another period, having regard to the provisions of the development plan and other material considerations. The Department has previously issued letters to the chief planning officers reminding them of their discretion in this regard. Precisely because this issue is discretionary for the local authority it would be wrong for them or certainly for a Minister to try to fetter that. We can simply put in place the tools for them to use, if appropriate, and remind them if they are available. I do not know what consideration Merton council gave to those matters, but it is clear that it did take steps in relation to the section 215 notices in this case.
I understand the hon. Lady’s frustration. It may well be that when the Government consult in due course on the changes that we are making to the planning framework with our national planning priorities framework, both her local council and others who are concerned about this matter will wish to make representations as to what further can be done. One has to bear in mind that because proprietary interests are affected, whatever the rights and wrongs of the issue, any action has to be taken in a manner capable of being sustained, because it has to be justiciable. Therefore, the authority has to act in a quasi-judicial fashion and the Department has to make sure that any advice it gives in any legal framework that it sets in place is consistent with our legal obligation to fairness on both sides.
It is always difficult in a debate such as this to deal with individual cases, particularly while there are existing proceedings. These have the potential to result in court proceedings, because a fine can be imposed if they are not complied with. Although it is not possible to be more specific about particular cases, I can assure the hon. Lady that the Government are alert to these issues and are, of course, always looking to see whether there are sensible means of keeping these rules up to date. I hope that the pressure being applied and the good work that is clearly being done by people in Colliers Wood and the neighbourhood action group, together with their councillors, will have an effect on the owners of the building. Equally, I am sure that she will understand why it is not appropriate for me to say more than I already have about the particular circumstances of a case where, in effect, enforcement-type proceedings— section 215 proceedings—are ongoing.
Question put and agreed to.
Written Ministerial Statements
(13 years, 10 months ago)
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Southern Sudan Referendum
(13 years, 10 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr William Hague)
I am pleased to inform the House that polling in the southern Sudan referendum took place between 9 and 15 January 2011. Over 3 million southern Sudanese cast their votes in this historic referendum to decide their future, far exceeding the required 60% turnout figure. Many queued for hours at polling centres, waiting patiently and calmly for the opportunity to express their view.
The successful completion of the referendum is a momentous step towards the implementation of the comprehensive peace agreement signed between the north and south in 2005. Observers from the United Kingdom and many other countries have been on the ground monitoring the process closely. This week domestic and international observers have made it clear that the process to date has been conducted in a credible manner. This is a truly remarkable achievement and I welcome the observers’ assessments, including the EU observation mission’s preliminary statement of 17 January that the referendum had met international standards and been free and fair. We await the formal announcement of the result, currently due on 7 or 14 February.
I commend the enormous efforts made over the last few months to prepare for the referendum by the political leadership in Khartoum and Juba, and the work done by the Southern Sudan Referendum Commission (SSRC). I also commend the logistical support for voting inside Sudan provided by the United Nations Mission to Sudan (UNMIS) and the arrangements made for out-of-country voting by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM). The UK provided significant technical and financial assistance to the polling within Sudan and overseas.
During polling I spoke to both Vice-President Taha and southern President Kiir about the need to resume negotiations on the outstanding CPA issues as soon as possible. I also spoke to President Mbeki, who leads the African Union high-level implementation panel that is supporting the parties, and to President Meles of Ethiopia. My right hon. Friend the International Development Secretary has spoken to Jean Ping of the African Union, Baroness Amos of OCHA and Dr Amre Moussa of the Arab League. The Under-Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Minister with responsibility for Africa, the Member for North West Norfolk (Mr Bellingham), has spoken to Haile Menkerios, the United Nations Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Sudan.
The UK, working with international partners, worked closely with the parties to reach the comprehensive peace agreement in 2005. We remain fully supportive as they address the major challenges that still lie ahead. These include questions around the border between north and south, the status of Abyei, international debt, citizenship and security.
At the same time, the UK remains engaged on humanitarian and development issues. Of recent concern has been the large movement of people from north to south, and the displacement of 40,000 people due to violence in Darfur. Perhaps as many as 180,000 people have returned to southern Sudan since November. Contingency arrangements put in place have so far held: the UK has contributed £15 million to referendum-related contingency preparedness and, with the UN, is monitoring the situation closely.
Whatever the outcome of the referendum, the UK will continue its commitment to both north and south Sudan. We will continue to support African Union/United Nations Chief Negotiator Djibril Bassolé and the Government of Qatar as they seek to establish a lasting and inclusive peace in Darfur.
This is a critical moment for the people of Sudan. Much has been achieved that lessens the risks of a return to war, but there is still much to be done before the end of the comprehensive peace agreement on 9 July 2011.
Grand Committee
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Energy Bill [HL]
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The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Harris of Richmond)
My Lords, if there is a Division in the Chamber while we are sitting, the Committee will adjourn as soon as the Division Bells are rung and resume after 10 minutes.
Clause 33: Regulations and orders
Amendment 20A
Baroness Noakes
“(za) orders and regulations under section 1 or 2,”
Baroness Noakes
My Lords, briefly, Amendments 20A and 20C, which stand in my name in this group, come directly from the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee’s eighth report of Session 2010-11. The amendments concern the level of parliamentary approval that should be given to orders and regulations made under Clauses 1 and 2. The eighth report makes it clear that the powers in Clauses 1 and 2 are significant. For example, the Government have powers to specify in detail what a Green Deal plan is, what improvements fall to be dealt with and what descriptions of property are covered or not covered. Clause 2 confers powers to extend by order the meaning of energy efficiency measures, and therefore the scope of the Green Deal scheme, as well as other matters.
The key point for the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee is that the affirmative procedure is, in its view, the appropriate level of scrutiny, given the ability to extend key terms by subordinate legislation. In paragraph 5 of its report, that Committee recommends,
“that orders and regulations under clauses 1 and 2 should be subject to the affirmative procedures”.
That is what my two amendments provide. I beg leave to move.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees
If Amendment 20A is agreed to, I cannot call Amendment 20B by reason of pre-emption.
Lord Jenkin of Roding
My Lords, I also put down amendments—Amendments 20B and 20D—which are differently worded but would have exactly the same effect. Having listened to my noble friend Lady Noakes, I have nothing to add, except to support her fully. I believe that it is normal practice for the Government, having considered the proposals of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, to seek to accept them.
Lord Davies of Oldham
My Lords, having had recent experience of the phenomenon to which the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, has drawn attention, I can say that in Government we of course took the recommendations of the Committee very seriously. I am glad to see these amendments. I appreciate that the Minister has something of a choice, but in any case at Committee stage he is not going to accept these amendments exactly as they are written. However, the Opposition give their full support to the concept behind the amendments. Therefore, I hope that the Minister responds positively and that the appropriate amendment is tabled.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Lord Marland)
My Lords, I welcome back the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, and hope that she is well. I hope that all noble Lords have had an agreeable weekend. We will now carry on with the Energy Bill.
The amendments in this group would affect a number of orders, including those that define qualifying energy improvements and eligible properties. We need to strike the right balance between normal administrative functions and parliamentary scrutiny of the criteria by which administrators exercise their functions. I am very grateful to my noble friends Lady Noakes and Lord Jenkin of Roding for tabling their amendments. However, we need to ensure that the amendments have the intended effect in law. Therefore, we will warmly and favourably consider the amendments and all the recommendations of the Delegated Powers Committee.
I hope that honourable Members have found my explanation reassuring and will not press their amendments.
Baroness Noakes
With the proviso that I am a noble, rather than an “honourable”, Member, I am grateful to the Minister for warmly considering my amendments. I hope that that warmth will extend to action on Report and I assure him that, if he does not take action, we will return to the matter. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
“( ) Before making regulations or an order under this Chapter, the Secretary of State must report to Parliament with proposals on green deal apprenticeships.”
The Deputy Chairman of Committees
I advise Members that there is a mistake in the amendment as it appears in the supplementary Marshalled List. It should state, “Clause 33, page 21, line 35, at end insert—”.
Baroness Smith of Basildon
My Lords, we have discussed before the issue of skills and whether there will be enough people with the skills required to undertake the Green Deal. Amendment 20DZA would require the Government to report to Parliament before any orders or regulations were made to state where we are on the issue of skills and, in particular, on introducing Green Deal apprenticeships. When we discussed this issue, there was wide agreement on the need to ensure that the workforce has the skills available. At the weekend, the Minister for Skills made an interesting statement that recognised the need to appreciate and value skills in manufacturing and engineering. Clearly, if we are to reach the desired level of Green Deal take-up, we will need significantly to upgrade skills in engineering as well as in science and technology.
I recommend to the Minister the Aldersgate Group’s report, Mind the Gap: Skills for the transition to a low carbon economy, which was published in November 2009. The group is a high-level coalition of businesses, environmental groups, individuals who have been involved in employment and trade unions, all of whom are keen to ensure that we capitalise on the number of jobs that can be made available through environmental work. The group believes that high environmental standards could ensure that we are an international leader in the field. The report—the outcome of a project chaired by former TUC president John Edmonds—is, I found, very helpful. Its key point is that, whatever the speed of our transition to a low-carbon economy, we need to fix the skills shortage in those areas. We are not talking about a completely new skills set so we do not need to build up new skills from scratch, but we certainly need training courses and further work to enhance the current skills set.
The biggest problem identified in the Aldersgate Group report is that, because the debate on the workforce skills has moved on so quickly, people at various levels in engineering and manufacturing in the UK—including at the highest management levels—have not really understood the implications of the degree of change that needs to be made. If we are to meet the significant challenges that we want the Green Deal to overcome, we must ensure that the skills are available. Companies will need to understand the nature of the change and explain the required skills to the workforce.
A number of recommendations in the Aldersgate Group report and in other reports—including some from the Government—deal with very similar issues. What is clear from all the reports that I have looked at is that business needs certainty from Government if it is to invest in skills and equipment. The Government have the responsibility to work alongside industry and those involved in training to ensure that we have the right kind of training programmes at the right time, with the right level of skills and the right kind of skills.
These are significant issues that the Government need to address. All that we ask today is that the Government take this away, look at the level of change that is required and ensure that there are Green Deal apprenticeships in place so that we have the take-up, which will initially come through owner-occupiers—we will come later to the issue of the delays that are currently envisaged in the private rented sector. We need to ensure that we have the necessary number of people who are fully trained to undertake the jobs required.
Amendment 20DZA is a probing amendment. I will be interested in the response from the Minister, but we may want to return to the issue, as we feel that it is crucial to the success of the Green Deal.
Baroness Northover
My Lords, the Green Deal will require a trained workforce to install measures in a safe, competent and professional manner. This will be assured by a new Green Deal quality mark and accreditation framework. The noble Baroness is right that this is going to be an area for jobs growth, and the Aldersgate Group is right to highlight that. It is estimated that, as a result of the Green Deal, 100,000 jobs will be created by 2015 and 270,000 by 2025. Business does indeed need certainty, and this Bill is part of providing that certainty and the way forward.
As the noble Baroness will know, this Government have previously pledged to increase the number of apprenticeships available across all sectors. It is a promising sign that the insulation industry has already launched a pilot apprenticeship scheme, which it hopes to expand over the next year in anticipation of the Green Deal. We welcome this development and we will work with the industry to promote the use of apprentices where possible. We will be speaking further with ministerial counterparts in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills about this matter and we will continue to liaise with them over this.
However, we feel that Amendment 20DZA as drafted may interfere with the degree of flexibility necessary to tailor the Green Deal training to the needs of the sector and may risk forcing training opportunities down an inappropriate route. We understand the purposes behind the amendment. On that basis, I hope that noble Lords will be happy that the amendment be withdrawn.
Baroness Smith of Basildon
I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment 20DZA withdrawn.
Clause 33 agreed.
After Clause 33
Baroness Maddock
Baroness Maddock
I rise to move Amendment 20E, as set out in the Marshalled List, and I will speak to Amendments 20F, 20G, 20H, 20J and 20K.
As we are starting on the chapter of the Bill that refers to the private rented sector, let me make a few general comments before speaking to the amendments. I welcome the fact that, for the first time, the Government are making a serious attempt to deal with energy efficiency in the private sector. The issue has dogged the housing world for a number of years, so I really welcome the Government’s proposals.
In making a few general points about the situation in the private sector, I also want to mention fuel poverty. In many cases, not only is private rented accommodation the worst maintained part of our housing stock, but it contains a large number of vulnerable households and those living in fuel poverty. The sector accounts for 14.2 per cent of the housing stock—a little over 3 million homes in England—and has a disproportionately high number of homes with the worst energy performance ratings compared with other sectors. According to the Government’s fuel poverty advisory group, 19 per cent of private tenants live in fuel poverty. According to the Chief Medical Officer, the annual cost to the National Health Service of winter-related diseases due to living in cold homes is something like £859 million.
Historically, landlords have had little incentive to improve their properties because the tenants rather than the landlords pay the fuel bills. A substantial coalition of bodies outside this House has now called on the Government to introduce a legal minimum standard of energy efficiency for rented homes and to make it an offence to let a property that does not meet the standard until it has been improved. I put on record that those organisations include: Age UK, Consumer Focus, Citizens Advice, Crisis, the National Childbirth Trust and Macmillan Cancer Support as well as councils up and down the country.
There has already been much discussion about the issue in another place, where an Early Day Motion has been signed by 147 Members of Parliament from across the political spectrum. The Government’s fuel poverty advisory group strongly supports the proposal—noble Lords might like to look at its annual report for 2009 rather than have me read it out here. Further, the Committee on Climate Change has called for mandatory energy efficiency standards to be set for the private rented sector.
The Government’s recognition that special attention needs to be paid to the poor condition of private rented properties is very much in line with views held outside Parliament and among civil society. The Energy Bill contains provisions that could, if taken up, give the Government powers to improve rented homes. My series of amendments aims to strengthen the Bill by introducing minimum standards that both landlords and tenants could both understand and plan for the introduction of.
Let me give a bit of detail about the minimum standard and its influence on fuel poverty. In December, Consumer Focus published a report setting out an impact assessment of Friends of the Earth’s minimum energy standard proposals. In terms of the measures required and their costs, two scenarios were investigated: one was to meet a minimum band E standard by 2015; the other was the impact of raising the minimum standard to band D by 2020. Raising the minimum energy performance certificate to band E for private rented homes would remove 150,000 households in the private rented sector from fuel poverty—25 per cent of households in private rented accommodation are currently living in fuel poverty. Raising the EPC for such homes to band D by 2020 would remove a little over 300,000 households from fuel poverty, which represents 50 per cent of those currently living in fuel poverty in the private rented sector.
The cost of doing that would not be as high as some people might think. A study has found that the cost of meeting the minimum standard would be low and would be well within the levels of finance associated with the Green Deal. In many cases, the cost would be low enough to be easily financed directly by the landlord, with no impact on rents. Some 40 per cent of F-rated and G-rated properties could be improved to EPC band E for less than £1,500, at an average cost of £270 per property. Of those properties in bands E, F and G, two thirds could be improved all the way up to band D for less than £3,000 per property. That is consistent with some work done by the Energy Saving Trust, which concurred that most F and G-rated properties could be improved to band E for less than £3,000. The Energy Saving Trust also said that 60 per cent of F and G-rated private rented properties could be brought up to band E for less than £5,000.
I turn to my amendments to Clause 35. As drafted, Clause 35 limits the categories of domestic short-term lettings that will come within the provisions of Chapter 2 to those categories of tenants that are expressly included within the provisions of the Rent Act 1977 and to assured short-hold tenancies under the Housing Act 1988. Undoubtedly, that captures the bulk of short-term lettings, but it certainly does not capture all forms of dwelling that are owner-occupied. Therefore, the purpose of my amendments is to expand the tenancies and dwellings included in this clause. Amendments 20E to 20J in my name would apply in particular to agricultural workers, whose tenancies have for some time been treated slightly differently from those of other tenants in landlord and tenant legislation.
Historically, many agricultural workers have occupied self-contained accommodation owned by their employers, often at very low rent. The Rent Act 1977 did not apply to tenants who were occupying buildings at no rent or very low rent. Instead, the bulk of agricultural workers are covered by the provisions of the Rent (Agriculture) Act 1976, which offers security of tenure to people occupying buildings at nil or low rent providing that they work in full-time agriculture. In 1989, the provisions of the Housing Act 1988 replaced the provisions of the Rent Act 1977, but again no specific provision was made for agricultural tenants. Living in rural Northumberland, I am very much aware of this issue, and I hope that the Minister will look on this matter favourably.
Amendment 20K—the last of my amendments in this group—would expand the categories of domestic occupiers to include those tenancies currently excluded by Schedule 1 to the Housing Act 1988 and also some houses in multiple occupation. The amendment would also allow the Secretary of State to include other definitions, should that be desirable at some point in the future.
The complication with the tenancies that have been left out is that the Government have used the Rent Act 1977 and the Housing Act 1988 to define a domestic PR property. However, in neither of those statutes was the building the central point. The Rent Act had two main purposes: to establish a fair rent structure and to seek to provide security of tenure for tenants while striking a balance between security and the needs of the landlord. The Housing Act 1988 similarly dealt with security of tenure. A long list of forms of occupation of dwellings were excluded from the Housing Act 1988 because it was considered inappropriate for tenants to have more security than they already had. However, this means that many properties that are actually dwellings will be left out of this Bill. I hope that that explains to the Minister why I think that this is important and that we look a little further at doing that. I beg to move.
Baroness Parminter
I support my noble friend Lady Maddock in her amendments, which seek to extend the reach of the Bill to those who live under short-term residential leases. While the Bill will ensure that the majority of those in the private rented sector will benefit from the Green Deal, about 1.5 million properties with long residential leases are outside the scope of this Bill. Many of those leases require the permission of the landlords for home energy improvements. In some cases, there may be an absolute prohibition on such improvements. I am aware of a leaseholder who is looking to make a home energy improvement of fitting a new gas boiler, but because that requires an external flue he is unable to get his landlord’s consent.
I accept that there are issues around long residential leases. I am also very much aware—and I am grateful—that the department is aware of those issues, but I hope that the department might use the period of the proposed review of the private rented sector to look closely at the issue of long residential leases and at how we might extend the Green Deal to the 1.5 million people who at present have long residential leases and are currently excluded from the benefits of the Green Deal.
Lord Grantchester
I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Maddock, for bringing forward her amendments. I echo her opening words on the private rented sector, as we on this side of the House have also received considerable approaches from organisations that want us to look diligently at that sector. We take encouragement that the Government are now looking at those issues. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Maddock, we think that several such properties could be adequately improved at no great cost. We have also received a lot of submissions asking that we look carefully at this issue.
We also thank the noble Baroness for bringing the attention of the Committee to the issues around the Housing Act. On this side, we initially thought that all eventualities would be covered, so we thank her for drawing our attention to that. Along with the noble Baroness, we would wish, in so far as is possible, for all housing, including rural housing, to be brought within the ambit of the Bill. Will the Minister confirm that other types of housing, including in the mining industry, will be covered under the provisions?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Lord Marland)
My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Maddock, for moving Amendment 20E. She comes with a great wealth of knowledge of this sector, which is always much appreciated. In particular, her opening remarks welcomed some of the action that we are taking in this sector.
On the issue raised by my noble friend Lady Parminter, I should like to pick up the issue of the review at a later amendment.
I am glad to see that the Minister, my colleague Mr Gregory Barker, who will be taking this matter through the other place, has come to see how it is done properly here in the Upper Chamber. He will learn a lot from being here.
Amendments 20E to 20K all seek to amend Clause 35 by expanding the range of tenancy types and dwellings covered by the provisions in the Bill relating to the domestic private rented sector. Clause 35 lays the foundations for the provisions in the private rented sector by clearly defining what we mean by “domestic private rented property” and “non-domestic private rented property” in England and Wales for the purposes of this Bill. The domestic private rented sector is currently defined by the two most common types of tenancy arrangements in the sector: assured tenancies and regulated tenancies. We want to capture the largest range of private rented sector properties; we do not want to unintentionally exclude properties. I will now consider them in turn.
Amendments 20G and 20J would apply to accommodation provided for agricultural workers under either an assured agricultural occupancy, as defined in the Housing Act 1988, or a protected occupancy, as defined by the Rent (Agriculture) Act 1976. Those will be included in the definition; they do not need to be referred to specifically. I hope that that deals with the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Maddock.
Baroness Maddock
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his pretty positive reply. Of course, that is partly dependent on a review. As we will discuss this afternoon, some of us think that the timing of various reviews and actions following from them should be slightly different, so I may disagree with him a little later. However, in the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Jenkin of Roding
My Lords, in reading the Bill, and in getting the substantial number of representations that I suspect that we have all had from the relevant organisations, I have been impressed by the sheer complexity of the problem that we face in dealing with the private rented sector. It covers an enormous range of properties, of kinds of tenancy, and of people who occupy the houses. One trade association, the Federation of Master Builders, told me that there are around 26 million homes in Britain, over half of which were built before the 1960s. Five million are Victorian terraced properties. The scale of the challenge is nothing short of enormous. That is what has impressed me. Yes, we have new homes coming up with new standards and owner-occupied homes, but the private rented sector offers a severe challenge to the Government and to all those working with them.
Everybody with whom I have spoken has had nothing but total support for the whole concept of the Green Deal. At the same time, they recognise that it will have to maintain a careful balance between the desire to get maximum energy efficiency from this huge range of houses and, at the same time, maintain the availability on the market of homes to rent. Some of the representations that I have heard have expressed some anxiety that, if too many obligations and restrictions are placed on landlords of rented homes, one result could be that they will simply be taken off the market. The consequence would be almost worse than the original problem.
There is no question about it: the rental market has grown substantially in recent years, largely because of the progressive removal of the controls which hampered it for so long. When I was very young, I lived in a rent-controlled property. My mother was renting and the landlord could not put up the rent at all. In those circumstances it was almost impossible for anybody to rent a house because none of them came on to the market. If the house was empty, it was immediately sold for owner occupation. One has to hold that balance carefully.
I hope that, when dealing with the amendments to the later clauses, the Committee will feel that we have to give attention to this. There has to be a proper balance between the desire to improve these houses and their energy efficiency, and making severe inroads into the rental market as a whole. I am encouraged that, both in the Bill and in one of the amendments to be moved by the Opposition, there is a recognition that this needs to be done rather carefully. A considerable duty rests on us to try to get that balance as fair as we can between the two objectives—making sure that there is a proper market in homes for rent and getting the houses improved.
I want to make only one other point, which has been made by speakers already. The biggest problems we face here are in the homes that are extremely difficult to make more energy-efficient. It has been made clear in some of the representations that the limit of £5,000, or whatever it is, would not cover those sorts of places. They are coming under the energy company obligation, or so I understand. One does need to look at all these various aspects if we are going to achieve our objective.
Like my noble friend Lady Maddock when moving her amendment, I congratulate the Government on having had the courage to pick up this ball and run with it, because it is important that we try to deal with this hugely varied sector of housing if we are to improve the lot of the tenants and at the same time save energy.
Baroness Smith of Basildon
My Lords, I welcome the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin of Roding, because I think they sum up some of the challenges of the legislation and why it is so welcome that we seek to make improvements in the private rented sector and indeed other sectors—the private sector and the social housing sectors—through the energy market.
It is right that we examine this in detail because the issue around the balance between the quality and quantity of housing is a fine one to walk, and we want to ensure that at all times the Government reach the correct balance. In proposing amendments and discussing and debating the clauses of the Bill, we want to ensure that the Government can fulfil the objectives they have set themselves. We entirely agree with the Government when they said that they wanted to be the greenest Government ever. When the Minister referred to that in the Chamber in our first energy debate, which seems an awfully long time ago, and I challenged him on it he said, “Like it or not”. I let him know that we do like it and that we will support the Government in these aims and wider where they seek to be as green as possible. The issue of having greener properties and more energy- efficient properties goes beyond just the idea of being energy-efficient. It goes into health, the economy and much wider. As we debate these clauses about the private rented sector I give the Minister our assurance that every time we raise an issue we do so only to improve the Bill and work with him to achieve his stated objectives.
Lord Marland
My Lords, it is wonderful to hear so much green co-operation bouncing backwards and forwards. We appreciate the very generous words from the opposition Benches, and of course from my noble friend Lord Jenkin of Roding, who has told us that we have a very significant task to perform in this Bill. He has told us that there are many challenges ahead, which we will have to address. The noble Baroness, Lady Smith, and my noble friend Lord Jenkin both talk about a balance that needs to be had, and they are quite right. If I may, I will deal with his specific point about ECOs later, when it comes up in the list of amendments, but I am very grateful for the encouragement.
I will speak to Clause 35, so that we are clear where that is going. Clause 35 lays the foundations for the provisions in the private rented sector by clearly defining what we mean by domestic and non-domestic private rented property in England and Wales for the purposes of this Bill. The domestic private rented sector is defined by the two most common types of tenancy agreements in the sector: assured and regulated tenancies. We have intentionally excluded social landlords from these requirements. The sector has previously been required to invest in the energy-efficiency performance of its homes. As a result, it has made some of the biggest energy-efficiency gains in recent years.
The definition of a non-domestic private rented property is one which is let under a tenancy and is not a dwelling. A dwelling is already defined under the Energy Performance of Buildings (Certificates and Inspections) (England and Wales) Regulations 2007, so it is logical to use this existing definition for the purpose of this chapter. I hope that that satisfies noble Lords.
Baroness Smith of Basildon
My Lords, it is interesting, looking at Clause 36 about the review, that it describes how the review should be undertaken; who would undertake it, in that the Secretary of State appoints somebody; it mentions an arrangement to include provision for payments; it talks about how; it talks about what will be done; and it refers to what follows on. However, it never says what the purpose of the review is and why the review should be undertaken. It seems to me that the purpose of the review is to explore how we can best implement proposals in the Green Deal in the private sector, and how we can ensure that we get the best possible take-up of the Green Deal in that sector. Perhaps it is just a quirk of drafting that the purpose of the review is never set out in the clause. I assume that its purpose is clear: to maximise the take-up of the Green Deal and to ensure that it is taken up in the right way.
Amendment 20KA suggests that in Clause 36(5) we are able to include other issues in the review. The reason we are putting that forward is that there are indeed other issues that the review should look at and consider if its purpose is to maximise the take-up. One example is apprenticeships. The Minister did not seem too keen on that, but certainly on the issues of skills and training there has been widespread agreement in this Committee today and previously. Another issue is the role of local government and how it will undertake its responsibilities under the Green Deal. As we have already heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Maddock, what level of energy-efficiency will the review seek to ensure that landlords implement? The amendment is fairly limited. It is a probing amendment. I am just curious as to why the purpose of the review is not there; and I do not think that we should limit what the review must include to the four criteria listed in the legislation.
Baroness Noakes
My Lords, I have Amendment 20L grouped with this. Unfortunately I did not see the grouping before I got in today, and I am not sure it fits particularly well with Amendment 20KA. I support what the noble Baroness said about the review being capable of including other issues, whether specified by the Secretary of State or determined to be appropriate by the reviewer. I suggest that if that is what she wants she should have tabled the amendment differently—to say whether the Secretary of State should specify additional matters or whether the reviewer should be empowered to consider whatever other matters he wants. It seems to me a sensible flexibility to introduce into the Bill in some way.
Amendment 20L is rather different. I support the necessity of a review prior to the implementation of the private rented sector provisions of the Bill. The amendment is inspired by a briefing from the British Property Federation. It is differently expressed from the suggested amendment; my noble friend, Lord Jenkin, who has an amendment in this group, has followed the suggested amendment more faithfully.
Clause 36(5)(b) requires this review to include a consideration of the extent to which financial assistance is available to landlords of private rented properties for the purpose of taking measures to improve their energy-efficiency. My amendment takes this further, and asks that the review also examines the extent to which such financial assistance is known to be available. There is a world of difference between something being available and people knowing that it is. My noble friend Lord Jenkin’s amendment focuses on the amount of marketing effort and the sums spent in making landlords aware of financial assistance. To that extent his amendment focuses on the inputs to the process, while mine tries to focus on the outputs: in other words, whether there has actually been knowledge of the financial assistance available. For example, if the marketing in the early stages of the Green Deal is not addressed to landlords in the private rented sector, there may be zero knowledge of that in the sector.
Alternatively, landlords might know about the availability of financial assistance, not through marketing efforts from Green Deal providers, for example, but through trade bodies or the media. We cannot assume that because financial assistance is available landlords are aware of it and ready to act on it. It is important that the powers in this chapter are not activated unless and until there is awareness of financial assistance among private rented sector landlords.
Lord Jenkin of Roding
My Lords, as my noble friend Lady Noakes has indicated, Amendment 20MA in my name follows a recommendation from the British Property Federation. The federation makes the important point—which I may have made earlier—that the energy-efficiency supply sector does not have a good record of approaching private rented properties. It is much easier to take the low-hanging fruit provided by the owner-occupier properties, where the owner is the one paying the energy bills. The private rented sector has hitherto not been approached formally—other than perhaps in a number of cases—but that needs to happen. Therefore, the suggestion in my amendment is—as my noble friend Lady Noakes has said—that there should be a clear review of the efforts made to bring this whole process to the attention of both landlords and tenants.
I imagine that many noble Lords will share my experience of having people in their families who are both landlords and tenants—some are landlords and some are tenants. Of course, the biggest single problem is always to get both parties to see that an improvement will be to both their advantages. That will require a considerable effort. All that I am saying is that the review must take account of the efforts that are being and could be made to spread the awareness both of the process and of the mutual advantage that will come to landlords from the enhancement of the value of their property, and to tenants from lower energy bills and perhaps a more comfortable house. That will take some effort. The review must recognise that and form a view on how successful the measures have been to date.
Baroness Maddock
My Lords, further to my noble friend’s comment about the record of the private rented sector in this area, he is absolutely right that we have not seen its efforts in any great quantity. However, I remind him that one or two schemes got grants under the Home Energy Conservation Act. If he cares to look back, I am sure that the Energy Saving Trust has records of the one or two schemes that were quite successful. Unfortunately, nobody ever looked at the statistics to see how those schemes might be grown in the rest of the country, but that is history. I also remember that one very good scheme was initiated by Westminster City Council.
Lord Deben
My Lords, I just hope that we do not underestimate the big role that the British Property Federation and others ought to have in making sure that information about the measures reaches both those who rent and those who let property. I am a little unhappy about the pressure from the British Property Federation. Having been involved in property and in writing about it all my life, I rather think that, despite the efforts that are being made to suggest that somebody else ought to provide the information, those who let property ought to do that. In addition, if there is a problem from the private sector, the British Property Federation and others could certainly take that up.
When the Minister replies, I hope that he will accept that it is not just for the Government to tell people of the advantages available to them; the first people who ought to do that should be those who have the interests of the landlords—and, I hope, the tenants—in mind. It would be a pity if we suggested that that was not a proper role for the industry to take on its shoulders. If this were something that was hurting the industry, the various organisations would be the first to make sure that everyone knew about it. Therefore, I find this whole pressure a bit odd. I hope that your Lordships will not move us towards a position that will underestimate or remove the important role that the organisations should take.
Baroness Smith of Basildon
My Lords, that is exceptionally good advice. It will be crucial that information is available for tenants and for landlords. My point in moving the amendment was that the review should not be limited to the items listed in subsection (5) of Clause 36.
The noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, suggested that my amendment is not clear on whether the Secretary of State or the reviewer would decide the criteria. I refer her to Clause 36(3)(a), which makes it clear that the matter is for the Secretary of State. All that I seek is not to limit the review to the four criteria listed in subsection (5). I hope that the Minister will take on board my point about information being available and how crucial that will be for the process being successful.
Lord O'Neill of Clackmannan
My Lords, before we leave this issue, I am not quite clear on the extent of the penetration of the membership of the British Property Federation and on whether it captures all landlords. If the BPF has not so far—as I imagine—captured the recalcitrant landlords, I suggest that we should not try to impose too much responsibility on the BPF. At the same time, if this legislation is to succeed, the Government’s role should be to show leadership by trying to inform the public of what could be available to them and what might be being denied them because of landlords who by and large—historically, sadly, there are all too many of these—are indifferent to the needs of many of their tenants.
It would seem that the more insecure the tenancy, the higher the rents and the less attractive the accommodation. Very often, individual metering and inadequate insulation are the hallmarks of such properties. While we have a responsibility towards those tenants who live under registered or trade association landlords, we have an important and even greater responsibility to those who live in wretched and dreadful conditions because of the force of very complex circumstances. Sometimes, such tenants are not in a position to make the right economic judgments—which, in many respects, lie at the heart of the Green Deal—because, sadly, they have too many other things to worry about. The fact that these folk may not be in these properties for long does not mean that their successors should be condemned to the same dreadful conditions as those in which the previous tenants had to stay. The Government must pay greater attention to this issue. It is to the shame of previous Governments that these situations have been allowed to prevail for so long.
Lord Best
My Lords, perhaps I may add a little factual information on the profile of the private rented sector. We know from Dr Julie Rugg at the University of York that there are some 1.2 million private landlords. Very few of these belong to the British Property Federation, for which I have a great deal of time and which is doing some very good work, including on this Bill. The vast majority of the 1.2 million private landlords do not belong to any kind of federation. The Residential Landlords Association and the National Landlords Association together have, I think, less than 5 per cent of the ownership from the private landlords sector. We will have to bypass some of those institutions and put in place mechanisms that will reach out to this huge mass of small-time private landlords.
Lord Marland
My Lords, this group of amendments covers a wide range of issues. The noble Baroness, Lady Smith, rightly asked about the purpose of the review, which is, we hope, to safeguard against regulation. We do not believe that regulation will be the answer if we want to encourage landlords in the private rented sector to respond to the Green Deal with open arms, to embrace it and to act as willing and proper landlords. As my noble friend Lord Deben rightly said, we should strike a balance between the pressures brought on by the sector and what we want to achieve, but we should not be led by the nose. Of course, we are working closely with the BPF.
The noble Lord, Lord O’Neill of Clackmannan, rightly drew our attention to the fact that there are unscrupulous landlords out there. It may be that we have to take action against them in the strongest possible way through regulation, but it is our desire not to do that and to give them an opportunity—a breathing space—to take part.
The noble Baroness, Lady Maddock—the godmother of HECA—drew our attention in her usual persuasive way to the merits of the Home Energy Conservation Act. We are incredibly grateful for all the work that she did but, as she has nobly recognised, we have moved on to another phase. Perhaps she will be godmother of HECA II.
Finally, let me respond briefly to my noble friends Lord Jenkin and Lady Noakes, who have raised a number of issues relating to the review period. Perhaps I may discuss the review later, given that—as my noble friend Lady Noakes mentioned—groupings 7 and 8 also deal with the review and its various timeframes. Although my noble friends’ amendments aim to strengthen the review, I reassure noble Lords that there is already a requirement in Clause 36(5)(b) for the review to assess the extent to which financial assistance is available. On the broader point, I think that we will be able to debate the timings of reviews and the need for them when we consider groupings 7 and 8. With these assurances, I ask noble Lords not to press their amendments.
Baroness Noakes
My Lords, before the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, decides what to do with her amendment, I will say that my amendment—Amendment 20L—seeks to go beyond what is in Clause 36(5)(b), which the Minister rightly said covers,
“the extent to which financial assistance is available”.
I accepted that, but I went on to ask for the review to ensure that financial assistance is “known to be available”. The Minister did not cover that point in his summing up—unless I missed it—and I would be grateful for his comments.
Baroness Smith of Basildon
While the Minister seeks inspiration on that point, perhaps I may put to him that my comments and my amendment seek to probe whether there should be additional items in the review, but he did not address that, either.
Baroness Smith of Basildon
The purpose of my Amendment 20KA is to probe whether additional items should be in the review other than those in paragraphs (a) to (d) of subsection (5). I do not think that the Minister addressed that, but I apologise if I have missed it.
Lord Marland
I will deal first with the point made by my noble friend Lady Noakes. There is a limit to how much one can inform. Clearly, there is a greater emphasis on the private rented sector to inform. If we find that the sector is not informing people, we will bring that to attention under the review. I hope that that deals with the point.
I am not sure of the direction of the question of the noble Baroness, Lady Smith. Perhaps I could also deal with that at a later point.
Baroness Noakes
I am sorry. Possibly my noble friend has said that this might be looked at, but the point is not specified in Clause 36(5). I tabled Amendment 20L to see whether that should be specified, so that the matter would be covered. The Minister sort of said that it would be covered, but it is not covered in Clause 36, so I am still struggling on whether the Government think it important that landlords of public rented sector properties are aware of the financial assistance. As I pointed out, there is a big difference between financial assistance being available and people being aware of it, in particular if Green Deal providers do not target private sector landlords because of the difficulties.
Lord Marland
I think that I understand the question, so it may be the second question that I do not understand. If we are talking about awareness, it is incumbent on the private rented sector to make people aware. It is also incumbent on the Government to make people aware of the range of assistance available under the Green Deal. If there has been no—or not enough—positive action, the review will endeavour to make the necessary adjustments to make sure that that action is provided to communicate the information that is required. This set of opportunities should be widely known about. This is a very new initiative that, as I understand it, virtually everyone in property knows is about to happen. If we feel that the information is not being passed on, obviously we should take action.
Baroness Smith of Basildon
I hate to confuse the Minister and I apologise if my earlier comment was not clear, but all that I seek is confirmation that the review will be able to consider items other than those listed in paragraphs (a) to (d) of subsection (5). Are those the only items that the review will look at? Is the review limited to those items, or can other issues be taken into consideration?
Lord Marland
I am getting a lot of notes, but the short answer is that the review can consider other issues. I hope that that answers the question.
Baroness Smith of Basildon
I am most grateful. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Noakes
“( ) a consideration of the willingness of tenants of PR properties to agree to repay the financial assistance available to improve the energy efficiency of PR properties”
Baroness Noakes
My Lords, we are sticking for the time being with Clause 36(5). I have another suggestion to make. The report that is required under this subsection focuses on property characteristics and on landlords, but it does not seem to say anything about tenants. If landlords enter into a Green Deal scheme, it will mean that the energy bills of tenants will increase and thus tenants’ willingness to pay is an important element which should not be ignored. The theory is that the golden rule will not allow a Green Deal to go ahead if the energy savings do not cover the additional cost of energy bills, but it is less than clear that tenants will see the analysis in that way. They will have different time horizons from, say, owner-occupiers, and almost certainly different appetites for risk. While tenants in the private rented sector are clearly not homogenous, I imagine that significant numbers do not have the ability to analyse a Green Deal and its potential impact on their household finances in their rented accommodation, or whether, even if they could analyse it, they would be comfortable with it.
The purpose of the amendment is to ask the Minister to explain what role the Government see for tenants in decisions under this clause. It seems that they have no existence in the context of a scheme, yet they are the ones who will be paying the energy bills. I beg to move.
Lord Teverson
My Lords, I welcome this amendment from my noble friend. It is important that tenants are actually mentioned, which is the emphasis here. The broader point is that although tenants are not a homogenous group, because of the differences that arise in the sector, there certainly will be people who cannot and never will be able to afford their own homes as opposed to more transient people who have not bought a property perhaps, because they are seeking to move on. The group will be different in many ways. I therefore support the idea that the review should try to identify the particular hurdles faced by this group in asking their landlords to make the improvements through the providers of the scheme. It is an important area and one it would be useful to understand if and when the report is produced.
Lord O'Neill of Clackmannan
Short-term tenants who are in poor-quality houses and move on regularly are not normally the kind of people who will have the time, let alone the inclination, to enter into such an agreement. They may not actually be involved when it comes to the implementation of the scheme, because there is likely to be some time lag. The other side of that is that the kind of landlords who operate in these areas are often unscrupulous and indifferent. Particularly in big cities, we now have substantial numbers of an almost underclass of people who live on the national minimum wage, are in one job that is lowly paid and get moved on to another and, perforce of circumstance, keep moving. There does not seem to be much consciousness on the part of government that such a group of people exist. I am not certain whether they will really be touched by the Green Deal because of the indifference of the landlord, the difficulties facing the tenant, and the persistence of high energy bills due to the inadequacy of the insulation of the houses—that is the simplest form of improvement that such properties could have. No matter how much encouragement we give either to the tenant or to the landlord in these circumstances, I am not sure that much will happen. We might have to fall back on other forms of remedial action, which might not have the market finesse that the Green Deal is supposed to promise.
Lord Teverson
My Lords, I am a landlord—very much in the line that the noble Lord, Lord Best, described of one property, but I thought that I should declare that interest in this debate.
Lord Best
I shall just add another statistical piece of information. Some 40 per cent of tenants move within a year of the occupation of their home. In principle, the idea of consulting with the residents of a place before you start doing anything to it is entirely right, but we have a big transient population in the private rented sector. My other point is that, although you could consult the first occupier, the debt is taken on and lasts 25 years. In almost no cases will the same person be there for all that period, and you are not able to consult people further down the line about a decision taken by an earlier tenant. Although I sympathise with the sentiment that one should consult with the tenants, this is possibly impractical.
Lord Davies of Oldham
My Lords, we are getting to the complexities and challenges of the Green Deal. We had early indications this afternoon of the problems in the private rented sector; they are not solely in that sector, but they mushroom in significant ways so far as it is concerned. The important statistic that the noble Lord, Lord Best, brought in identifies the challenges before us. As the noble Lord, Lord Deben, argued on the previous amendment, it is no doubt important that we get as much information across as we can both to landlords and to tenants. This is a major public information task, and we should make sure that this legislation enhances and creates the opportunities for the spread of as much information as possible. Of course, as my noble friend Lord O’Neill identified, there will be groups who are difficult to reach and for whom the relevance will be limited; that is where a significant challenge is represented by this legislation. We want the Minister’s assurance that he appreciates how important it is that the legislation be as enhancing as it can be on the need to distribute information so far as possible, and that we succeed in bringing the nation on board with regard to the objectives, benefits and significance for society. We have a whole range of private interests that are massively diverse, so we should recognise the challenge that the Government face.
Baroness Northover
My Lords, it is vital as a thread running through this debate that we ensure that this deal has as wide an impact as possible, and we welcome the input that noble Lords are putting into how that is to be achieved.
The nature of the review, as my noble friend Lord Marland has indicated, will be discussed in a bit more detail shortly. I would note to the noble Lord, Lord O’Neill, in terms of hurdles to tenants, that this is one of the reasons we want to give local authorities the power if needed to require improvements in the worst accommodation. When my noble friend Lord Teverson said that he had to declare an interest, I was hoping that it was not that he was a landlord of the type mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord O’Neill; it was reassuring that he was of the type mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Best.
I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, for tabling this amendment, which would require that the review investigates the willingness of tenants to take on Green Deal repayments. We understand the intent behind this proposal. As she herself said, the golden rule should mean that tenants’ bills should not go up as a result of the Green Deal because of the energy savings they will be making. I see her slightly dissenting. That is part of the way this has been structured but we are well aware of the points that have been made in previous debates on that.
Baroness Noakes
Perhaps I can clarify the golden rule. The issue is that tenants have different time horizons so a tenant might be looking at a one or two-year time horizon for their tenancy, which is quite different from the time horizon of looking out over a 25-year period of an occupancy or long-term tenancy. That may well create difficulties in the rented sector because tenants analyse things differently. The point I was trying to make was that the golden rule does not help to give a guide to rational decision-making for tenants.
Baroness Northover
I understand what the noble Baroness is saying. These are all areas which the department is looking at. However, I point out that the Bill already ensures that sitting tenants must give their express consent before a Green Deal can be taken out, so if a tenant feels that it is to their detriment, they have the right to refuse. Similarly, landlords must make clear to new tenants if a Green Deal is attached to a rental property before they sign a contract.
Given that these consumer safeguards are already in place, and bearing in mind what the noble Baroness is saying, I hope that at this stage she feels able to withdraw her amendment.
Lord Teverson
I ask the Minister what happens when we have a change of tenancy and the golden rule is met by the first tenant whose energy use is quite high, so it works, but the new tenant is a lower energy user. They may be a smaller family or a smaller household or have a different preference as to how they spend their money. The golden rule that was met by the first tenant might not be met by the second and yet, because there is such a competition for rented accommodation, you will possibly get a position where the incoming tenant, although warned, will just say yes anyway.
I wonder if the Minister could remind us—or me—if there is an opportunity for the Green Deal to be renegotiated at that point or does the higher electricity rate stay the same all the way through? This may be important in terms of this change and whether subsequent families could be put into energy poverty.
Baroness Noakes
Perhaps I may clarify the aspect of the review that I was probing. While the consent of the individual tenant to a Green Deal may be required, the point of making sure that this is covered in the review is that if there was widespread tenant apathy or unwillingness to get involved because of the issues that I have raised, there would be little point in going ahead with a regulatory approach, which is what Chapter 4 allows the Government to do. I also suggested that the tenant environment should be properly assessed before we go down the regulatory route. That is why I tabled the amendment.
Baroness Northover
I hear what my noble friend says. We will debate the review in more detail. My noble friend Lord Marland has indicated that, in addition to the areas that are listed in connection with the review, there is the possibility that it will consider other things. It may be that the department should give some thought to this area.
I will respond to my noble friend Lord Teverson. I am concentrating on DfID, justice, et cetera. I am pretty sure that in this situation, should a tenant decide that they want to take a holiday from opting into the Green Deal, that would be possible. I remember being briefed on that. That may fit the situation that the noble Lord spoke about in which a tenant decides that it is not in their interest that the Green Deal is pushed down the track and that they do not want to repay the charge. I will make absolutely sure that I am right about that.
I am briefed that one cannot renegotiate the charge, but one can have a repayment holiday. Therefore, should the tenant decide in that instance that that is what they want to do, that would be possible. It does not mean that the money does not have to be paid back. However, it may not have to be paid back by that particular tenant at that time. It has also been pointed out to me that there will be a Green Deal ombudsman who will provide some protection. I hope that that will reassure noble Lords.
Lord Davies of Oldham
The Minister is doing her best in what we all appreciate is a very difficult area. We all understand that the tenant’s response is optional. We discussed this in the previous sitting of the Committee. We cannot have a situation where a tenant exercises an absolute veto, because one person might operate a veto on 400 fellow tenants, all of whom agreed to the change. We all recognise that there is no veto. However, there is an issue about a tenant's consent and subsequent payments. The Minister is leading us down some strange paths. Are we saying that the holiday could last for the whole period of their tenancy, however long that might be? Who makes the judgment on the right to opt out of an agreement that admittedly may have preceded their arrival in the tenancy? How do they exercise the opt-out, for how long, in which circumstances and who is the adjudicator?
Lord Dixon-Smith
My Lords, I feel provoked to intervene. We are making the subject far too complex. I thought that I heard, a few minutes ago, that the golden rule of the Green Deal would be that the energy savings would equal the cost increases. If I did not hear that, I am mistaken, but I am fairly sure that I did.
If that is the case, let us consider a situation where one tenant leaves and a new tenant comes in. Provided that rule applies, there is no disadvantage or, indeed, advantage to the new tenant in saying that he does not want to be part of the deal. If the deal is cost-neutral, why is he likely to refuse to participate?
I also think we need to bear in mind that word of mouth is a very powerful force. Once the scheme begins to operate on any sort of scale, I suspect that there will be a great deal of support from those who initially participate in it. They will all be telling their friends that they have a warmer house; that their energy bills are at a new level; and that the improvements apply to both tenants and landlords. I suspect that we will get to the point after a time where tenants start to demand their landlord to make the improvements if they cannot themselves. I am therefore optimistic about the way this scheme will go, and we should not raise too many potential difficulties. The difficulties are there, I admit, but in reality, once the scheme begins to take off, it will develop its own momentum and the nightmare scenarios being portrayed will not in fact exist.
Lord Deben
My Lords, I do not think we ought to take it quite as simply as that. One of the things we learned from the Warm Homes operation—which I had the privilege of introducing—was that many people live, as far as their heating is concerned, to the level that they can afford. If their house becomes better insulated, what happens is not that they have a lower bill: they merely warm the house better than they were able to do before. In other words, this is not as simple a mathematical equation as one might think.
I am worried about the concept of a sort of holiday. If someone enters a tenancy where the agreement has been made already, they will know the terms of the tenancy: it will be part of what they are offered. It does not seem possible that anyone can have a holiday in those circumstances, because that is what they joined in the first place. I realise that we have chosen to concentrate on people at the bottom end, with perhaps little choice in the tenancy they have. I very much agree with the comments made about some landlords. However, in my experience of having had a lot of landlords in my former constituency, a good number were decent. In those circumstances all I am suggesting is that when people enter into an agreement, they know what the situation is, and there certainly should not be a holiday.
The only circumstance seems to be the first one, where people are actually able to control the heating bills. If you have better insulation, you can decide whether you are going to continue with the amount of heating you had before—in other words the price you had before—but get more benefit from it because the house is better insulated. Alternately, you may decide—and many people do—that you would prefer to get even warmer. I am sure people who have gone canvassing know that there are certain houses where you bang on the door and cannot stop yourself stepping back from the wave of heat that hits you. It is not always true that we are sensible about our heating. The fact is that these things are within the control of the tenant, and I find it difficult to understand why we are going down this line. Tenants have a good deal here, paid for by the state, and it is absolutely right; but do not let ourselves get into a position in which we find that tenants are able to turn up the heat and then ask for a holiday because it does not work out as they thought it would.
Baroness Northover
Before I get dispatched back to DfID, justice, and all the other areas I am supposed to be covering, I think I had better pull myself back and make sure that the whole area is reported on in due course. As I mentioned before, we will be looking at this review in a bit more detail in a later grouping, and no doubt my noble friend Lord Marland will be able to put everybody—including me—absolutely straight as to what the situation is. I very much welcome the noble Lord, Lord Davies, trying to stop me going down roads I should not go down, and I very much welcome the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, explaining with such clarity how the golden rule works so that it should indeed be to everybody’s benefit and so that, I hope, we will not find ourselves in difficult situations.
Lord O'Neill of Clackmannan
I would like to ask the noble Baroness one further question. What will happen in the short tenancy housing market if landlords start increasing the rent on the basis that the house is now better insulated as a consequence of the Green Deal? That would mean that subsequent tenants would be paying twice—once for the improved property, and secondly for the improvement. Is there an ombudsperson who is going to take care of that?
Baroness Northover
I will resist the temptation to speculate about areas that I may be less than well briefed on. If the noble Lord wishes to bring that up again when my much better briefed noble friend Lord Marland is dealing with a suitable amendment, I would welcome that he does that. ECO will target households and presumably subsidise poorer ones. However, before I get myself into any more of a complicated mess, I invite the noble Baroness, having led me down various alleys, to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Noakes
My Lords, I am happy to withdraw the amendment. I think that we have opened up a number of interesting areas in the debate on my small amendment. I cannot pretend that the Minister has answered all the points to the satisfaction of the Committee. I feel sure that, in one way or another, we will return to this topic when we reach Report stage; but, for the time being, I beg leave to withdraw.
“( ) a full assessment of the burden placed on local authorities as a result of any duty to improve the energy efficiency of the private rented sector”
Baroness Smith of Basildon
My Lords, this is a fairly straightforward amendment; I like to be straightforward to help the Ministers. I declare an interest as a current vice-president of the Local Government Association; therefore I have some concerns and an understanding of the impact of additional burdens on local government. I am helped by the Minister’s response to my last question. Whatever the purpose of the review—which I understood was to seek a review to maximise the uptake of the Green Deal, or, as the Minister said, to safeguard against regulation—we need to ensure that any new duty that is placed on local authorities can be properly scoped and evaluated to get a full assessment of the impact that will have.
My sense is that local authorities recognise the importance of the Green Deal, they want it to work and they want to be involved. They are aware of the duties being placed on them by this Bill. However, Clause 37 outlines some of the regulations that were brought in by the Secretary of State that will impact and place duties on local government. Therefore, it is sensible that these be included as part of the review so that they can be properly understood in terms of what it will cost local government, the implications on local government budgets, the implications on the time that will have to be spent by the officers who undertake it, the implications on their skills, and what additional information local government will need. It is a very straightforward provision to ensure, as we proceed and progress on this, that we can be confident that local government will be in the right place to undertake its responsibilities under the terms of the Bill. It is seeking to ensure in a new provision under subsection (5) that we make a proper assessment of the impact on local authorities.
Lord Teverson
I apologise for having asked the Minister a not particularly helpful question earlier. I want only to make a brief point that relates to this issue, and I should declare that I am a member of a local authority. I welcome the fact that local authorities are being brought back into the frame as well as the recognition that there will be implications at a time of financial stringency but, as the noble Baroness has said, local authorities will want to become involved in this area, and it is really important that they are. However, there is a slight irony here in that I am concerned that sometimes local authorities are unable to control building regulations sufficiently to minimise the amount of work that has to be done on these sorts of deals. If buildings are constructed to the specifications set out in the building regulations when they are first built, the problems might not be as great as they are now. The enforcement of building regulations and standards of insulation is a lesson because where in the past money has been saved in these areas, that has not had a good effect in terms of housing and energy performance standards for the future. I make the point, but it is not necessarily completely relevant to this amendment.
Baroness Northover
I thank the noble Baroness for her straightforward amendment and acknowledge her concern about the funding of any additional burdens on local authorities. I can assure noble Lords that should we require local authorities to carry out any new duties, we will make a full assessment of the costs of such actions and how they might be appropriately funded. We are already committed to ensuring that new burdens on local authorities are properly funded to avoid pressure on council tax. With this explanation and assurance, I hope that the noble Baroness will be content to withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Noakes
Baroness Noakes
I shall speak also to Amendments 20Y and 21C in this group. These amendments concern the timing of the regulations that will affect the private rented sector. Currently, the review that is required under Clause 36 has to be published by 1 April 2014, and the regulations that will follow the review, as provided for in Clauses 37 and 40, should come into effect no earlier than 1 April 2015. The effect of my amendments would be to slip all of those dates by exactly one year.
As I understand it, the Green Deal regulations themselves are likely to come into force in October 2012. If that is the case, the review under Clause 36(4) cannot start until October 2013. The report must be published by April 2014, which gives a mere six months. Since Ministers have said that a key element will be the impact of the Green Deal, it is difficult to see whether enough data from the early stages of the Green Deal will be available to reach an informed assessment. Indeed, initial take-up may well be low among the private rented sector precisely because Green Deal providers will target the very much easier owner-occupied sector rather than try to reach this diverse group of private sector landlords with different types of tenants.
A key component of the review under Clause 36(5)(a) is a
“comparison of the energy efficiency”,
of private rented sector properties with that of non-private rented sector properties. The British Property Federation has pointed out that the most comprehensive statistics available on housing are to be found in the English Housing Survey, but they take 18 months from collection to be published. So the review that is going to be taking place in the six months from October 2013 to April 2014 will use data that are considerably out of date and will not reflect the impact of the Green Deal. Therefore, the review, based on heaven knows what information, could lead to regulations being enforced from April 2015, only one year later. Those who are involved in the private rented sector believe that more time should be made available before something as heavy-handed as regulation under this chapter is introduced.
A number of bodies have lobbied for the Bill’s provisions on the private rented sector to be modified. However, none of them has suggested a date as early as 2015. They seem to have coalesced around 2016. It is interesting that the Government’s date is 2015 while those who have campaigned most actively for action to be taken in the private rented sector are content with 2016. My amendments challenge the Government to say why the timetables set out in the Bill are fair and practical. I beg to move.
Lord Teverson
My Lords, I am very concerned about the amendment. This is one of the risks of the critical path that we have in the Bill. I accept that because of training requirements, the setting up of everything that has to be done, proper consultation, and because the Green Deal has to work effectively, preparation is crucial and we cannot expect it to start until 2012. That is the Government's expectation. Therefore, we have the whole of this year and some part of next year. It is logical to start the review of the private rented sector by 2013. It will not report until 2014 and therefore we could not precipitately take action until 2015.
I like the direct approach on these issues of my noble friend Lord Dixon-Smith. If the policy is not working for tenants and landlords—which is one of the key areas of policy importance—the amendment would mean that we would have to twiddle our thumbs for four years from when the Bill gets Royal Assent. That worries me. There is logic in the current timeframe. It is questionable whether that is the case in the amendment of the noble Baroness.
If the Bill goes through in its current form, it will be obvious within a year—if we are collecting any data—whether it is working in the private rented sector. Whether or not we have sophisticated analysis, we will have enough data-capture to understand whether it is starting to work. I would be fundamentally concerned, and would not believe it to be the case because of the importance of the programme, if the Secretary of State were just to sit in his chair—I know that he would not do this—and say, “I’ve got to wait until 2014 to test this thing out and see whether I need to do anything else”. Surely that will not be the case.
I could perhaps cope with local authorities not being empowered to take action before 2015, although I am very sceptical even about that timeframe. I ask the Minister to imagine what actions the Government might take, apart from the formal process detailed here, to make sure that the tenanted sector gets a move on. This is my problem with the issue. There are very good landlords. I have nothing against the private rented sector, which is crucial in delivering accommodation to families. However, the Bill’s timetable gives a signal that says, “Actually, guys, you don't have to do anything until 2015. That's when we’ll start to get angry, and until then there won't be any pressure”.
Lord Davies of Oldham
My Lords, I was about to make the same speech. But as the Minister is likely to listen to a noble Lord who supports the coalition rather than to the Official Opposition, I will merely say that of course it can be seen from our amendment that we saw no reason why there should be a time constraint—a delaying element—built in. We very much agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, said about the impact of these amendments building an extra year of delay. But we are not quite clear on why there should be a restriction in Clause 37(8), which is why we have tabled an amendment for its deletion.
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Teverson. Of course, we will not get a perfect profile of the challenge which lies ahead. Governments never have perfect information on which to act, any more than anyone operating in the so-called market mechanism ever has perfect information on which to act. But we will have clear indicators of where the issues lie. We do not see why we should build into statute—certainly, not through an amendment—an extension to what the Government think is realistic and what can be achieved. I hope that the Minister will answer the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Teverson.
Lord Marland
My Lords, I should like to correct the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham, by saying that of course I listen to the Opposition. It is fundamental to this entente cordiale that we currently enjoy that I listen to the Opposition. The whole purpose of this debate is to listen to people and to take in their views. We now have two sides of the argument: one side says that we should start the review at a shorter time, and the other side says that we should push it out and asks whether the time is readily available.
The review will not be just one review; it will be constant. We have to keep this under constant review. Having listened to the arguments, I would be minded—and I will urge my colleagues to do the same—to start our first review in 2013. At least that would be a start and allow us to see, as my noble friend Lord Teverson asked, whether it is working. We should do that at the earliest possible time and set down a timetable in which to do it. The noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, perhaps feels that we should give a greater time. Of course, there will be a greater time, because we will review it to see whether this is working.
We are trying to achieve an acceleration of a reduction of carbon and of take-up on the Green Deal. It is incumbent on the Government to make sure that it is working and to urge everyone to get on with it. Therefore, I invite the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment. Before I sit down, I should declare an interest as a landlord, which I perhaps should have done at the beginning. It is in the House of Lords register of interests.
Perhaps I may help my noble friend who was thrown into the lion’s den with some rigorous questioning and answer two or three of the questions that were put. The noble Lord, Lord O’Neill of Clackmannan, who is not in his place, asked what would happen to short-term tenancies if bills were put up as a result of these measures. My answer to that is that they would be very short-term tenancies because people would look elsewhere for a better and more commercial short-term tenancy. We are in a competitive market in that respect.
As regards payment holidays, the Bill enables the Government to specify circumstances in which Green Deal payments can be suspended. The policy of this is being consulted on, as one would expect, and we will develop that as we go through consultation. But we do not expect that tenants will be able to opt out other than in the usual circumstances.
I ask noble Lords to forgive me for dealing with these questions now, although they might want to come back to these issues. But let us do that as we follow the Bill through by way of information. The noble Lord, Lord Teverson, asked about the enforcement of building regulations. Obviously, that is a matter for CLG and we will pass his remarks on as noble Lords would normally expect. I hope that that clarifies a couple of the points and that it enables the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.
Lord Davies of Oldham
The noble Lord has clarified a number of interesting points but we are talking about dates here and I am not sure the Minister has responded on the issue of dates. What is the point of having a statutory limit with regard to these regulations in circumstances where the Government are hoping to make progress? As the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, indicated and I agree with him entirely, we do not know the nature of the information, how full it will be or the basis on which the Government will act. Why build in a set date when in fact the Government may be able to act against their good instincts with regard to this Bill earlier if it were not prescribed by the legislation? We do not need this prescription.
Lord Marland
The answer is quite simple. We have to put in a prescribed date or it is unfair on those who have to fulfil their obligations by that time. If you do not prescribe the time when we are going to review it, they have no idea of the timetable on which they have to act, so it is very clear. I have made quite a concession already that we are going to review the first date, which will be 2013, and that thereafter there will be dates to monitor how this Bill goes forward. I disagree with the noble Lord on this rare occasion. We have to send clear signals to the market as to how this is going to operate.
Lord Jenkin of Roding
Perhaps I may add a word or two to the debate because I put my name on the amendment. We spent a good part of this afternoon’s proceedings all agreeing that the Government face a major challenge in seeking to extend the Green Deal or apply the Green Deal to the private rented sector; indeed many noble Lords from all parts of the Grand Committee were stressing the problems that are being faced on this. I agree with that.
Although I have a lot of sympathy for those who say we have waited a long time, we must get on with this. If we try to hurry it forward and bring forward the date of the review and curtail the length of time that the review may take, it will go off at half cock. When dealing with the complexities and the challenge, which I described earlier as enormous when citing the federation, we have to be prepared to make sure that the authorities and all the people who take part in this—the property owners, landlords and tenants so far as is possible—are sufficiently aware of what is expected before one tries to rush forward.
My noble friend Lord Teverson says that by 2013 we will know and have enough experience, but with the greatest respect I do not believe that for a moment. This is going to start pretty slow and the immediate reaction will be people coming along and saying “It’s not happening”, and that we have to have compulsion and the full panoply of regulations. That would be very unwise because it might get the process off in the wrong way.
The Minister has been absolutely right. The Government do not want to go down the road of compulsion through regulation, yet if one rushes the review and starts to make decisions on what is bound to be pretty imperfect and incomplete information, my guess is that is that we will be in greater difficulty than we otherwise would have been. I would therefore urge more caution on this.
The date that my noble friend and I have put on this amendment and the other amendments that go with it are perfectly realistic and I would not agree with the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham, that we could bring the thing forward. That would run straight into the dangers which I have been trying, in my own imperfect way, to point out.
Perhaps I can say to my noble friends on the Front Bench that, if the Government are being criticised for anything, it is that on a number of issues they are moving too fast and trying to do too much at the same time. We are dealing here with a problem whose origins go back many decades. Indeed, in some cases it will be centuries. To try to rush forward and deal with it all in a relatively short time is a potential recipe for disaster. I hope that the Government will get the message that this needs a measured approach with enough time being given for people to consider and make sure that they understand the information that is to come out of the review before rushing to make regulations. That comes back to the very first point I made earlier this afternoon. If you go too fast, it will have the effect of drying up the rented sector. People will throw their hands in the air and say, “Blow that. I am not going to let any more”. That would be a very great pity.
Lord Teverson
Perhaps I could respond to that because it is exactly not what I am saying. I am surprised that we have a Bill where the Government are constraining themselves with a “best after” date as opposed to a “best before” one. I am not suggesting that things have to move forward at any time, but that we have within the Bill something that Governments normally try absolutely to avoid, which is a restriction on when they can take action if they feel that that action is necessary. We all hope that the action will not be necessary, although I note that a report of the review must be published by 1 April 2014, so there is a longstop. However, while I am the last person to argue that we should not put the quality and success of this scheme first—that is essential and why the 2012 date is right—what I find difficult to understand is not that we are forcing the Government to do this earlier, but that they could not exercise their own power to move forward if they felt it necessary to do so.
I did invite the Minister to suggest, if the scheme was seen not to be moving forward particularly well, other ways of doing it. I am sure that there are ways outside this Bill that the Government would get on with. Indeed, I know that my noble friend would do that, which may be part of making sure that landlords are aware of the benefits of the scheme, that it exists and can be successful. We have also discussed ways of utilising the local authorities, although not through enforcement because I am sure that the Government would find other ways to respond. What I find difficult is that the Government have imposed a constraint on themselves in the Bill about when the process can start.
Lord Marland
I am afraid that I cannot agree with my noble friend Lord Jenkin of Roding. I deeply believe that Government have lost themselves in a mire by failing to proceed quickly on things. We have a massive task ahead of us of reforming so many things in order to meet our commitments and face the challenges that lie ahead, so I am afraid I do not agree that we should elasticate time so that some people in the building sector who have been briefing noble Lords do not feel that they are perhaps being rushed into something.
We are now effectively at 1 January 2011 and we are talking about having a review in perhaps two years’ time. Every professional organisation knows about the Green Deal. People understand the possibilities that are available and a number are already making plans to take full advantage of it and put it into the housing sector. It is therefore not right that the Government should not set down tight timelines to see how this progresses.
I will follow up on the remarks of my noble friend Lord Teverson that we need to find out early on if it is working and, if it is not, what action we need to take to make it work. I will amplify what I said earlier. The start of the review will be at the end of 2013. Some people—I am one—are persuaded that it should be done then, while others think that it should be done later. We must start somewhere and get on with it. We cannot allow the land to lie fallow. We have a massive and monumental task. As my noble friend Lord Jenkin of Roding graciously admitted, this has been sitting around unresolved for a long time. The Government must get on and resolve it. Therefore, I am afraid that I do not agree with the amendment. Perhaps we will discuss the issue further. In the mean time, I ask my noble friend Lady Noakes to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Noakes
My Lords, we have had an interesting debate, with differing views on the most important factors, including whether we should press on quickly or make sure that we are very clear about whether regulatory action is required. The purpose of amendments is not to say that the Government should not, for example, communicate with landlords in the rented sector to ensure that, so far as possible, they are encouraged to act. My concern is to ensure that regulation is not rushed into. There is a danger that the Minister's rather gung-ho approach will be replicated across the whole of his department. I fear that precipitate action may be taken in this area.
Lord Marland
I slightly object to it being called a gung-ho approach. It is a very measured approach that has taken a lot of time. I am saying merely that a timetable should be available, that we should stick to it and that we should send out the right signals to the market.
Baroness Noakes
I will withdraw the word “gung-ho”, but perhaps not the sentiment. The Minister seems to be rushing towards action, particularly regulatory action, rather than focusing on the outcomes that are required. The need to take regulatory action would be a failure on the part of the Government. This early timetable will allow Ministers to be put under pressure by those who think that much tougher regulatory action should be taken much faster. That would not be the best approach in this area. The points of my noble friend Lord Jenkin were well made. As the noble Lord, Lord Best, pointed out, the rented sector is very complex, with a large number of different players who are not easily reached through organised groupings. Therefore, action in this sector will be particularly difficult. That is another reason for a longer timetable.
Lord Marland
Perhaps I may clarify one point for the noble Baroness. There are fundamental differences between reviews and regulations. It is important that we do not confuse them. What the Bill states is that there will not be any regulation before 2015. We will simply review the activity that has gone on in the market up to the end of 2013 in order to see what progress has been made. The Government are not fixated on regulation. In fact, we have a common tenet of “one in, one out”. We are not in a rush to regulate for the sake of regulating. We are talking merely about a review, not an insistence on regulation. We will review the situation to see whether we can urge the market to act more speedily if it needs to do so.
Baroness Noakes
I thank the noble Lord for that. I am sure that the Government will keep this under review. The issue is that a formal review will be launched at a particularly early date when the evidence on the impact of the Green Deal will be relatively light. This will lead to rushed and ill considered action. I will not pursue this further, but will read carefully in Hansard what the Minister and other noble Lords have said and may return to it, perhaps in a different form, on Report. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Maddock
Baroness Maddock
My Lords, in moving Amendment 20P, perhaps I shall half come to the rescue of the previous discussion. Clause 37 refers to action by local authorities. My amendment would stop the introduction of some measures being conditional upon the outcome of the review to be established under Clause 36. My noble friend the Minister has said that he wants things to get going in this sector. We have had a view that perhaps we are trying to get going too quickly.
I agree with the Minister and with my noble friend Lord Teverson that we should do all that we can to encourage this to happen quickly. That is why I am anxious that some things can be done that are not conditional on the review. I think that my amendments in the next group will help us to get going quickly. Making regulations conditional on a review increases the likelihood that landlords will not do anything before 2015. However, if we set a clear minimum standard now to come into force after 2015, it would give landlords absolute clarity that from 2016 they would not be able to re-let a property with an F or G rating, thus allowing a significant time for preparation and encouraging voluntary uptake.
Crucially, the Government’s impact assessment admits that, because use of the powers to regulate is conditional on the outcome of the review, one would not expect landlords to install energy efficiency measures in significant numbers as a direct result of taking these powers. It is therefore assumed that there will be no pre-emptive action by landlords, but we could encourage action beforehand. If we set up a clear, timetabled, minimum standard of legislation now, it would maximise the opportunity for voluntary compliance by landlords and minimise the need for enforcement action later. The current legislation might achieve the reverse. However, a clear signal now will provide certainty for the market; will allow landlords to plan ahead; will allow the supply chains to get their supplies in; and possibly will allow new business models to be developed to serve the private rented sector. That is why I have introduced this amendment to stop the introduction of the measures being conditional on the outcome of the review established in Clause 36.
I will speak further to other amendments, which will give an idea of what else could be happening in local authorities to speed up action in the private rented sector, as many of us want. We are all saying how pleased we are that the Government have grasped the nettle. For goodness’ sake, let us try to be keen and encourage them to get on with it. I beg to move.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Viscount Ullswater)
My Lords, I must advise your Lordships that if this amendment is agreed to I will not be able to call Amendments 20PA and 20Q because of pre-emption.
Baroness Smith of Basildon
Amendment 20PA, which is in my name, is in some ways not dissimilar to the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Maddock. I think that we are perhaps trying to achieve the same ends in different ways. We both raised concerns that any regulations introduced by local authorities should not be conditional on a review taking place. It is worth looking at the scale of the problem, which we will perhaps do in respect of the next group of amendments. Nineteen per cent of private tenants live in fuel poverty. The figures and the impact assessment show how great the problem is for those who live in the private rented sector, the difficulties that they face in meeting their bills and the impact of living in cold properties on their health.
Properties in the private rented sector have the worst energy performance rating of any property sector in the UK. My amendment takes a slightly different approach to that of the noble Baroness, Lady Maddock. However, we share a widespread concern about the timing of the review and the fact that until the review takes place no regulations can be brought in. We do not want the action to be conditional on the review, but any regulations brought in must improve energy efficiency.
As regards the number of properties available to rent, no one wants to see a decrease. However, the issue is the degree of decrease. I am sure that although the Minister will tell me that the word “significant” is not normally used in legislation, he will understand the point that we are making. There may be times when it is appropriate to have a short-term decrease in the rented housing stock in order that work can be undertaken, but no one wants to see a permanent or a long-term decrease. We have put in the word “significant” to address that and to tease out from the Minister what he anticipates when he refers to a decrease in the housing stock.
The clause raises the enormous concern that the regulations will be pushed so far into the future that the significant problems of energy efficiency that exist now for people living in fuel poverty in the private rented sector will not be addressed. I am grateful to the Residential Landlords Association, to which we will come in the next group of amendments. The private sector needs certainty. As the Bill stands, all that it knows is that there will be a review, after which it may be required to undertake energy efficiency measures. But there is no clarity or certainty. This is a probing amendment. I hope that the Minister understands the points that are being made and why the concerns have been raised; namely, that great problems exist in the private rented sector.
Baroness Noakes
My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 20Q in this group. I allowed it to be grouped with Amendments 20P and 20PA because it gives a contrasting view on the topic. The amendment moved by my noble friend Lady Maddock, and that spoken to by the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, seek to remove the conditionality, either totally or in relation to the report, before regulations are introduced. My concern, which I expressed earlier, is to ensure that regulation is not introduced unless there has been careful thought and consideration, because a regulatory solution would be an admission of failure and is not to be undertaken lightly.
Clause 37(1) requires not only that the report is published but that the Secretary of State considers that the regulations will improve energy efficiency and not reduce the number of properties available for rent. Those are the good requirements prior to the introduction of any regulation, and I support them. Amendment 20Q adds another requirement, namely that the report should be approved by both Houses of Parliament. We have already discussed the fact that the use of the regulation-making powers in this chapter could have a significant impact on the private rented sector, both in terms of economics and of the regulatory burden that could be laid on it. It will be important to ensure the widest possible consideration of the impact of any regulation. I tabled my amendment in relation to Clause 37, but my points apply also to Clause 40, which covers the power to make tenants’ energy efficiency improvement regulations. Both will have a significant impact.
Let us assume for a moment that the Secretary of State is some kind of ideologue who sees everything through green-tinted spectacles. While not for a moment would I say that this is a description of the current holder of that office, let us assume that we have such a green ideologue in the position of Secretary of State. That Secretary of State appoints another green ideologue to carry out the review, because Clause 36 makes no requirement for the reviewer to be an independent person. We could easily get one ideologue appointing another ideologue—there are rather a lot of them around in this area—to carry out a review which would then be undertaken from a particular set of prejudices. My amendment, in addition to providing the ordinary involvement of Parliament in such an important decision at any early stage and not simply in approving regulations, in approving the report would also be able to provide some kind of counterweight if a green bias was built into the review.
I am aware, of course, that there is a form of institutionalised bias along certain lines in both Houses of Parliament, and that Members of both Houses have a wide range of views on these issues. It is therefore important that the findings of the review are subjected to full and dispassionate scrutiny by both Houses and approved as the basis, effectively, for the Secretary of State to go forward and introduce regulations. While I have treated this in a rather light-hearted way, there is a serious point here in that we want to be clear before defaulting to regulation. This would provide another pause in the process before ending up in regulation. For that reason, I hope that the Minister will favour my amendment in this group and not those of the two other noble Baronesses.
Lord Deben
I did try to get in rather earlier, but I am now able to say that I would be very unhappy if the Minister were to go down the route of putting in another pause. We have had enough pauses in this over the past 20 years, so really we have now got to get on with it. I also have a slight difficulty believing that there is a connection between green bias and green ideologues. I hope that one is not a green ideologue, but I hope that there is a green bias. If there is not, the world will be in some difficulty. The concept that the opposite of that is a person who is somehow independent and not of that kind worries me very much. I hope, therefore, that the Minister will not go down this route.
My problem with the first part of the clause is that I fear the Minister will be in real difficulties. Under subsection (1)(b)(ii), he has to consider that the regulations,
“will not decrease the number of properties available for rent”.
Let us consider this in imaginary terms. When you think of some of the landlords we have, I can see a number of them saying, “I don’t want to spend anything and I don’t want to have anything to do with it. If there are regulations, I will take my property off the market”. In those circumstances, how on earth will the Minister be able to say that he does not consider that there will be a decrease in the number of properties available for rent? He could say that someone is off their head or make any number of comments, but the wording of this sub-paragraph could mean that he might be under judicial review if it could be adduced that any landlord had taken this view.
I am closely following the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, here. The problem is that this is one of those rare occasions where the actual wording is dangerously total. It is does not say “significant” or perhaps that there is “good reason to believe” that the number of available properties would decrease in more than a marginal way. There is nothing about whether the situation might change over time. It is a dangerous sentence and I hope that the Minister will agree at least to think about it again. I think that it is wrong.
The second reason why I am a supporter of the amendment proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Maddock, is that I think that, although it is reasonable to say that regulations should not be made until the report has been published, it is perfectly reasonable to say that, once the report has been published—notwithstanding the worries of the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes—it should then be for the Minister to make his decisions in the context of the report. Picking out two things in the way that subsection (b) does will limit his ability. After all, this is a Government who do not believe in and do not like regulation; they turn to regulation only when necessary. My fear is that regulation may be necessary simply because the people in this business—or a very large number of them, as the noble Baroness opposite said—are not an easy lot to get to do things in a rational and sensible way. However, we are going to do our best. No one can possibly imagine that this Government will not go as far as it can to help people to do their best.
Having been responsible for the housing policy of the United Kingdom for some years, I have to say that private landlords—even the good ones—are not the easiest group of people to corral. There are some—rather fewer than some people think—who are certainly not good and who are impossible to corral. Given that that is what we know now, this may be an area where—however hard we may wish to bear down on regulation—we may need to do something. If we come to that conclusion, surely we ought to leave it in the hands of the Minster, who will, after all, have to argue his case for doing something that he has said that he does not want to do. He will have to argue his case against the general view of the coalition parties in both Houses of Parliament, and he will have to lay the regulations. Therefore, there are quite a number of hurdles in his way anyway in addition to any psychological dislike of regulation.
I would much prefer the Secretary of State to be faced with the simple statement of the report. The report will say to him these things, and he will have to make up his mind about it. That is what I would prefer. I would be happy to accept subsection (1)(a) of Clause 37—although, as no such amendment has been put down, I would be prepared to go for not having subsection (1) at all—but it seems to me that the Minister has undermined his position in a way I would have preferred him not to have done. Therefore, I would like him to accept this amendment. Certainly, I think that he would be well advised, if I may say so, to look at subsection (1)(b)(ii), because whatever bits of notes he gets handed to him from behind, I suspect that he will rue the day that he included that provision, because somebody will make mischief over it—even if it is somebody who just wants to push this off because they do not really believe in it.
Lord Marland
My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Deben, for his remarks and to others for the remarks that they have made. Before we start, to get us on the right footing, I would like to say that his excellent remarks about Amendment 20PA and subsection (1)(b)(ii) are very well made. Of course we will consider his comments, take them away and see how best we can improve matters. I am very grateful that he and the noble Baroness have drawn our attention to that particular issue, because these things do need tightening up.
On Amendment 20Q—some of this was answered by my noble friend Lord Deben—I agree with my noble friend Lady Noakes that it is an admission of failure for Government to regulate. That is a primary tenet of this Government, as my noble friend Lord Deben has said. If we cannot encourage people through these actions to participate in this opportunity—this great opportunity—then we will have failed and we will, therefore, have to regulate accordingly. However, as I said earlier, regulation is made on the basis that we have a “one in, one out”, arrangement, so we will have to look at the matter very carefully. I am not into “what if” scenarios about ideology, but I think that Government have quite a strong track record of choosing someone to do a review. That individual has to withstand the brickbats and the challenges of both Houses as to whether they are competent or going to give fair reason. Of course we must remind ourselves, as we do periodically, that the Green Deal will be a market-led product. We have to have confidence in the market without imposing too much regulation if the people involved are to be the proponents of the market. On that basis, I ask the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, to consider withdrawing her amendment.
Amendments 20PA, 20P and 20Q would impact on the preconditions ahead of a Secretary of State being able to make these regulations. The Secretary of State will be able to make regulations only following publication of the review and only if he considers that the regulations are necessary to improve the energy efficiency of domestic private rented properties and would not decrease the number of properties available for rent. That is the framework that I mentioned earlier.
I hope that that largely covers the questions that have been asked. I invite noble Lords to withdraw their amendments.
The Duke of Montrose
My Lords, although I have not participated greatly, I have attended quite a few of the Committee’s meetings. The Minister says that he will take away and consider issues such as those raised by my noble friend Lord Deben. With the great efficiency of this Committee, we are presently discussing the clauses to do with England and Wales, but exactly mirroring clauses, which are word for word the same, later extend the provisions to Scotland. However, nobody has thought to extend their amendments into that same text, but no doubt the Minister will consider—
The Duke of Montrose
Well, I have said that it is highly efficient to consider these matters at the same time.
Lord Marland
Perhaps I should clarify that the authorities in Scotland will and can do whatever they want with their own powers. We are acting only as a facilitator for them to consider enacting those powers. I hope that that clarifies the matter for the noble Duke.
Baroness Maddock
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply. In a minute, I will be moving further amendments that are about regulation in local authorities. I hear what the Minister says. We may want to return to this another time, depending on the outcome of further discussions on this area.
I say to the noble Lord, Lord Deben, that, not for the first time, I am grateful to him for his support in this sort of area—the last time being rather long ago in another place. I am very pleased to see the noble Lord here because I know that he is a great enthusiast of the sorts of things that we are trying to put forward in this Bill. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees
My Lords, it has been suggested that this may be a good time for the Committee to adjourn for 10 minutes. We will return at about 6.08 pm.
Baroness Maddock
Baroness Maddock
My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendments 20S to 20X. What I am trying to do here is to hurry up local authorities’ action since they are best placed to understand the state of the rented sector in their own areas. These amendments are designed to give local authorities a bit more certainty and a better timetable for action. As the Bill stands, local authorities are merely given access to the energy performance certificate database. They will also be allowed to continue to use their existing powers under the housing health and safety rating system. This legislation will not give landlords long-term certainty in advance about what their legal duty is or when they will be required to act. Further, they do not know now whether local authorities will be given a duty to act post-2015. Equally, after 2015 they will have no prior warning of when local authorities are likely to make a request of them or what that request might be. This means that although a small minority of landlords might react by taking their properties out of bands F or G in advance, I think that the vast majority will be encouraged to wait and see. This will considerably delay any action.
Local authorities will also have to take two actions, the first of which is a request and the second is to monitor actions taken and enforce compliance. It would be perfectly legal for landlords to let out bands F and G-rated properties until local authorities get around to issuing them with a request. In the absence of a clear timetable for local authorities, this could be as late as 2020 or beyond, and a landlord would not be committing an offence by letting out a band F or G-rated property until he had been issued with a request by the local authority and had then failed to take action by not claiming an exemption for the property, which he could do by going through a court or tribunal process.
I believe that the measures should be brought forward to 2012 and used to give local authorities an effective tool to make progress on improving the worst of the local private rented sector housing stock at a pace that is appropriate to local circumstances. This is important because local authorities know best what the local circumstances are, so it would be good if we could encourage them and landlords to start taking action sooner.
There is no guarantee, as the Bill is written, that properties will be brought out of bands F or G on the request of local authorities. Indeed, given that the Secretary may determine in regulations what level of energy efficiency was deemed to be too low and therefore requiring improvement, there is no guarantee that, despite the intention as set out in the impact assessment, properties other than those with a G rating will be required to improve. The Bill also does not allow local authorities to carry out works by default, whereby local authorities can carry out general improvement works in other areas and charge the landlord. That would be useful in this area as well; indeed, it is rather more useful than issuing a fine, because the work would actually get done. This flexibility is important to ensure that as many properties as possible are improved rather than simply issuing penalties to landlords, and is something that I know has been called for by the Local Government Association. I have already declared that I am a vice-president of the LGA, and I know that it is keen to act in this area.
The amendments grouped with Amendment 20R try to address some of these problems. Amendment 20R and 20T would bring forward the date of the introduction of local authority improvement notices to 1 April 2012, and would ensure that where a local authority issues a notice to a landlord requesting relevant energy efficiency improvements, those improvements would ensure that the property is brought up to a minimum level of energy efficiency. Amendment 20U would give the Secretary of State the power to establish a local or national register of private rented properties,
“for the purpose of distributing information relevant to this Act”,
to landlords and tenants. This touches on a point made by my noble friend Lady Noakes, who was concerned about information for landlords and tenants. The register could also be used for other purposes designed to help increase the energy efficiency of private rented properties.
Amendment 20V would define energy performance certificate band E as the minimum level of energy efficiency that private rented properties must meet if landlords have been issued with a notice to make relevant energy efficiency improvements by a local authority. It also allows the minimum level to be raised in accordance with the timetable as proposed under Amendment 20W. That will ensure that the minimum energy efficiency level is increased from band E at least once between 2016 and 2020.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees
I must advise your Lordships that if this amendment is agreed to I would not be able to call Amendment 20RA because of pre-emption.
Baroness Smith of Basildon
My Lords, I speak to Amendments 20RA and 20YA, which, in the new groupings list, are in this group. When I spoke to the previous group of amendments I mentioned the scale of the work that needs to be undertaken to improve the energy efficiency of our private rented sector and how many homes are affected. If we look at the information we have got from our own impact assessment report, from fuel poverty groups, from Friends of the Earth and from the Residential Landlords Association, we see that all are agreed that this is an enormous sector with enormous problems. The scale of the work that needs to be undertaken is huge. It is important that we discuss these amendments to ensure that we get it right.
Amendment 20RA seeks to take on board comments made last week on the issue of “shall” and “must”—that the Minister “must” make energy efficiency regulations. As the clause stands, it pushes back any intervention on private rented stock. I am not clear about when the timescale will start. I know when the review will start and how long it will roughly take, but we will not see any regulations in place until 2015. It is difficult to ascertain when the regulations will become effective and when that will come into play. We are talking about beyond the next election—four or five years away—before we see any significant improvements in the private rented stock.
One of my concerns is that that does not create the certainty for those involved to prepare to undertake the necessary work. At this stage, landlords do not know what is required of them. They do not know if and when, or to what level, they might be required to undertake work. In an earlier debate, the Minister talked about giving clarity to the private rented sector, but these regulation-making powers do the exact opposite. They give very little clarity because of the conditionality on them.
If the industry is to meet the needs of the Green Deal, it needs clarity, probably on the scale of the take-up, although I appreciate that that will not be easy at first. The industry will need to know what skills, training and employment will be required. Local authorities will need to know what is required of them. It is so far down the road that that will be very difficult and the conditionality will add to it. It could mean that this will have little impact and the worse properties—that is, the bands F and G-rated properties—being with us for many years to come. I am sure that that is not what the Minister intends. However, the wording of the Bill would have that effect.
There are a number of reasons why we might want to move more quickly. If we continue to have so many F and G-rated properties, the impact will be higher bills for those tenants and health issues. The Chief Medical Officer has estimated that the annual cost to the NHS of winter-related diseases due to cold housing is in the region of £859 million. That is a significant cost to the NHS and the Government.
I take on board the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Maddock, about minimum energy efficiency standards. I have some sympathy with them. I would be grateful if the Minister would look at this. The costs of improving properties in bands F and G to raise them into band E are well within the Green Deal. That would give the critical mass needed for it to take off; it would give certainty to those involved; and a significant number of people in F and G properties—something like 40 per cent of tenants in these properties are in fuel poverty—could be moved into E-rated properties for less than £5,000 for each property. That is a significant issue.
I am unclear also about how the Minister can make regulations—it would be helpful if he would explain this to me, because I may have missed something—unless he knows what he is aiming for in terms of the kind and level of improvements that need to be made to those properties that are not energy efficient. How does he know that the correct regulations are in place? Owners will need to know what standard their properties must be brought up to. It may be a missed opportunity if we just look at the golden rule, which is arbitrary and will change over time—it is guidance more than anything else—and in two or five years find that those properties are still rated F and G because the work that has been undertaken has not been to the required level.
The Committee on Climate Change has recommended to the Government that there should be mandatory energy efficiency standards in the private rented sector. I do not often quote the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, in support of proposals that I am putting forward. He stated:
“I agree that requiring landlords to meet energy efficiency standards when properties are re-let could be an important tool in improving the energy efficiency of the private rented sector in London. How these standards are communicated and enforced would be key to their success”.
There is a lot of sympathy for the view that landlords should know what is expected of them before they start on the process. It will be difficult for them to embark on it if there are no changes to the Bill before it passes into legislation. I am not clear what message that would send to landlords. Will they think, “This may happen later” or, “There will be changes. I should prepare for them now. What can I do?”? The issue is about giving certainty to landlords about whether they need to take action and, if they are to take action, what level of action they should take. The proposals point in the right direction, but are rather weak. If we are to see this critical mass, certainty must be given to those who rent out properties, to those who pay to rent them and to local government.
I will speak briefly to Amendment 20YA. I tabled this as a question to the Minister because I was confused. The amendment refers to Clause 38. I looked for an explanation of what it meant in the Explanatory Notes, which state that,
“the Secretary of State could provide that a landlord is not required … to make improvements if he cannot obtain consent which is required to be given by his freeholder”—
that is understandable—
“or if the property is likely to be worth less as a result of the improvements being installed”.
I cannot envisage what improvements to energy efficiency in the home would make the property worth less. Who would make the judgment that the property is worth less? This could be a get-out clause for the landlord to say, “If I do that, I won't get so much rent in” or, “If I do that, I couldn't sell it”. Will the judgment be made on rental income or the price that the property would fetch if it were sold? It would be helpful if the Minister would give us more information.
Lord Dixon-Smith
I feel compelled to intervene because I am not quite sure whether we are going in the direction in which this Bill should be aimed. I go right back to Clause 1(2),
“An energy plan is an arrangement made by the occupier or owner of a property for a person to make energy efficiency improvements to the property”.
The occupier of a property may well be the tenant. We have made a great deal of the efficiency or inefficiency of certain landlords. They do not just occur, sadly, in the private sector; there are good and bad landlords in the public sector. There are good and bad tenants in both sectors. The essence of this scheme, however, was that if the landlord did not want to do something the tenant could. I thought that the essence of the scheme was that it was voluntary but if I listened to my noble friend Lady Maddock correctly, and I am not sure that I did, she seemed to be thinking that perhaps local authorities should be in a position to compel.
I am not sure I agree with that because that is not within the original purpose of the Bill. But maybe I have misunderstood the Bill or maybe I have misunderstood the noble Baroness. I am not sure which; I am becoming rather confused. That is why I am speaking. I thought that this Bill was designed to give the property occupier—if the owner happened to be there, that would be fine and good—the right to take action which is in his own interest. If that is so, it is perfectly true that he would probably have to get the consent of his landlord because almost all tenancy agreements that I have seen say that any alterations to the property must be made with the consent of the landlord. I cannot conceive, as the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, has said, that any landlord is ever going to refuse to have this sort of action taken in a property in their ownership. She is absolutely correct to say that action like this must enhance the value of the property one way or another.
That is not the bit that concerns me. It is that we seem to think that we should be giving local authorities powers to compel landlords to take action, but they are landlords themselves very often. I am quite happy that they should be compelled to take action for themselves, but I thought that the essence of the Bill was that this was an arrangement essentially between the consumer of energy and the energy supplier. If that is the case, I am very concerned about these amendments because they seem to imply something else.
I am anxious to see homes having their energy efficiency improved as soon and as rapidly as possible. However, it seems to me that the process suggested, and which I thought lay behind this Bill, would be likely to achieve that faster than any action implying that compulsion might come from somewhere else would be likely to do.
Earl Cathcart
My Lords, I have not spoken on this chapter before but I welcome provisions in the private rented sector. I am not attacking the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, but I recall it being said that nothing would happen in the private rented sector until 2015 when the regulations can come in. That is assuming that landlords do not allow all this to happen, as my noble friend said. There are many landlords and, as the noble Lord, Lord O’Neill, said, not all of them are unscrupulous. I like to think that a lot of good landlords will want their tenants to use these provisions because, as my noble friend Lord Dixon-Smith said, it will increase the value of the property; it will make the tenant warmer; it will increase the well-being of the tenants; and it will make them want to stay longer. A lot of landlords and tenants will want to do this deal well before regulations have to come into place.
I want to play devil’s advocate here, following what my noble friend Lady Noakes said in her Amendment 20M, which talked about,
“consideration of the willingness of tenants”.
Clause 37(2) requires local authorities to issue notices to the landlords of each domestic private rented property,
“(c) which falls below such level of energy efficiency … as is provided for by the regulations”.
Subsection (3) states:
“The notice is one requiring the landlord to make to the property such relevant energy efficiency improvements as are identified by the notice”.
I might be splitting hairs, but should not subsection (3) read:
“The notice is one requiring the landlord”,
to allow,
“such relevant energy efficiency improvements”,
to be made to the property,
“as are identified by the notice”?
My thinking is that it could be the tenant who wants this done and the landlord who is dragging his heels, and that therefore one needs this notice to make sure that the landlord allows the tenant to sign up to the Green Deal.
Lord Marland
My Lords, I am grateful for these amendments, which aim to set a minimum energy efficiency standard for the private rented sector. As a result, Amendments 20R, 20S, 20T and 20V would set a minimum energy efficiency level of EPC band E for the domestic private rented sector. I hope that this deals with one of the questions asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Smith. Amendment 20X would require the Secretary of State to make at least one increase to this minimum standard between 2016 and 2019. The EPC is a key factor in this.
First, I can reassure the House that our provisions in Clause 37 already target the worst performing properties. Our intention is similar to that of the amendment—that properties below a band E rating would be targeted under the local authority enforcement powers. Secondly, and most importantly, we are achieving this without setting a minimum standard that could be viewed as a barrier to new landlords entering the market. That is very important. The private rented sector is an increasingly important part of responding to our housing challenge. Yet evidence suggests that there is currently a shortage of supply, which is illustrated by increasing rents. We are trying to plot a pragmatic and sensitive course here. I believe that the provisions are drafted to achieve this balance.
Amendment 20YA would remove an important safeguard for property owners. While we do not believe that improving a property’s energy performance will result in a negative impact on its value, it is only right and proper that we provide owners with that reassurance. I agree with my noble friend Lord Dixon-Smith and the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, that it is unlikely. There could be solid wall installations, for example, which do not enhance the value of an old property, but that would be pretty rare.
Amendment 20U proposes a national or local register of domestic private rented properties. On 10 June, the Housing Minister stated that the Government have no plans to create a national register of landlords, although he will keep that position under review. I am, however, aware that local authorities are initiating local lists of this type of property where they deem that such lists are of benefit in their areas. My noble friend Lord Dixon-Smith made the good point that some landlords are the local authorities.
Amendment 20RA would provide that the Secretary of State must make regulations requiring local authorities to issue a notice to landlords of domestic private rented properties requiring them to make such improvements as are identified in the notice. If regulation is required, it is our intention clearly to set out provisions requiring local authorities to issue a notice to landlords requiring them to make the necessary improvements. Finally, Amendment 20W would appear to create an incorrect cross-reference. It proposes deleting “subsection (5)” and inserting “subsection (6)”. I hope that that acts as an explanation.
I was asked about whether it is the landlord who must make improvements to a property. Under Clause 37, the requirement is on the landlord, but tenants can request that the landlord take action. I was asked: what if the property is vacant? That is not covered by a definition. No action is required until the property is re-let, after which the action will take place. In summing up, I would invite my noble friend Lady Maddock to withdraw her amendment. Her amendments are extremely valuable and I am very grateful to her for presenting them to us.
Baroness Noakes
Before the noble Baroness, Lady Maddock, decides what to do with her amendment, perhaps I may follow up a point made by my noble friend Lord Cathcart in relation to tenants. I do not understand the position. Since my noble friend laid it out so clearly, I recall some of the debates that left me with a slightly foggy view when we debated this earlier.
The local authority can require an energy efficiency improvement under the terms of the regulations. An energy efficiency improvement is one which is either paid for by the Green Deal or is free under the energy company’s obligations. Let us assume that it is not free but must be funded by the Green Deal. Let us suppose that the tenant says: “I do not want it. I am the bill payer and I do not want this Green Deal because I do not understand all this stuff about getting extra bills and about energy efficiency—it is too complicated”. This is the point I was trying to make earlier about tenants having a different perspective on life, with different timescales. What happens then?
Lord Marland
The first tenant has to agree to the Green Deal. If he or she does not, it will not be installed. If he or she does, it will be part of the ongoing tenancy agreement. As to the desire to have the Green Deal installed, the initiator is the first tenant.
Baroness Noakes
That is what I hoped the Minister would say. Can he then explain to me what happens in relation to the local authority’s powers, and whether a landlord who is not in compliance with his obligations is therefore subject to the sanctions that are covered by Clause 39? The local authority issues the regulations; the landlord says, “I will do it, I will get this Green Deal”. The tenant then says no, so the energy efficiency of the property is not improved. Is that landlord, because of the tenant’s action, in non-compliance with his obligations and therefore subject to the penalty clauses?
Lord Marland
The noble Baroness hits on an important point. It is that awkward period when the landlord is under an obligation to achieve a minimal EPC banding and is continuing to let the property. It is therefore incumbent upon the local authority to put pressure on the landlord to deliver a property that reaches that banding. I totally accept that, if you have a tenant who does not want the improvements, there is a period of time when pressures are brought to bear. If they do not work, the landlord may have to withdraw his property from the market and the tenant might have to find something elsewhere.
Baroness Noakes
It is my understanding that you cannot just throw tenants out nowadays; it is a rather more complicated process.
Lord Dixon-Smith
My Lords, my noble friend has a serious point. If the tenant seriously objects, it is completely wrong to hold the landlord responsible for that individual decision. It may be uncomfortable, but that is the reality. Otherwise, we have a form of compulsion that is wholly inappropriate.
Lord Marland
The point that I am making is that the landlord, if he has a tenant who will not agree, will continue the tenancy. When the tenancy changes, the landlord will have to change his plans. No one can force a tenant out, unless it is done legally—and, as the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, says, tenants are strongly protected. But what would one do? One cannot force people into this Green Deal; one has to encourage them. The Green Deal is a market-led product. We are saying that once the tenancy ends, the new tenant will have to have the Green Deal. I am afraid that that is as far as we can legitimately go at this stage. No doubt during the review we will find out whether this has operated voluntarily or whether we need to find other ways to encourage people.
Lord Deben
Would the Minister not agree that there is a difficult issue here? We have to do things in this uncomfortable way because we could not have a situation where the landlord puts pressure on the tenant to refuse the Green Deal in order that he himself can claim that he was therefore not subject to the local authority’s rules. It has to be a little uncomfortable because we know there are landlords who will bring pressure on their tenants to do a number of things, and it would be very difficult to stop this. Therefore, we must accept that this is an uneasy but reasonable compromise.
Lord Marland
I am very grateful to the noble Lord. The situation is not ideal, but we have to live in a regulatory framework and the landlord-tenant framework that exists. In an ideal world, we would insist that everyone did this at a particular time, but the world is not ideal so we are going as close as we can to achieving that. I think that the noble Baroness makes a very valid point. When we review this, we will see whether there are other nudges or encouragements that we can make in respect of landlords.
Baroness Smith of Basildon
The point made by the noble Lord, Lord Deben, relates to issues raised by amendments that we discussed in the previous Committee meeting about consent being given or withheld reasonably or unreasonably. The issue was whether a landlord or tenant was behaving unreasonably or reasonably. It might help the Minister to reflect on the amendments that we put forward the other day.
I seek clarification on a couple of points. The Minister referred to the lists that are held by local authorities, but those are held very much on an ad hoc basis. It would be preferable, as far as concerns the responsibilities placed on local authorities by the legislation, if such matters were made more formal and uniform, so that local authorities know what is expected of them and so that landlords, too, will know what information they are expected to provide to local authorities. The Minister also said that Clause 37 provides that the worst performing properties will be the first to be improved. I would be grateful if he could clarify or explain that, as I do not understand where I will find that in the legislation or how it can be guaranteed.
My response earlier to the comments of the noble Earl, Lord Cathcart, was perhaps badly worded. I was not at any stage trying to suggest that there are not landlords who at this moment are taking good energy efficiency measures in the homes that they rent out. I am sure that all noble Lords who have declared an interest as landlords will rush home to ensure that energy efficiency measures are put in place immediately. I was trying to argue from the landlord's point of view. There are no guarantees for landlords that these regulations will ever come into effect because of their conditionality on the review. There is no guarantee of any substantial change, whereas we need substantial change across an enormous number of properties, given that the Residential Landlords Association estimates that 40 per cent of properties were built prior to 1919 and some of those will be the hardest properties to treat. Many landlords will be waiting to see what will happen. Good landlords will rush to undertake the work, and some have done so already. However, because there is no guarantee for landlords that there will be regulations, it will be very difficult for them—many are working on a budget for the properties that they own—to guarantee that they will be able to do the work, because they are not sure whether the regulations will come into play.
My final point is that I asked a question on Amendment 20YA, but I think that the Minister was unable to respond at the time.
Lord Marland
The noble Baroness raises several questions. It is not for this Committee to prescribe to local authorities what they should be doing. I hope that this Bill is one that local authorities can buy in to. That is a subject for the DCLG. We are committed to focusing on the worst performing properties because we are committed to energy efficiency, and if we can attack the lower-performing properties, we will do it. Clearly, we have a governor in place—the EPC, which we are reviewing at the moment—which will establish the level that properties must come up to. We will focus on the worst performers. We can use only the tools that are available in a market-driven product. It would be totally wrong for us sitting here to prescribe regulations at this point for those in the sector who are being recalcitrant or not performing. That is the point of the review, which will take place as we have discussed. We will then consider what regulations, if any, are needed to push this thing forward.
On Amendment 20YA, which the noble Baroness spoke to, and on her question who makes the judgment about the property’s energy performance, the judgment will come from the EPC, which defines performance. That is there in black and white on every home.
Baroness Smith of Basildon
I think that the Minister has misunderstood the point in my amendment, which refers not to energy performance but to the impact on the price of the property. Indeed, the Explanatory Notes refer to the possibility of an exemption,
“if the property is likely to be worth less as a result of the improvements being installed”.
Who will make that judgment? That is not a matter for the EPC, which deals with energy efficiency.
Lord Marland
With all due respect, I think that I answered that. I said that it is very unlikely that there will be negative value, but the market makes the judgment if something has gone down in value. If you put a property on the market or to rent, the market determines whether its value has gone down. That is how every price is achieved. I hope that that answers the noble Baroness—she is looking a little bit negative. I cannot imagine that we can set up a system that prescribes that a property is worth this or that amount; the market determines that.
Baroness Maddock
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his reply and to other noble Lords who have taken part in the debate on this group of amendments. As the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, said, when we are looking at some of these very low rated properties, we are not talking about a lot of money to improve them one step up to the next band. I suggested some figures at the beginning and the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, repeated some of them. When we discuss this, I think that people are not really looking at what these properties are like. We may be talking about insulation and draught proofing, so some measures will involve quite low amounts of money. Therefore, in persuading tenants to improve the property’s rating, it may not be very much extra that they will be asked to contribute.
I am not quite clear what the Minister was saying in his answers to my amendments. I think that he was saying, “Yes, we understand all of this, and when we eventually get around to making regulations, we might do something a bit like what you are suggesting”. I am not sure whether that is what he was saying, but I will look at what is in the record. Perhaps at some point we can have a discussion about this. If we are keen to get local authorities and landlords working together to improve properties, we need a little more than is on the face of the Bill at the moment.
Lord Marland
Would the noble Baroness allow me to reply? What I am saying is that we must not prescribe regulation now for the private rented sector. This whole Bill is about trying to enable the sector to pick up the Green Deal and run with it. If we start saying, “If you don’t run with it, we’ll do this, that and the next thing”, we will be making a rod for our own back. That is the whole point. I think we are agreed on this particular subject of a review—an early review—and then a second review to work out what the dynamics are. I hope that answers her question; but, as always, I am very happy to extend the invitation to discuss the matter further outside the room.
Baroness Maddock
My Lords, the offer of further discussions might be helpful, because I think that, by using some of the legislation that we have already got and by being a bit clearer about the dates when regulations and so on might come into effect, we might be able to get landlords to start taking action earlier. We may be able to explore that between now and Report stage. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Colwyn)
I understand that Amendments 20TA to 20Y are not moved. The question is that Clause 37 stand part of the Bill—
Baroness Smith of Basildon
Amendment 20TA, an amendment to Clause 37, has not yet been moved.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees
I thought it was not moved. According to my list, it should have been debated in the previous group. However, we will now debate Amendment 20TA.
Amendment 20TA
“( ) The Secretary of State must make regulations for the purpose of securing that a landlord of a domestic PR property of the type mentioned in subsection (2) who has failed to comply with a notice issued under subsection (3) may not let the property until the landlord has complied with that notice.”
Baroness Smith of Basildon
I thank the Committee. This is a probing amendment to look at the powers of local authorities regarding sanctions and the non-letting of properties where landlords have failed to make the required energy efficiency improvements. Clearly, landlords need to be given a reasonable length of time to comply, and that must be built into the notice. We should look at this in the light of later clauses.
Imposing a fine on a landlord who has failed to comply is not always the best way to proceed. If a landlord is fined for not complying with energy efficiency improvements, he has to recoup the money he has been fined and the energy efficiency of the property will not be improved. The council could seek to undertake the work and put a charge on the landlord through the Green Deal, through rent or by other means. It seems to me that where a landlord does not comply, it is necessary to make a range of compliance tools available to local authorities, giving them a number of options to take up depending on the circumstances. I am rather reluctant to follow the line of fining landlords or seeking to remove properties from letting as the first course of action. Every case has to be looked at on its merits.
As I have said, this is a probing amendment to look at what the Minister envisages in this regard. What kind of tools does he consider could be made available to local authorities to ensure that energy efficiency measures are implemented within a reasonable and appropriate timescale? I beg to move.
Lord Best
I am not sure that the new clauses I have proposed to come before Clause 40 fit terribly well at this point, but since they have been grouped with Amendment 20TA, perhaps I may now speak to them. I have a feeling that may well be familiar to noble Lords. I might have wasted my Sunday preparing a lengthy speech because the debate up to this point has already covered much of what these proposed new clauses seek to address. The point of them is to add a few more teeth to the regulatory process and to try to ensure that the difficulties in the private rented sector that we have been discussing are dealt with by reaching all landlords.
I ought to add a point that has not yet arisen. It is often necessary to reach the agents of private landlords. Some 60 per cent of homes in the private rented sector are managed by managing and letting agents rather than directly by landlords themselves. I declare an interest as chairman of the council of the Property Ombudsman that receives the complaints about managing agents. Although I can assure you that most agents do a very good job, there needs to be some protection against lazy agents who do not get round to doing the things that they ought to do on behalf of their landlords and on behalf of the tenants who live in those properties.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees
I wonder if the noble Lord could clarify for the Committee which amendment he is speaking to, because I do not have any in my grouping.
Lord Best
I am speaking to the two amendments grouped with Amendment 20TA; namely, Amendments 21ZA and 21ZB. Further, I think we will probably be able to embrace a bit of 21ZC.
These two proposed new clauses have been prepared by the Association for the Conservation of Energy, which represents 30 organisations in this field, and Friends of the Earth. They are trying to avoid the pitfalls of the Green Deal, of which I am a tremendous supporter, proving to be a bit of a wet blanket for some parts of the private rented sector. They establish a minimum standard of energy efficiency at band E on the energy performance scale, which we suspect is where the Government are going in any case, for all properties that are let from 2016. To put it in the negative, this would make it illegal to let a property after 2016 if it does not accord with the minimum standard set at band E, which is a pretty modest level but one that affects some 350,000 properties in the private rented sector. As we all know, the private rented sector has a much higher number of properties that are in need of bringing up to new standards.
Let me give the reasons why this might be a good plan. Knowing that this legal obligation will kick in in five years’ time would mean that landlords are likely to gear up now to make sure that their properties meet the standard. Their agents will also know that it is coming, so they can prepare for this as a certainty in the future. This follows the same approach that the Government have already determined for commercial properties, where a minimum standard will apply.
Properties that are rated only F and G are in fact classified as a health hazard, a category 1 risk, under the housing health and safety rating system. Action to enforce that measure, however, has proved to be difficult. Local authorities have other fish to fry, they often do not have enough environmental health officers to go round and there are other priorities. This would address the health hazards of people, often on low incomes and vulnerable, who are prone to hypothermia and winter deaths in these low-energy rated properties. It does not put the onus on the tenant, and indeed it is unrealistic to expect tenants in all cases to be bold enough to go through the hassle of requiring their landlord to do something. We should remember that many tenants have short-term tenancies. They do not have security of tenure and, if they fall out badly with their landlord, the tenancy may not be renewed. It is better if there is a regulation outside of the landlord-tenant relationship to do this.
Landlords, and as I mentioned in 60 per cent of cases their agents, are familiar with the gas safety certificate. The new regime that requires you to meet an energy performance certificate standard is just the same as the gas safety certificate. Landlords have all got used to it. Tedious as it may seem, you have to go through the inspection process and the property has to meet the gas safety requirement. This is a health and safety matter as well, so they would have to meet the energy requirement on that same pattern. This is classified as moving into regulation, but it is fairly light-touch bearing in mind that band E is a pretty low level to reach, and it is five years away, giving plenty of time for people to get there.
It gives local authorities a specific measure and a clear duty. They know where they stand and they can get on with it. These clauses would be a helpful addition to the Bill. They also put on the Secretary of State the duty to take the minimum standard up another notch by 2020, since band E still represents a very basic bottom line.
The second proposed new clause here puts some constraints on the requirement to meet a minimum standard over the next five years or face a fine of up to £10,000 if it is ignored. These constraints are that there must be exceptions where the landlord can show that achieving the minimum standard is impractical; it offends against the golden rule. The tenant may refuse to have the works done, although there is still a question mark in my mind following the point made by the noble Earl, Lord Cathcart, as to what happens when there is a group of tenants of which all but one are keen to see energy efficiency measures in their block of flats or converted house, and one tenant refuses. There may be more to be said on that, but where the single tenant of a single property refuses to have the works done or because the changes would reduce the value of the property, these circumstances would be exceptions and the obligation would not apply.
Secondly, there would need to be a duty placed upon the Secretary of State to establish an appeals process to ensure that all was fair and proper. Thirdly, if in a particular local authority area there is evidence that the new requirement is leading to a shortage of rented properties, which frankly is an unlikely event, the Secretary of State could then suspend the minimum standard for that area. This contingency seems better than a blanket suspension across the whole country on the basis that the number of homes to rent had fallen in one or two specific places, as it would target the places where it happens.
These amendments seek to ensure that for the private rented sector the Green Deal is not a damp squib. They make it pretty certain that the very worst properties will be tackled within the next five years. Landlords will know where they stand, and voluntary action over the years ahead seems highly likely. I was pleased to note that the thinking behind these amendments is endorsed by the Government’s fuel poverty advisory group, by the Committee on Climate Change and by the many MPs who signed the Early Day Motion. I was also going to quote the Mayor of London, but the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, has already done that for me.
Baroness Maddock
My Lords, my name is attached to the amendments to which the noble Lord, Lord Best, has just spoken. I do not intend to say much. It is clear from the amendments I moved earlier that I have a great deal of sympathy for what the noble Lord is saying. Perhaps we can also discuss between the Committee and Report stages whether there is some merit in doing more to encourage the private rented sector and to help local authorities with this work. I support the noble Lord, Lord Best, and I hope the Minister can at least agree to discussions on the detailed proposals that have been put forward.
Lord Marland
I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Best, and for the support expressed by my noble friend Lady Maddock. The noble Lord spent a constructive Sunday writing his excellent speech because it has given us a good picture of what is going on in the sector. In many ways I wish he had spoken earlier, because he would have set the scene nicely for some of the debates today, as indeed he did at Second Reading.
Amendments 21ZA and 21ZB would insert two new clauses setting a minimum energy efficiency standard. However, they go further in that they would prevent the renting of properties that do not meet the minimum standard. They would also allow for the Secretary of State to suspend regulations with any local authority area if it is found that regulations are having an adverse effect on supply. Amendment 20TA would also prevent a landlord letting a property if a notice had been served by a local authority but not complied with.
The amendments raise an interesting proposition: that of using a minimum standard to improve performance in the sector and preventing properties that do not meet this new standard from being let. I read them with interest and welcome their intention to create a level playing field in terms of energy efficiency within the sector. However, I cannot accept the proposals for two reasons. First, I reassure the Committee that the provisions as currently drafted in Clause 37 already target the worst performing properties. Secondly, and most important, we will achieve this without setting minimum standards, other than those that have been referenced, which could be viewed as a barrier to new landlords entering the market. We are trying to plot a pragmatic and sensitive course.
Amendment 21ZB would give powers to the Secretary of State to suspend minimum standard regulations in local authority areas where they could be shown to be impacting adversely on the supply of properties available. As I have outlined, it is not our intention to impact on the market; in fact, it is the opposite. We want to create a more attractive rental market for improved properties. The review already creates a safeguard. It will take a very careful look at the impact of potential regulation on the rental market across the country.
I turn to the issue of timing, which we have covered quite frequently. Amendment 21ZA proposes that regulations, if any, be made no later than 1 January 2016. The noble Lord, Lord Best, has already referred to that. I hope that this explains the Government’s position. I am extremely grateful for the very valuable input, but I hope that these amendments will not be pressed.
Lord Best
My Lords, I will address the point that the Government are very keen for there to be no barrier to the entry of new landlords into the market. It is improbable that people will enter at the level of the worst properties in the worst conditions. The buy-to-let market has become an extraordinary phenomenon. More than 1 million properties have been acquired on a buy-to-let basis. The typical profile of these properties is that they cost around £100,000 to £110,000, are brand new and are in a block of flats built by a housebuilder. The energy rating for these properties is pretty good. One would not be setting a big barrier if one prevented the entry into the market of landlords who buy the most rubbishy properties on the market. It might be a good idea if they were required, before they let them, to bring them up at least to band E as a basic level. With those provisos, we live to debate this another day.
Baroness Smith of Basildon
I am grateful for the Minister's comments, but I am not sure that he answered any of the points that I raised. I am still seeking guidance from him about the non-letting of a property where a landlord has failed to make the required energy efficiency improvements. I think that the Minister was referring to Clause 37(2)(c) when he said that the legislation provided that regulation should apply first to the worst performing energy efficiency homes. It defines a property in this category as one that,
“falls below such level of energy efficiency … as is provided for by the regulations”.
The Minister has not made it clear, and we do not yet know, what that level will be, although there has been a lot of guidance to the Committee that it should not be below band E. What happens when the landlord does not meet that standard? At what level would the local authority be able to tell the landlord not to re-let the property? That was the point that I was probing and that the Minister has not yet answered.
Lord Marland
I think I have answered that point, and I answered it on the previous batch of amendments. There is a guideline of EPC band E. The noble Baroness asked what the guideline is; that is it, and I have said it on a number of occasions. It is incumbent upon the local authority, because of not only its own carbon targets but its authority targets, to ensure that that property delivers that standard. Therefore it will use what powers the local authority has and what power the Local Government Association decides to use to make them fulfil their own carbon commitments. As I said on the previous group of amendments, it is not for us to be prescriptive to the local authority, other than in respect of the broader picture of what we are trying to achieve and what the Government are trying to achieve. It is up to the local authority to achieve its carbon reduction targets and its home improvement targets.
Baroness Maddock
Baroness Maddock
My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendments 20AA and 20AB. I will be very brief because I believe I have covered quite a lot of this. We also have an amendment coming up later which is a little similar to amendments that I am speaking to here. I have already discussed the fact that I am concerned that we do not have a very good timetable for the regulations. Nevertheless, the Bill allows for some regulations to be made to deal with the worst properties, and that is what I have been assuming in some of my amendments. However, the Bill says that the Secretary of State “may”, and I have asked that it be “must”. If I had been well tutored by the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, it would be “must”—I have put “shall”, but I think we all know what I mean, so let us leave it at that for now and not have a long discussion about may, shall and must.
I have already indicated that I think that if landlords are not complying with the regulations for the very worst properties—my noble friend Lord Best said this in speaking to other amendments—and if they are not letting these properties which, frankly, probably none of us in this Room would want to live in, then we need to be a bit clearer about how and when we are going to act. At the moment, under the housing health and safety rating system, where there are health hazards, the local authorities can go in, do the work and charge people for them. It is a far more effective way than fining people, because if we fine people, as I said, the work does not actually get done. It is clear that the Minister could bring in regulations in this legislation and the penalty put forward on the face of the Bill is £5,000. I have suggested that we make it £10,000, but it is clear from my Amendment 20AA that I prefer that we have local authorities going in and doing the work rather than fining, because then you actually get it done. At this stage in proceedings, I will not say anything else, and I beg to move.
Lord Jenkin of Roding
My Lords, I get the impression that we are coming up against the problem of balance that I referred to in a speech made some hours ago. It is now getting to the point where, if these amendments are accepted, the Bill will expect local authorities to take fairly drastic enforcement action. The noble Lord, Lord Best, will know much more about this than I do, but I have always been given to understand that local authorities already have quite substantial powers under the housing health and safety rating system, which can be used to tackle houses where tenants suffer excess cold and, no doubt, other factors. But the real problem is that these powers are very rarely used. The noble Lord, Lord Best, made the point that local authorities have many other duties, that they do not have enough environmental health officers, and that with the stringencies under which they now have to operate, it is not expected that they will be in a position to recruit more. Faced with pressures on resources and competing priorities, I wonder where the sense is in landing them with still more duties. Indeed, one has to ask what the probability is of such new duties being enforced.
There is no point in substantially increasing penalties and in introducing other measures that enable local authorities to take over houses, improve them and then charge the landlord, if no one is going to enforce them. Increasing the fine from £5,000 to £10,000 will do absolutely nothing if the notices are not enforced. I will sound a note of caution on this. We should not expect local authorities, over the next few years, to take substantial action when they are well known for not using the powers that they already have under the system that I have just mentioned. Again, I am just sounding a note of caution and I hope that the Minister will look at some of these proposals with a fairly cold and analytical eye to assess whether they will improve the Bill and increase the chance of the objectives that we all support being achieved, or whether this will be the point at which landlords simply throw up their hands and say, “Blow the lot of you, we are not going to re-let”.
Lord Davies of Oldham
My Lords, I have not the slightest doubt that the Government will apply a cold and analytical eye to these issues, because that is their role. I hear what the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, says, and we all know that certain powers are more honoured in the breach than in their exercise. But, of course, the powers underpin the position of the local authority. He is absolutely right to say that local authorities do not often exercise their powers: but if they did not exist at all, standards would conceivably be a good deal lower, because everyone would know that if minimal standards were not observed, the local authority would not be able to take action.
These amendments commend themselves because they introduce a floor to the position. They say, basically, that these are the powers that local authorities will enjoy. They may not have to exercise them often, but if they do not exist, the Minister will have to show how enforcement can effectively take place. It seems to me that these amendments are a constructive way of underpinning the Bill with an effective sanction. Given that, I think that the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, is on somewhat dangerous ground if he says that the issue of enforcement depends on the level of resources at your disposal, and therefore underperformance may be looked at in those terms. If that were translated to the police under the present cuts, the Government would be in serious trouble. One has to look carefully at the issue of what level of resources is available, but what is important is that it is only through local authority enforcement that certain minimum standards with regard to this legislation can be achieved. We should seek to guarantee that such powers exist. The degree of enforcement will depend on resources, on will and on a general perception of the value of the legislation. We have said all along that the legislation depends not on compulsion but on the engagement of the community. That is the main driver. The issue covered by the amendments is the provision of an element of underpinning, which I subscribe to.
Lord Marland
I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Maddock for putting forward the amendment. Obviously it has considerable merit. The greater the fine, the greater the determination we show to achieve what we set out. On this occasion, contrary to the last, I agree with my noble friend Lord Jenkin of Roding—generally I agree totally with the noble Lord—that £5,000 is a reasonable limit. It is a considerable amount of money that is in line with existing limits for the amounts that local authorities can fine landlords for letting out substandard and hazardous accommodation. On that basis, and with due respect, I invite the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment. As she rightly says, we have spoken to other amendments covering various parts of the Bill, and no doubt we will in future as well.
Baroness Maddock
My Lords, as I was only speaking to that amendment, I cannot withdraw it. However, I can withdraw Amendment 20Z that led this group. Given the discussions that we have had, I am prepared to do that. However, in doing so, I will say that it would be helpful to have some discussion about how we can encourage landlords to improve their properties, particularly the very bad ones—I hope that that will happen—and about how we can involve local authorities. I am particularly keen on local authorities because of some of the powers that they have under other legislation, which I will not mention again by name. That is one reason why I am keen to see them involved. I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 20Z.
Lord Grantchester
“( ) Provision falling within subsection (1) may also include the power to carry out improvement works in default of the landlord, recovering all reasonable costs necessary for undertaking the work.”
Lord Grantchester
I apologise for the delay; the groupings are a little confusing. I am reminded during these debates of the words of the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, who said that we were entering a very complex area. One comes to the Grand Committee thinking that one understands everything, but as the debate moves forward one is often prompted to think that we are questioning at cross-purposes. On other occasions, one thinks that one knows all about it when a question is suddenly asked that makes one think, “Have I really understood it?”. In proposing Amendment 20AAA, I wonder whether I have really understood it because I am confused as to why this amendment is not also grouped with Amendment 20AA, but there are quite a few areas in which that amendment could have had an effect. The amendment is rather simple, but it touches on three serious areas which we have already debated and which I shall pick up on as I go through my remarks.
Baroness Noakes
My Lords, I certainly do not want to delay the Committee beyond its natural span, but perhaps I could just ask the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, how the possibility of local authorities carrying out improvement works and charging for them fits with the scheme of this Bill, which contains a requirement to carry out the relevant efficiency improvements financed either by the Green Deal or by the energy company obligation. I do not understand how another party in the form of the local authority can do something that should be dealt with by either the Green Deal or by the energy company obligation. It seems unfair at the very least, if we are talking about a group of tenants where one is holding out, for the landlord to be stuck with the cost for a whole building or block in circumstances where, for the rest, there would be a Green Deal. I do not understand how this amendment fits with the scheme, which is that the relevant energy efficiency improvements are Green Deal or energy company obligation-funded. They are not funded in any other way.
Lord Grantchester
I thank the noble Baroness for seeking that extra clarification. In this clause we are assuming that in a situation where a tenant is holding out against the wishes of every other tenant in a block, he would be required to undertake the improvements as part of the Green Deal. The costs arising would not land on the local authority. The tenant that was proving to be the roadblock would be entered under the Green Deal and would make payments under that deal. I think that this provision is set out in Clause 37.
Lord Teverson
My Lords, I admit that I do not understand this amendment. I do not understand what it does. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, for his explanation, but I do not see how it relates to multiple tenancies. I apologise and will leave it at that.
Baroness Northover
My Lords, I am very grateful to noble Lords for their amendments to Clause 39. Amendment 20AAA would give local authorities the power to carry out improvement works if the landlord defaults, and to recover all reasonable costs for undertaking work. We are not convinced that it is appropriate to grant such powers. Local authorities already have the power under the Housing Act 2004 to carry out works and recover costs in cases where there is an immediate and serious threat to health and safety. We are not convinced that any further power is appropriate or proportionate.
I will address the point about a tenant dissenting. Sitting tenants will not be forced to take on a Green Deal, and secondary legislation will set out how this affects landlords' obligations under any PRS regulations. I hope that the noble Lord will be happy to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Grantchester
I am of course grateful for the questions on this matter, especially from the noble Lord, Lord Teverson. Perhaps later we will sit down and put our heads together. It could benefit all of us to read today's proceedings twice or three times to understand the different angles from which everyone has approached this. What I was referring to here, and perhaps did not explain clearly, is a situation where one tenant in a block of flats is holding out and the landlord does not go ahead because he does not have the full agreement of that tenant. I remember the point of the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, who asked: if there is no consent, where are we? The point of the amendment was to get over that hurdle and enable a local authority to step in if a landlord cannot carry on because one tenant refuses to make the improvements. However, at this time of the evening, and in view of all the debate that we have had, I suggest that we will all benefit from sitting down and thinking through where we are on the Bill. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Northover
My Lords, this may be a convenient moment for the Committee to adjourn until Wednesday at 3.45 pm.
House of Lords
Introduction: Lord Dannatt
Introduction: Lord Wigley
Introduction: Lord Collins of Highbury
Constitutional Reform: Referendums
(13 years, 10 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Grocott
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what criteria are used to determine whether or not a constitutional change should be submitted to a referendum.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord McNally)
My Lords, the Government believe that Parliament should judge which issues are the subject of a national referendum.
Lord Grocott
So there is no question of the Government adopting any principles towards it, then. I cannot understand the Government’s position on this because they do appear to have a position. How can it be right to have a referendum on the major constitutional issue of changing the voting system for the House of Commons but wrong to hold a referendum on the major constitutional issue of changing an appointed House of Lords into an elected House of Lords?
Lord McNally
My Lords, on the basis of principle, I rely on my distinguished predecessor, the noble Lord, Lord Wills, who, when challenged with a similar question, said this:
“Inevitably, however carefully you define this … you do not actually escape the question of judgment … It is inevitably going to be a subjective test”.
On the question of the forthcoming legislation on the House of Lords, I ask the noble Lord to be a little patient. The Government’s proposals will be put before the House.
Lord Maclennan of Rogart
My Lords, do the Government consider that constitutional changes which are relatively readily reversed or modified by Act of Parliament are less obviously in need of the backing of a public referendum than matters which fall into a fixed and almost irreversible constitutional norm?
Lord McNally
My Lords, as I say, it is a subjective judgment, but that would seem to be one possible dividing line when looking at these matters. It would, in each case, be a matter for the Parliament of the day.
Lord Howarth of Newport
My Lords, if a constitutional change is to be submitted to a referendum as the price for holding two parties together in a coalition, is that not a poor reason and a worrying precedent?
Lord McNally
It certainly would be if that were ever to happen in the future.
Lord Campbell-Savours
Does the noble Lord accept that a referendum on the voting system for the House of Commons is a constitutional issue?
Lord McNally
My Lords, that is a matter of judgment. I do not know whether this is a trick question. As to whether, if there is a change in the voting system, our constitution will reflect that, that is a matter of the obvious.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch
Why is it right to have a referendum on the voting system, about which the British people appear to be somewhat indifferent, and not right to have a referendum, which was promised to the British people by the Prime Minister who gave a cast-iron guarantee and about which the leader of the Liberal Democrats walked out of the House of Commons when that referendum was not granted; it was in the Liberal Democrat manifesto—in other words, the referendum on whether we want to stay in the European Union or leave it? How can it be right to have the first without the second?
Lord McNally
It is a very interesting question. When the Constitution Committee looked at this matter, one of its recommendations was that, if ever we came to the point of a proposal to leave the EU, it would be a matter for a referendum. What happened with the Lisbon treaty, as with all other treaties since the referendum which endorsed our membership, is that it went through the parliamentary process.
Lord Soley
Is not the main judgment here one of how we deal with constitutional measures? Is it not time for both Houses to look at how we get agreement as far as possible? When we get agreement, we tend to get better constitutional change, but it takes time. With European legislation in this area coming up, the noble Lord might find that it is not Parliament but the courts which decide whether a referendum should have been called. It is rather more complicated than he thinks.
Lord McNally
No, my Lords. I am thinking on this matter and have been talking with the noble Lord, Lord Wills, about his own experience. He has told me that he was considering forming some kind of group of wisdom that could look at these issues. We are still in contact on that. Whether it should be done as a parliamentary exercise or government exercise, or given to a suitable think tank, I am not sure, but I do not deny that what the noble Lord has said is good thinking.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon
If the Minister cannot give an assurance that we will have a referendum, can he give an assurance that the Parliament Acts will not be used if the House of Lords does not agree with any legislation on reform that comes from the Commons?
Lord McNally
No, I cannot give such guarantees. The Parliament Acts are there for the judgment of the Government of the day. As I have said previously, whether there should a referendum to consult is a matter for the judgment of the Parliament of the day.
Lord Campbell of Alloway
Does not the constitutional process to which my noble friend referred require pre-legislative scrutiny of a constitutional Bill, not only of the Bill currently before the House but any Bill?
Lord McNally
I think that all parties agree that pre-legislative scrutiny is a good idea—certainly, I have been supportive of it—but, as we have said, it is not always possible when a radical and reforming Government hit the ground running.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton
My Lords, can the Minister give a logical, rational explanation were the situation to arise where there would be a referendum in the country on the system of voting for the Commons but not one on the system of voting for the House of Lords?
Lord McNally
There are so many hypotheses in that question that it would be as well if noble Lords showed a little more patience and waited for the proposals on the House of Lords that the Government will bring shortly bring forward. Without pre-empting my noble friend, I know that the Minister answering the next Question is eager to get on to that.
Crime: Murder
(13 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord Lloyd of Berwick
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they plan to reconsider their decision, announced in the Ministry of Justice Green Paper Breaking the Cycle: Effective Punishment, Rehabilitation and the Sentencing of Offenders, not to abolish the mandatory life sentence for murder.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord McNally)
My Lords, the Government have no plans to abolish the mandatory life sentence for murder.
Lord Lloyd of Berwick
I thank the noble Lord for that Answer. Is he aware of recent research that shows that the public are not in favour of a life sentence in every case of murder, as is so often thought, especially not in cases where the conviction has been of a mercy killing? Seventy-nine per cent of those consulted in face-to-face interviews last May said that they thought that nine years or less would be sufficient in such cases, which corresponds almost exactly with a recent decision in the Court of Appeal that reduced the minimum term from nine years to five years. Against that background, why do the Government continue to think that a life sentence is necessary in every case of murder? Why not leave it to the judge to decide on the facts of the particular case? Why not at least consult the public on this in the consultation exercise that is currently taking place?
Lord McNally
My Lords, the noble and learned Lord is referring to the Nuffield Foundation report Public Opinion and Sentencing for Murder. I know that because he was generous enough to send me the report, which, in my reading, shows that there is a good deal of public confusion about the law of murder. Perhaps there is a need for greater education and explanation. The blunt fact is that the Government considered these and other proposals in the recent, or not so recent, Law Commission report on the matter. However, they came to the conclusion that the time was not right to take forward such a substantial reform of our criminal law.
Lord Thomas of Gresford
The noble Lord has referred to public confusion about the law of murder. Does he accept that a thoroughgoing review and reform of the law of murder, including the abolition of the compulsory, mandatory life sentence, would be a jewel in the crown of the coalition Government if it could be achieved in the next five years?
Lord McNally
I hear what my noble friend says and I am sure that many in the Government will concur with that assessment. Proposals to act now were given consideration, but we came to the conclusion that the time was not right to take forward such a substantial reform of our criminal law.
Lord Borrie
My Lords, was the statement that the Minister made today approved by the right honourable Kenneth Clarke, who said, in the same week as the publication of the Green Paper indicating the view that the Minister has just given, that he did not think that mandatory life sentences were suitable except in the most serious cases and that they were quite inappropriate for mercy killings by a husband or wife of the other?
Lord McNally
My Lords, over the past few months when these matters have been discussed, a number of views have been given—I have given some views myself—but the fact is that the collective view of the Government is that the time is not right to take forward such a substantial reform of our criminal law.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
My Lords, there is considerable time. I am aware that the noble Lord, Lord Walton of Detchant, has been magnanimous in giving way twice. Perhaps we can hear him first and then from my noble friend.
Lord Walton of Detchant
Is the Minister aware that the House of Lords Select Committee on Medical Ethics, which I was privileged to chair, reported in 1993 that in its opinion the mandatory life sentence for murder should be abolished to allow flexibility in sentencing? The Home Office reported to that committee 23 cases in which a positive act by a family member had resulted in the death of a loved one suffering from terminal cancer. In every case, a charge of murder was considered. However, because the conviction of the individual would have given rise to a mandatory life sentence, the charge in all but one case was amended to attempted murder, as it was recognised that no jury would be likely to convict. Was that not therefore a case in which the law was being manipulated?
Lord McNally
My Lords, I do not try to mislead the House in any way in acknowledging that some of these issues have been before successive Governments for a very long time. On some of the issues, such as when the plea is on grounds of a mercy killing or a related defence, successive Governments have taken the view that this is a matter for Parliament rather than the Government of the day. Within their broad decision not to attempt a major reform of the law at the moment, the Government are trying to look at the guidance so that it may be simplified and to trust the judgment of judges in these matters.
Lord Hamilton of Epsom
Can my noble friend tell us how many convicted murderers who have been given life sentences have actually died in prison? Surely the reality of a mandatory life sentence is that it does not actually amount to that at the end of the day.
Lord McNally
My Lords, I do not have that specific figure to hand, but I shall write to the noble Lord on it. The point that he makes is perhaps the one that causes the public confusion—that a life sentence does not mean inevitably that the person convicted is going to die in prison, although sometimes they do.
Bill of Rights
(13 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord Wills
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether the commission to investigate the creation of a British Bill of Rights will consider the option of repealing the Human Rights Act 1998.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord McNally)
My Lords, the commission will investigate the idea of a UK Bill of Rights that incorporates and builds on all our obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights. We will make a statement to Parliament on the precise terms of reference of the commission in due course.
Lord Wills
My Lords, the very careful words that the noble Lord, Lord McNally, has just used appear to open the door to repealing the Human Rights Act. I wonder whether he recalls what he told this House on 7 October last year, when he said that,
“if at the end of this Government's term there was no Human Rights Act, there would be no Tom McNally”.—[Official Report, 7/10/10; col. 217.]
Can the Minister clarify the situation for the House and say whether he still agrees with me that the Human Rights Act provides essential protections for the rights and liberties of the individual in this country and does so by enhancing the protections already available under the European Convention on Human Rights? Will he stick to his commitment to resign if the Government move to repeal the Human Rights Act?
Lord McNally
My Lords, when I was studying politics at university, I remember a chapter in the book about the man who forgot Goschen. That was Lord Randolph Churchill, who threatened to resign so many times that in the end the Prime Minister of the day accepted the invitation and replaced him with Viscount Goschen. I am well aware that we have a Viscount Goschen in this House. I think that you can threaten to resign too many times in a political career.
I do not think of the decision to go ahead with a commission on the working of the Human Rights Act as any dark plot to repeal it. Again, I have called the noble Lord in aid so often today, but he knows that when he was in office, he took a similar look at the effectiveness of the Human Rights Act. That is what we will do. In all I do, I shall ask the question asked by the late and lamented Lord Bingham, “Which particular human right do you intend to repeal?”
Lord Faulks
The Minister said on another occasion—I think at the Liberal Democrat Party conference—that he was anxious that the Act should be “better understood and appreciated”. Does he envisage, along with other steps that might be taken, giving a gentle reminder to courts and tribunals of the provisions of Section 2, which requires them to “consider” Strasbourg jurisprudence, as opposed to slavishly following it even if the decision is contrary to common sense?
Lord McNally
Most certainly, my Lords. One thing that I have been looking at is whether it is possible to give some guidance in the exercise we are undertaking which will point our courts to such a sensible review of human rights cases. Nothing does more damage to human rights than court judgments that call on human rights, not always accurately, as the justification for action which the general public think is absurd.
Baroness Whitaker
Nevertheless, does the noble Lord agree that the Human Rights Act has done much to underline the dignity of ordinary people through the courts when they have restored the right of elderly people to life-saving treatment in hospitals and the right of brothers and sisters not to be separated if they go into care homes, along with many other such decisions?
Lord McNally
My Lords, I could not agree more because, importantly, whereas we get the odd publicity that seems to suggest that the Human Rights Act is there for the benefit of villains, the understanding that we need to get through to people is that it is our human rights which the Act protects. Just to add to what I was saying to my noble friend, one reason why I am an enthusiast for celebrating Magna Carta in four years’ time is that I want people to understand that human rights are part of our DNA as a country—something that Lord Bingham often emphasised. I am in talks with my honourable friend Sarah Teather about how human rights can be better included in teaching in schools.
Lord Dubs
In an earlier answer the Minister referred to a UK Bill of Rights. I wonder whether he would care to say something about the position of Northern Ireland, where for a long time there has been a request that there should be a Northern Ireland Bill of Rights to reflect decisions made in the Good Friday and other agreements.
Lord McNally
The noble Lord is quite right. There is a commitment but, having looked at this matter, we feel that the Good Friday agreement commitment should be honoured separately and not as part of this exercise.
Lord Thomas of Gresford
In his first Answer, the noble Lord referred to building on the European Convention on Human Rights. Will he assure us that if there is to be a replacement of the European convention by a British human rights Act, it will contain all those provisions and additional provisions as we see necessary for the circumstances in this country?
Lord McNally
The coalition agreement made it clear that this exercise would be a matter of building on the European Convention on Human Rights. That remains our intention.
Lord Bach
The Minister is well known and widely respected for his support for the Human Rights Act. Does he agree that the introduction of that Act by the previous Labour Government, supported by his party, represented a huge step forward for the liberty and freedom of the British people?
Lord McNally
My Lords, I most certainly do but, as has been said, the previous Government were taking a long, hard look at that legislation—and quite sensibly, because the Act is sometimes misrepresented and misreported. Anyone who believes in it, as I do, would also recognise that it does not have the national buy-in which I would like to see for a Human Rights Act. Our exercise will educate people and give them a greater understanding about what I referred to otherwise. It is not a Human Rights Act for villains. It is our Human Rights Act and the more we understand that, the better it will be.
Bangladesh: Rapid Action Battalion
(13 years, 10 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Howell of Guildford)
The United Kingdom Government have been providing basic human rights and ethical policing skills training to the Rapid Action Battalion in Bangladesh since 2008. We consider it important that the Bangladeshi Government have the capability to maintain effective law and order, so as to protect the safety and human rights of the Bangladeshi public and to minimise the extent to which counterterrorism threats emanate from Bangladesh to the United Kingdom. The aim of our work is to further improve the Rapid Action Battalion’s standards in accordance with our own values and legal responsibilities.
Lord Judd
I thank the noble Lord for that reply and for his very positive leadership on this issue. Does he not agree that great commendation is due to the British armed services for much of the training that they do across the world in very difficult circumstances? Does he not also agree that great pains must therefore be taken to avoid directly or indirectly becoming associated with organisations conducting themselves in a way that not only negates everything that we believe to be worth defending in our society but plays into the hands of militant extremists by provoking resentment? Does the noble Lord further agree that, within Bangladesh, there is widespread popular dismay and contempt for the behaviour of that battalion?
Lord Howell of Guildford
The noble Lord is absolutely right to refer to those concerns, which Her Majesty’s Government certainly share. We have remained engaged through this programme, which is generally part of our counterterrorism programme, in order to seek to raise the standards and improve the human rights skills of that particular body. It has been uphill work; we are anxious to do more. We are in constant contact with the Bangladeshi authorities, through the British High Commission, and it is exactly the sort of matter which my right honourable friend the Prime Minister will raise when he receives the Prime Minister of Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina, who is coming to visit next month. These matters will be discussed there and the noble Lord is quite right to raise them.
Lord Avebury
My Lords, according to the Bangladeshi human rights organisation Odhikar, 127 people were extra-judicially killed in 2010, more than half of them by RAB. Has the Foreign Secretary sought the advice of the FCO’s recently appointed human rights advisory group on whether it is appropriate for us to offer training to a paramilitary force that is alleged to have murdered so many suspects and to have operated a torture centre where British suspects were tortured to gain information? Will the Government ask the Guardian to make all the available material on RAB available to Sir Peter Gibson for his inquiry into the alleged British knowledge of improper treatment of prisoners abroad?
Lord Howell of Guildford
I am sure that all necessary information will be provided for that inquiry. These matters have been discussed, and they continue to be discussed and reviewed most carefully. It is obviously a matter of difficult judgment in how to ensure that our engagement and, indeed, support for the Rapid Action Battalion leads to an improvement in the situation that we have confronted, which my noble friend mentioned. The answer to his question is: yes, we are concerned and, yes, all those concerned with the promotion of human rights in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office are focused on how we can improve this programme and the effectiveness of training in the handling of human rights. That must go forward.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
(13 years, 10 months ago)
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The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Strathclyde)
My Lords, as we begin another week almost entirely dedicated to the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill, I shall update the House on its progress. I do so very much in the spirit of Leader of the whole House in order to inform the House.
The House is a self-regulating Chamber. Most noble Lords see that as fundamental to the way in which this House works. Over the centuries we have devised ways of working based on freedom and flexibility of debate. These freedoms underpin the reputation of the House as a place of responsible and serious scrutiny and all of us value these freedoms. Part of our way of working is through the usual channels. One of their key functions is to arrange business in the Chamber so that the House makes best use of the time available to scrutinise legislation and hold a Government to account. As many noble Lords are aware, the usual channels routinely discuss an overall timescale for each Bill and come to an agreed estimate of the likely number of days required to complete Committee. The usual channels sometimes get this estimate wrong, but they operate in a way that ensures that there is flexibility if a little more, or even less, time is required.
On this Bill, the usual channels have been unable to agree an estimate of the length of time required for Committee. This is unprecedented and worrying. Even on some of the more controversial Bills that this House has considered in the past 50 years, the usual channels have agreed the approximate amount of time to allow the House to exercise its scrutiny function fully and effectively. An agreement through the usual channels provides a framework that allows both government and opposition to conduct their business efficiently while not infringing upon the House’s right to regulate itself. Such agreements are the cornerstone of the work that we do here.
The Opposition asked for more time for greater scrutiny on this Bill. The Bill has received more time, but it is not good for this House, or for the legislative process across Parliament as a whole, to assign an infinite amount of time to the passage of a particular Bill. Other Bills need to pass through this House, and there is other business that many noble Lords wish to consider. Let me set out a few facts about the position that we find ourselves in today.
Today will be the 12th day in Committee on the Bill. The other place took five full days on the Floor to complete Committee. The Clerks have not been able to find another example of a Bill that has taken more than 11 days in Committee on the Floor in recent years. We have now spent nearly 80 hours in Committee on the Bill. The other place completed Committee in 25 hours. On day one in Committee, we started with 47 groups of amendments for debate. Those groups were agreed by all those who had tabled amendments, yet we start day 12 with a further 54 groups of amendments remaining.
I have spent some considerable time in recent weeks considering how, if the usual channels cannot function in the normal way, the House could exercise its core function as a self-regulating Chamber. It is not a question that I have ever had to consider before. I have discussed this with others, but we have not yet found a clear answer. If we are unable to make reasonable progress towards completing Committee proceedings, I believe that it will be right to take soundings from all quarters of the House, including from the Opposition, as to the best way forward. Clearly, any solution needs to be acceptable to the House.
There is now a real risk of the Bill not becoming law in time for the people to have their say in a referendum on 5 May. I do not believe that that is what the House intends and it will raise questions about our ability to revise if we do not present the Bill in time. The Government wish to listen to what the House has to say. Concessions were made during proceedings in the other place. We are considering, as we always do in Committee, further concessions to put to this House. The Government have already lost two divisions, with every possibility of losing more. We are open to changes to the Bill, but not to changes that would undermine the fundamental purpose of the Bill agreed at Second Reading, which I believe have majority support both in this House and across Parliament as a whole.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
My Lords, I am grateful to the Leader of the House for his statement. We welcome the Government’s constructive approach, as set out in the statement. We on this side have repeatedly made it clear that we are ready and willing to talk. We believe that that is the right way forward. We believe that that approach is what this House wants to see and that it is right for the Bill and right for this House. We wish to preserve the self-regulating nature of your Lordships’ House.
In his wise intervention last week when we last considered the Bill, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, made clear his support for negotiations because, as he put it,
“it has always been the way to work”.
Looking for,
“a spirit of real co-operation”,—[Official Report, 19/01/2011; col. 405.]
he hoped that we would have some concessions from Her Majesty’s Government and that we will respond constructively. I very much agree with that view and with the view from the Cross Benches, which was expressed so well by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill of Bengarve, and the noble Lord, Lord Low of Dalston, who said:
“I urge that the Government and the Opposition redouble their efforts to reach a compromise so that the debate can proceed in a timely fashion and we are able to conclude the Committee stage of the Bill in a timely fashion with the necessary compromises on both sides having been achieved”.—[Official Report, 19/01/2011; col. 401.]
We on these Benches very much agree with these views. In that spirit, I can report to the House that I and others met Ministers last week on these matters and put proposals to the Government, although so far this has not borne fruit. There have been further contacts over the weekend and we have sought to do all we can to promote further discussions, so we are profoundly grateful for the statement that the Leader of the House has given today. We are, as the noble Leader says and as the House is aware, at an impasse. The Government’s right to get their business done in reasonable time has to be balanced with the Opposition’s right, and indeed responsibility, to give reasonable scrutiny to any Bill but particularly to an important Bill of considerable parliamentary and constitutional significance.
The House has faced such an impasse before on a number of occasions and has met and resolved it by the House giving leadership. That is both what we need to do now and what I hope we will do now. The Leader of the House had three principal points in his statement and our response to them is as follows. We will continue to involve ourselves constructively in any discussions. We will consider constructively any of the Government’s proposals, as indicated in the statement today by the Leader of the House. We will participate constructively in any wider discussions beyond the Bill currently in front of us about the conventions of the House.
The statement from the Leader of the House indicates that the will for discussions is now there. We welcome that, although it will of course be for the discussions themselves to show whether that will translates itself in practice into specifics. Concrete progress is required on the issues of concern in the Bill. With concrete progress, I am confident that we can resolve the impasse before us, but that will involve give and take. In the mean time, we will continue to maintain the level of scrutiny that we have been applying to the Bill, with many amendments in front of us yet and considerable scrutiny still to be carried out in this Committee.
This House had a tough and difficult time last week. We debated the Bill long into the night. I do not know whether the House faces a tough and difficult time this week as well. However long we sit, we on this side stand ready for constructive and positive discussions. We welcome the fact that the Government are indicating their readiness to take the same constructive and positive approach.
Baroness D'Souza
My Lords, I speak on behalf of the Cross-Benchers. It will come as no surprise that there is deep concern among us about the breakdown in the conventions and procedures of this House. I thank the Leader, the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, for his words today, but would like to muse a little further on the possible consequences for this Chamber.
Scrutiny is our job, but I doubt that a reasonable person would conclude that the speeches in the dark hours of the night last week, and maybe even again tonight, represent scrutiny or sensible revision. We are therefore forced to believe that it is the Opposition’s intention to delay the Bill beyond the date on which it would be possible to have a referendum: 5 May.
Many Cross-Benchers, of course, hear the justifiable worries that the Opposition have expressed about the lack of scrutiny of certain parts of the Bill, and I am sure that we acknowledge the difficult combination of two contentious issues for reasons of political expediency. We recognise that the date of 5 May was always, to say the least, an unhelpful goal. I think everyone would also agree that there is some legitimate question about whether the Salisbury/Addison convention really should apply to this Bill.
Despite all this, I hope that I am expressing the views of the majority of Cross-Benchers in saying that the tactics that the Opposition are using to delay the Bill fly in the face of the conventions that have governed this House for perhaps the past six decades, that these tactics undoubtedly bring this House into disrepute, that any success of such tactics may well encourage their further future use, and that these factors put together may even mark the beginning of the dissolution of this House. I say this with some reluctance—even to me, it sounds somewhat dramatic—but I believe it to be true. Why would the public, let alone the other place, choose to support a Chamber that is seen to be deeply unserious in undertaking the role of revision and scrutiny? We are at a dangerous crossroads.
As everyone knows, the Cross-Benchers are fastidiously independent and non party political. What I say is absolutely not anti-Opposition; indeed, as has been said and was shown by Cross-Benchers in this House last week, we very often support the Opposition in their valuable amendments. No, our collective concern—for once, perhaps we are acting as a group—is that the self-regulation and fundamental tasks of this House are sufficiently valuable to be preserved. We therefore both understand the need for and urge that there be significant compromises on both sides of this House so that we may proceed with dignity and resolve.
Baroness Williams of Crosby
My Lords, what the noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, has just said is of extreme importance. She has summed up very well what is at stake in an issue that has far greater repercussions than the source of the differences between the two sides of the House. We do indeed put at risk the whole reputation of the House of Lords as a place of intelligent and thoughtful discussion, where from time to time essentially bipartisan considerations give way to the greater needs of the constitutional issues that affect the United Kingdom and its people.
In that context, observing this as someone who has not taken detailed part in the debate, it seems clear to me that there is some room to move on both sides. I suggest that one of the issues that might be moved on is that of giving slightly more discretion to the Boundary Commission on constituencies with a natural community. The House’s choice on the issue of the Isle of Wight showed how strongly it shares that view, and it is only sensible to do that within the narrowest conceivable limits, which basically means equal-sized constituencies while recognising that some issues have to be given rather more discretion than the present Bill gives them.
In exchange for that, it is vital that the Opposition accept their responsibility and cease to create what is in effect a filibustering lobby—for that is what it is. It is high time, speaking as someone who cares very much about this House as an essential element in a sensible, thoughtful and responsible democracy, that it is accepted that there should be some relatively small movement on both sides so that we can get an agreement and decision on this issue within the next few days and, to put it bluntly, cease to lose the respect that we so much need, and usually deserve, from the rest of the country.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch
My Lords, I have given notice that I again wish to propose that we do not continue with these proceedings at all. I hope for a more helpful answer today than the one I was given last Wednesday. I have been encouraged to try again by several noble Lords who have told me that the brush-off that I was given last week was really most unsatisfactory and not at all in accordance with the convention of your Lordships’ House that the Government at least try to answer questions; they should at least make a fair stab at it, even if they do not like the answer.
My question last week was simply whether it was it was sensible to break our traditions and spend so much time and energy debating the method by which Members are elected to Parliament when so much power has been passed to Brussels that they can do very little when they get there. My question today goes further, and I touched on it in the first Oral Question today: if we are to have a referendum on anything, why is it not to be on what the British people have been promised, which is whether or not we want to stay in the European Union? After all, such a referendum was given as a cast-iron guarantee by the Prime Minister during the run-up to the Lisbon treaty. The leader of the Liberal Democrats, and this sews up the coalition Government quite nicely, actually walked out of the House of Commons—some would say flounced—because he was not allowed a vote on whether we wanted to stay in or leave the EU. Such a referendum was also in his party’s manifesto.
Why are we wasting so much time on a referendum to which the public are supremely indifferent while denying them one that they have been promised and which 85 per cent of them say they want? Surely the Deputy Leader of the House must agree that this sort of procedure, together with the regrettable filibuster that is clearly being mounted by Labour Peers, can do nothing but harm to the reputation of your Lordships’ House. Can it do anything but make the British people despise their political class even more than they do at the moment? Here I entirely share the sentiments and the words of the noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza.
I add my thanks and those of my party to all the staff in your Lordships’ House, who are behaving with such amazing fortitude and courtesy throughout these regrettable proceedings. I fear that we do not deserve such service if we continue.
Lord Grenfell
My Lords, I have not taken part in the debates on the many amendments that have been before us because, to be honest, I have not wanted to contribute to the length of the proceedings.
I have listened carefully to what the noble Baronesses, Lady D’Souza and Lady Williams of Crosby, have said. However, I have to reject the accusation of filibustering. The House must understand the frustration that is felt on this side of the House that a matter of such constitutional importance arrived in this House without a White Paper or a Green Paper, and that the issues in the second part of the Bill are of fundamental interest to the public because they concern the constituencies. I agree that at times we on my side of the House—I will get no accolades from the Front Bench for saying this—have gone too far in discussing the amendments and that maybe it would have been better if they had been discussed more briefly. However, they were and remain important amendments, because this is an incredibly difficult issue to deal with.
The real problem that faced us, as we all know and have discussed many times in this House, was the fact that there were two parts to this Bill when there should have been two Bills. What has happened to irritate the House, and maybe the public at large, has been due to the fact that the second part of the Bill would have been a much shorter exercise if it had been a second Bill. As my noble and learned friend on the Front Bench has said many times, we would have had no problem about meeting the date of 5 May if it had been debated and dealt with separately. However, a matter of such great constitutional importance as changing boundaries and all that that involves in reducing the number of Members of the House of Commons deserved a separate Bill.
All I say to Members of the House is: please understand the frustration of those on these Benches. It is not a question of trying to hold anything up but of trying to get proper scrutiny of a major constitutional issue. If only there had been two Bills instead of one, we might have avoided this unfortunate situation. I now agree that we should try to move forward as fast as possible, but I beg noble Lords to understand that where there are amendments that are absolutely essential to the second part of the Bill—to make sure that it is a good Bill in that second part—we retain the right to discuss it fully, as a scrutinising and revising Chamber should.
Lord Williamson of Horton
My Lords, some of us are very keen to see the possibility of some approach that would lead to a solution to the evident difficulties in the passage of the Bill through the House. Since we have dealt with the amendments to Part 1 of the Bill, it would seem reasonable to foresee that this part of the Bill should go through with a view to the referendum taking place on 5 May. However, the timing for Part 2 of the Bill is not so tight, as it requires action on constituencies to be in place by October 2013, with a view to the next election. Has the Leader considered—or would he consider—the possibility that the Bill might launch the Boundary Commission’s work but that Part 2 would come fully into force only by order at a later date? We know there are several other issues, such as the need for some flexibility in the 5 per cent margin on the size of constituencies. However, I intervene now on this key issue of timing so that the Bill might pass but Part 2 be brought fully into force later by order, without compromising the start of work by the Boundary Commission.
Lord Strathclyde
I thank all those who have taken part, particularly the noble and learned Lord. I very much recognise the constructive way in which he wishes to continue. I hope we will soon be able to restart the Committee stage. I also thank the noble Baroness the Convenor of the Cross Benches. It is always difficult for the Cross-Benchers to involve themselves in what they might see as being a political fight. This is now much more than a political battle; there are serious issues about the role of the House in scrutiny, which I tried to lay out. I very much welcome what the noble Baroness said.
I will not respond in detail to what everybody has said. I say briefly to the noble Lord, Lord Pearson: there are many opportunities in this House to raise the issues that he has raised—in Private Members’ Bills and through amendments to other Bills. He may well have a point but it is a point that is not part of this Bill, specifically. I urge him to raise these matters in debate, rather than on this Motion. The noble Lord, Lord Williamson, makes a suggestion similar to those that many others have made. We do not mind how we resolve these issues—we know that there must be a resolution—so long as we do not delay the main purposes of the Bill. I beg to move.
Lord Snape
“( ) Each constituency shall be wholly within a single county boundary.”
Lord Snape
My Lords, in speaking to this group of amendments, I bear in mind the exchange that has just taken place in your Lordships’ House. I hope that whoever replies from the government Front Bench will accept that these are important amendments, which are worthy of discussion, particularly bearing in mind what has just been said about the need for your Lordships’ House to act as a revising Chamber. Most of the matters covered by this group of amendments were not debated in the other place for various reasons. I do not particularly blame the Government for that.
Some of us who have been around for a while—at least in the other place—were not particularly happy about some of the proposals made after the 1997 general election to revise the sitting hours of the House of Commons. We pointed out that some time—that time is now but we pointed it out even back then—the Labour Party would be in opposition and might well regret that the number of hours available for debate for many of these important matters would be curtailed under those proposals to amend the hours of the other place, which were accepted. So much legislation now comes before your Lordships’ House not debated at all or, if debated, done so under a time limit and certainly without any great thoroughness. I repeat: that particularly applies to this group of amendments. I hope that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, will bear that in mind when he comes to reply and will acknowledge that this group contains some serious and relevant proposals for the improvement of this piece of legislation. I labelled him “the nice Lord” last week, which probably did not enhance his career greatly among his colleagues but I meant it anyway.
On Amendment 68, the fact that so many of your Lordships have already expressed concerns about the new constituencies crossing county boundaries is worth repeating, albeit briefly. After all, the county councils—the 48 ceremonial counties, as they were known—were set up as long ago as 1888 by the Local Government Act of that year. Although further reforms took place in the back end of the 19th century, the counties were significantly formed in 1929, when many of the powers available to those county councils were increased. They were largely curtailed by the Local Government Act 1972, which led to the demise of some local authorities, such as the Ridings of Yorkshire and Westmoreland, to name but two. Concern has been expressed in your Lordships’ House over the course of the debate about the prospect of the new constituencies crossing county boundaries. I do not wish to repeat anything that was said. I understand that people in Devon and Cornwall feel very strongly about these matters, as do some Members of the other House.
I indicated when I got to my feet that much of this legislation has not been properly debated in the House of Commons. However, much of it was reported on by the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee of the Commons, which had the following to say about constituencies crossing other boundaries, particularly as far as county councils are concerned. Page 25 of its report on the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill, under the heading “Constituencies crossing other boundaries”, says at paragraph 78:
“Requiring all constituencies to be within 5% of the electoral quota would mean … the creation of constituencies crossing regional and county boundaries, not least in Cornwall and Devon. Keep Cornwall Whole, a cross-party group campaigning against this aspect of the Bill, told us”—
that is, the committee—
“that creating a constituency with a number of historical, political and geographical identities would pose a serious challenge to the local MP, and that”—
here the committee quoted Keep Cornwall Whole—
“‘there is a severe risk that elements of it will go under-represented or indeed unrepresented.’ They have stated that loosening the equalisation requirement for constituencies to within 10% of the electoral quota would mean avoiding the need for a constituency to cross the Devon-Cornwall border”.
I hope that the Government will look carefully at that report and will see what they can do to prevent constituencies crossing county borders. One of the main reasons behind this part of the legislation—the new constituency sizes—was given by Her Majesty’s Government as the need to save money. Removing 50 or 60 Members of the other place would, it was said, save millions of pounds. I remind your Lordships, particularly the Conservative Members, that those of us who were active in local government in the early 1970s remember the Local Government Act 1972 because of its creation of metropolitan county councils.
Many of us pointed out at the time that the creation of metropolitan county councils would be an extremely expensive exercise. So it proved to be. Chief officers of those local authorities rightly expected—and got—substantial pay increases because of the size of the population for which they were responsible. However, the Local Government Act 1972 went ahead and the metropolitan county councils were created. They came into being in 1974. Within 12 years, a Conservative Government decided to abolish the metropolitan county councils.
I do not say that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, who is replying to this debate, has any responsibility for that, but it would be an interesting financial comparison if he told us how much that particular exercise—the creation of metropolitan county councils and their abolition within 12 years—cost the taxpayers of this country. I would hazard a guess that it was considerably more than the supposed savings to be made from the abolition of 50 or 60 Members of the other place. I hope that the noble and learned Lord will give us some figures so that we can compare and see just how genuine this supposed saving is going to be for the British tax payer.
Amendment 69 refers to the number of local authority boundaries in the new constituencies. I plead no superiority over any other Member of your Lordships’ House who did not serve in the other place, but I know that the Minister who is replying did serve there. He knows, as I know, the difficulties of constituency Members of Parliament and the importance for them of establishing and retaining a relationship with senior officers as well as councillors in the local government area in which their constituency lies.
As with noble Lords of all parties who have served in the other place, I met constituents who came to me with problems that were entirely a matter for the local authority. I said at one of our earlier debates that some of my colleagues down the Corridor, perhaps with more courage than I, would say to those constituents who came with purely local government problems: “This is nothing to do with your Member of Parliament, take it to your local councillor”. Many of us, with some difficulty perhaps as far as our parliamentary majorities were concerned, did not see that as a proper way forward, and took up those matters on behalf of those constituents.
The relationship with senior councillors and officers—directors as they became, thanks to the Local Government Act 1972—was such that I could ring, let us say, the director of some particular function in Sandwell Council, which lay in my own constituency; I would not say “Do this” or “This must be done”, because Members of Parliament in the other place have no such powers, but I would say, because of the relationship I had established, “Would you look personally at this particular case?”. Quite often I got a reply saying “We didn’t handle that very well and this is what I propose to do”. That is entirely a normal relationship and one that noble Lords of all parties who served in the other place will be familiar with. I put it to your Lordships how much more difficult it would be to do that with two or three different local authorities in a constituency.
Lord Naseby
I had a highly marginal seat in Northampton South and I had three local authorities to liaise with. It is just a matter of application on the part of the Member.
Lord Snape
Yes, I noticed that the noble Lord lost his seat in Northampton South at one stage as well; I do not say that that was anything to do with the fact that he had three local authorities to deal with, but he would at least acknowledge, I hope, that the resources necessary to deal with three different local authorities are considerably greater than those needed to deal with just one. I am sure, given his reputation for hard work, that he found dealing with three local authorities completely effortless. Those of us who did not perhaps possess his stamina or his drive felt it was pretty exhausting dealing with one, let alone two or three. I am sure that the noble Lord would accept at least some part of what I say; it is easier to deal with just one local authority.
Again I refer noble Lords to what the report from the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee had to say about this particular aspect of the Bill and that covered by this particular amendment.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
I think I am right to recall that the boundary review for the seat for Northampton South took place a few years ago and that now it is wholly coterminous with the actual town of Northampton; the other area is not there any more.
Lord Snape
I suspect that the Boundary Commission, having noted the elevation of the former Member to your Lordships’ House, felt that no one else could possibly follow in his footsteps and therefore made sure that the constituency was coterminous with the local authority.
Lord Naseby
Well, after 23 and a half years it is not surprising that there were changes made. Yes, the present Member for Northampton South has only two local authorities to deal with; not one, though.
Lord Snape
Amendment 71 refers to three local authorities, I think. I have been aware of some of the difficulties, but I must not detain the House for longer than necessary.
The Political and Constitutional Reform Committee had this to say so far as local and district councils are concerned:
“Another practical effect of the 5% equalisation requirement is that many more constituencies than at present would cross local authority boundaries. The numbers involved will vary across the UK: Scotland is likely to see 15-20 (out of 50) cross-local government border constituencies, Wales between 23 and 28 constituencies (of 30), and in England, where 34 constituencies already cross a London borough boundary, the commissions ‘expect to cross boundaries to an even greater extent in a review carried out under the terms of the Bill.’ The Secretaries to the English and Scottish Commissions, Bob Farrance and Hugh Bucanan, told us they intend to take local authority areas into account when designing constituencies. In Wales very few constituencies will be able to follow local authority boundaries”.
We need constituencies that have some affinity. Drawing lines on maps, as has been pointed out in these debates, does not a community make; crossing local authority boundaries is something that the Boundary Commission for many years has done its best to avoid.
The committee went on to say:
“Another consequence of the 5% equalisation requirement is that the boundary commissions will have to split wards in order to achieve the required number of electors in each constituency … Professor Ron Johnston told us that research suggested that political activity declined when wards were divided”.
I have no wish to offend the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell, by talking about political activity, but the party unit of government in my own party—once the ward and now the branch—is normally based on a local government ward. If you split that ward then obviously political activity in that particular area is likely to be considerably affected. That might not bother noble Lords on either side of the House, but all three major parties depend on active volunteers, and what gets volunteers actively involved in a political party is a sense of community that I fear will be lost unless some of these amendments are accepted.
This the fourth or fifth time I have spoken on this legislation. I hope that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, who is to reply, will acknowledge that on no occasion have I spoken for longer than 15 minutes. These amendments are important. The only real debate that took place was on the 5 per cent quota, not on the details that I have outlined in these amendments—and there is a whole group of them. I say again to noble Lords that if we had really been anxious to be difficult, we would have debated all the amendments separately. These are important matters. I hope that when the Minister replies he will bear it in mind that we are talking about communities as well as political parties, and that he will look seriously at these amendments. I beg to move.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
My Lords, I support the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Snape. Counties are the starting point of any boundary review. They are not the building blocks; wards are the building blocks. Those of us who have been involved in boundary reviews in various capacities will know that. I would include among that group myself, the noble Lord, Lord Bach, and many noble Lords on all sides of the House who have served in the other place. They will know that counties are the starting point. Outside London, you always start with a county—it can be a shire county or a metropolitan county. You are advised of the number of seats in that county and the initial recommendations of the Boundary Commissions are published.
I recall my time working in the east Midlands, when Derbyshire received an extra seat. That came into force at the last general election and the constituency was called Mid Derbyshire. This was because the electorate had increased and the county qualified for a new seat. I was always clear that that would be a Conservative seat and in May last year it returned a Conservative MP. There were knock-on effects. The review resulted in High Peak becoming coterminous with the district council boundary. That was positive and sensible. A seat called Derbyshire Dales was created close to the boundaries of Derbyshire Dales District Council. The South Derbyshire constituency became coterminous with the boundary of the district council; previously, it had contained a couple of wards in the City of Derby.
There are of course seats all across the county that cross different district boundaries, but all are contained within the county. The county is compact; it provides historic identity and people understand it. Take away those county boundaries and what do we risk? In Derbyshire, bits of High Peak would go into Greater Manchester. North East Derbyshire would be put together with Sheffield, while seats that are largely based on the towns and districts of Erewash and Amber Valley would be ripped up. The historic A52, which was recently named Brian Clough Way, in recognition of what Brian Clough brought to Nottingham and Derby, was put in a Leicestershire seat. It is wrong to ignore these boundaries. Greater London is a county and is allocated a number of seats. It is true that in Greater London seats cross borough boundaries, but account is taken of that. That recognition would go under these proposals.
Seats and communities of course change and movements in boundaries should take account of those changes. However, the Government’s proposals are deeply flawed, as nothing else matters but the number of people, who are thereby denied their right to proper input. They will have the right to send in a letter but not to appeal to an inquiry. That is not right. It is most regrettable that the Government have not moved on these proposals, but I live in hope, given what we have heard from the Leader of the House this afternoon.
The names of seats are also important. This is sometimes forgotten, but boundary inquiries are a good forum for looking at them. The inquiries do not always get it right, but they can improve the situation. I grew up in Walworth in the London Borough of Southwark. When I joined the Labour Party in 1979, I found that I was in the Southwark Peckham CLP. I went to secondary school in Peckham, but calling the seat Southwark Peckham did not reflect the community. The proper name should have been Camberwell, Peckham and Walworth, which would have identified the three distinct communities in that constituency. I am pleased that in a subsequent review the seat was renamed Camberwell and Peckham, which better reflects the constituency, because most of Walworth has been included in Bermondsey and Old Southwark, although that name could be improved.
I bring my remarks to a close in the spirit that has been expressed on both Front Benches. I hope that a deal can be sorted out shortly.
Lord Dubs
My Lords, I support these amendments. Perhaps I may give an example of where even the Boundary Commission does not always get it right. The point is that there are, at present, ways of getting it right subsequently.
I had the privilege of representing the Battersea constituency. We had an anomalous situation on the Wandsworth/Lambeth border. My constituency was within Wandsworth. As noble Lords know, Wandsworth had a Conservative council and Lambeth, which adjoined it, had a Labour council. One council estate that belonged to Wandsworth was partly in Wandsworth and partly in Lambeth. That might not have been so bad in itself, except that Wandsworth’s policy was to have a low council tax and to charge pretty heavy rents to council tenants. Lambeth’s policy was to have a high council tax and to charge low rents to council tenants.
Think of the position of a block of flats in Lambeth in a Wandsworth-run council estate. The poor people living in the Lambeth bit of the estate had pulled two short straws. They had to pay the high council tax in Lambeth and the high rents charged by Wandsworth Council. They were caught both ways. Fortunately that situation was adjusted, but the anomaly of splitting a council estate in two by a constituency and, as it then was, a borough boundary is clearly nonsense. I only hope that such things will not happen again, which is why many of us are concerned that, if anomalies of this sort are built into the system, it will damage local communities, local people and the politics of the area.
Perhaps I may widen the argument away from that example. We have discussed representing a constituency that was in more than one local authority area. I would have found that pretty difficult. Many noble Lords have represented areas, either as local councillors or in Parliament. It is difficult to represent an area and deal with another local authority. It is possible under the present system that one might have to deal with another health authority. That is also difficult and I do not know what the future will be for the health service in that regard. For a Member of Parliament to be effective, it is surely important that the constituency should reflect the community, the local authority area and the way in which the health service operates. In that way, a Member of Parliament can be most effective.
Take the situation where one wants to achieve better co-operation between a health authority and the social services department of the local authority—co-operation that occasionally does not work too well. If a Member of Parliament is to be effective, he or she needs to be able to understand these relationships and, it is to be hoped, to have these bodies covering the same area. We used to call them coterminous boundaries.
The other important area is not just the community but the way in which a Member of Parliament relates to local voluntary groups in the community. These groups tend to relate to natural community boundaries. It is difficult to achieve an effective relationship with one’s constituents if the community groups do not cover an area similar to that of the constituency. I had another difficulty in Battersea, because part of the constituency was in Balham and the people of Balham did not like to be called residents of Battersea. We had to deal with that one, but it was all done within the local authority boundary, and it was a matter of just recognising that the community in Balham was different from the community in the northern part of Battersea.
I would like to feel that the Boundary Commission will be empowered by amendments to the Bill that take these matters into account. I honestly believe that the ideal situation is when a Member of Parliament represents one community within one local authority area, not two. That would make for the most effective relationship and the most effective work of the political parties and it would enhance democracy.
Baroness Liddell of Coatdyke
I wish to speak specifically to Amendment 69, which states:
“Each constituency shall contain only whole local government wards”.
I want to address that from a practical point of view, but, first, I endorse what my noble friends have said about the importance of retaining a sense of community and the significance of the relationship between the elected representative and the community that he or she works with and gets to know. I am sure that any noble Lord, whether they have been a Member of the other place or not, would acknowledge that elected representatives for a particular community achieve much more when they work together—be it at the local authority level, the devolved Administration level or the parliamentary level.
Often that comes into its own in a crisis. I saw it in particular a decade ago, at the height of the foot and mouth outbreak. It did not affect my constituency but, as I was then the Secretary of State for Scotland, I saw it in the Borders of Scotland, particularly around Dumfries and Galloway. Political differences were put aside and people worked together for the good of their own community. I experienced it in my former constituency when the Boots factory was closed. For decades, all Boots’s cosmetics had been made in a factory in Airdrie when suddenly, completely out of the blue, a decision was taken to close that factory, costing more than 1,000 jobs, largely those of women. The community and the elected representatives came together. We dabble with that at our peril.
It is a heartening sight to see elected representatives come together but there is also a less than positive element. If a constituency boundary divides a ward, a local councillor will have responsibility for two different parliamentary constituencies—and not always do constituencies agree. Local issues can emerge that cause conflict between one constituency and the neighbouring constituency. I am thinking specifically of issues such as the closure of part of a hospital. For example, the accident and emergency department of my local district hospital was transferred to the district hospital in the adjacent constituency, which caused an extremely fraught debate. People were distressed as a consequence because it meant a much longer journey for those who had cars, while those who did not have cars would have to go from central Lanarkshire into Glasgow and back out again. The journey for people with cars would take a quarter to half an hour, but those without cars would perhaps have to give up an entire day. I wanted the accident and emergency department to remain in the constituency of Airdrie and Shotts, whereas my colleague Frank Roy wanted it to go to Wishaw General Hospital.
That kind of thing happens with astonishing regularity. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, perhaps sees that one of the few benefits of a constituency that is all islands is that it is all your own, whereas in the more urban areas such issues of conflict can arise. This is particularly true in relation to schools and we see it a lot at the moment in Scotland. Schools are often the bulwark of a community and sometimes, often for good and sound educational reasons, schools need to be merged. A councillor could be faced with the challenge of a school having to be moved from one part of his ward to another. If the move crossed the constituency boundary, it would put two adjacent Members of Parliament into conflict. It is not an edifying sight and it does not help a local community to remain coherent.
There is also a problem where wards are villages. Given the way in which the Bill is drafted, in a ward that is a village a situation could arise—for example, as a consequence of a new housing development—where the village becomes too big to remain as a part of one ward. A chunk would then get taken off it and be put into a ward based in another village, even though that village might be five or six miles away. That would break down the community’s cohesion.
I do not want to delay the House unduly on this matter but we need some common sense in relation to the building blocks of constituencies. We need to take into account how people do the day-to-day work of representing communities and we need to be seen to be responsive to the sense of involvement that individuals have in their communities, be it in the community organisations to which the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, referred, or in the formal structures that make up the building blocks for the Boundary Commission that the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, spoke about. I urge the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, to reflect seriously on this matter, because there are practical difficulties that will cause us great distress in the future if we do not get them right now.
Lord Haworth
My Lords, this is the first time that I have spoken in the debate on the Bill—it may be the only time that I choose to speak—but I support my noble friend Lord Snape on Amendment 68 and what he said about the importance of the county boundaries within the overall process.
My first and only experience of making representations to the Boundary Commission took place many years ago in respect of parliamentary constituency boundaries within the London Borough of Newham. I was asked by my constituency Labour Party to make strong representations to the Boundary Commission to the effect that Green Street—anyone who knows the London Borough of Newham will know that there is a bus route that goes straight down the middle of the borough—was an historical boundary of profound significance separating the old boroughs of West Ham, which was inside the original London County Council area, and East Ham, which had traditionally regarded itself as being in Essex.
I decided that the two sides of that fairly narrow thoroughfare did not meet and, on arriving to make representations to the Boundary Commission, I found to my terror that I was up against the representative of the Newham South Conservative Association, who had hired Ivor Stanbrook, an eminent QC—he was a leading Conservative Member of Parliament, who represented Orpington at the time—to put what was, effectively, the opposite point of view. We argued our cases and the Boundary Commission went away and no doubt considered the representations that had been made. I was extremely pleasantly surprised when the commission altered its original proposals and recognised that there was a community called East Ham and a separate and different community called West Ham. Although a London borough had been created to subsume them both, there were nevertheless historical ties on either side of the street—I had represented it as being the width of the Thames, but in reality it is hardly the width of this Chamber—and those communities were kept in separate constituencies.
Nothing lasts for ever and, for all I know, given the sense of identity that Newhamers may have of living in the London Borough of Newham after 30 or 40 years, the width of Green Street might no longer be a particularly important consideration. However, other boundaries have been crossed in London boroughs and parliamentary constituencies, the results of which have been described to me by friends in Tower Hamlets as abominations. For example, the constituency of Poplar and Canning Town spans the River Lea and two separate boroughs. The two communities have almost no means of contact other than one main road on a bridge, a tube line and the DLR. They are completely separate and have traditionally looked in almost opposite directions, yet they have been brought together in a constituency that, probably to people who draw lines on maps, looks fairly straightforward—“Oh, it is along the riverside; we could call it ‘Leamouth’ or ‘Docklands’”. In the end, the title settled on was Poplar and Canning Town, but it is not a happy arrangement. People who live on both sides of the River Lea in that constituency feel that they have been lumped together with communities with different interests.
This brings me to the point that I wish to make about Lancashire. Although I am pleased and honoured to have a Scottish territorial designation, I do not know whether that quite makes me a Scottish Peer. As noble Lords will realise, I do not sound very Scottish. I am a Lancashire lad. Going back to my roots in Blackburn in Lancashire, and reflecting on questions of identity, I know that when I was growing up and was asked where I came from, I would say, “I am a northerner”, rather than, “I am English”, even. Beyond that I would certainly say, “I am a Lancastrian”. There is a certain pride in coming from the red rose county and I am sure that, on the opposite side of the border, there is great pride that all Yorkshire men and women have in coming from the white rose county. Our rivalries, which were wars if one goes back far enough, should not be allowed to take on too great an importance.
Nevertheless, the sense of identity is extremely important and I can see that, if this amendment is not accepted, calculations will be made under the Sainte-Lague method and, for that part of northern England, it will perhaps be necessary to start at the coast. If we work inwards from Blackpool, Southport and Preston on the seaboard of Lancashire and apply mere mathematics on how big the constituency should be, it is likely that a constituency will be created—let us say Ribble Valley—that will breach both sides of the Lancashire and Yorkshire border, or perhaps there will be a constituency called Pendle and Craven, which again would cross that important historical county boundary.
I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord McNally, is not in his place to hear this, because I know how often he says that he is a Lancashire lad and proud of it. I hope that the Minister will consult his noble friend Lord McNally, as well as the Deputy Chief Whip, the noble Lord, Lord Shutt of Greetland, who I am sure is a proud Yorkshireman, to ask their opinion on whether a constituency that crossed the Lancashire and Yorkshire boundary would be a good idea. I think that he will find that they would agree with me that it is not such a jolly good idea. I hope that the Minister will reflect on that and that the amendment will be carried.
Lord Bilston
My Lords, I do not intend to detain the House for long but I am anxious to give my support to the amendment moved by my noble friend Lord Snape. When we began the second part of this Bill, many Members of this House gave the benefit of their knowledge and valuable experience on many geographical areas the length and breadth of the British Isles and on the many constituencies that they have known and loved.
I hail from the Black Country, a group of once quite prosperous towns and villages that are proud of their contribution to our industrial heritage, as they were at the heart of the Industrial Revolution. These towns nestle no more than two to three miles from each other and they have as many different dialects as they have distinct communities. I was honoured and privileged to represent the area of Wolverhampton and Bilston at local, regional and national level for more than 40 years. I am therefore very conscious, together with all my noble friends, of the arbitrary manipulation of constituencies in the Bill. However desirable more equally sized constituency electorates may be, the Bill will create lasting damage to close-knit and settled communities in areas such as Wolverhampton and the Black Country.
I would offer in evidence—and this is why the amendments are so necessary—the recent analysis made by the Electoral Reform Society. It concludes that five parliamentary seats may be lost in the Black Country and Staffordshire under this Bill. Wolverhampton will have just two MPs instead of three and one would end up looking after what are described as some Walsall matters. Residents in a new Wolverhampton South West seat would find themselves split between Wolverhampton and Dudley. In Walsall, one seat would disappear, likewise in West Bromwich, Halesowen and Stourbridge, as well as in Staffordshire.
The possible destruction of these constituencies is too painful to contemplate. Crossing local authority and ward boundaries will completely undermine communities and seriously damage community relations. In addition, I foresee undoubted problems that people will experience in obtaining satisfactory advocacy and representation. All this becomes more and more apparent as we continue to discuss this bureaucratic and anti-democratic legislation. It reminds me of the wise words of that wonderful philosopher Omar Khayyam:
“Ah, Love! could you and I with Him conspire
To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire,
Would not we shatter it to bits—and then
Re-mould it nearer to the Heart’s Desire!”
I support the amendments.
Lord Davies of Stamford
My Lords, there was talk earlier this afternoon and last week about filibustering. I cannot believe it and defy any noble Lord to suggest in good faith that anything that has been said this afternoon—even one sentence—could possibly be regarded as filibustering. We have had six contributions in less than three quarters of an hour, which is surely a very reasonable pace. I have certainly listened to every detail that has been put forward sincerely and from direct experience.
I suppose that it is possible to despise this whole subject of how people organise themselves at local level, canvass and campaign and how political parties are structured, their relationship with local government, constituency organisations and so forth. It is possible to say, “That is the grass roots and I am only interested in the high policy issues”. There may be one or two rather haughty people in this House who take that line. That is terribly unfortunate because if you despise the grass roots of politics you are despising the whole way in which our democracy works. Without those grass roots, we would not have a thriving political democracy.
It is extraordinary that there have been no contributions from the Benches opposite on these important issues. I can hardly believe that no one on the other side of the House has any views whatever on this subject. I can hardly believe that they all despise such discussions in the way that I have indicated might be the case. I hope not, although one or two people perhaps do. I find it very difficult indeed to believe that noble Lords opposite would not stand up and defend the Government and oppose the amendments if they thought that the amendments were unreasonable. No doubt they are hoping that the Minister will bring some rabbit out of a hat at the end of the debate in the form of an argument against these reasonable amendments, but none of them seems to have come up with any objections whatever. That has been the pattern of the debates, so there is a strong sense that those who have been tabling the amendments have been winning the argument and that those who have opposed them when voting have done so on the basis of no arguments at all, or have at least been unwilling to put any forward.
Lord Davies of Stamford
I shall give way to the noble Viscount, as I am delighted that I may have provoked him to rise to his feet.
Viscount Eccles
I am grateful to the noble Lord. He would help me if he could tell me how his remarks relate to the rules that applied in the general election last year. The fifth report of the Boundary Commission for England was sent to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, and I do not believe that he had many grumbles about it at that time. I shall read out two rules. Paragraph 6.19 states:
“Rule 4 requires the boundaries of county and London boroughs to be respected as far as practicable. As explained in Chapter 2, we have crossed these boundaries to a greater extent than before, using the discretion afforded by Rule 5 to avoid excessive disparities in the electorates”.
Rule 5 is characterised in paragraph 6.20 as follows:
“Rule 5 requires electoral parity as far as is practicable”.
It also says:
“Paragraph 6.5 of this chapter sets out how we have overall brought constituency electorates closer to the electoral quota”.
The party opposite when it was in government accepted this review and fought the previous election on those rules. Therefore, my great problem is that I cannot see why it does not describe to us how it sees these rules being changed by the Bill in a material way. I completely concede that there are some material changes. The first one is that, although the fifth review suggested that there should be 613 Members of Parliament, we have now reached a rather higher number, and the Bill proposes 600. I also concede that at that time the discretion to the Boundary Commissions meant that they departed from plus or minus five to a greater extent than is proposed in this Bill. As far as I can see, those are the only major differences.
Lord Davies of Stamford
I shall answer the noble Viscount right away. As he says, it has always been the tradition and habit of the Boundary Commission to endeavour to respect county boundaries. Indeed, that is in its explicit rules. As far as I know, it has always respected ward boundaries. I have never heard of a case of wards being split. Perhaps they have but, if so, it has been extraordinarily rare. We all know that this Bill will place the Boundary Commission under very great constraints which, in practical terms, will force it to breach those important rules: the two constraints being the limitation of MPs to 600 and, particularly, the 5 per cent rule. We have had other opportunities in these debates to discuss those two rules, which have an immediate effect on the extent to which it will be possible to respect county boundaries, local government boundaries or, indeed, ward boundaries. Therefore, I strongly support my noble friends who are trying explicitly in these amendments to protect those things and to make certain that we do not cross county boundaries except in the most exceptional circumstances. Above all—I say “above all” as this is a matter of the greatest importance to me—we do not in any way want to break up wards and divide them between parliamentary constituencies. Therefore, there is now a need for explicit rules, and the purpose of these amendments is to introduce them.
Viscount Eccles
As I read these amendments, the noble Lord is not correct when he says that there are to be exceptions. There are to be no exceptions if these amendments are accepted.
Lord Davies of Stamford
Indeed, and that is necessary in the circumstances. I do not hold to every word of these amendments, as I shall explain in a second if the noble Viscount will give me an opportunity to do so. However, their main thrust seems absolutely right, as, indeed—I do not want to anticipate the next debate—are the amendments that have been put forward by my noble friends on the Front Bench, which I hope that we will get to in the next section. In fact, the first thing I want to say on the detail of the amendments, with great respect to my noble friends Lord Snape, Lord Kennedy and Lady McDonagh, is that I wonder whether the first amendment relating to county councils achieves, technically, what they want it to achieve. The amendment states:
“Each constituency shall be wholly within a single county boundary”.
As I read that text, it means that counties that are too small to constitute a normal sized constituency would have to be a constituency on their own. I think of Rutland. That would be a very peculiar result to emerge from the amendment. That is why I fear that I cannot support that amendment in its present form if it came to the vote. However, I may have misunderstood it and the problem I have may be dealt with adequately in another context. If that is the case, I shall either give way to my noble friends on that matter now or look forward to hearing an explanation subsequently in the debate, but that aside, I am totally in favour of the spirit of that amendment for two reasons. The first concerns a matter I have already dealt with in another context in these debates, so I will not dwell on it, and that is the all-important issue of the extent to which the individual elector identifies with the constituency in which he or she finds himself or herself. Counties are enormously important. We have already heard about the great sensitivity which would arise if constituencies were spread across the traditional historic Lancashire/Yorkshire divide.
I assure the Committee that if there were any suggestion of taking bits of Lincolnshire and putting them into a constituency with parts of Nottinghamshire, Cambridgeshire or Leicestershire, there would be the most appalling outcry. I do not doubt for a moment that that would lead to some people not bothering to vote in either county council elections or parliamentary elections as a protest. That would go in the exact opposite direction from the one in which we wish to go.
Speaking from my considerable experience as a former constituency Member of Parliament, I want to make a very practical case. It is very important so far as possible to have an exclusive, or at least a limited, relationship with local authorities as it is only in that way, when one has a large agenda, a lot of give and take and when one sees the same people in different contexts, that one can effectively do business together, and where there is an atmosphere of confidence and trust, which there needs to be between a Member of Parliament and a local authority, irrespective of political party. That is enormously important. It is important to avoid the conflict of interest which could otherwise prevent local authorities, which may necessarily have a rather bureaucratic mentality, contacting a Member at all. If there are two, three, four or, God knows, more MPs with bits of a particular local authority, county, district council or whatever it is, they might well feel that they cannot possibly talk to one of those MPs without saying exactly the same thing in exactly the same circumstances, taking exactly the same amount of time, with all the others, so they would not bother to do it at all, and so the co-operation, discussion and mutual understanding would not occur. There are real practical arguments of this kind in favour of trying, wherever possible, to keep county councils within county boundaries. We are, of course, preaching to the converted with the Boundary Commission. The noble Viscount made that point. The last thing the Boundary Commission wants to do is to split counties or to incorporate in constituencies parts of different counties. That is something it has managed to avoid doing in general. However, we need to strengthen its hand to prevent it being pushed in that direction.
Even more important than counties are wards. They really are the grass roots at which politics is conducted and are the way in which individuals are brought into our political system and take an interest in civic affairs through meeting with their friends and neighbours locally to discuss common problems. It is incredibly important that a ward and a ward committee in a political party has a relationship with one Member of Parliament. Immense synergies flow from that because when you go out campaigning you want to be in a position to talk about local and national issues. All Members of Parliament have to talk about local and national issues and all their supporters ought to be in a position to do that. It is no use campaigning for a council seat when if somebody raises a national problem you say, “Actually this is not the constituency of the Member that I support and so I cannot talk about this national issue”. That is a hopeless system. It is very important that Members of Parliament know their county and district councillors, that county and district councillors know their Members of Parliament, that they tackle a common set of problems, work together, understand local issues and as far as possible have the same views on local issues. That may not always be the case but at least they feel that they have the same responsibilities which are coterminous. It is only in that way that the whole political system we have has a degree of coherence and therefore of credibility, and has in the minds of the electorate a degree of functionality and purpose. All these things would be very badly damaged by breaking up wards between different constituencies. That is the point on which I feel most strongly.
Lord Rennard
My Lords, at the conclusion of today’s business, no doubt in the small hours of tomorrow morning, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Stamford, will say exactly the same thing as he did at the beginning of his speech: namely, that we have not witnessed any filibustering. If so, by the time we get to the end of today’s proceedings we will have made great progress on this Bill, with proper and legitimate scrutiny.
It seems to me that the legitimate area of scrutiny in the amendments is about how far there are guidelines for the Boundary Commission to follow or how far we have prescriptive rules which it must follow. I see the merits of the case for either strict rules or for guidelines, but there are strong and reasonable arguments about what level of discretion the Boundary Commission should have as it endeavours to equalise the size of the electorates for different constituencies. I see that as a reasonable argument to have.
Lord Davies of Stamford
I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. He is making a useful contribution and he is absolutely right: there is a choice for us in this House this afternoon about going down the guidelines route or the firm-rules route. If we went down the guidelines route, which has attractions, would the noble Lord be in favour of giving the Boundary Commission some hierarchy of guidelines so that, for example, when the issue of community feeling or of ward boundaries conflicted with the numerical targets which are being imposed—the 5 per cent rule, for example—it would give the former priority and not the latter?
Lord Rennard
Introducing a specific hierarchy of priorities is rather more problematic than the noble Lord might think. One problem would be that if you try to prescribe exactly in which order the commission must take into account different factors, you open up the Boundary Commission process to legal challenges down the road, which would cause greater uncertainty, including to Members in another place, about the eventual outcome. It seems to me that for flexibility in the different criteria that the Boundary Commission has to follow, it is better to say, “in general, in so far as it sees fit”. When it sees fit how to take into account those different criteria, we should address in this House how much flexibility it may have in trying to equalise the electorates.
Lord Snape
I hope that the noble Lord will forgive me for interrupting him so early in his interesting contribution. I draw his attention to the review from the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee of the other place that the overall problem is the 5 per cent leeway one way or the other. If that could be looked at, some of the other matters that the noble Lord correctly raises could be properly considered.
Lord Rennard
I am saying very carefully that I think that there are good arguments for looking at the degree of variation that there might be between the electorates of different constituencies. When, some months ago and before the general election, a proposal was on the table to recreate constituency boundaries with only a 2.5 per cent margin between electorates, I thought that that was far too narrow and tight. The Bill currently proposes a 5 per cent variation. I am simply saying at this stage that I think there are legitimate arguments for discussing the variation that we might have, and that those are stronger arguments to have than to say that we should have hard and fast rules about never crossing county boundaries, district council boundaries or ward boundaries.
I speak, of course, as a former party agent and party organiser. From my point of view, it was much more convenient if all the wards were within a constituency; that makes it easier for the parties. I believe that, by and large, that should be the case. Indeed, amendments that we will consider later in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Tyler flag up specifically to the boundary commissions the importance of ward boundaries, but we do not suggest that they should never be crossed. The reason that I think that they can never be crossed is that there is still the overarching principle in the Bill of more equal sized electorates. By and large, it is possible to achieve more equal sized electorates without crossing ward boundaries. Where they are crossed, that should be very rare. I hope that we do not cross county boundaries, district boundaries or London boroughs more than is really necessary.
Lord Campbell-Savours
The noble Lord is emphasising the need to take greater notice of the 5 per cent or 10 per cent argument than of the issue of crossing boundaries. In the light of the debate that took place in Westminster Hall, called and supported by Liberal Democrat Members, a debate on parliamentary representation called by Andrew George which the noble Lord will know of, it is clear that lots of Liberal Democrat MPs want flexibility towards the 10 per cent figure. Could the noble Lord go a little further and express support for that principle here in the Chamber now? That would help the debate on immeasurably.
Lord Rennard
The only principle I will express in this part of the debate is my overarching belief, shared by many noble Lords opposite, that constituencies should have roughly the same sized electorates, but in addressing the different balance of the arguments, there is in my view more merit in the case for saying that we should look at flexibility in the size of the electorates than for saying that we should try to treat each constituency, county or district as a special case. For example, I notice that an amendment has been tabled by a noble Lord opposite that Cumbria should be a special case. There is virtually no limit to the number of special cases that you could try to establish. My view in opposing the amendment is simply that there is more merit in the flexibility of the electorate argument than there is in saying that you should never cross the ward, the district or the county boundaries. Counties vary enormously in size, and the electorates can rise or fall rapidly, so it is not proper to say that you could never cross the county boundary, but I hope that it will not happen too often.
Lord Rennard
I wish to conclude my argument and will not take further interventions. I think that we should make more progress on the Bill, and I will conclude my argument rapidly by saying that in relation to wards it is of course of general convenience for elected representatives and constituents if ward boundaries are not crossed, but we now have ward boundaries in parts of the country—Birmingham, for example—that are very large. There are more than 20,000 electors in a typical Birmingham ward. In Scotland, where we now have an STV system for local elections—thanks to the Scottish Parliament and supported by three of the four main parties in Scotland—we have larger wards than previously.
In my view, it would not be possible to have a roughly arithmetic equalisation procedure and never cross ward boundaries. In some cases—I will conclude on this point—there may be a dilemma for the Boundary Commission. For example, it may want to consider, “Do we want to keep Birmingham whole and not cross the Birmingham city boundary, or do we cross some of the ward boundaries?”. My personal preference might be to say that it would be better for representation and good governance to keep Birmingham whole and cross the ward boundaries. For those reasons, I do not support the amendments.
Lord Lipsey
I shall follow directly on from what the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, said, and I shall be extremely brief, so my noble friend will not be kept waiting long. In one way, I shall go further than the noble Lord did and say that many of the principles incorporated in the amendments are already present in the Bill in the rules under Clause 11. For example, it states, more explicitly than the present rules, that
“local government boundaries as they exist”,
on the most recent council elections, should be a special factor that the Boundary Commission can take into account. It states that a special factor that the Boundary Commission can take into account is local ties. County boundaries, as we know, most famously in the case of Cornwall, are exactly the sort of local tie that it can take explicit regard of. So those principles are in the Bill. The trouble is that they do not amount to a row of beans because of the 5 per cent limit. That is the problem. Otherwise we would not face this difficulty.
Lord Tyler
The impression seems to be given by Members opposite that somehow the existing situation is that a constituency never crosses a county boundary. That is of course not true. In the historic case of Lancashire and Yorkshire—I can think of no part of the country where counties have a more historic rivalry—the constituency of Oldham East and Saddleworth crosses the county boundary.
Lord Lipsey
I cannot think what it was in my remarks—because no doubt the noble Lord intervened on me seeking clarification—which contravened what he just said. When he makes his speech in a minute, no doubt he will be able to develop his point, but I do not think that it arises from my remarks to the House, with great respect.
Lord Snape
Before my noble friend moves on, I put to him the point that I sought to put to the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, but he declined it. The House of Commons committee to which I referred states that,
“many more constituencies than at present would cross local authority boundaries”.
It is referring, as my noble friend implies, to the 5 per cent limit.
Lord Lipsey
I am not in favour of any absolutes—that is my point—but I am in favour of greater flexibility, which would enable most of the principles in the amendments to be respected. Perhaps I may take an example that came up earlier. Under the Bill, of the 46 counties of England, in only nine cases can the boundaries be respected. How does that reflect reality? However, if we had a different rule—a 10 per cent rule, for example—those boundaries could be respected in all but two cases, and these specific exceptions would not need to be brought into effect. Of course I give way to my noble friend.
Lord Campbell-Savours
Perhaps I may take my noble friend back to the very interesting and constructive contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Rennard. I am being very serious when I say that because what he suggested might, in some ways, influence any negotiations that take place. He placed greater emphasis on the numerical calculation than on the area of the amendment with which we are dealing. I ask my noble friend to press the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, perhaps to intervene more, not only on the Floor of the House but with his colleagues, because that is the way forward on the Bill.
Lord Lipsey
I have probably known the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, even longer than I have known my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours, and no one has ever accused him of being as ineffective behind the scenes as he is effective on the public stage. I rose immediately after he spoke in order to agree with him and to show that here we are finding common ground, which is desirable for the conduct of the negotiations that are now to take place and will help the Committee out of the current impasse, so accurately described earlier in our proceedings by the Leader of the House.
Lord Rooker
My Lords, once upon a time there was a place known as the Royal Borough of Sutton Coldfield, just to the north of Birmingham. In the local government boundary changes under the 1970-74 Tory Government, it was added to Birmingham in 1974. The external boundaries of Sutton Coldfield have remained exactly the same but it has simply been added to the north of Birmingham. I declare an interest, as part of the northern boundary was part of my old constituency of Perry Barr. Earlier today I bumped into the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, who thanked his noble friends for the support that he got last week, and we had a chat about our joint boundary, which was always a bit of a bone of contention come the Boundary Commission review.
In my 27 years as an MP I think there were two parliamentary boundary changes and probably three local authority ward changes, but this boundary remained exactly the same. I have just looked at a map again because it is a few years since I represented the area. The historical boundary of the Royal Borough of Sutton Coldfield was built almost on the watershed but was gradually developed. When you look at a map of the area, you say to yourself, “What’s that dotted line that goes across the back gardens and up the alleyways and at one point splits a cul de sac in half?”. This is an urban constituency, and this boundary happens to form the line between the B73 and B44 postcodes. There is no question but that in parts of the country postcodes affect property values. It has already been mentioned, including by me, that wards are building blocks, and the average ward throughout England has about 1,400 constituents. Some of them are really tiny but the average ward in London has about 6,000 constituents. However, once you get out into less populated areas, the wards are tiny. As building blocks they are great because you can add in 100 here or 200 there in order to make the boundaries come right. However, when you have a ward of 18,000, 19,000 or, in some cases such as the old Sutton wards, more than 20,000 constituents, what do you do?
Lord Grocott
For a very long time, my noble friend represented a constituency that was essentially in the centre of Birmingham, apart from the period that he was talking about: when it was adjacent to Sutton Coldfield, which by that time had itself become part of Birmingham. He might feel differently about his lack of objection to cross-county boundaries if he was trying, for example, to represent part of the city of Birmingham and a bit of Worcestershire or part of the city of Birmingham and a bit of Staffordshire or Warwickshire. I think he would find that an extraordinarily difficult thing to do. That really is one of the main reasons why, for all the rough justice involved in some of the judgments that Boundary Commissions have had to make in the past, trying to abide by local authority boundaries is a common-sense thing to do, both for the MP and more importantly for the people whom that MP represents.
Lord Rooker
I fully accept that, and that was made clear in one of my previous speeches: that the local authority might be reluctant, if some issue comes up that transcends the boundaries, to get their MPs up to speed and briefed to lobby and kick in doors in Whitehall to put their case. At the same time they are thinking, “Hang on, that MP represents part of the area that we are a bit negative about, and complaining about”. So there could be an issue here—whether it is a new air field or another infrastructure issue—that crosses boundaries; I fully accept that. On the other hand, I accept there should not be a massive disparity between sizes of constituencies. The point is that there is no easy answer to this. This Bill provides an easy answer because of its rigidity, but because of that it is unfair.
The issue of the 10 per cent is important, but the other point is that, if the Bill is allowed to go through without any sort of compromise, the only discussion of these issues is actually here. Those discussions will not be held in public inquiries because the citizens of this country are being denied the right to go to a public inquiry to make the points, some of which I have alluded to and some which others have. That is the problem; if only there could at least be that safety valve so that some of these issues could be vented at a constrained public inquiry. I am not in favour of sending people from London around the country because that becomes open-ended. There could be a public inquiry on any constituency changes in a maximum of 15 working days—three weeks; I guarantee that that could be done. You put the constraints in place, limit the political parties so it cannot be abused, bring in genuine citizens and other bodies, including business and the church, and you could do it, but you have to have that safety valve, otherwise the pent-up difficulties that will arise at the next election will be on the heads of the Liberal Democrats.
I do not live in Birmingham; I live in a shire area and I am not proposing that we cross the Shropshire border boundaries because I would be in a spot of bother there. I have found it remarkable that, in the past six months, watching stuff go through my door in Ludlow from the Lib Dems, I have yet to see a single leaflet that hints that they are in coalition with the Tories in central government. It is disingenuous and unbelievable. As it hots up towards the election and the boundary issue comes up, these things will come back. I would rather that that did not happen, by the way. I would rather we get this right. I do not seek any advantage in this; I think there is a good case, as the Leader said this afternoon. I heard the word “concession”, and I make no bones about that; there are concessions to be made. Let us get it out into the open so that we know where we are—the sooner the better, because I want progress on this. I repeat, having proposed the amendment that would in effect have given flexibility on the date for the referendum, that there is no problem with the referendum being held on 5 May. My amendment would not have stopped that; all it would have done was give the Government a backstop if things went wrong. Little did I know when I said that back in late November or early December that we would still be in Committee at the end of January.
We do need to make progress, and we need that safety valve so that the only debate on constituency changes, splitting wards and crossing boundaries is not held in the unelected part of our Parliament. That is barmy when you think about it. All we are asking is that the people get the opportunity, when the changes are proposed for their area, at least to come forward and say, “I agree”, “I disagree”, “We have been trying to do this for years”, or “Thank heaven we are getting some changes”—at least to have the chance to say so themselves and for it not just to be left here.
Lord Campbell-Savours
I intervene only following the intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Rennard. I am interested in the common ground to which the noble Lord, Lord Williamson of Horton, the noble Baronesses, Lady Williams of Crosby and Lady D’Souza, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, referred last week. They all sought that middle ground that we expect to arise out of the negotiations that will inevitably have to be held. Much of our debate on these amendments could be avoided if the Government were to concede on the principle of the 5 per cent—if they were to accept the 10 per cent for which my noble friend asked or some flexibility above 5 per cent whereby some areas would apply a 5 per cent arrangement as against others that would apply a 10 per cent arrangement. Only by that kind of flexibility do we move away from the arguments that are being deployed during this debate. It is a straitjacket. My noble friend Lord Grocott referred to rough justice. It is rough justice that arises only out of a straitjacket that the Government have sought to introduce.
I would like to know—some work must have been done in government—how many county boundaries would be breached with a 5 per cent flexibility as against a 10 per cent one. If that margin is substantial, surely that is an argument in favour of a 10 per cent flexibility. That question applies to how many London and metropolitan district council boundaries are to be breached. The difference between a 5 per cent straitjacket and a 10 per cent one applies equally to the question of whether wards would be split within individual constituencies. Surely Ministers must be beginning to accept this following the intervention from the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, today. She was absolutely blunt and said basically that we should move from the 5 per cent. Let us hope that in his winding-up speech to this debate, the Minister will signal to us that the Government are prepared to look at that particular issue, because I am sure it would help to move this Bill along.
Lord Bach
My Lords, we have had an interesting debate on interesting subjects, and we look forward to hearing the Minister respond. The principle behind this group of amendments matches that which motivates the next amendment, Amendment 71A, in my name and that of my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer. The stringency of the Government’s proposals as we see it—the inflexibility of the rules set out in the Bill, the strict adherence to a tight mathematical formula and the lack of discretion given to the boundary commissioners in carrying out their work—will have damaging effects on our system.
The Constitution Committee of your Lordships’ House reported on the proposed equalisation of constituencies in this Bill, and wrote:
“Applying the new rules as to equalisation will necessitate the creation of constituencies crossing regional and county boundaries; in addition, many more constituencies than at present will cross local authority boundaries. This has significant administrative and political consequences, in terms of such matters as electoral administration and party political organisation. The pace of change is unlikely to lessen such administrative and political challenges and, indeed, seems likely to make them more difficult to manage”.
It went on:
“The Political and Constitutional Reform Committee heard evidence from Democratic Audit that the new rules as to equalisation were being imposed ‘without any attempt to form a consensus’ and without the Government having first investigated what people actually want from representation. There did not appear to be any evidence that the electorate considers equalisation to be significantly more important than, say, geographical, customary or traditional boundaries”.
The committee concluded:
“Pre-legislative scrutiny and public consultation would have enabled a better assessment of whether the new rules as to equalisation are overly rigid”.
It has come to be expected that those of your Lordships’ colleagues who sit on that committee—and I remind this Committee that they come from all parts of the House—are always entirely wise and sensible in their assessment. We certainly think so.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton
Can my noble friend or the Minister tell me whether the sort of flexibility that the Leader of the House referred to today would allow margins of flexibility on the final number—that keeps reminding me of a book in which the answer is 42—so that it would then be easier to have regard to local differences? I think my noble friend Lord Rooker, whom I respect enormously and have worked with for years, may be able to take a slightly more laid-back view on this issue than, for example, a Minister were he or she to dare to go to the boundary between Lancashire and Yorkshire.
The Advocate-General for Scotland (Lord Wallace of Tankerness)
My Lords, Amendments 68 to 71 specify more explicitly the way in which the Boundary Commissions are to draw up new constituency boundaries and take some discretion away from the Boundary Commissions. They provide that constituency boundaries must be contained within existing county boundaries and must not split local government wards and propose limits on the number of local authority areas that constituencies can cross. With the exception of Amendment 69 on wards, they appear to be directed at English local government structure only. I am not sure whether that was the intention or whether they were intended to apply to other parts of the United Kingdom as well, but I am not going to nitpick over that because in moving the amendment the noble Lord, Lord Snape, indicated that they were important and that has been reflected in the debate that we have had.
The Bill provides for the Boundary Commission to take into account local government boundaries within the range of flexibility provided by the Bill. Projections indicate that with that flexibility it would be possible to have constituencies varying from 72,000 to 79,000 electors. The Bill’s provisions represent a rebalancing of the rules in existing legislation; namely, the equality in the weight of a vote and the flexibility to recognise local factors. We believe that the existing legislation results in unclear and potentially contradictory sets of rules. Indeed, the Boundary Commission for England has said that each rule taken on its own is quite clear but it is required to apply all the rules and its experience, and that of its predecessors, is that there is often conflict between them.
What is proposed in the Bill with regard to Rules 2 and 4 is to have a hierarchy, as was said in one of the exchanges. It is because of this rebalancing that we have given precedence to the size of electorate and the geographical area of each constituency over other factors in Rule 5, such as local government boundaries. I believe these other factors are important, and that is why we have provided the Boundary Commissions with the flexibility to consider them. I emphasise to the noble Lord, Lord Haworth, that it is possible for the Boundary Commission to have regard to local ties. The Boundary Commissions have regard within a 10 per cent band of the UK electorate quota between the largest and smallest constituency. We believe that the provisions of the Bill represent a reasonable balance between these factors and ensure a system where votes have equal value throughout the United Kingdom.
In response to a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, there is nothing in the Bill or in the Boundary Commission rules at the moment to move individual electors from one local authority area to another. But as is the case at the moment, some constituencies cross London borough boundaries. In fact, 19 out of 32 London borough boundaries are crossed by a constituency boundary. That does not transfer the individual elector within that local authority area.
Lord Dubs
I may not have been clear. I was referring to a situation where a council estate was owned by one local authority and part of that council estate was in a different parliamentary constituency and borough. It was an anomaly in terms of both borough and parliamentary boundaries.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
I am grateful for that clarification. As I indicated, under the existing rules, 19 out of 32 London borough boundaries are crossed by a constituency boundary. My noble friend Lord Eccles also reflected on the fact that boundaries are crossed under the existing rules. My information is that 16 out of 35 shire counties are crossed by a constituency boundary and 31 out of 40 unitary boundaries. In its fifth report the Boundary Commission noted that in the fourth review, 13 constituencies crossed metropolitan district boundaries whereas in the review which took effect in 2010, 22 constituencies did so. And whereas in the previous review 170 constituencies had crossed non-metropolitan district boundaries, the recommendations for the fifth review included 165 which did so.
In Scotland, where I accept there are other issues with regard to wards because of the multi-Member nature of the local authority wards, there is one constituency—that of my honourable friend Mr Mundell, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Scotland Office—which covers parts of three council areas. His constituency of Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale covers the council areas of Dumfries and Galloway, Scottish Borders and South Lanarkshire. This is an important point. My noble friend Lord Naseby mentioned the fact that he had at one stage represented three local authority areas.
Lord Bach
I am sorry the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, is not in his place. I should have asked him at the time. The three he mentioned would have been two district councils and Northampton county council, which overrode both the two district councils. So it would not be three separate district councils—it would be a county council and district councils within the same county, as far as I know Northampton.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
I defer to the noble Lord’s superior knowledge of the English local government system. In the case of Mr Mundell, it is three unitary council areas. The constituency which I used to have the privilege to represent in Shetland is one of those preserved by this Bill and it had two local authority areas within it.
I recognise the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Snape, about the relationship which individual Members of Parliament have with their local authorities. There are numerous cases where Members of Parliament represent more than one local authority area. No one is suggesting that any of those who fall into that category do not do their job on behalf of their constituents as well as those MPs who only have only one local authority within their constituency. I note in passing that Mr Mundell increased his majority at the 2010 election by 1.9 per cent. Without causing any difficulties with my coalition partners, that, for a Scottish Conservative in the 2010 election, was quite an achievement.
It is important, too, to look at this from the perspective of the elector. With regard to “one vote, one value”, the electors are only in one local government area with one Member of Parliament. We should not necessarily be looking to the administrative convenience of Members of Parliament at the expense of the value of votes for the individual elector.
Lord Howarth of Newport
I would be very grateful if the Minister could give the House his response to the following observation made by Dr Lewis Baston in Democratic Audit: January 2011 on this issue of the splitting of wards:
“It is probably impossible to implement a 5 per cent rule without splitting wards between constituencies, something which the Boundary Commissions currently avoid doing because of the potential for voter confusion and highly artificial constituency boundaries, not to mention causing headaches for the organisation of all political parties. … The worst-affected areas are those where wards have large electorates, such as the English metropolitan boroughs, most of Scotland and some unitary authorities and London boroughs. A rigid 10 per cent rule might still involve a few isolated cases of ward-splitting, but it is likely to be very uncommon in comparison with a 5 per cent rule”.
Is there not a lot of very good sense in that?
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
As my noble friend Lord Rennard said, there is no limit to the number of special cases. If we move without any other limitation to a 20 per cent band rather than a 10 per cent band, we are moving away from the basic principle of equal value. Broadly speaking, we have followed the provisions of the 1986 Act with regard to local authority boundaries, and while we are keen to avoid being too prescriptive on this issue, there may be some merit in placing a discretionary consideration of wards in the Bill. We certainly want to consider further the elements of these amendments that concern the use of wards. Other amendments have been tabled with regard to wards by the noble Lords, Lord Lipsey and Lord Foulkes, and my noble friends Lord Rennard and Lord Tyler. We want to consider, therefore, the use of wards and to bring back a fully considered response on that on Report since it is an important point. On that basis, I invite the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Davies of Stamford
Before the noble Lord sits down, will he recognise that there will be considerable pleasure in many parts of the House at what he has just said about the recognition of the importance of wards? On a first reading of this Bill, it looked rather strange that other criteria were mentioned in Clause 11(5), such as local authority boundaries and European constituencies, but there was no explicit mention of wards. What he has just said about considering making a specific mention will go a long way to reassuring a lot of people who are concerned with this point.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
I am grateful for those reassuring remarks from the noble Lord. Not only do wards provide possibilities as building blocks, but their very nature means that local ties are cemented through them.
Lord Snape
This has been an interesting debate. Fourteen noble Lords, including those on the Front Benches, have participated and I will ensure that my closing remarks guarantee that the debate is concluded in less than two hours. That gives the lie to those outside who say that none of this debate has been particularly relevant and that much of it, if not all of it, has been designed merely to hold up the Government’s legislation. That is not the case and I am sure that I speak for noble Lords on all sides of the House in thanking the Minister for the way in which he has just responded. If he could persuade his colleague, the noble Lord, Lord McNally, to adopt the same emollient tone, we might have two nice Ministers responding. So far he has not been too successful, so he had better stay where he is to ensure that the mood of your Lordships’ House does not change.
I will refer in closing this debate to some of the contributions that have been made from both sides, all of which have been relevant. My noble friend Lord Kennedy gave us the benefit of his knowledge of Derbyshire, pointing out that it would be difficult to retain parliamentary seats in Derbyshire under the 5 per cent rule and that it might be necessary to cross county boundaries. He mentioned High Peak and Greater Manchester. There is some affinity between the two, in that many commuters travel between them, but that is about it; from a social and economic point of view, there is not a great deal to unite them. He also emphasised the importance of the names of seats.
My noble friend Lord Dubs correctly pointed out that there are anomalies under the present system, to which the Minister also referred. No one says that the present system is perfect—it cannot be—but I refer without quoting directly to the committee in the other place, which said that there would be a great many more anomalies unless we looked in detail particularly at the 5 per cent rule.
My noble friend Lady Liddell of Coatdyke reminded us of the importance of the relationship between elected Members. Although, to paraphrase what the Minister said, legislation should not necessarily be about the administrative convenience of Members of Parliament, it should not be about exacerbating the differences between them either. The greater the number of district councils involved on a particular issue, the greater the number of Members of Parliament. That is regardless of party. It has been known for Members of the other place of the same party to disagree about constituency matters. I know that such a thing would never occur among the Liberal Democrats, but I suspect that the Conservatives are a bit more like us and are more inclined occasionally to fall out.
My noble friend Lord Haworth referred to a particular constituency difficulty in London and spoke of giving evidence with some trepidation at a public inquiry. We are anxious to preserve the principle of public inquiries on boundary alterations. Any confrontation between him and Ivor Stanbrook QC would lead to only one winner—you do not need the letters QC after your name to be able to act as an advocate in such a way as I know that my noble friend does.
My noble friend Lord Bilston gave us the benefit of his 40 years of distinguished service at various levels in the Black Country. He quoted Omar Khayyam. I cannot compete with that. I suspect that the words that he quoted so movingly were not aimed at Boundary Commissions or boundary alterations, but they were certainly appropriate in the context of this debate. He reminded us of the long-standing feeling of hurt when electors are transferred from one district to another. In my former constituency in West Bromwich, we had some difficulty in 1974 in deciding the name of the new borough. Even now, 40 years on, the borough of Sandwell is not immediately recognised throughout the United Kingdom. You do not often hear the people who lived in the former authorities that formed the borough of Sandwell saying in response to a question as to where they live: “Well, actually, I live in Sandwell”. I was a fairly new Member of the other place when the borough was created. I was told that people in Smethwick, which formed part of that borough, having been transferred to the new constituency of Warley, which they did not particularly recognise, were certainly not going to have imposed on them the name West Bromwich, although that seemed to me as an outsider at the time to be the most sensible name for the new borough. I suspect that there will be many difficulties and arguments such as that unless the Government see sense on the 5 per cent deviation rule.
My noble friend Lord Davies of Stamford at least provoked an intervention from the other side of the Chamber when he pointed out that none had been made until he got to his feet. He emphasised the importance of the ward structure, as, to be fair, did the Minister in his reply. One participant from the other side was the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, who was rather more emollient on this occasion than he has sometimes been in the past in saying that there should be discussion rather than hard-and-fast rules. He rather skated over the fact that there will be many more such anomalies unless, I repeat, the 5 per cent deviation rule is eased. He implied, although he did not say so in as many words, that just a few more constituencies would cross local authority boundaries under the legislation. That was not the view of the committee in the other place or of organisations that wish to defend the integrity of counties such as Cornwall. I readily accede to the experience and knowledge of constituencies of the noble Lord, Lord Rennard—it was until fairly recently impossible to conceive of a by-election taking place without a figure lurking in the background with a coy and retiring smile, which invariably belonged to the noble Lord—but I hope that he will recognise that, unless some changes are made to the Bill, the anomalies that have been raised on both sides of the Committee will be perpetuated. Indeed, my noble friend Lord Lipsey put his finger on the matter in his brief intervention, saying that under the legislation only nine out of 46 counties would have their boundaries respected. That is an anomaly; it is a significant change, which the Government should look at.
My noble friend Lord Rooker entertained us with stories about Sutton Coldfield joining Birmingham. Unfortunately, the former Member of Parliament for Sutton Coldfield, the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, was not present, otherwise we might have seen a discussion, if not a minor spat, between the two of them. My noble friend and I were referred to by the British press in the context of some of the debates last week as a couple of ageing lefties. I suppose that we ought to be suitably grateful that, for once, the British press got something half right. My noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours said that we have to move on the 5 per cent deviation rule, as did my noble friend on the Front Bench, who said that constituencies would otherwise become fragmented and disjointed.
I was grateful for the tenor in which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, responded. These are matters to which we shall have to return on Report, as he said. Given that, and the amiable nature of the debate—and the fact that no time has been wasted—I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
“(2) In England—
(a) each constituency shall be wholly in one of the electoral regions specified in Schedule 1 to the European Parliamentary Elections Act 2002;(b) no district or borough ward shall be included in more than one constituency;(c) the Boundary Commission should, where practicable, have regard to the boundaries of counties and London boroughs and in any case no constituency shall include the whole or part of more than two counties or London boroughs.(3) In Northern Ireland, no local authority ward shall be included in more than one constituency.
(4) In Wales—
(a) no unitary authority ward shall be included in more than one constituency;(b) the Boundary Commission should, where practicable, have regard to the boundaries of unitary authorities, and in any case no constituency shall include the whole or part of more than two unitary authorities.(5) In Scotland, regard shall be had to local authority ward boundaries.”
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
My Lords, the amendment would insert a number of additional factors for the Boundary Commissions to take into account when drawing constituencies in the four parts of the United Kingdom. It in effect represents the opposition Front Bench’s conclusions in relation to the issues discussed under the previous group of amendments.
At present, the new rules for drawing constituency boundaries proposed by the Bill are dominated by the overriding requirement for every constituency, with a few exceptions, to fall within the margins of 5 per cent either side of a new UK-wide electoral quota. The intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, in relation to the 5 per cent/10 per cent issue was interesting and instructive, and I strongly recommend that noble Lords read it tomorrow.
Although Rule 5 in Clause 11 lists a number of further factors which the Boundary Commissions may also take into account when drawing constituencies, they are subordinate to the numerical prerequisite. In practice, that means, as we have just discussed, that the Boundary Commissions have very limited scope to take proper account of those other considerations. The only general rule that sits above the iron law of the electoral quota is the stipulation that each constituency shall be wholly within one of the four parts of the United Kingdom. That at least is recognition of the fact that there are certain political and administrative boundaries which it would be unwise to cross in pursuit of mathematical equality. We believe that that recognition does not go far enough and that the Bill should allow for greater sensitivity and flexibility when it comes to dealing with the administrative units within, as well as between, the four parts of the United Kingdom.
Lord Davies of Stamford
I congratulate my noble and learned friend. His amendment has achieved a very elegant solution to the problem that we were concerned with under the last amendment, and it is a very important step forward. If this amendment were passed, would he agree that we would still need to look very carefully at the 5 per cent rule and replace it with the 10 per cent rule? If that were not done, the Boundary Commission could not have regard to the criteria that my noble and learned friend rightly wants it to have regard to, because it would conflict with the very narrow 5 per cent rule?
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
I agree with the last point from my noble friend Lord Davies of Stamford. Increasing the figure to 10 per cent would make it much easier as a matter of practicality to do what the amendment would do, and the independent research that has been done by bodies such as Democratic Audit also suggests that that 10 per cent flexibility does not lead to unacceptable differences between constituencies that might be said to favour one party over another. We can achieve the purpose that the coalition sought to achieve and preserve communities in a way that most contributes to effective political activity.
I hope that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, who will be replying to this because he is completely alone on the Front Bench out of the team dealing with this, takes the amendment in the spirit in which it is offered and gives us a favourable response.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
My Lords, I want to make a brief intervention, encouraged by the very positive response from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, to the previous debate. We are talking about very much the same subject here. I make this intervention on one issue only: the question of political party organisation. This is, perhaps, a direct plea to the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, who I know is an expert on this. I think that he told us on one occasion that he became secretary of his local ward party at the age of seven. He has moved onwards and upwards ever since.
When we are talking about trying to get boundaries as coterminous as possible, we are not just talking about community cohesion—although that is important, as my noble and learned friend said—about trying to reduce the public’s confusion over who their elected representatives are or about keeping to a minimum the number of local authorities or health boards that MPs have to deal with. It is also vital in relation to political party organisations. Political parties are absolutely essential to democracy. When I go around in seminars organised by the Westminster Foundation for Democracy, I explain to new democracies in eastern Europe and north Africa—I have been to Macedonia and to Egypt to talk about this—the importance of having active political parties with good organisation.
The experience in Scotland has been that, because in both Ayrshire and Edinburgh, the two areas that I know best from a constituency point of view, we have ended up having different boundaries for the Scottish Parliament and the UK Parliament—the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, was lucky in this, because Orkney and Shetland have been given special treatment on so many occasions—great difficulties have been caused in terms of party organisation. It really has confused people and made things more difficult.
The kinds of things that are difficult are, for example, fundraising activities. As my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer said, political parties are run by volunteers. When you get them in, they are not paid in most cases, apart from national organisers, but they are the ones organising the coffee mornings. At this time of year, we should perhaps think as well of the Burns suppers that are taking place to raise money. There are Labour Party Burns suppers around the whole of Scotland at the moment. All those kinds of activities are much more difficult if you have different party structures. If you have to have a ward structure or a local liaison group for another party organisation, as we have in Scotland—we have a CLP and a regional party structure—it makes things very difficult. People can spend hour after hour organising just meetings and minutes for meetings. They are trying to get things organised within their party structures rather than doing the fundraising.
Parties should also be involved in political education. We should be having much more political education run by the parties, getting young people in and getting them to understand what democracy is about, as well as what our parties are doing. It is therefore vital that we should not strangle or snuff out this voluntary political activity by a complex overlapping of boundaries. That is why I hope that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, will be as sympathetic to the proposal in this amendment as he was to the previous one.
Lord Grocott
My Lords, I am not sure whether my noble and learned friend’s amendment is the best way to encapsulate the basic philosophy of this part of the Bill, as far as this side of the House is concerned. It has to be acknowledged that that philosophy is very different from the philosophy of the side opposite. However, the amendment is certainly an attempt to do what is, surely, consistent with our philosophy, which is that the best way of determining constituency boundaries is broadly to follow how it is done at present. That is to say that it should be on the basis of guidelines—and they are guidelines—within which a Boundary Commission, in public consultation with local people, determines what the boundaries should be. To me, that is a flexible way of determining boundaries while totally accepting that one of the key factors ought to be, as the Government keep insisting, having as close to equality as we sensibly can get in the electorate in each constituency. Essentially, however, it is a bottom-up system with flexibility.
I find all this pretty astonishing. The Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives are, I acknowledge, in their different ways normally on the same rhetorical side, at least in these arguments, and say that they do not agree with top-down solutions. How many times have I heard that on other subjects, not least the health service at the moment? The Liberals pride themselves on localism. A great chunk of the coalition document is about the importance of localism and local communities.
Lord Tyler
My Lords, how does the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, manage to suggest that the amendment to which he is speaking is not a top-down solution and is not prescriptive, if he looks at its proposed sub-paragraph (2)(b)?
Lord Grocott
What, that,
“no district or borough ward shall be included in more than one constituency”?
In my book, that comes under the great heading of common sense. I recommend that to the Committee as being splendid. It is not exactly severely top-down and not nearly as top-down as what is in the Bill, where, irrespective of boundaries, the history of communities, mountain ranges or rivers—if we had any deserts, they would no doubt be subdivided into several constituencies—there is what I call a top-down solution, which aims simply at precise numerical conclusions.
There is no doubt about where I think the determinations of our boundaries should come from. It is precisely as I have described. However, an essential ingredient of it—we are not yet there in the Bill and I am certainly not going to talk about it now—is the crucial importance of local inquiries in which local people can participate. I have sat through nearly all our proceedings on the Bill and, as ever, my noble friend Lord Rooker has encapsulated why we are where we are. As he rightly said, it is the certain knowledge that we are not going to have these local inquiries that makes this Committee stage so important. This is the only point at which sensible local opinion can be expressed at a national level.
I am sure that some will correctly and energetically argue that the views of local people should be taken into account. I dare say that the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, will do so when we come to the debates on the county boundaries in Cornwall. Like everyone else in this House, I have been getting lots of e-mails and messages from people in Cornwall and there is almost an air of desperation in them. I was prompted to think that by the comment of my noble friend Lord Rooker— that this was essentially the local inquiry going on now, precisely because the people of Cornwall know perfectly well that, if we decide in Committee that county boundaries will be ignored, this will be their last chance to have anything sensible to say about that. To me, that is an indictment of the approach that the Government are taking, which is—I know that they will deny this and find ways of explaining it—essentially to end local community involvement within flexible rules, not within rigid rules, to determine local constituency boundaries. I plead for more flexibility.
I will not trespass too far on to other legislation, but when I thought about it I realised that this desire to make all the rough edges smooth, to apply a straitjacket to our constitution and to make it all work according to rigid rules seems to be an almost pervading view of the Government in a lot of the constitutional legislation that they are bringing forward. I do not know whether that goes right across government. In fairness, the Liberals have been quite consistent about this, but we are now saying that constituency boundaries should be very rigidly drawn and shortly we will be told the dates of all future general elections—presumably until the sun swallows up our planet. Every five years there will be a general election, come hell or high water, on a precise date. There will be no flexibility. I will not go into those arguments, but, my word, I will want to develop them when we reach the Bill about fixing the term of Parliaments.
I think that I am right in saying that the Liberal Democrats are very keen on us having a written constitution, which will lay all these things out and, of course, lead to the interpretation of the rules being adjudicated on by the courts. The beauty of a lot of our electoral and constitutional arrangements—this certainly applies to the drawing of constituency boundaries—is that they have been flexible. They apply the greatest principle that you can apply in any constitution, which is the principle of common sense. They allow for rough edges not to be smoothed out. This is particularly true in the case of the four nations that are the constituent parts of the United Kingdom. We all know that it is a slightly unusual arrangement, whereby one of the four countries totally dominates all the others numerically, but there are all sorts of accommodations, one of which we shall come to later, in respect of Wales, which is severely affected by the Bill.
I cannot write a constitutional doctrine explaining how the British constitution operates in relation to the four constituent parts of the United Kingdom, but I can say that it has worked pretty well, that people are pretty free within it and that they understand the system in which they operate. If there are a few anomalies here and there, so be it. I fear that what we are seeing in the Bill in relation to constituencies and constituency boundaries is yet another step along the road. I may be alone in this; I have been called a constitutional conservative by the noble Lord, Lord McNally, who, sadly, is not here. If that means someone who believes in common sense in the operation of the constitution, then I plead guilty. My noble friend’s amendment passes the test of common sense for me. It allows flexibility locally and that is why I support it.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton
My Lords, I noticed that the Minister did not respond to the question that I asked him and my noble friend Lord Bach about whether the flexibility regarding numbers that has already been determined by your Lordships’ House, with the decision on the Isle of Wight, will be allowed to affect the number referred to by the Leader of the House, the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, as “a nice, round figure”. It is important that we should know that when we are debating different views about the terms on which new constituency boundaries will be drawn.
I make the passing comment, in light of my experience in local government, that it is not only for MPs to be able to work with the local authorities in their area. My noble friend Lady Henig, who was on Lancashire County Council at the same time as I was, will recollect that there were many occasions when we sought to influence our Members of Parliament serving Lancashire. There could have been difficulties had the boundaries of those constituencies crossed county boundaries. On the whole, we had a good working relationship, to the point where, on one unique occasion, Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman lobbied me to find a way around the ban by her right honourable friend the Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, on our giving children free school milk. That remains a unique memory for me. Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman was very concerned at that time about EU milk subsidies.
The sense of locality among political activists is important. There is a mistaken belief out there in the country that the political parties have thousands and thousands of political activists who ought to knock on their door every time there is an election. If we can do anything during the passage of the Bill to explain that it ain’t necessarily so, it would be a good thing. I remember knocking on the door of one Labour supporter in a county council election and being told, “I have been waiting 10 years for someone from the party to knock on my door”. I said, “That is because you, as a party supporter, are not out knocking on doors”. He said, “What do you mean?”. I said, “Tonight, there are about 18 people out”. This was in what was then the borough of Preston. The public will not understand the debate about the importance of place in terms of political activists, but your Lordships will, from experience.
The sense of place and of belonging is critical. In my experience, having lived in London, Shropshire, Staffordshire, Lancashire and Leicestershire—I was born in Leicestershire—the sense of place in the major conurbations is less, particularly since the abolition of the GLC, although I found, when talking to schoolchildren there, that the sense of place of West Bromwich overrode the new title of Sandwell. The sense of place is critical in building political interest, activism and co-operation around a community, not only within the parties but between the parties. The sense of place matters and in that context, and because of my previous experience—this is a former interest—as leader of the Association of County Councils for England and Wales, I have to say that certain parts of the country, such as Wales and Lancashire, have a very strong sense of place.
My noble friend Lord Grocott made the point that this is the only opportunity to debate these issues, because the Bill deprives local communities of the opportunity to put their case. As somebody who has attended most of our proceedings on the Bill, I feel bitterly resentful that I am accused of filibustering for being here and debating this, when I would very much like to go home, because the Government have conceded that local people could do the job that we are attempting to do here. I am surprised, although I intend no discourtesy to the Minister, that the Liberal Democrats are giving up the opportunity that, in our experience, they have taken so often in the past to make a very full presentation at a public inquiry into constituency boundaries at local level. If we want an active democracy, people need to feel that they are part of the system that creates the constituencies and determines boundaries. The Bill is going in absolutely the opposite direction.
I shall sit down now, but I shall come back to this subject in other parts of the Bill. The Minister may go away and think that my speeches are not necessary, but he could stop them at any point by accepting that the people in the areas that I have referred to and lived in—Leicestershire, Lancashire, Staffordshire, Shropshire, Wales and London—can make their own case, because this is not the place where that ought to be done.
Lord Graham of Edmonton
I am tempted to enter this debate because the premise that the constituency is important has a slight flaw. Every constituency has a number of wards. I first became a councillor 50 years ago this year, and my experience is that the best discussions that I have taken part in have been with 10, 12 or 15 people in someone’s house. We did not masquerade; we were proud to say that we were a ward and we dealt with the issue. Every issue in a locality—a constituency—has a resonance in a part of the constituency, whether it is a road pattern, a development, a school or the closure or opening of something. The ward level is very important.
Having taken part in this debate and listened to colleagues, I congratulate them on bringing their experience here and on not being put off by the shaming fact that, as I detect, that experience is seen in some places as irrelevant. We have the opportunity here to remind the Minister—rub it into him, if you like, without being offensive—that there are people out in the field who will be affected by this.
The Minister and his colleagues have made great play of the big society and localism. However, in this Bill they are not paying attention at all; democracy grows and is stimulated by events and individuals. We could all in this Chamber look back on where we made a big move on to a council, into its leadership, into Parliament and so on, but it all stems back to a handful of people who represented the Labour Party, the Tory Party or the Liberal Democrat party, not in a big way but in a small way—and that is the way they want it. Those of us who have an ambition to serve at a higher level have the opportunity to do so, and everyone is here only because they have given service to their party in one way or another. Thousands of people serve the democratic principle from a very low base.
I say simply to Members opposite—I cannot say that I am replying to what they have said because I have not heard what they have said, except the Minister—that they ought to pay serious attention to the impact of the Bill at the local level if it is carried out, because it will damage our democracy.
We all struggle, not just within the Labour Party but in all parties, to maintain democracy. Issues come up that affect the constituency, and then you get local headlines and so on. So far as I am concerned, though, the Edmonton Labour Party that I served, and still have great connections with, has gone through a series of changes in its organisation. From having eight wards it is now down to four because of the change in the demographic profile of the constituency. It is that level, around someone’s table in someone’s house or in a back room, that I am talking about. Last Saturday I went along to the annual meeting of the Edmonton Co-operative Party, an organisation that is affiliated with the Labour Party. There were 20 people there, serious players in the political game. They might not pull many strings or be able to affect a lot, but there were 20 of them on a Saturday morning, from 11 o’clock to past 1 o’clock, who came along and were moved to discuss the issues that affected them.
I support the amendment. I hope the Minister is able to say something that will be helpful to the mover of the amendment, because unless there is a change to the policy of the parties opposite—in general, but particularly on the Bill—we are going to be worse off in the future than we have been in the past.
Lord Howarth of Newport
My Lords, every noble Lord who has so far spoken in this debate, and indeed in the debate on the previous group of amendments, has put forward the view that it is highly desirable that parliamentary constituencies are aligned as far as possible with local authority boundaries.
The only noble Lord who has demurred from that to any extent is the Minister, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace. He did not deny that, all other things being equal, it would be desirable, but unfortunately he makes the factor of numerical equality between constituencies paramount. He therefore spoke of there being a conflict of factors with which the Boundary Commission is obliged to wrestle. I would not put it in those terms; I would say that there is a tension between a variety of legitimate factors—numerical equality, community, history, geography, and of course alignment with local authority boundaries. The Boundary Commission’s task is to do its best to reconcile those factors to arrive at a judgment that holds them in an appropriate balance, as my noble friend Lord Grocott stressed, in consultation with local people. The present system is a good one, and it seems reckless to upset it in this way.
Local authority areas, like constituencies, ought to contribute to defining and expressing people’s sense of their local community. That is a point that we have been arguing and no doubt will continue to argue in proceedings on the Bill. Unfortunately, they are too much discounted in the Bill. If members of the Government consider that questions of identity—people’s sense of who they are and where they belong—are negligible considerations in politics, I respectfully suggest that they are seriously mistaken. Indeed, any system of parliamentary representation that systematically discounts those emotions within our national life will not last. Supposing that the Government are successful in legislating to bring this into effect, the system of frequent boundary reviews, within the straitjacket of numerical equality that the Government are designing, might work once or even a second time, but I fancy that after the 2018 boundary review the people of this country will say, “This won’t do”. I very much doubt that the system will survive, should it be legislated, and we will do our best to persuade the Government that it is not, after all, a very good idea.
The Government ought to understand that themselves. As my noble friend Lord Graham of Edmonton just mentioned, the Government make much play of localism and the big society, but how can you seriously advocate the virtues of those things if at the same time you design your political structures to inhibit and distort localism and disregard people’s own sense of where they take their place within society?
If the Government think that these considerations are too sentimental or imprecise, I appeal to them at least to consider the practicalities of the working relationships between MPs and elected members of local authorities. My noble friend Lady Farrington wisely advised the Government to look at this from the point of view of local authorities. The reality is that local authorities take decisions overwhelmingly within a context of policy made by central government—of legislation and policy emanating from Whitehall and Westminster. Unfortunately, we have a highly centralised system of government in this country. Indeed, until we have radical decentralisation and greater autonomy for local government in this country, we will continue to need more MPs.
That is partly because so much policy-making and legislation comes from the two Houses of this Parliament; therefore you need an adequate number of Members of the other place to do justice to the policy-making and legislation. It is also partly because local authorities, rather than being free, as they ought to be, to get on and do their work on behalf of their local communities, must endlessly look to the centre for authorisation and make representations to the centre to see whether they can persuade officials and Ministers to modify their policies so that they make more sense for their local concerns. Key intermediaries in that process of frequent negotiation between local and central government are local Members of Parliament. It is therefore very important, in practical working terms, that Members of Parliament have a satisfactory operational relationship with their colleagues and counterparts in local authorities.
Equally, it is very important that elected members and officers of local authorities know to which Member of Parliament they should turn. It is better, therefore, if the constituency boundaries can be drawn so that whole local authorities are contained within them. Local authorities then know exactly which individual Member of Parliament they need to work with. The more MPs they have to deal with, the more confusing, expensive and time-wasting it is for people in local government. Equally, the more confusing and difficult it is for Members of Parliament to maintain the kind of working relationship that they need. Neither the local authority nor the Member of Parliament should need to duplicate, triplicate or otherwise multiply representations, meetings or the dialogue that they have with their colleagues at the other level of government.
A Member of Parliament should champion the place he represents. He or she can champion a local authority area if he or she has a clear-cut relationship with that local authority area. How much more difficult it is for a Member of Parliament convincingly to champion a hotchpotch of different local authorities that happen to fall within different parts of his constituency.
Lord Grocott
What on earth would happen in a constituency that, let us say, crossed county boundaries, where counties could take diametrically opposed views on major regional planning issues, or on school placements and applications to different schools? What on earth does the constituency Member of Parliament do in representations to central government on that? He will seriously let down half his constituency if we go by these rigid rules.
Lord Howarth of Newport
My noble friend is absolutely right. I was just about to make that point; the Member of Parliament is liable to be conflicted if he owes equal loyalty to different local authorities, which might themselves be at odds on important policy issues. Under the provisions of the Bill, as my noble friend suggested, it would be difficult for a Member of Parliament to deal with elected county councillors in two different counties that overlapped with his constituency. In the previous debate I quoted Dr Lewis Baston on the danger that, with the narrow 5 per cent tolerance—or, as the Minister likes to call it, a 10 per cent tolerance: both ways from the norm of 76,000 voters—wards would all too frequently be split.
Lord Campbell-Savours
My Lords, I have in the course of my contributions over recent weeks tried to bring some fairly original material to our debates to help them along. I have often drawn on statistical evidence from various organisations. However, today I do not want to do that. I want to refer to a debate that took place—probably unknown to Members of this House—in the House of Commons on 11 January in Westminster Hall. I should perhaps start by explaining the relevance of Westminster Hall. It is a secondary Chamber in the House of Commons where the debates are of great importance and great interest, but where, for whatever reason, business managers in the House of Commons organise debates which very often attract fewer people. There was a particularly interesting debate that took place there on parliamentary representation. It was called by Mr Andrew George who is the Liberal Democrat Member for St Ives. The relevance of this debate was that it was the first time that many Members of the Liberal Democrat Benches in the House of Commons had had the opportunity to speak on Clause 11 of the Bill. Because of the arrangements in the House of Commons and the use of the guillotine and the truncating of debate, there were many issues which the Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament had been unable to raise. Indeed, he says at the beginning of his contribution:
“I am delighted to have secured the debate, which will explore many of the issues that we did not have an opportunity to explore during the passage of the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill … We failed to get to grips properly with the issues that needed to be debated to improve the Bill before it transferred to another place”. — [Official Report, Commons, 11/1/11; col. 25WH]
Then, in an aside—I have to be straight about this—he blamed Labour Members in reference to the delay in debate. Obviously, there were areas of the Bill that we regarded as particularly important which the Liberal Democrats did not regard as important. I want to quote some of the things he and his colleague said, because they have not been considered by Ministers. The comments that were made in Westminster Hall had not been considered by Ministers when the Bill was taken through its Committee and Report stages in the House of Commons. Andrew George says:
“The Bill proposes that all constituencies have an electoral quota of approximately 76,000 with a margin of only 5% either way. It would carve up the country in a manner that would create bizarre constituencies and ignore important cultural, historic and geographic boundaries”.
We have not heard those words mentioned by any Member of the Liberal Democrats here in the House of Lords. He goes on to say:
“We do not want antiseptic constituencies with perpetually mobile boundaries. The five-yearly boundary review that would happen between each Parliament would mean an MP’s attachment to their constituency being perpetually reviewed, so the sense of settlement with the communities they represent would be continually undermined”.
That has not been said by a Liberal Democrat Member in the House of Lords; it was not said in the House of Commons by a Liberal Democrat Member because they did not have the opportunity to say it. It was said in the junior chamber in the House of Commons, in Westminster Hall.
He then goes on to say:
“The amendments to the Bill which I and other hon. Members tabled were unsuccessful, in that they were not selected or therefore debated”.
There are procedural differences in the House of Commons. Whereas here we can debate technically all our amendments, in the House of Commons they have to be selected by Mr Speaker. If they are not selected, they are not debated. Even if they are selected they are not always debated because of the guillotine and timetable. He goes on about his amendments:
“They sought to find circumstances in which the Boundary Commission was given sufficient discretion to work towards the target figure, taking into account reasonable geographic, cultural and electoral issues. We want the Government to allow places to make decisions for themselves collectively, provided that they do not request more favourable treatment, such as over-representation”,
which we accept.
“I hope the Minister takes note of that. It is not about more favourable treatment but simply recognising the distinctiveness of places, which the Bill does not take into account”. [Official Report, Commons, 11/1/11; col. 26WH]
Why has no Liberal Democrat Member of the House of Lords got up to their feet and repeated a statement of that nature to this House? Never once in our debate—someone said that we have now been debating for 90 hours—has that point been made by a Liberal Democrat Member of the House of Lords. I can tell you what the answer is. There is a contractual agreement within this Chamber between two elements of a coalition; that agreement is silencing debate. It is completely undermining the very ethos of this Chamber in the House of Lords.
A Conservative Member—obviously a very courageous one—a Mr Martin Vickers of Cleethorpes, said in the same debate:
“Continually changing boundaries will impact on the vitality and sustainability of local political parties. The democratic process needs viable local parties and associations, but constant boundary changes inevitably impact on their viability. Taking one ward out of a constituency can render the local party virtually bankrupt if the ward’s financial make-up means that it contributes greatly to the party. We need to think seriously about that”.— [Official Report, Commons, 11/1/11; col. 26WH]
And so we do. Why are not Conservative Members of this House getting up and arguing the case that is being put in Westminster Hall in the House of Commons? And then, later in the debate, Mr Andrew George says that,
“the boundary of my constituency changed at the 2010 election and those constituents who used to live in my old constituency still contact me. Given the arrangements in the Bill, that sort of thing would happen at every election, so there would be confusion”. —[Official Report, Commons, 11/1/11; col. 38WH]
And how right he is.
Let us take a town on the margin of a county, on the margin indeed of a constituency, that switches from one election to another between Members of Parliament, where the electorate do not actually know who their MP is, because of this constant change and movement as the Boundary Commission somehow has to find a way of ensuring that constituency boundaries fall within this 5 per cent limit which we would wish to extend to 10 per cent.
Take a county like Cumbria, and let us take the town of Kendal. Kendal was not in my former constituency but it was very near the county boundary; a beautiful town on the fringes of the Lake District. Indeed, the people of Kendal would say that they were part of the Lake District. There is a possibility that within the terms of this Bill that town might be split.
I know that Members of Parliament with large city seats very often find that their cities are split. It will work in a large city. It will work in a large community, but it will not work in a small community. It will create divisions within that area—divisions inside parties, between officials inside parties, between treasurers, secretaries, chairmen—all kinds of unseen divisions that boundary commissioners when they are taking their decisions about the future of constituency boundaries would never at any stage be aware of. Those are the kinds of issues that might well surface during the course of an oral inquiry. But the Bill goes on to take away the opportunity for such a forum to examine the minor detail of what would happen in the small community, a town like Kendal, in the event that it were split in the way that the Bill might provide for in the end.
I have a lot more to say on these matters, but I shall save my words for later in the evening—indeed, the night.
Lord McAvoy
My Lords, I would like to give some practical examples of what my noble friends have been describing here. I know that some folk do not like practical examples, but this is what this House is for; to listen to each other and to learn from each other. I am still on a learning process.
The point about wards being the building blocks is illustrated in the former constituency I represented. It illustrates the folly of tinkering with political systems because a party is part of a coalition. That is what happened to the Labour Party in 2004 in Scotland and the Scottish Parliament elections where the Liberals put as a price for joining a coalition the introduction of proportional representation to local government.
I can advise any coalition party involved with the Liberals that in the long run they will tinker and tamper with PR to your detriment and downfall. What happened at the local elections was a disaster, but we have already discussed that and I do not want to be accused of or be guilty of repetition. A multi-member ward system was introduced.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
Can my noble friend remind me about the boundaries of the Scottish Parliamentary constituency represented by James Kelly, and about the former boundaries of Rutherglen? My recollection is that the situation is similar to what happened in Ayrshire and Edinburgh, whereby the boundaries are now not the same, and there are a number of problems; MSPs have to deal with a number of MPs, and MPs have to deal with a number of MSPs.
Lord McAvoy
I thank my noble friend, because that is the next item on my little list. Again, Labour has given in too much to Liberal machinations and fascinations about systems. Last week, I mentioned that we kept on being told that the Scotland Act was supposed to be the settled will of the Scottish people. The Scotland Act stated that the number of Westminster constituencies should be reduced and that the number of Scottish parliamentary constituencies should be reduced in tandem. That did not happen, thanks mainly, but not entirely, to Liberal pressure. Now the Westminster constituency boundaries are not coterminous, and I notice the Minister expressing satisfaction at that for, I am sure, purely party interests. He is motivated to do that.
There has been a disjointed effort to try to cope with that in terms of party organisation. Rutherglen and Hamilton West now has the entire Rutherglen Scottish parliamentary constituency within it, although the people of west Hamilton feel that they are being just moved about as part of a block which seems to be favoured by the Minister. The people of west Hamilton have been shunted away from the Westminster constituency boundary, and into the boundary of Tom McCabe’s Scottish parliamentary constituency. James Kelly is getting down to work very well in what is to him a new place, High Blantyre.
I know this has been said before, and I apologise to anyone who thinks I am being repetitive. I am certainly not filibustering. I can assure colleagues of that. I am not thin-skinned and sensitive, but I would not get away with it. It is surely frustrating—annoying is too strong a word—to be told that you are filibustering when you are trying to get across the concerns of your constituency. At the end of the day, if any legislative Assembly does not take people into account or listen to them, we are all in a bad way. I make no apology for expressing my concerns about how this issue will affect my community, because I was born and brought up in Rutherglen, where I have lived all my life.
This continual five-year change in boundaries will be chaotic, if it goes ahead. In my experience in the other place, all political parties showed great faith in the link between the Member of Parliament and the constituency. There is a terrific bond. I do not say that to be elitist to colleagues on all sides of the House who have never been in the other place. Nevertheless, that bond will be broken. I return to the absolutely brilliant phrase of the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, who said there will be just blocks on a map.
Chaos will be caused to the political parties, and that will be reflected in issues such as how best to represent people. I used to have people come to me from the other side; and, vice versa, Jimmy Hood had people coming to him from my side in Hamilton. The situation was particularly bad in Hamilton, because it was a town split in two, just to make up numbers. That is an example of a town of which I have a fair knowledge being split down the middle just to fit the numbers—end of story. That is surely wrong, and I cannot believe that every noble Lord on the other side of the House, or our colleagues on the Cross Benches, thinks that it is good not to take account of communities—especially given that this will happen every five years. At the end of the day, this is not simply about party mechanics and organisation to suit the politicians. It is about whether the proposals make the political structures and organisations fit enough to represent the people, stop the confusion and be a useful part of a democratic process in this country.
Baroness Hughes of Stretford
My Lords, like my colleagues, I think there are many problems with the Bill. The biggest problem is that the Government failed to consult local people before they dreamt up their proposals. I say that because in my experience as, I hesitate to say, a local councillor for nearly 25 years, as a leader of a local authority and as a Member of Parliament for 13 years, when faced with proposals that they feel cut across their sense of community and identity as a result of a boundary review, local people feel very strongly about some of the issues that the Bill relegates to secondary importance in favour of a rigid mathematical formulation. It is a great pity that the Government did not consult local people about these proposals before they put them forward because, had they done so, they would have come up with a different formulation.
It may be useful if I recount to noble Lords one such experience during those 25 years when the Boundary Commission made a proposal, which would be common with the measures in this Bill, to split my then constituency and form a new constituency in the Greater Manchester area of the north-west of England. The Boundary Commission’s proposals during my period as an MP would have taken five wards from the north of my former constituency in Old Trafford, next to Manchester city centre, and linked them with four or five wards in the neighbouring local authority of Salford.
At that time there were no straightforward bus routes between those wards in the different local authorities. To get there by car one had to go over the M60 motorway, and by public transport one would have to go into the centre of Manchester and out again to get from Trafford to Salford or vice versa. The reaction of local people to the proposal from the Boundary Commission was loud and vociferous; they rehearsed many of the arguments that my noble friends have put in this Chamber. It was not because the people of Old Trafford rejected the people of Salford or vice versa but because they already identified with different communities represented by the constituencies of which they were already a part—the Old Trafford wards were part of the Trafford local authority; the Salford wards were part of Salford local authority.
Those involved emphasised the importance of the communities in those areas; the differences between the communities in Old Trafford and in that part of Salford; they talked about the sense of identity and place to which my noble friend Lady Farrington referred; and they argued strongly that they wanted coherence of representation from both their local councillors and, particularly, their Members of Parliament. They wanted to feel that they shared the Member of Parliament who represented the whole area of which they were a part, and that that Member of Parliament and that constituency would reflect the history, the geography, the boundary, the proximity and other mechanisms through which people reinforce their sense of identity—local newspapers, schools and so on.
It is unthinkable that wards should be split across different constituencies by boundaries being redrawn. If noble Lords think through the implications of that for political parties, local people and local authorities, they may feel it would be a chaotic situation for all concerned. In building on wards it is important that local people should feel that they have got that sense of identity and coherence in the constituency as a whole. By and large, from my experience, I believe that where possible a constituency should contain a whole local authority and not be split.
Lord Touhig
I do not intend detaining your Lordships very long but I should like to refer to the impact that the legislation is having on Wales. As a Welsh Member of your Lordships’ House I feel strongly about this because not one amendment about Wales was debated in the other place. The use of the guillotine ensured that none was debated and yet Wales is the part of the United Kingdom that is most adversely affected by the Bill.
Paul Wood, a member of the Boundary Commission for Wales, in evidence to the Welsh Affairs Select Committee in the other place, produced a report on the Bill and said that,
“issues such as local ties and historical ties, which may have had more weight previously, are clearly subsumed in the legislation to the numerical issues”.
In other words, community-based representation will fail and disappear if the Bill is not amended. Indeed, the creation of large, rigidly defined constituencies based on numbers will put an end to it.
I think of my part of Wales, and the south Wales valleys in particular, as being like a hand: the valleys are the fingers and the palms are the cities of Newport, Cardiff and Swansea. There is movement from the valleys to the cities, but there is hardly any movement across valleys from one valley to another. That is historical and something that we have understood for many decades.
Perhaps I can relate my concerns on how Bill will impact on my former constituency of Islwyn. The Electoral Reform Society has produced a paper in which it has redrawn the electoral map of Wales based on 30 parliamentary seats. In its proposals my former parliamentary constituency of Islwyn would disappear, which would have certain consequences. Under the Electoral Reform Society’s proposals, which could be a blueprint for whichever body follows, the community of Abercarn will be put into the new constituency of Caerphilly. Abercarn is in the Ebbw valley and Caerphilly is in the Rhymney valley, separated by two mountain chains and three rivers. They are distinct and separate and there is no community interest across the valleys. It is proposed that the community of Cefn Fforest will become part of the new constituency of Merthyr Tydfil. They are in separate counties and there is no community of interest whatever between the two.
Lord Grocott
I assume that the Electoral Reform Society’s map was applied to the whole country, as we had the same in Shropshire. Was there anyone at any level of representation in the noble Lord’s part of Wales, such as a local authority, who thought that the proposals made any sense whatever? No elected representative or official in Shropshire thought there was any sense at all in what the Electoral Reform Society proposed.
Lord Touhig
I am more likely to find someone recruiting for the band of hope in hell than to find anyone in my part of Wales who supported it. It will not happen, frankly.
The point that I am trying to get across is that there is not the community of interest that has to exist if we are to have huge constituencies based on numbers. If the Bill is enacted as it stands we will not need to employ the Boundary Commission to do this work. Anybody with a map, a pencil and an abacus will be able to draw up the new parliamentary boundaries. We might as well hand it over to the Flat Earth Society for all the good it will do for locally based parliamentary representation.
This is so important and fundamental, and it is a matter that I will return to perhaps at greater length when we debate the amendments affecting Wales that are in my name and those of other noble Lords. It is important to recognise that there are particular difficulties, especially across the south Wales valleys where simply having constituencies based on numbers will not work in terms of the community of interest. There will be no link whatever between the Member of Parliament and the constituent. That will be a retrograde step, so I hope that with those few remarks the Minister will get the impression of how strongly I feel, as do many people in Wales. I know how people on all sides, including Cross-Benchers, feel about this. Wales will be adversely affected in that 20 per cent of all the reductions in the number of parliamentary seats in Britain will be in Wales. It will lose one in four of its parliamentary seats as the Bill stands. That cannot be right and I will return to that debate later.
Lord Newton of Braintree
The last thing I want to do is extend the debate but somebody needs to say that the picture of idealised perfection that the Boundary Commission arrangements have had up until now, implicitly presented by some of the things that have been said, is simply not the case, especially in an area of rapidly expanding populations.
I happen to have been a Member of Parliament a lot longer ago, admittedly, in the county of Essex which has had a rapidly expanding population and went through several boundary changes. I am bound to say that the constituency I represented included parts of two districts, Chelmsford and Braintree; it would have included parts of two PCTs, had they existed at the time; it related to two police divisions, to quote examples used earlier; and indeed, it had three different postal districts in its geography. I found not the slightest difficulty in representing all those parts and strands to the best of my ability. My former constituents might have views on whether I did it well or badly overall, but I found no difficulty at all in relating to both Chelmsford and Braintree councils and all the other bodies to which I referred. I do not think that we should have it presented, as some have, that the situation is a dreamworld without the Bill.
My other point is that the constituency that I represented has now been split into two and the two main towns within it are separate. Frankly, I think they probably like it as they were about the same size and there was a degree of rivalry so they are happy to be split up, even though they are still in the same local government district. One of them is now part of the constituency consisting of parts of three districts: Braintree, Colchester and Maldon. I do not believe that the new MP is having any difficulty representing all those parts of her new constituency. Let us not overplay our hand on this and recognise that there will be difficulties whatever system we have. There is a degree of flexibility in the Bill’s proposals. Last week there were discussions about increasing that degree of flexibility. There is already enough flexibility to make it quite possible not to have the abacus concept that the noble Lord talked about just now.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton
Does the noble Lord agree that in the case of both the boundary reviews he spoke about, local people had the opportunity to say whether they were happy or whether, for example, they wanted the two towns to be split, whereas this Bill would not allow that?
Lord Newton of Braintree
I understand the point made by the noble Baroness, and it is yet another point that has been done to death. The suggestions that community is all, regardless of other circumstances, which has been implicit in quite a lot of what has been said, and that somehow this is death and disaster compared with the situation at present, are complete and absolute poppycock.
Lord Davies of Stamford
I have the highest regard for the noble Lord, Lord Newton, and I listened, as I always do, with great interest. However, I was not sure what central point he was trying to make. Was he saying that basically we should not worry about any of these things—to hell with local government boundaries, local loyalties and identities, and let us just have a computer divide the country into blocks of a certain identical number and spew out whatever the result is, irrespective of those things? Is that what he was saying?
Lord Newton of Braintree
That was not what I said. I indicated specifically that the flexibility in the Bill, and the possibly greater flexibility that has been the subject of one discussion, would allow those factors to be taken into account. Of course, they are not to be dismissed but equally, with a reasonably fair voting system, they are not the be-all and end-all.
Lord Davies of Stamford
In that case the noble Lord is saying what I totally believe, which is that the present system is not all bad; it could be a great deal worse; and flexibility is of the essence in the role of the Boundary Commission. If those are the three principles that he was setting forth I could not have put it better myself. That is exactly what I think is the view of the majority of people in all corners of this House.
The Government have come in for a great deal of criticism over the past 90 hours, or whatever it is. I do not think we should have too much sympathy for them because they brought it on their head by going ahead with this Bill without pre-legislative scrutiny, as my noble friend Lady Hughes has just said. There was no attempt to consult local people at any stage. It is not an excuse to say that they had a deadline of 5 May and needed to make rapid progress because it was an arbitrary decision of the coalition to put the two Bills together. We have been over that several times. The Government have been subject to a lot of criticism but I do not feel sorry for them. However, I shall not add to that now. I want to be much more positive and move on.
The public would expect us in the Committee stage of such a Bill to do two things.
Lord Campbell-Savours
I thank my noble friend for giving way. I was just looking at my notes because we had an earlier intervention on Maldon. The noble Lord, Lord Newton of Braintree, referred to Maldon. He is talking to the noble Lord, Lord Higgins, at the moment but he might wish to take note of this. Maldon has a very interesting history. It was referred to by Lewis Baston in his brief, which my noble friend will have received. However, the noble Lord, Lord Newton of Braintree, did not tell us that the boundaries were changed in 1955 to 1974, in 1974 to 1983, in 1983 to 1997, in 1997 to 2010 and in 2010 to 2015. The evidence from Maldon is that the people of Maldon are confused about what constituency they belong in because of all the changes over the past 40 years to the boundaries of the constituency in which they have been placed. It is rather strange that the noble Lord, Lord Newton, failed to refer to that when he commented on his own constituency.
Lord Davies of Stamford
I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Newton, has heard and taken note of those remarks. I say to my noble friend with the greatest friendliness that I do not intend to try to turn myself into an expert on the electoral history of Maldon. I come back to the point that I was making, which is that I think the public in general rightly expect us in a Committee on a Bill of this kind to do two things. One is to explore to the full the details in the Bill to open up every possible angle of vision to ensure that we look through the consequences. It is very important in any Committee on any Bill to try to identify the possible unintended consequence or consequences of it.
On the whole, this House has done a job in that regard of which we can be proud. What disgraceful negligence it would have been on the part of this House if we had not discussed Wales at all, which my noble friend Lord Touhig has just mentioned, given that the other House has apparently failed to do so. Anyone who has read that wonderful classic of Welsh literature, How Green Was My Valley, knows that the mountains create a real cultural and social barrier between the different Welsh valleys. There has been no opportunity to explore Wales, or Manchester for that matter. I have heard more about the electoral districts and history of Scotland than I have ever done in my life. Of course, I am very tempted to talk about the beautiful town of Stamford and say what a tragedy and monstrosity it would be if it were divided up and part of it were taken away and put into Leicestershire or somewhere else, but I will not go down that route despite the blandishments of my noble friend Lord Graham, a man whom the whole House holds in the very greatest regard. I simply say that we are doing that part of our job properly, well and thoroughly, and it is quite right that we are doing so.
The second task which the public as a whole would expect of us is to make some progress, or at least to attempt to make some progress, towards consensus, because the public always think that we should try to get consensus on constitutional matters. The public are right about that, and I think that most of us, in our heart of hearts, all feel that we should try to get consensus. There has not been much of an effort to get consensus for a long time, but such an effort has been made this afternoon, and that is very important. The Bill does not deal with wards at all, but the Minister has said that he will take that on board and come back to the Committee with something on wards. That is a very positive statement. I take it in good faith, as we all do, and I do not think that we need say anything more about wards this afternoon, and I shall not do so.
Views have been expressed on both sides of the House, including by the noble Lords, Lord Rennard and Lord Newton, that counties are important. We can all argue about how important they are in particular contexts, but it is clear that they are important. Paragraph 5 to Schedule 2 says simply that the Boundary Commission “may” take account of counties. However, that is just permissive; it implies that you can do so if you really want to. It does not accommodate the counties. We debated earlier the preceding group of amendments, some of which would have forced the Boundary Commission to take account of counties. My noble and learned friend proposes a very reasonable middle road in Amendment 71A: namely, that the Boundary Commission “should, where practicable” do so. In other words, there is flexibility but no insistence. If the Boundary Commission feels that other more important considerations ought to override the sanctity of county boundaries, so be it. That is real progress and a sensible way forward. I hope that it may be the basis of consensus on this important matter of counties.
I think that there is also consensus on a third and very important point, which was made by the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, from the coalition Benches: namely, that you cannot achieve these things and give the Boundary Commission any flexibility in practice unless we look again at the 5 per cent limitation. Otherwise, anything that we tell the Boundary Commission will be completely negated by the 5 per cent rule. What you cannot and must not do—I do not think that any of us would want to do this—is to give the Boundary Commission a contradictory brief and put it in a situation whereby it cannot solve the problem that it is being set. That would be quite wrong. If there is to be flexibility to enable the Boundary Commission to take account of county boundaries or other local factors which it considers to be important, it is clearly necessary to look again at the 5 per cent rule. I think that consensus has emerged in the course of our proceedings on that very important matter.
Fourthly, and finally, I sense there is a growing feeling that something needs to be done about my next point, not necessarily by continuing with the present status quo but not necessarily, either, by having what is in the Bill, which is nothing at all. We need to ensure that we do not just say, “Leave this matter in this House and never again is there to be any open discussion of the principles of our electoral boundaries”. That would be a very unnatural situation. Therefore, we need to preserve something like the public inquiry system. My noble friend Lady Hughes explained how that had made a big difference in Manchester in a recent case to which she drew our attention, and I know of other cases in which that has happened.
I think I mentioned that I, with some supporters, gave evidence to a Boundary Commission. We did not win our point but there was a general sense of satisfaction that we had been able to air it and that the arguments had been properly, duly, publicly and transparently weighed. We do not need the existing form of public inquiry. My noble friend Lord Rooker set out how he thinks that the whole process could be more rapidly conducted. I was very interested in his suggestion in that regard, which seems a promising avenue of discussion under the heading of future amendments on the Marshalled List. However, some sort of public and open appeals process is absolutely essential if we are not to put ourselves in a situation whereby the great and the good, if we can describe ourselves in that way—perhaps we are the great and the bad—take an irrevocable decision and then hand over to a bureaucracy the right for ever after to take decisions behind closed doors and subsequently announce to the grateful public what their electoral boundaries will be without it ever having to explain itself in public in any kind of open forum.
We have made considerable progress on those four principles this afternoon. The prospect may be emerging through the mist of a structure that could command the consensus that we all regard as very desirable for a Bill of this kind.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton
My Lords, does my noble friend, like me, remember successive Governments and successive political parties trying to undermine the sense of place of Rutland, and failing?
Lord Davies of Stamford
The factual answer to that factual question is yes, of course I recall that. No one in my constituency over the age of about 40 will have forgotten that. Nevertheless, that issue was resolved happily for all concerned in the context of public inquiries and establishes a very good precedent for them as a way of maintaining, or when necessary restoring, public confidence in the system.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
The amendment would restrict the Boundary Commission in drawing up new constituency boundaries by a series of provisions specifying that constituency boundaries may not cross certain local authority or European constituency boundaries. I noted that, when moving his amendment, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, reiterated that he and his colleagues recognised the need for greater equality but seek to put that restriction on to the Boundary Commission in its recommendations.
The Bill provides for the Boundary Commission to take into account local government boundaries, as well as local ties, although that has not been acknowledged in some contributions. As we have said on more than one occasion, that is subject to the principle of equality. We believe that the details of how it does that should be a matter for the Boundary Commission. Just to clarify, a government amendment to the definition of local government boundaries was made in the other place. I re-emphasise that it means that the Boundary Commissions may take unitary authority boundaries into account.
It has been made clear in several contributions, not least that of my noble friend Lord Newton of Braintree but also that of the noble Lord, Lord McAvoy, that even under the existing arrangements the Boundary Commission has not exactly achieved what in some people's view might be perfection. The noble Lord, Lord McAvoy, talked about Hamilton being split into two. Even before the current split, there was a previous split between Hamilton North and Bellshill and Hamilton South. An important point, which was made by my noble friend Lord Newton and alluded to by the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes of Stretford, is that local government is not the sole challenge that Members of Parliament have to deal with. There are health boards, primary healthcare trusts and police divisions. It would be a nightmare, if not an impossibility, to try to ensure that the Member of Parliament had to deal with only one each of police, health and local authorities.
As we mentioned in debates on previous groups, we have sought generally to follow the 1986 Act provisions on local authority boundaries. We want the Boundary Commissions to have flexibility to take account of specific circumstances, but we also recognise that there is some merit in placing discretionary consideration in the hands of the Boundary Commission, including with regard to wards, about which I will say more in a moment.
In its fifth general report, the Boundary Commission for England noted that,
“some wards on the outskirts of towns contained very different communities. For instance, there were occasions where the majority of the electorate of the ward were urban dwellers residing in a very small area of the ward on the edge of a town. However, the small remainder of the ward’s electorate was made up of those living in rural communities some distance from the town”.
That is why we believe there is a reasonable case in certain circumstances for the Boundary Commission to have discretion to split them and why there should not be a prohibition, which would be the effect of at least four of the provisions of the composite amendment moved by the noble and learned Lord.
I repeat that we seek—and this is enshrined in the Bill—to ensure one value for one vote, not to draw up constituencies to suit the administrative convenience of Members of Parliament. I cannot accept that, as the noble Lord, Lord Howarth of Newport, proposed, it is somehow impossible for a Member of Parliament to discharge his or her functions if his or her constituency includes more than one local authority. My noble friend Lord Newton of Braintree made that abundantly clear.
Lord Howarth of Newport
I am not saying that. I am certain that the noble Lord, Lord Newton of Braintree, represented his constituents entirely admirably. I am objecting to the thrust of reform that makes it far more likely that local authorities will be fragmented and that constituencies will consist of more, rather than fewer, local authorities, which must be calculated to make it harder for all concerned—Members of Parliament, other elected members and constituents.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
I listened to the noble Lord’s speech, and he gave the very clear impression that that was challenging in the extreme. As my noble friend said, there were three local authorities in the constituency that he represented. The constituency that I represented contained two local authorities. On the basis of the figures that I gave in a previous debate, by my calculation 187 Members of Parliament represent constituencies that have more than one metropolitan or non-metropolitan district boundary. I believe that it is more than possible to do an adequate job of representing one's constituents where there is more than one local authority in a constituency.
We do not believe that we should be tying the hands of the Boundary Commission in a way that prevents it from recommending the best solutions for electors simply for the convenience of Members of the other place. I take the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Hughes and Lady Farrington, about the importance of local constituency parties. They of course have an important role in oiling the wheels of our democracy, but I do not think that their interests should be elevated above those of individual constituents.
I do not want to follow down the path of anecdotage, but the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, mentioned the number of party fundraising events at this time in Scotland that are focused on Burns suppers. I had the great pleasure of attending a Liberal Democrat Burns supper in South Edinburgh, which has already reorganised itself to take account of the changes in the boundaries and the disjunction between Scottish parliamentary boundaries and Westminster boundaries. I do not really want to hear more of the Burns supper adventures of the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
I just wondered whether it was in the Edinburgh South UK parliamentary constituency or the Edinburgh Southern Scottish parliamentary constituency.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
The point I was making was that it now calls itself South Edinburgh to take in the various parliamentary constituencies in the south of Edinburgh.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
I have tried to be patient.
Four out of the seven provisions in the amendment relate to wards and how they should be used in the Bill. I cannot accept that the Government have been dismissive—the word used by the noble and learned Lord—of wards. I certainly endorse what the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, said, about the importance of the ward level. That is why, in response to the previous set of amendments, I stated our belief that wards are in many cases already the building blocks of constituencies. They are the level that can often reflect local community ties. The English Boundary Commission has confirmed that in the majority of cases in England, wards are used as the basic element of each constituency. For reasons that I have already given—that some wards might combine a large part of an urban area on the outskirts of the city and a rural hinterland—there might be reasons to give the Boundary Commission discretion to split boundaries. Therefore, an absolute prohibition, as proposed in the amendment, goes too far. I hope that the undertaking that I gave in response to the previous debate to look seriously at the issue of wards and to bring back our proposals on Report will satisfy the House at this stage. On that basis, I invite the noble and learned Lord to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord for the detail into which he went. I will very briefly deal with his points. First, he rightly says that the Bill states “may take into account”, rather than the commission being bound not to cross ward, unitary authority or other boundaries. If the noble and learned Lord cares—not now—to read my amendment, he will see that in some cases it is an absolute prohibition, for example in relation to European Parliamentary boundaries, district or borough wards. In others, it is not; it is a provision to “take into account”. I have sought to reflect the point that the noble and learned Lord makes.
Secondly, I think the Minister said that 187 constituencies cross both metropolitan and other local authority boundaries. He does not need to intervene on this; his point is broadly that 187 currently cross different sorts of local authority boundaries. I completely accept what the noble Lord, Lord Newton of Braintree, who has much influence in the House, said. I am sure that he completely and excellently represented his constituency. The point that is being made on the other side is that it is better if that is not the position. One assumes that if it is 187 now, it is bound to go up under the changes to be introduced under the Bill.
The noble and learned Lord’s third point was that he accepts as a matter of principle that the ward will be the building block. That was expressed explicitly by Nick Clegg when he appeared before the House of Lords Constitution Committee and when he spoke in answer to questions in the Commons. Why not put that into the Bill? My fourth and final point is to say how sad I was not to be in Edinburgh South—that is, Morningside, where I was born and brought up—to attend the noble and learned Lord’s Burns Night supper.
I am grateful that he said at the end that he will come back with some ideas. I am not taking that as him giving me any kind of assurances, but I shall wait to see what happens next before deciding what to do about this sort of amendment. In those circumstances, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Housing Benefit (Amendment) Regulations 2010
(13 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord Knight of Weymouth
That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty praying that the regulations, laid before the House on 30 November, be annulled.
Lord Knight of Weymouth
My Lords, the two Motions standing in my name on the Order Paper relate to two instruments to change housing benefit regulations. The instruments seek to cut the housing benefit bill by around £1 billion per year by 2015 by cutting what can be awarded under the local housing allowance arrangements from April through: first, the removal of the five-bedroom local housing allowance rate so that the maximum level is for four-bedroom properties; secondly, the introduction of absolute caps so that local housing allowance weekly rates cannot exceed £250 for a one-bedroom property, £290 for a two-bedroom property, £340 for a three-bedroom property and £400 for a four-bedroom property; and, thirdly, the removal of the £15 weekly housing benefit excess that some customers can receive under the local housing allowance arrangements. Fourthly, there is an additional measure, which we welcome, relating to an extra bedroom for those with care needs. However, the final—and, I argue, most damaging—measure on which I shall focus is the setting of local housing allowance rates at the 30th percentile of rents in each broad rental market area rather than at the median. The Government are increasing discretionary housing payment funding to local authorities by £130 million over four years to enable councils to try to mitigate some of the effects of these measures.
These instruments amount to little more than an attack on the poorer people of this country—those who have no choice but to rent and who are either low earners or on out-of-work benefits. Since the publication of the Government’s impact assessment last summer, many organisations with expertise in housing, homelessness and poverty, such as Shelter, Crisis and the Residential Landlords Association, have raised serious concerns, shared by the Opposition, about these amendments to the housing benefit regulations.
The Government’s changes to housing benefit were expertly summarised by the noble Lord, Lord Best, in his speech to this House on 2 December last year, when he said that,
“the intention is to reduce the housing benefit bill by some £2.25 billion per annum by the end of this Parliament. That is £2.25 billion a year that will not be paid through housing benefit to landlords. There are only two parties from whom this money can come; one is the landlord by accepting a lower rent, and the other is the tenants finding the balance from their own resources, including other benefits—since most are on benefits of different sorts, or pensions. Which of these two parties is most likely to take this very substantial £2-and-a-bit billion hit?”.—[Official Report, 2/12/10; col. 1656.]
That is a good question, and half of that sum is to be found from the changes that we are debating today. The answer to the noble Lord’s question comes in part from the Residential Landlords Association, the representative body of more than 9,200 private landlords. Its briefing on these regulations is clear. Its landlords panel survey found that 71 per cent of respondents would not lower rents. In fact, in light of the proposed changes, 46 per cent of landlords surveyed indicated that they would look to re-let properties away from local housing allowance tenants, reducing the level of private rental stock available to claimants and potentially forcing households into homelessness. Not only have the Government offered no evidence to support their assertion that rents will be lowered to meet lower housing benefit levels, but they cannot counter the evidence that points the other way. It is clear that the bulk of the savings from these measures will come from the pockets of the tenants.
The measures have serious implications for hundreds of thousands of honest, hard-working and vulnerable people. We should bear in mind the fact that 4.7 million people receive housing benefit in this country. Of those, 2 million are pensioners on pension credit guarantee, 500,000 are people on jobseeker’s allowance and 700,000 are people in work in low-paying jobs. The Government’s own impact assessment of the regulations as a whole predicted that almost 1 million families would be affected, with an average weekly income loss of £12 nationally, rising to £22 in London.
The intention of course, as Homeless Link points out, is to make life in receipt of benefit “uncomfortable”, as a way of driving the jobless back into work. The popular rhetoric from the Government has been around the assertion that those claiming housing benefit are accessing accommodation that their working neighbours cannot. However, researchers at the University of Birmingham have found that this claim is out of step with reality. Housing benefit claimants receive a rent set at median market rates and so cannot live just anywhere. Furthermore, their findings suggest that, despite infrequent, extreme anomalies, 40 per cent of lower-income working families pay more in rent than they would receive in housing benefit.
In truth, the Government’s posturing over extravagant benefits sends a clear message: that the rationale behind these ill conceived reforms is founded on the excesses of a relative few. Their application would be tantamount to collective punishment—penalising the many vulnerable people for the excesses of the very few. From data compiled by the Cambridge Centre for Housing and Planning Research at the University of Cambridge, it is estimated that these cuts will force many more claimants into severe poverty, with the weekly income of 84,000 households dropping below £100 per couple after housing costs. Incidentally, these households are home to more than 54,000 children.
On the local housing allowance cuts as a whole, the Social Security Advisory Committee, in its withering verdict on these regulations, stated that,
“these measures must impact disproportionately on those low-income households with the least financial resilience and the fewest options for managing their lives and their finances”.
Critics unanimously agree that the change to a 30th percentile in LHA calculations, along with the caps on housing benefit, will result in a significant drop in income for hundreds of thousands of households. Of these, an estimated 269,000 will fall into what Shelter calls “serious difficulty”. Unable to negotiate a reduction in rent, they will have just three options: hoping their landlord will forgo a proportion of the rent; moving into cheaper and probably overcrowded accommodation; or becoming homeless.
The removal of the five-bedroom rate will act as a disincentive for families to come together. Why would two single-parent families with, say, three children each come together when they would be better off apart? Many tenants will run up arrears, making them “at fault” for their eviction and perhaps not entitled to emergency accommodation. It is expected that half of those households in serious difficulty will have to move or become homeless. Some 72,000 of that number are families, equating to 129,000 children potentially made homeless.
These changes will affect households in rural as well as urban areas and particularly those with high rents, such as Oxford, Edinburgh and Brighton, but they will be felt most acutely in London. Here, house prices are more than double the average for England and Wales, and private rents carry a 50 per cent premium, leaving only the worst-maintained and overcrowded accommodation available to housing benefit claimants under these proposals. The same research from the University of Cambridge estimates that, within five years, almost the whole of inner London will be unaffordable to those in receipt of benefits. Poorer residents will move to more affordable housing at the periphery of the city. With demand for private rental stock so high here, there is little incentive for landlords to reduce the cost of renting, so LHA claimants currently living in boroughs such as Hammersmith and Fulham, Westminster, Islington or Camden, where it is expected that no affordable stock will exist, will be forced into moving or into homelessness.
Lord Best
My Lords, I shall speak to all three of these Motions, but in particular, to the third one standing in my name. I share the concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Knight of Weymouth, that the changes introduced by the regulations and the order are likely to have very serious consequences. The Government expect the cumulative effect of the eight caps, reductions and restrictions on housing benefit and local housing allowances, of which two are the subject of regulations before us today, to achieve savings of over £2 billion each year by 2015. What is not certain is where the impact of these changes will fall, as the noble Lord, Lord Knight, indicated.
The charities working in this field have produced excellent briefings for us. Those have come from Shelter, Crisis, Citizens Advice, Homeless Link, Barnardos, Family Action, along with the Chartered Institute of Housing and the National Housing Federation, with support from the Local Government Association and some impressive work once again from the Greater London Authority. These bodies all note the likelihood of several thousand tenants facing homelessness. Apart from this wrecking the life chances of the families concerned, the charities point out that the extra costs of homelessness could more than outweigh the housing benefit savings. Homeless Link notes that, on conservative estimates, if even one quarter of those identified as at severe risk were to become homeless, then all the gains from the housing benefit cuts would be lost.
The charities also point out, as has the noble Lord, Lord Knight, that a greater number—over 900,000—of tenants who stay put when their benefits are cut could be forced to find the balance from their very low incomes: state pensions; incapacity benefits; jobseeker’s allowance; or, for a fifth or so of these tenants who are in low-paid work, from their very modest earnings. I do not believe it is the intention of Ministers to increase the number of homeless households, which would, in any case, be self-defeating and counterproductive, nor do I believe that the Government intend to impoverish nearly 1 million very poor households with the equivalent of a cut in their pensions and other benefits of an average of £12 a week for each household. If that was the outcome, set against the coalition Government’s commitment that the effects of reducing the deficit should not fall disproportionately on those least able to take the strain, then the housing benefit changes would have to be deemed a terrible failure.
Rather, it is hoped that, away from the very high-value areas that claimants will have to leave, landlords will reduce rents to accommodate all or most of the fall in housing benefit/LHA payments. If so, to a large extent it will be landlords not tenants who take the hit. This would certainly be a desirable outcome where landlords are abusing the HB arrangements. The analysis by the Department for Work and Pensions suggests that 13 per cent of the rise in housing benefit is attributable to greedy landlords increasing rents to squeeze more out of the system. Thirteen per cent is not a huge proportion of the rise in costs, but nevertheless, it is worth addressing.
I think the new measures will indeed lead to some landlords reducing their rents. In some parts of the UK, particularly where unemployment has been very high and may go higher, a very high proportion of tenants are in receipt of housing benefit. If landlords are not to risk serious arrears, they will have to adjust to lower rents. In some places, current market conditions mean that the alternative of selling the rented property into owner-occupation will not be an option. Landlords may be resentful, they may even lose money—I fear they will not be investing and improving their properties—but, like it or not, they will have to go with the lower rents if that is all the tenants can pay.
Just how widespread will this be? In how many cases will it be the landlord not the tenant who absorbs the cost of the cuts? Talking to private landlords from different areas, I think there are opportunities for rent reductions where the local housing allowance is paid direct to landlords—as is facilitated by these regulations, avoiding the danger of arrears, which can lead to evictions that are costly for landlords as well as traumatic for tenants—and where the required reduction is relatively small, say 5 per cent of the rent. In such cases, good will toward good tenants, combined with the hassle and costs of replacing tenants, will incline many landlords to make modest rental concessions, particularly in not raising rents as soon as the opportunity arises, but there are definitely finite limits on the extent of this restraint. Even a 5 per cent rent reduction will be a problem for a lot of landlords. Five per cent of rent might exceed the margin, the profit from letting, after taking account of mortgage repayments, management and maintenance costs, an allowance for vacancies and so on. Some buy-to-let landlords with relatively high debts on their property could be in difficulty if they were to cuts rents by 5 per cent. Moreover, the figures in the DWP's impact assessment indicate that a 5 per cent rent reduction would not be enough to close the gap, to remove the new shortfall between benefit and rent, in the great majority of cases. It would appear to cover less than 90,000 cases out of a total of well over 900,000.
There is another reason to fear that landlords will not implement the hoped-for rent reductions. Since demand outstrips supply in so many areas, landlords can simply opt to reject those on benefit. Already a high proportion of landlords and their agents will not accept those on HB. These tenants cannot put down a deposit or pay rent in advance. Local authorities, unhappily, often take some time to process HB applications and early arrears can mount. Rent is paid on a four-weekly basis while landlords expect it on a calendar monthly basis and, however unfounded, there are fears by landlords and their agents that those on HB will be troublesome tenants. The compensation has been that LHA can pay up to the level of the middle rent for the area, the 50 per cent marker, but now that the maximum is to be reset at 30 per cent, this advantage is lost. Where they can, it seems likely that more landlords and managing/letting agents will avoid letting to those in receipt of HB. I am told by the staff in local authorities who seek to secure privately rented accommodation for vulnerable households in their area that previously helpful landlords are already pulling back, even where the council guarantees the rent and gives back-up support for tenants.
The underlying problem is, of course, the overall acute shortages of available homes. With more demand than supply, experts, such as Professor Michael Ball at Reading University, predict rent rises, not rent reductions. Until mortgages are plentiful again without requirements for large deposits, the private rented sector will have a ready market of young people who cannot buy. If landlords stop letting to those on benefit, properties will be available to absorb some of this growing demand, but that would, in the absence of sufficient housing, exacerbate the problems for those reliant on benefit.
It is very far from certain that many landlords will reduce rents, and it is possible that more landlords will withdraw from letting to those in receipt of these lower benefits. Since we now rely on the private rented sector to house nearly a million poorer households, this would be very bad news, but, as the Merits Committee notes, the DWP's impact assessments states that,
“it is impossible to quantify the indirect impact of the measures with any degree of certainty as it is not possible to predict the behavioural effects on tenants or landlords.”
It is for this reason that I have brought forward the resolution in my name that is before your Lordships today.
The resolution proposes a wholly independent, rigorous review reporting to both Houses of Parliament on the impact of the HB changes: on children; on homelessness; on whether mitigating measures, including the modest sums available in discretionary housing payments, are making a difference; on whether local authorities are being put under intolerable pressure, not least in handling the extra social and welfare costs if there is an influx of low-income households into their area; and so on. Thankfully, existing tenants are being given an extra nine months before facing these HB changes, with none affected before December 2012, so a first review one year from now can cover only new lettings, not the existing stock. The feared mass migration out of central London will not have begun in earnest before 2013 but I suspect it will become apparent quite early if landlords are not reletting vacant properties to those on the new benefit levels, in which case the review would enable Government to take corrective action. We know from the concessions made in response to the highly critical Social Security Advisory Committee’s report that swift action can be taken if required.
Last week I met the Minister and I believe he shares some of my concerns. I am hopeful he will be willing to make a significant statement today in response to the proposition in my resolution. An independent report next year could provide the basis for the Government to make “in-flight” corrections to amend or suspend some of these regulations and to prevent the dramatic changes to the HB system, leading to a potential national tragedy for so many low-income households.
Lord German
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Knight, for his agreement that he is not going to pursue the annulment and also for his support of the noble Lord, Lord Best. The Motion will meet the problem we are all facing—what might happen in the future. In some ways, it is like trying to judge between those who know the next winner of the Grand National and those who believe that it is an art form to study the form and decide which direction to take. Essentially, this whole issue rises or falls on an assessment of how the market will behave.
I want to consider the agreement between the former Labour Government and what the Government are trying to do today. The noble Lord, Lord Knight, said that we should go ahead with the £15 that was made available to people who could negotiate a smaller rent and we should take that away. That was a proposal that he quite rightly made while in government. There is a general agreement that the costs of local housing allowance and housing benefit must be reduced and contained. There is a question which we are all struggling with about the speed with which we do it. There probably will be a consensus in the overall ambition but a difference in the speed by which we achieve that.
There is an agreement that the current expenditure trends, as shown in the impact assessment by the DWP, are unacceptable and unsustainable. Continuing as we are from the evidence that we are given, private sector rents will be driven up, the gap between housing benefit paid in social housing and in the private housing sectors will be extended, and the difference between average earnings and private sector subsidised rents will be widened. That is unacceptable. We know from the figures that the average impact of these measures on households in the private sector will be £12 a week, but of course there are great disparities in that. The figure is £12 a week across the whole of Great Britain but if you look at the difference between Blackpool and London, you get a huge variation. That was a figure which the previous Labour Government alighted on as one of the reductions they would make, but for a much smaller group of people than that which is proposed now. So it sounds remarkably like we are moving in a direction in which people want to travel but not necessarily at the speed at which everybody wants to go.
There has been the critical Social Security Advisory Committee report and its priority is the impact of the regulations. That is its job, not dealing with deficit reduction. Nevertheless, the report quite rightly said, “Do not implement this, but if you are choosing to implement it, here is a range of things you should do to make these changes work”. I am pleased that the Government have accepted the majority of these, in particular the delaying and phasing for current recipients of housing benefit.
There is a quite distinct issue relating to London in this variation. One in four of housing benefit households in London is affected by these measures and the primary impact in London is that the average figure across London for the change in rent to be paid by these allowances is £22. However, 17,000 of the 21,000 losers as a result of a cap on the rent are located in London, so there is a London issue which is almost unique within Great Britain. I read in the other place the evidence given in the form of the committee report and the committee discussion and there was a sense that people were seeing the whole of Great Britain through the prism of London. That is a dangerous process and we may have to look at London separately because in the rest of Great Britain the average impact of these changes on rents is £9.84 a week. In a period when landlords have low interest rates on mortgages, this may be the right time for them to absorb this change.
I will return to the London problem later. First, I would like to look more closely at the impact this figure of £9.84 will have on household rentals around the rest of Great Britain. Essentially, the difference of view which I hear on this issue is around this central question. The noble Lord, Lord Best, said it just now. Will landlords reduce their rents to meet the new levels set by Government? This is fundamentally an issue about the operation of the private rented sector market.
The Government essentially influence about 40 per cent of rents in Great Britain. In terms of pure economics, the state must surely have a prime influence on the level of general rents because it pays the rents of 40 per cent of the properties. It is not quite a monopolistic situation, but the Government are a major purchaser of tenancies in the country.
How has this market operated until now? On the one hand, it seems that tenants have found properties for rents at levels which they know the Government will pay; on the other hand, landlords have set their rents at the level which the Government will pay. There is no incentive on either side to adjust or to deal with this matter. In straightforward terms, it is a market in which the principal and largest purchaser has not really had much influence over the price paid.
Will the changes make a difference? I sincerely hope so, but we are talking of market behaviour. It cannot be an exact science. That is why it is essential that the spirit of the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Best, is followed and a full evaluation and measurement of the impact are carried out just as soon as the first complete annual cycle of the new regime has ended. We need to know whether the desired changes which it is assumed will be brought about as a result of the measures have taken place.
The market is more likely to work in the direction that the Government want if the state enters the market as a negotiator. Currently, there is no incentive for the state to get the best rental price. We are talking about an incentive that is, first, a copper-bottomed guarantee of rental income, which the Government can provide—the Government are backing the money being provided—and, secondly, a direct payment to the landlord if they accommodate the changes. That is an important concession which the Government have made as a result of the report by the Social Security Advisory Committee.
I welcome the additional funding for housing benefit specialists to intervene in negotiations with landlords, but I have to ask the Minister two questions. First, do those people have the right skills to enter a negotiation market where previously they dealt with a different set of criteria and a different environment? Secondly, is the funding which they are making available to enable the negotiation to take place sufficient?
The big question for London is: is there a ready supply of non-housing benefit tenants ready to fill the properties if landlords are not prepared to reduce their rents? That is why I suppose that such a huge portion of the new funding for discretionary housing benefit and assistance is going to London. Will the Minister confirm that the Government will ensure that the most vulnerable are protected and recognise the distinct market pressures which make London so different?
I accept, of course, that there is mobility of tenancies in London. As a relatively new Member here who has had to seek to rent a property in London during the week, I have found that tenancies move very quickly—you will not expect to take a long time looking over a property as you might normally do in other parts of the country. A quarter of a million moves take place each year in inner London alone, which demonstrates to me that people seem to want to move rapidly. Having moved several times in my life, I must say that it has been the most horrendous part of my life that I can remember; I would prefer not to move at all because it is such an unpleasant exercise. I suppose that there is a different quality to life in London which means that people like to move around more rapidly.
However we judge this matter, we have to recognise that the reason for pressure on the funding of private sector rents is a shortage of social housing in this country. I hope that the Government’s ambitions for the net number of new properties in the social sector will be achieved, but much more can be done in this field by way of other arrangements with private funding. Much more imaginative use of private funding can be made to create more units of social sector housing. We need to dwell on that matter because this is an equation. If we want to make sure that the balance of the equation is right, we need more social housing in our country. We must remember above all else that people need and deserve a proper roof over their heads. In all the initiatives that we take to keep public expenditure under control, we must not lose sight of this fundamental aspect of a decent society.
The Lord Bishop of Hereford
My Lords, I recognise with others who have spoken a need to reform the present arrangements for housing benefit but I also express my concern about the measures that are before us. The noble Lords, Lord Best and Lord Knight, presented some alarming figures which, even if we perhaps dismiss the more extreme end, nevertheless give rise to considerable grounds for concern.
The noble Lord, Lord Best, referred to a number of charities that have supplied him with briefing papers; I have been involved with a number of others. Housing Justice expresses fear that the arrangements being proposed would significantly increase the number of homeless people, particularly within London but elsewhere in the country as well.
A reduction in housing benefit at a time when we are facing all the uncertainty and the outworking of the comprehensive spending review compounds the complications of the system and risks therefore greater harm being done to those who are most vulnerable. It is so difficult, as I think everyone who has spoken already acknowledges, for us to assess the outcomes of the proposals both for those on housing benefit and for others in the system.
Baroness Sherlock
I shall pick up precisely where the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Hereford left off in looking at the impact on children and communities. In preparing for this debate, in common with other noble Lords I read briefings from a wide range of charities and was very grateful for them. I also read the excellent report from the Social Security Advisory Committee, but probably the single most informative document that I have read so far has been the impact assessment from the DWP. I even thought of simply reading out sections of it in place of a speech, until it occurred to me that noble Lords might have read it already, but it is probably the most damning impact assessment that I have ever read.
Rather than repeating the comments that other noble Lords have made far more eloquently—my noble friend Lord Knight did a beautiful job of setting out the detail on this—I want only to look at what that might mean for a family, because it is very easy for us to consider the policies without understanding the impact on individual families.
I spent some time running a charity that worked with single parents. A lot of the single parents who came through the door would phone up when their world had suddenly fallen apart. Perhaps the husband had left, or something had happened and the marriage or family had broken up. Often, a pattern would follow from that. Usually, the mother would end up with the children. She would often have been working, as would the father. When she had to do the childcare alone she would find that she could not manage it and do the same job, because that simply did not work, so she would often then give up the job. The pattern would be that she would often move to be closer to her own family—perhaps her own mother or father—who would help to share the childcare. Over time, she would rebuild her life and often end up getting a part-time job with childcare and being helped by the family and friends in the neighbourhood. She was usually able to do that only because of tax credits and housing benefit. Suddenly, the family would begin to be back together again.
Imagine what happens to that lone parent in that situation if she suddenly finds that the rent on the family home which she has managed to establish can no longer be met by the local housing allowance. What does she do? The landlord might be kind enough to drop her rent, but what if he does not? She then has two choices. Should she try to stay put and make up the difference, when we already know from Crisis that 48 per cent of people on the local housing allowance already face a shortfall? She might already be trying to top up the rent as it is. Even if the difference is only the £12 a week which the noble Lord, Lord German, mentioned, that is a lot of money to someone on that kind of income. If you shop around, £12 a week can buy a pair of children's shoes or put a lot of food on the children’s table. At that level, £12 a week might simply be beyond her reach; it might as well be £1,200.
What does that lone parent do? Does she decide to move to a different area? In doing so, if she moves from inner to outer London, for example, the children will certainly have to change schools, if they can find a place. In doing that, their schooling is disrupted and they lose contact with their friends. In many cases, the woman loses contact with her family. She might then not be able to travel back to the job. The travel costs might be too great or her own mother cannot mind the children, which means that she cannot risk being late back as she has to be there in time to pick the children up from school. We can end up in a situation where the children's lives have been disrupted, the mother might be forced back on to income support, the family has been fractured and the children will suffer. The consequences are potentially significant.
I do not want to wave a shroud; that is not my intention. I want to try to dismantle a policy from its larger scale to see what the impacts might be on an individual set of families. In fact, the impact assessment makes it very clear what the consequences are of some of that dislocation. It talks about the evidence of what happens to the educational attainment of children who are moved—about the impact on the GCSE points of those who are moved at key stages. It talks about the dangers of overcrowding, because the alternative for our lone parent is to stay put or perhaps to go to a smaller house, squeezing a family into a tiny flat. But then where do the children do their homework, as the impact assessment points out? What are the consequences for that family?
The other issue is the other wider impacts of a choice such as this. What happens to the families who have traditionally lived in a very mixed area, in the way that the right reverend Prelate described? I visit people who live in Islington—I went to a church there—and have always been hugely impressed that in so much of London there are such areas, where rich and poor live side by side. But where do they mix in practice? I remember the vicar of Islington walking me down a street to show me a beautiful Georgian terrace on one side and an interesting and challenging 1960s council block on the other. He said, “You know, the joy is that the people in the Georgian terrace look out on the council block and the people in the council block look out on the Georgian terrace”. The real joy was in fact that their bins were emptied by the same council service, that they went to the same GPs and that they shopped in the same local neighbourhood stores when they needed to. In other words, they shared local services. One thing that has long been observed is that services for poor people become poor services, while one thing about having people in mixed areas is that you have what I think a government Minister memorably described as the sharp-elbowed middle classes, who are there to make sure that those shared services are available to all and are protected and developed.
The case that I have described might be just one family, but the impact assessment says that 450,000 of the households affected contain children. If 450,000 households with children are affected by these changes, I very much hope that the Minister will be able to consider the sensible suggestion from the noble Lord, Lord Best, and take his time to consider the impact of two things. First, what will the impact be on families with children? He should track what has happened to some of those families and look at how their lives have changed. Secondly, I strongly urge him to consider how this interacts with the many other measures that the Government have taken through.
That single parent will already be facing cuts from the Government in her childcare help and in the amount of money that she is allowed to earn on her tax credits. She could already be facing a range of other cuts and benefits. She is already in a context in which inflation is rising and the local housing allowance will be uprated only in line with the CPI, while VAT and fuel bills have just gone up. These families are much squeezed already. The very least we owe them is to make sure that we do not take a step such as this without properly understanding the implications.
Lord Adebowale
My Lords, I support the very sensible proposals made by the noble Lord, Lord Knight. I spent a good chunk of my career working in housing, on estates and in homelessness, and I am very concerned about the impact of these changes on poverty and on the Government’s attempts to reduce poverty and reduce the Government’s deficit. The noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, set out very clearly the impact on individual families, and we know that transition affects poor families disproportionately more than richer families. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Hereford made the very strong point that these proposals not only have a financial impact on poor families; they also have an impact on social services and neighbourhoods, crime, mental health and substance misuse. Throughout my career I have seen this impact walk through the doors with the homeless and with those at risk of homelessness.
While I understand that the proposals of the noble Lord, Lord Knight, stand no chance of going anywhere, they are actually worthy of careful consideration. We have not thought through the impact on families and on the societies in which they live—on social services, on health, on mental health and on employment. Given that the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Knight, will not go through, the proposal of the noble Lord, Lord Best, is second best—no pun intended. Actually, it was intended. If you happen to be one of the families at risk—the majority of which, by the way, are in employment, low-wage employment though it is—it is not much comfort to be told, “Hang on a minute, you will suffer for a year and then someone might pop along and do some research into the impact”. Frankly, it is one of those amendments that I am forced to support. In conversation with the noble Lord, Lord Freud, some time ago, I expressed my concern that the Government have no plan B. It is no good making these swingeing cuts on the poor, who do not have the broadest shoulders to carry the impact of the deficit, and not have a clear plan B.
Baroness Thomas of Winchester
My Lords, it is no secret that when these regulations were first announced I had deep concerns about them, as I made clear in the housing debate that the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, introduced at the beginning of last November. When the Social Security Advisory Committee’s very critical report was published, the Government modified their original proposals in two important ways, as we have heard: in relation to the timing of the changes and in allowing direct payments to landlords in certain circumstances.
The nine months of breathing space for existing claimants is welcome to give them more time to find alternative accommodation if necessary, although it will be paid for by bringing forward the moving of LHA rates from the median to the 30th percentile for new claimants. Also delayed is the introduction of the cap on LHA payments and a reduction in the maximum number of bedrooms that a claimant is entitled to, from five to four. Overall, the change in the phasing means that some claimants will be hit by the cut a year earlier than they might have expected, while others will have a bit more time before the cuts bite.
Turning to the other concession, direct payments to landlords, I am glad that the Government have now agreed to widen the criteria that local authorities should consider in order for this to happen, although I find the wording of this concession quite convoluted—perhaps deliberately so, in order to give some flexibility—so perhaps the Minister can help me. The wording is:
“From April 2011, in cases assessed under the local housing allowance arrangements, local authorities will be able to pay housing benefit direct to the landlord where they consider that it would help the customer to secure a new tenancy or remain in their current home. It follows that the rent must be at a level that they can afford. We will work closely with local authorities to ensure that this provision is used in very specific circumstances where landlords are reducing rents to a level that is affordable for customers”.—[Official Report, 14/12/10; col. WA 170.]
I am glad that the Government are providing guidance to local authorities because to me these three sentences could mean three different things. I am not an expert in these matters, but they do not quite seem to hang together.
While I am talking about welcome news, we must not forget the two provisions in the original announcement of, first, an additional bedroom to be included in the size criteria used to assess HB claims in the private rented sector for an overnight carer of a disabled person or someone with a long-term health condition and, secondly, a large increase in the discretionary housing payments. Both those measures are very welcome.
The $64,000 question remains, however, as all the speakers so far have said: will these housing benefit regulations mean that landlords will reduce their rents, thus bringing the huge housing benefit bill down, to general rejoicing by taxpayers and the Government, or will it mean that not enough landlords will, or can afford to, reduce their rents low enough for LHA claimants, that the discretionary housing payments will be spread too thin to make much difference and that therefore thousands of people will face eviction, child poverty will increase and local authorities will eventually have to pick up a very large bill?
Many statistics have already been given and I will not add to them. We all know why the bill for housing benefit has ballooned—there is nowhere near enough social housing throughout the country and so councils have turned to the much more expensive private rented sector, with buy to let becoming a popular way for people with capital to cash in on the shortage of rental accommodation. While there may be a percentage of greedy landlords who are able to charge unjustifiably high rents—the noble Lord, Lord Best, referred to them and gave a figure—is not the real truth of why the HB bill is so high not that housing benefit has inflated rents but that there are huge numbers of low-paid and unemployed people who qualify for housing benefit?
It is clear that, as my noble friend Lord German has said, London with its high rents is in a category of its own, even though a lot of the boroughs are receiving the cushion of the bulk of the discretionary housing payments. To those of us who live and work in London, the mix of housing works to everyone’s advantage, as the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, said in her powerful contribution. If a large number of the low-paid workforce who receive LHA are forced to move out even of Greater London, then everyone suffers, because life in central London depends on low-paid workers; we do in this House. Of course we all understand that low-paid or unemployed people on housing benefit with large families cannot expect to live for ever in high-end houses or flats in central London, although I am quite sure that very few actually do. However, we know that a lot of families will be forced to move in the next couple of years, as the noble Lord, Lord Adebowale, said. We just hope that this will not mean that they will be pushed out of the reach of good employment and transport, thus exacerbating the situation.
The real worry about these regulations is that dropping to the 30th percentile could have a devastating effect on these families all over the country, many of whom find life a struggle even now. This regulation is the one that could cause evictions, particularly in housing hot spots outside London, such as Brighton and Cambridge, with landlords not having to reduce their rents because they can always find someone not on housing benefit to pay the going rate.
What we need, and what I called for in our debate in November, is what the noble Lord, Lord Best, calls for in his Motion: an independent review of housing benefit in the private rented sector. I know that the Minister will say that this happens automatically in his department, but we need an independent review to be set up and to alert Parliament quickly if the worst fears of some of the relevant organisations in this field, which have already been mentioned, are being realised. Many groups are warning of the dire consequences of the effect of these regulations in today’s difficult economic climate, particularly for single parents and disabled people. The noble Baroness, Lady Wilkins, may say more about disabled people shortly. What would reassure many of us who are concerned about these changes is to hear that the Government will take swift action to alleviate the situation if they are wrong and the organisations are right. I look forward to my noble friend’s reply.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
My Lords, I declare an interest as chair of Broadland Housing Association. I will not follow my noble friend Lady Sherlock, the right reverend Prelate and the noble Lord, Lord Adebowale, in talking about the human stress, distress and misery potentially in waiting for so many thousands of families with children in our country. Instead, I want to do something different; I want to challenge the very premises behind the Government’s strategy, which I think are false.
We have been here before, with the Housing Finance Act 1972 and especially in the late 1980s when the Tory Government again pressed up rents on the grounds that they should subsidise people, not property. We on the Labour Benches pointed out then what would happen. The selfsame money that had been spent on new homes was now being spent on housing benefit, which in turn trapped people out of work and left us with a shortfall in housing. Now the Government are trying to rectify a problem of their own creation by capping HB. They believe, falsely, that HB is driving up private sector rents, that the HB bill has grown because of those increased rents and that, by capping HB, they will press down rents.
The second fallacy is that this policy is consistent with universal credit—a policy for which I applaud the noble Lord, Lord Freud—which seeks to bring more people into the labour market. On the contrary, I fear that these HB caps, together with the unpleasant and bizarre policies of Mr Pickles, will have the reverse effect. Let me unpick this a little. The Minister says that as 40 per cent of the tenants of private rented sector properties receive HB—a rather disputed figure—HB rates determine rents. However, he will be aware, I am sure, of two very simple statistics from his own department. First, as quoted by the noble Lord, Lord Best, the DWP’s own figures show that the increase in housing benefit has been caused not by increased rents but by increased demand for HB from more tenants in both the private and public sectors. Only 13 per cent of the increase in HB can be attributed to private sector rent increases. In other words, the increase in the HB bill has not come about because HB has driven up rents and, therefore, has sought to catch up with the rents that it has inflated. Instead, the HB bill has risen because more and poorer people are claiming HB, including those in low-paid work. That is a fact.
The second statistic is also from the DWP. An Answer to a PQ in August 2009—I do not have later figures—showed that 48 per cent, or nearly half, of all those receiving local housing allowance had, on average, a shortfall of £23 a week. This was because their contractual rent was higher than their HB. Some will have been in work, others on income support and so on. I do not know how they made ends meet. For those in shared accommodation, paying single-room rent, the HB research for the DWP showed that 87 per cent of young people faced a shortfall, on average, of £35 a week. I dread what will happen now that we propose to raise the age at which single-room rent can be claimed from 25 to 35. I repeat: 48 per cent found that their HB did not cover their rent. If the Minister is right and their HB then did not press down on their contractual rent—however much the tenants would have wanted and needed it to—why does he think now that by cutting HB 18 months later he will press their contractual rent down? It is a triumph of hope over history. It was not happening 18 months ago and landlords tell us that it will not happen this time either. SSAC confirms this. Nine in 10 landlords will avoid anyone on HB. Why? Because they can now let to other people at the rents that they seek to charge. In other words, the Government do not control, as they believe they do, the rents of the private rented sector. It is a fallacy. Indeed, preliminary findings from current research suggest that, whether housing benefit claimants account for 20 per cent or 70 per cent of the private rental market, it makes no difference at all to local rent levels. HB levels, and therefore the Government, do not shape the market, full stop.
The Earl of Listowel
My Lords, I know that everyone is waiting for the Minister’s response to this debate, so I will be brief. I support my noble friend Lord Best’s Motion, and wish to speak on two issues. One is the availability of social housing and the other is the child protection issue, raised by the noble Lord, Lord Knight, my noble friend Lord Adebowale, and other speakers. I join the consensus of concern in this area.
The noble Lord, Lord German, raised the question of the availability of social housing. Most of us can agree that it is a tragedy that in this country we have failed to invest in good social housing for our people. I visited recently in Walthamstow a mother with a young, six week-old infant who was sharing the house, the bathroom and the kitchen with five other households. We have let such families down badly. I have visited private housing which is being used to fill the gap in Redbridge and some of it is of appalling quality. We have let these families down by not investing and not thinking strategically about securing sufficient social housing supply. The concern, in a sense, is that this will add insult to injury: we have let these families down and we may yet let them down further. I strongly support my noble friend in his call for a considered assessment of the impact of this change.
The noble Lord, Lord Knight, spoke about the impact on children’s services of the migration of families from one area to another. Among other local authorities, he mentioned Haringey. Your Lordships may recall from the report of my noble friend Lord Laming into the death of Victoria Climbié what he discovered about the state of the social services department in Haringey. Among other things, there was a shortage of social workers and a high number of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children entering the local authority, putting an additional and unexpected burden on the children’s services. Social worker managers said that it became like a service production line. Social workers were overloaded and Victoria Climbié’s social worker, Mrs Arthurworrey, had far above her maximum case load. This was the context of what happened to Victoria Climbié and the terrible fate that befell her. I urge your Lordships not to forget what happened in that case.
It would serve the Government’s interests well if they were to consider carefully the impact of these changes on children’s services. If something goes wrong and children’s services become overburdened and social workers cannot answer the needs, the media will understandably be very scathing about what they see as the roots of such problems. It might be unhelpful to the Government in the longer term if it seems that the policy on which they are now embarking might lead to the failure of services and the death of a child or some other outcome. I strongly support my noble friend’s Motion and I look forward to the Minister’s reply.
Baroness Turner of Camden
My Lords, it may not be part of our convention to challenge regulations in this way but we are not living in conventional times. We are faced with a determined attempt by the Government to undermine the welfare society with which we have lived since the end of the last war and to replace it with something called the big society—hence the attempt to change benefit provision without regard to what this will mean for many vulnerable people.
This is the case with housing benefit. Many people have been kept from desperate poverty and even homelessness by the existence of this benefit. Among them are many single parents, mostly women, and it is surely in our interests that such women should be able to bring up and support their children. Often they have poorly paid part-time jobs and some of the difficulties that such women and their families face have already been demonstrated to us very dramatically by one of the previous speakers in the debate.
I am a Londoner and I believe that London is a special case. The mayor may have been attacked for some of the statements he made—he was regarded as having over-reacted—but, on the other hand, he has a point. There are many areas of London, including the one in which I live, which have changed dramatically in the past 20 or 30 years. They have been developed and upgraded. I have lived there for 40 years, and it was relatively inexpensive when I moved there, but it no longer is. It is desperately overpriced. Rents are impossible, except for well-off people.
If the arrangement is that benefits in future should be related to the market rent, many people will be unable to afford the resulting rent without the appropriate benefit. Such people will have no alternative but to move. The mayor made that point strongly in his statement. It is true that people will be unable to go on living there if rent is related in some way to the market rate. That would be impossible. A number of speakers have already referred to what might happen in such circumstances and the social results of such an arrangement. People will have no alternative but to uproot and move to different places, where there may be overcrowding and other undesirable effects on their health and that of their families.
For those reasons, I hope that your Lordships will agree at least to support the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Best. I certainly do and I hope that everybody else feels the same way.
Baroness Wilkins
As heralded by the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, I will concentrate on the situation regarding disabled people. In recent years, disabled people have been given hope that we will achieve equality by 2025, but with these regulations we see yet again that the Government are imposing cuts that will disproportionately affect disabled people. That might not be the intention but it is the effect.
Disabled people are the group most likely to be dependent on benefits, so the most likely to be affected by these cuts. Only half of disabled people of working age are in work compared with 80 per cent of non-disabled people, and the poverty rate among disabled people is double that of the rest of the population. As we have heard, the likelihood is that significant numbers of people will be forced to move. Being one of the poorest groups, disabled people are more likely to face this threat than others. The Minister has repeatedly implied that this is no problem as people are constantly on the move. What understanding does the Minister have of what that means for disabled people?
First, for physically impaired people there is the major issue of finding accessible accommodation. The paucity of housing stock which meets disabled people’s needs is a disgrace and far too little is being done about it. Not only that, the actual process of moving will be difficult for many who are physically disabled or who have mental illness. Secondly, disabled people are likely to be more reliant on informal support from neighbours, friends and family. These networks are built slowly and cannot be turned on and off like a tap. However, if disabled people are forced to move, the dislocation will inevitably mean increased isolation and result in more reliance on the statutory agencies and charities. Related to that is the fact that existing relationships with health and social services will be broken so there will be additional costs of re-assessment and re-establishing the support to be borne by the statutory services. What assessment has been made of what it will cost the state in forcing disabled people to move as a result of these regulations?
The Minister may say that the increase in discretionary housing payments will meet our concerns but the increase is nowhere near sufficient to support all those who need it. Disabled people will be only one of the vulnerable groups in need of this funding as Leonard Cheshire Disability has pointed out. On the brighter side, I welcome the Government’s move to allow an extra bedroom for those who need an overnight carer. Cuts elsewhere will mean that this is not as beneficial as it sounds. RADAR has been contacted by Ann—not her real name—who was given housing benefit and the second bedroom rate for a live-in carer. As a result, her mother bought a two-bedroom property with a mortgage for Ann and her live-in carer to rent. So far, so good, but Ann has had problems getting somebody to live in. As a result, the council reduced the second-bedroom rate to a first-bedroom rate on the ground that it was not the main residence of the live-in carer. Now Ann cannot pay her mother the rent that she owes, and so her mother cannot pay the mortgage. This has left both of them in extreme financial hardship and her mother now has to look after Ann at night as well.
The severe cuts being imposed on local authorities have resulted in some appalling decisions, with local authorities trying to cut overnight carers and forcing people to use incontinence pads instead. Such was the case last year when the former ballerina Elaine McDonald, who was not incontinent but just needed help getting to the loo, took the royal borough of Kensington and Chelsea to court when it imposed this cut. She lost the case. Does this mean that there will be an inevitable domino effect with cuts by social services resulting in the loss of the extra bedroom allowance? Will the Minister give the House an assurance that this will not be the case and that if a person is assessed as needing overnight care, they will receive the extra bedroom allowance?
I regret that the noble Lord, Lord Knight, will not press his Motions but I urge all noble Lords to support the Motion in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Best. Will the Minister agree to commission primary research to monitor and evaluate the impact on disabled people in particular within the year, given that disabled people are likely to be disproportionately affected by these cuts?
Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope
My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Wilkins. Her personal experience and powerful testimony are always of benefit to the House. We are very pleased to listen to what she had to say. However, I do not agree with the last point she made because, politically, it is absolutely apposite that the noble Lord, Lord Knight, took the decision that he did to leave a Division for now. That was the right thing to do and the debate benefited from it. It certainly makes it easier for people like me, who agree with a lot of the analysis and share a lot of the concern, to keep the pressure on the Minister for Welfare Reform. I am also grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Best, who admirably set the scene. Given the expert that he is, we would expect nothing else.
The politics of this are not hard to discern. Those of us who have been around long enough to remember the introduction of housing benefit in 1988 can see the Treasury’s fingerprints all over these cuts which have been on Treasury shelves since the income support system was changed in the welfare reform Act of 1986. Given the speed with which certainly the initial tranche of changes were introduced, some of which are reflected in the statutory instruments we are discussing, they could have been given no other thought than the Treasury insisting that DWP Ministers had to find changes.
As I keep saying, the noble Lord, Lord Freud, is a national treasure given that he is the architect of the universal credit, the principle of which I absolutely support. However, he had to pay a price for that. I well understand the concessions that have to be made between departments. Therefore, I do not blame my noble friend for what we are facing. However, the noble Lord, Lord Knight, was right to refer to the £15 excess. That was very welcome because if there is a feeling across the House that constructive measures can and should be taken to limit some of the damage referred to in many eloquent speeches this evening, that strengthens my noble friend’s hand in making representations to the department. In any case, this game does not finish this evening; it will be a long journey. Iterations of these cuts will be introduced over a period of years. Therefore, we have a little time to look at what is going on. We are not, to quote a phrase, lashed to the mast; at least, I would not like to think that we are.
If the Motion moved by the noble Lord, Lord Best, is accepted, and as long as the Minister for Welfare Reform is prepared to say that it is not just restricted to the regulations, which are only the start of a long journey which will make considerable changes, some of which will get considerably more acute come 2013, the House will have done a valuable piece of work. The Minister must also understand that he has to respond with a sense of responsibility, from an adult point of view, by being very firm about his assurances about what will be reviewed and reported, and how, when and why. We need to know what we are being asked to support.
The point was made eloquently by the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, but I have always felt that housing policy driven by housing benefit is completely crackers. It has all got out of kilter. We all need to step back to consider some of the excellent work done by John Hills in his excellent report, Ends and Means, and the Kate Barker recommendations of 2004—all a bit long in the tooth now, but the direction of travel necessary in the long term is all there. That work can be built on in future.
The private rented sector is not a place for long-term, low-income households’ housing needs to be met. It is a device that should be for another segment of our society altogether. We have let it get out of control in a way that is difficult to justify. Like colleagues, I find it difficult to be sure that the savings set out in these plans will be realised as they are expected to be without unintended consequences. It is not just the June 2010 Budget proposals or the spending review proposals—as, again, the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, said, it is the universal credit changes, which are profound.
The House can be reassured that it will get a chance to come back to some of these issues. I give an undertaking to the noble Lord, Lord Knight, that if we do not get a proper review or if we get a proper review but a red traffic light on the basis of the red, amber and green system of risk assessment on some of these issues, I will happily consider joining him in the Lobby if the Government do not measure up to the requirements, which are felt on all sides to be necessary, before we can go home this evening satisfied that we have done our job properly.
I conclude by mentioning four—well, four and a half—things that I want in the review. The first has been discussed earlier. I want to know exactly what proportion of the market the Government expect to be accessible to people who are on local housing allowance. I do not believe that the proportion of 30 per cent will hold. Once it is indexed to CPI, there is no real expectation that across the country LHA clients will be able to access 30 per cent of the market. That is my view in London and other areas.
The Government need to explain what proportion of the private rented sector they eventually expect the changes to make available to the client group. I think that the market will fragment. I think that the pressure coming into the private rented sector is likely to segment into a binary system where people who are unable to get on to the first rung of the owner-occupation ladder will be in a much more advantageous place. There are many more of them. The evidence that went into the DWP Select Committee report indicates that there is enough pressure there to keep rents rising and that demand will increase. There is a real risk that the sector will split. That will be made worse after 2013.
Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde
My Lords, this has been quite a long discussion but I would say that its impact on our communities is as important as what we have been discussing in this House over the past two weeks.
Of all the government cuts, the ones in this area are probably the cruellest. They affect people’s homes, where they live and how they live, and how communities operate. Indeed, if a decision in this House were based on merit, the Motions of my noble friend Lord Knight would carry the day in this Chamber. The Minister may have the comfort of getting votes from those around him but I cannot convince myself that all members of the coalition—I am looking particularly at the Liberal Democrat Benches—are sitting comfortably while supporting this policy. That is based on the many debates that we have had in this House in the nearly 20 years in which I have been a Member.
I can picture a House that did not have a coalition but would be faced with support from the Lib Dem Members. It is also telling that the Minister, who I know will put up a brave fight for his Government’s policy, must be feeling very isolated. Not one member of the coalition has stood up in this debate in support of the Government’s policy. I think that speaks volumes about the many Members on the Benches opposite.
I will support, and I hope the Minister will support, the Motion in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Best, who has enormous experience and knowledge of the housing sector and communities. In this rather lengthy debate, we have not covered other areas of the impact of this policy. Naturally, the House has as a priority the impact on single parents and other people in our community who have the narrowest shoulders with which to bear the implications. However, I suggest that this has enormous economic implications, too. We have a shortage of housing in this country; the impact of this policy will be that, in three or four years’ time, that shortage will have increased and will be extremely costly to rectify.
It also means, without being too emotional about it, the increasing ghettoisation in our cities, London most of all. How will our businesses be able easily to get labour when many people in their community have had to move outside of the city because they could not afford the rents inside? So this is a very far-reaching policy; it is not about simply taking an average of £9 out of someone’s weekly income. It has a much more far-reaching impact than that.
I hope that the Minister will accept the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Best—second best though it may be, and I think it is. The wording is quite specific, and I know the department will carry out a review annually: that is its responsibility. But the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Best, covers quite specific areas: children, homelessness and the resources that local authorities can allocate to this important area.
If a citizen does not have a home, he does not have anything. Therefore, I hope the Minister will accept the Motion in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Best, and that this House, operating at its best, as it usually does, will monitor the policy very closely and debate it as often as is necessary, until we rectify some of the cruelty we now face.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
I support the two Motions moved by my noble friend Lord Knight of Weymouth and that moved by the noble Lord, Lord Best. The noble Lord, Lord Best, anticipates a significant statement from the Minister, and I look forward to that as well. If it were to signify the withdrawal of these orders at the twelfth hour, the Minister would become an even greater national treasure than that described by the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, but I do not hold my breath.
My noble friend was right to signify that he was not going to press his Motions. In many ways, it would be good to test the view of the House to see if we could stop these orders in their tracks, but I think it has helped the tenor of our debate, as the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, has said. Of course, if we did defeat the orders, we would have to carve out, perhaps through the welfare reform Bill, those two parts of the order that we do support, as my noble friend has said: the provisions relating to carers and an additional room being allowed, and the removal of the £15 excess. We sought to do this before the election, and some noble Lords may recall that one party represented here was quite opposed to that. I think it is right now to remove that excess.
Others have explored the thrust of these orders. The most damaging are the setting of the local housing allowance at the 30th percentile of rents in each broad rental market area and the introduction of absolute caps relating to the number of bedrooms in a property. The noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, asked whether the Minister could say what proportion of the rental market is in fact available to housing benefit claimants. I understand that the 30th percentile would mean, at least on day one, that 30 per cent of rents would potentially be affordable. It does not mean that 30 per cent would be available, and once we move to uprating by CPI, not even that first proposition would hold true.
Who bears the cost of the benefit savings is at the heart of the debate we are having. Will it fall wholly or mainly on landlords or on tenants who are, by definition, the poor? In considering these matters, we need to be mindful that they are just part of a package of measures aimed at cutting the cost of housing benefit. Still to come are increases in non-dependant deductions, the uprating of LHAs by CPI rather than by actual movements of rents, the docking of 10 per cent for those on JSA for more than 12 months and the extension of the single room rate for individuals up to the age of 35.
The need to tackle the budget deficit is acknowledged, which is why we accept and, indeed, initiated the withdrawal of the £15 excess, but the speed and depth of the cuts proposed is not something we support, as my noble friend has explained. The distribution of the cuts, which the IFS analyses will mean that by 2013-14 there will be an increase in absolute poverty by 300,000 children and 200,000 working-age parents, largely driven by the housing benefit cuts, is simply not acceptable. The DWP issued an impact assessment in November, together with an equality impact assessment. My noble friend Lady Sherlock spoke with some passion about this. The DWP suggests that it cannot assess the behavioural effects of the housing benefit proposals, although it provided an assessment on the assumption that housing choices on rent levels would be unaffected. As we have heard, it estimated that households would lose £12 a week on average, but declared itself unable to estimate the number of households that may move. In contrast, Shelter estimated that 68,000 to 134,000 would move nationally, and the GLA estimated that some 9,000 households may need to move in London.
In the context of our debates, £12 is sometimes not seen as a meaningful figure, but the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Hereford brought us down to earth on that, as did my noble friend Lady Sherlock who said that it is better to talk in terms of a pair of shoes or enough food on the table. Excluding the removal of the £15 a week excess, the impact assessment still shows that 68 per cent of LHA claimant households will lose on average £10 a week and that losses for those in five-bedroom accommodation will average £74 a week.
Another consequence the impact assessment acknowledges but does not quantify is the prospect of increased homelessness. It also acknowledges that local authorities have a duty to find school places for children moving into their area and that that can lead to increased costs and that children who experience disruption in their schooling may do less well than would otherwise be the case. It recognises that there may be additional burdens on local authorities when families move into an area requiring a care-and-support package, and for disabled people, as we have heard, the DWP states that the LHA proposals could reduce options to help independence and lead to the loss of informal carers and support networks. They are retrograde provisions indeed, as explained by my noble friend Lady Wilkins. For individuals in work, an enforced move could extend their commute to their place of work.
There is a list of probable consequences, but there is no fundamental assessment of or research into the extent to which these circumstances will arise or into how people’s lives will be affected. There is just a cruel acceptance of the traumas that these proposals will visit on poor families and the damage they will inflict on them, their families and their communities. All of this has to be considered in the context of 48 per cent of people on LHA already facing shortfalls between their benefit and their rent. It is inevitable that people having to move, homelessness increasing and debt rising will become a reality. The Government assert that these matters will be mitigated principally by downward pressure on private sector rents, by transitional relief, by households choosing more appropriate accommodation, and by additional funding for discretionary payments.
The Earl of Listowel
My Lords, I apologise. I omitted to declare my interest as a landlord. I do so now.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Lord Freud)
My Lords, this has been an important and interesting debate. I commend particularly the noble Lords, Lord Knight of Weymouth and Lord Best, on bringing forward these Motions and securing this debate. I shall try to answer as many as possible of the points raised, but, since there was an awful lot of them, I may not cover absolutely everything.
Perhaps I may first put the debate into context and explain why the statutory instruments are essential to advance the changes that we have planned. Housing benefit increases have been quite startling, as a number of noble Lords have pointed out. During the last 10 years, housing benefit expenditure as a whole has nearly doubled in cash terms from £11 billion to £21.5 billion in the current year. Only £2 billion of this increase is due to caseload. About £5 billion is due to general price inflation, but, most importantly, £4 billion is due to growth in private and social rents over and above general inflation. Private rents for benefit recipients have risen in real terms 10 per cent more rapidly than rents in the general market. These are exactly the sort of increases that we are seeking to contain. Without any reform, expenditure is forecast to be £24 billion by 2014-15.
It was imperative that we acted swiftly to stop the runaway costs of housing benefit, those costs having been allowed to rise without restriction year after year. As we made clear in the June Budget last year, welfare reform savings play an important role in reducing the overall budget deficit. The changes introduced by the statutory instruments alone add up to £1 billion by 2013-14.
We must be fair to the taxpayer. It is not right that families who work hard to pay their own rent have to pay even more so that those on housing benefit can live in homes that they could not think of affording. Some of the rates are extreme. I know that not a lot of people are taking £2,000 a week for a five-bedroom property in central London, but there are some and the current system allows it. Further down the scale, £500 a week is being paid for two-bedroom properties and £370 a week for one-bedroom properties at this year’s rates. The Government’s measures are designed to take this under some control.
One of the measures that we have announced, and which has been widely welcomed tonight, is providing for an additional bedroom for disabled people living in the private rented sector who need a non-resident, overnight carer.
Noble Lords have gone through the other changes, but I shall summarise them. They include applying an overall cap to local housing allowance rates and setting the maximum rate at four bedrooms. Those rates are £250 for one bedroom, £290 for two bedrooms, £340 for three bedrooms and £400 for four bedrooms. That is a little over £20,000 as the top rate. We are also removing the £15 weekly excess, which the previous Administration would have liked to do but did not. I do not think that anyone argues that it is appropriate that we pay people more than they pay in rent. It was introduced to encourage a process of negotiation between those who are renting and landlords, but it does not seem to have had that effect, so there does not seem to be much point in paying those figures.
The final element that we have been discussing tonight is the adjustment of the local housing rate from the median to the 30th percentile. Overall, there has been a lot of scaremongering generally, and a little of that tonight—and some false reporting about the measures, although there has not been that tonight. Some estimates of the number of people who will be made homeless are, quite frankly, ridiculous. It is simply irresponsible to suggest that thousands on thousands of people will be made homeless and will have to leave the capital in droves, as some have said. I welcome the opportunity to put the record straight and to respond to the concerns raised today.
First, I shall address what is essentially a London issue, surrounding the maximum weekly rates of local housing allowance that we will apply from April. They are still extremely generous rates. It is still far more than the vast majority of people pay out—at the rate of four bedrooms and £400 and more than £20,000 a year, a typical family would need to earn £80,000 a year to be able to afford that kind of rent.
These reforms are not about excluding benefit recipients from the nicest areas, as some have argued. We are simply ensuring a fair deal for the taxpayer. The simple truth is that individuals who claim housing benefit according to local housing allowance rules should face similar choices to those people in low-paid work. There is simply no reason why we should see people moving vast distances, and no mass moves out of the south of the country. In all but three of the most central areas of London, at least 30 per cent of properties will be affordable within local housing allowance rates. I shall just explain that figure, because there has been quite a lot of misunderstanding about it. The survey is based on the properties that are not in large occupied by recipients of housing benefit—so it is 30 per cent at least, except in those three areas, plus whatever elements of the housing stock currently occupied by housing benefit recipients that will go on being affordable. So it is a large proportion, although it is impossible to put an exact number on it, because clearly we are expecting prices to move and more properties to come into that category. But a large proportion of houses will remain affordable.
A small number of people in the most expensive places will, of course, have to move, but they will not have to move far, and we will work with local authorities to give those people the support that they need. In central London, 2.5 million jobs are accessible within 45 minutes of travel. Bus fares, although they went up this month, are no more than £1.30 for a single journey so they can go long distances on a bus. Low-income working households mostly pay a rent slightly lower than the appropriate local housing allowance rate. This group living in private rented accommodation is mobile; 40 per cent of them have been in that accommodation for less than a year. It is not unusual for families to move. Indeed, over a quarter of a million people moved out of or between inner London boroughs in 2008-09, which is a point that the noble Lord, Lord German, made.
On the estimates of homelessness that various bodies have put out, it is important not to rely on those estimates if they are based on what landlords say they will do or on early experience. We must look at the shortfalls. After the reforms, 32 per cent will see no change in shortfall, 450,000 households will have a shortfall of less than £10 a week and 35,000 will have a shortfall of more than £20 a week. Not all of those will have to move, let alone become homeless.
One difficulty in writing an impact assessment when there are behavioural and market-based effects is that it is not easy to quantify those impacts, because they involve a complex interplay of behavioural decisions by individual landlords and individual tenants. We are talking about market forces here. Although economic theory would suggest that if a purchaser of up to 40 per cent of a market reduces the amount that they are willing to spend, it will cause rents to fall, it is only in the end through observation that we will be able to obtain absolutely conclusive evidence.
We have had similar concerns raised about our decision to cap local housing allowance levels at the four-bedroom rate but that reflects the kind of housing choices that are made by larger families who are not on benefit. It builds on the restriction introduced by the now Opposition in April 2009 to cap at the five-bedroom rates. Let us be clear: most families not on benefit cannot afford to live in properties with five or more bedrooms. We are reflecting here the choices made by families everywhere.
These measures have been closely scrutinised. We have made available more data on impacts than has ever been the case. Clearly, some people will receive less benefit as a result of the changes but that does not necessarily mean that all of those people will be drastically worse off. The gap between the 30th percentile and 50th percentile can be quite narrow. On average, it is currently £15 a week for one-bedroom properties and £26 per week for two-bed properties in London. In the outer south-east area, the difference can be as little as £8 a week for two-bedroom properties. Clearly, one effect that will happen is that the 30th percentile and the median can start moving together if we do not get the downward pressure that we are trying to impose on the rates. That would actually be bad news for the Government, because we would not lose some of the gains but see a market response as those medians move together, rather than the wholesale disruption that some people have been forecasting. In practice, setting the local housing allowance rates at the 30th percentile merely reflects the choices of low-income households; we know that from the research that we undertook last year.
The noble Lord, Lord Best, told us about the attitude of landlords. Rather than accept his concerns wholesale—although he is clearly a great authority in this area—I would point out that, in the last 18 months, more than 400,000 private rented sector tenants have been claiming, which shows that landlords are certainly prepared to rent to tenants claiming housing benefit. I repeat my point that, at 40 per cent of the market in not all, but many areas, landlords will have no choice but to reduce their rents and give back some of the excess gain that we seem to have seen in this part of the market. We are also giving landlords an incentive by widening local authority discretion to pay housing benefit direct to the landlord, a point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas. We are not giving this discretion away for nothing and the complex language here was to make sure that we get something for something: that if we are translating a payment stream from, let us say, a triple-B-rated level to a triple-A sovereign income stream, we get something for our money. That is why that is written so carefully.
Because I do not want to run out of time, I will jump to the key thing and I will come back to whatever I can fit in after that. I want to turn to the important issue of the monitoring and evaluation of these changes. I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Best, for his timely Motion. I am very happy to agree to his proposal for an independent review. I make a firm commitment to the House that we intend to commission independent, external research to help us evaluate the impact of the reforms. This review will cover all the areas that the noble Lord outlined in his Motion. I can assure the House that it will be comprehensive and thorough and, of course, I readily agree that the outcome of the evaluation should be presented to both Houses, together with a written ministerial statement. Among the issues that it would cover—these were points raised by noble Lords—will be homelessness and moves; the shared room rate and houses in multiple occupation; what is happening in Greater London; what is happening in rural communities; what is happening in black and minority ethnic households; large families; older people; people with disabilities and working claimants. That is what this review will cover.
Lord Knight of Weymouth
The Minister has been very helpful in directly addressing the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Best. I am sure that the whole House will be grateful if he gives us assurance on the one outstanding feature, that this will be an annual review reporting to both Houses of Parliament.
Lord Freud
I thank the noble Lord for his intervention. Very elegantly, I have an answer for him on my next page—although, of course, I am not reading, I am keeping carefully to my text in this important area. The noble Lord, Lord Best, suggested that the review should be published after a year and we considered that point very carefully, but given the implementation timescales for these changes, particularly the transitional protection arrangements that we have introduced, I think that one year is too soon for a meaningful piece of evaluation research. Many housing benefit recipients will not be affected by the changes until well into 2012. We will therefore make the findings available in early 2013, with initial findings available in the spring of 2012 and an interim report in the summer of 2012.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
That is very helpful of the Minister. I fully understand his reasoning for why the report may therefore need to come out somewhat later than the noble Lord, Lord Best, originally proposed. Will the Minister also be giving us details about what is happening with rent levels, the 30th percentile, CPI and as a result, if necessary, the continued rebasing of the 30th percentile figure to ensure that it does not drift down because of the effect of CPI?
Lord Freud
I thank the noble Baroness for that. If I have one minute when I finish my prepared speech, I will try to touch on the CPI.
With regard to further reporting after what I have just described, I am not convinced that it would be appropriate to commit to an annual report on these reforms when so many other welfare changes will be made, as the noble Baroness has pointed out—not least, the introduction of the universal credit. I suggest that we ask the authors of the independent review to recommend whether they think that a follow-up evaluation will be necessary. As I said, I am happy to commit to the independent review that I have described.
Before I close on the CPI, I should point out that it is designed to bear down and we are locked into it for the years 2013-14 and 2014-15. Thereafter it is up to the Government to decide whether rates using that methodology go out of kilter.
These changes are important. We have put in a lot of transitional support along with a comprehensive programme of practical support to help local authorities implement these measures so that we can finally reform housing benefit and make it fit for purpose. There is no doubt that these statutory instruments are sensible and proportionate. They must go ahead and I commend them to the House.
Lord Knight of Weymouth
My Lords, I do not want to delay the House for very long. I thank noble Lords on all sides for what was an excellent debate and a demonstration of this House at its best. As the Minister said, it was an important and significant debate.
If Members of your Lordships’ House who were not present for the whole debate find themselves scratching around for something to do late at night, perhaps later on in the week, they would do well to read it in Hansard, although I fear that if they were members of the coalition they might find it slightly depressing, given that it certainly gives the lie to the notion that we are all in this together. The noble Lord, Lord Best, was so persuasive that everyone agreed with the case that he made for an independent review—even, I think, the Minister.
We heard about the human cost from the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Hereford and the noble Baronesses, Lady Sherlock, Lady Wilkins and Lady Turner; we had the passion of the noble Lord, Lord Adebowale, and the noble Baroness, Lady Dean; we had the forensic analysis of the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, making a strong case that the housing benefit levels do not shape the market but landlords do; and we heard specific worries on child protection from the noble Earl, Lord Listowel. The only comfort for the Minister and for those reading Hansard afterwards might come from the noble Lord, Lord German, and the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas of Winchester, but they would be minute crumbs of comfort given the balance of the speeches, where the noble Lords had more in common with their noble friend Lord Kirkwood, who summed up the cross-party opposition very well before my noble friend Lord McKenzie completed the argument.
I thank all those who briefed us before this debate, particularly the Social Security Advisory Committee for its excellent report, and the officials at the Department for Work and Pensions for a devastating impact assessment on the Minister’s proposals.
The Minister himself made a brave attempt to persuade us that everything will be okay. In his speech, the noble Lord, Lord German, suggested that there was as much certainty as backing a Grand National winner in trying to predict the outcome of these regulations. My money is on my noble friend Lady Hollis’s analysis over the Minister’s. I am disappointed that we have not had a commitment to an annual report. It will be up to the noble Lord, Lord Best, to decide whether to divide the House, but for now I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
Rent Officers (Housing Benefit Functions) Amendments Order 2010
Lord Knight of Weymouth
That a Humble Address be presented to Her Majesty praying that the Order, laid before the House on 30 November, be annulled.
Housing Benefit (Amendment) Regulations 2010
Lord Best
To resolve that this House considers that because of the uncertain impact on children, homelessness and local authority resources of the Housing Benefit (Amendment) Regulations 2010 (SI 2010/2835) and the Rent Officers (Housing Benefit Functions) Amendments Order 2010 (SI 2010/2836), the Government should commission an independent review in their effects, to conclude one year after they have come into force, and annually thereafter, and present the report of each review to both Houses of Parliament.
Lord Best
My Lords, I, too, thank everybody for participating. I think that every speaker has supported my Motion, which is entirely gratifying. I hope that that sends a strong message to the Government about the level of support that there is on this issue and, indeed, a message to the world outside. The Minister, to whom I am very grateful, has promised us a genuinely independent and comprehensive review. On the timing, he has promised—I think that I have got this right—preliminary findings after one year, an interim report later in 2012 and a full report presented to both Houses of Parliament and accompanied by a ministerial Statement in early 2013, with a requirement on the authors of the report to tell us whether a further report thereafter—an annual one or whatever—might be necessary.
The many charities that have briefed us and the other professional bodies will follow the progress of these reviews extremely carefully. If, as I suspect, some of those red lights that the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, mentioned start flashing quite early, I think that there must be an implied commitment, in setting up this review, to the Government’s changing course if that is necessary—perhaps in quite a radical way. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Freud, very much. I hope that all my noble friends and colleagues, including those who have been on standby in case this went to a vote, will agree that there has been an important outcome to this debate and that we have gone as far as we can tonight.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
(13 years, 10 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Bach
My Lords, the purpose of this amendment is to probe the thinking behind the territorial extent rule—rule 4—in Clause 11 and, in so doing, to test some of the fundamental assumptions that underpin the Bill’s proposed new system before drawing parliamentary constituencies. Rule 4 is designed to place a limit on the territorial extent of a constituency. The rule is deemed necessary because, if the principle of equality of representation was continued to its logical end, we would see at least one gigantic parliamentary constituency in the Highlands of Scotland. This is because the scarcity of population in that part of the United Kingdom means that a constituency would have to cover an enormous area if it was going to attain the proposed electoral quota of approximately 75,800 electors.
The electoral parity rule, born out of rules 2 and 5(3) in the Government’s scheme, is clear that every seat in Britain, save for the two Scottish island seats—and now, by the will of this Committee, the Isle of Wight—would have to have an electorate of between 95 per cent and 105 per cent of that UK average electorate, which means between about 73,000 and 80,000 voters. Rule 4 overrides that requirement. It states on the one hand that no constituency may exceed 13,000 square kilometres in size and on the other that a constituency may be exempted from the rule requiring it to meet the electoral quota in the event that it has a land area of more than 12,000 square kilometres.
What was the basis for these numbers? That is the first question that, we believe, stems from rule 4. There has never been, so far as we know, a statutory limit on the size of a constituency; still less has there been a statutory limit on electorates and an exemption from that limit based on territorial extent. Where did these numbers come from? The answer seems to be Ross, Skye and Lochaber, the constituency represented by the former Liberal Democrat leader, the right honourable Charles Kennedy, which is the only constituency that currently has a land area in that category of between 12,000 and 13,000 square kilometres.
Ross, Skye and Lochaber is the largest constituency in the United Kingdom. The Deputy Prime Minister told Parliament last summer, before the Bill was introduced, that,
“no constituency will be larger than the size of the largest one now”.—[Official Report, Commons, 5/7/10; col. 25.]
In fact, he did not quite stay true to his word. Thirteen thousand square kilometres—the maximum territorial extent allowed by the Bill—is 285 square kilometres bigger than Ross, Skye and Lochaber, which is 12,715 square kilometres. Before noble Lords accuse me of nit-picking, let me say that the Labour Member for Aberdeen North pointed out during debates on the Bill in another place that it is just enough to allow Ross, Skye and Lochaber, with its 52,000 electorate, to add some 21,000 voters from the city of Inverness, represented, of course, by the right honourable gentleman the Chief Secretary to the Treasury. That would be just enough to push Ross, Skye and Lochaber to within 5 per cent—5,000—of the electoral quota. We are not sure, however, that the Chief Secretary would be too keen on that.
Many people have harboured suspicions about this territorial size exemption, given the close relationship between the numbers in the rule and the dimensions of the said constituency. Some have viewed it as a crude attempt to protect the seat of the former Liberal Democrat leader. I do not take that view; this side does not take that view.
Even if that were the original intention, it has become apparent that it would not deliver that objective. The reality of the electoral parity law means that the Bill may result in the three new constituencies in place of the four currently representing the areas of Highland and Argyll. The seat most likely to disappear, assuming that the Boundary Commission for Scotland operates in its normal way, and regardless of whether it begins its calculations from south to north or north to south, is Ross, Skye and Lochaber.
The purpose of our amendment to delete the territorial extent rule is not to remove a special protection for the right honourable gentleman. He clearly has no such protection. It is to raise the fundamental question as to why territorial extent should be the only general factor written into the Bill that may warrant a departure from the electoral parity rule and why that exemption should itself be framed so narrowly. Rule 4 in the Bill can only conceivably have an application in one part of the United Kingdom: the Scottish Highlands. But why should the geography of that area be the only geography to qualify for special recognition in the construction of parliamentary constituencies? Of course, we understand why it might be sensible to put a limit on how large in territorial terms a constituency should be allowed to grow in pursuit of the electoral quota, but we ask whether it would not also be sensible to place some other protections on potentially undesirable geographical entities that could be produced as a consequence of the electoral parity rule. In other amendments, we have sought, for example, to ensure that island constituencies are guaranteed an allocation of whole constituencies.
However, further considerations should arguably be included in the proposed new rules. For example, Democratic Audit has said:
“It would make sense to ban constituencies straddling wide estuaries such as the Mersey, Humber, Clyde, Forth and Thames”.
When the Boundary Commission for England has proposed cross-estuary seats in the past, for instance on Merseyside, there has been strong resistance to such proposals. It is also said that some leeway might be allowed for the construction of constituencies in the Welsh valleys. The Democratic Audit report argues that there is,
“a case for allowing small departure from the usual rules if following them could lead to an absurd seat with a small part of one valley attached to a seat based on another valley”.
We would be grateful if the Minister could explain whether the Government would be prepared to take these situations on board. If not, what is so special about territorial extent, as opposed to the other special geographical concerns that we have mentioned?
Lord Kinnock
Just to underline and illuminate the point that my noble friend made in passing about the south Wales valleys, I report to him the words of the late Alec Jones, who, as the noble Lord will recall, was the Member for Rhondda, having been a Member for Rhondda West, which was then brought together with Rhondda East. There was at the time of that Boundary Commission report an idea that a part of what became the Cynon Valley constituency should be grouped in with Rhondda East and Rhondda West—that is, Rhondda Fawr and Rhondda Fach, or the large Rhondda and the little Rhondda. Alec Jones’s devastating comment on that to the Boundary Commission was, “Some bloody idiot has been using a flat map”. There is a huge danger, if the kind of amendment presented by my noble friend is not accepted and there are no clear indicators to the Boundary Commission to use its sensible discretion, that flat maps will plague a lot of constituencies, not just in Wales but in England and Scotland, that are interrupted by large geographical features that define communities. Unless proper consideration is given to that topographical reality, flat maps will come to be cursed.
Lord Bach
I am grateful to my noble friend for his intervention. My fear is not that the maps that are used will be flat but that they will make no difference. They may well show the contours of the mountains in between, but no notice could be taken of them, in any event.
I anticipate that the Minister’s answer to my question will reference the overriding principle of equalising seats. However, that principle is of course breached by the Bill in several areas and there should not be any ideological block on debating whether it ought to be breached even more. If the Minister were to try to explain the rule by reference to the accessibility of a constituency and the ability of the Member of Parliament to travel around it, why are Argyll and Bute, with its 13 islands, or St Ives, which incorporates the Isles of Scilly, not included also as exceptions to the parity rule?
It may furthermore be argued that the further loosening of the electoral parity rule by asserting the strict threshold imposed by the Bill merely brings Britain into line with other countries and international states. However, that assertion has been blown apart by an analysis of international electoral systems published this month by Democratic Audit, which concludes:
“Differences in constituency size … are to be found in Australia and the United States—where equalisation supposedly rules. Constituency size is always modified by locality and geography in some form”.
The article states:
“The startling truth about the government’s proposed equalisation scheme is that it would be the most extreme version used in any national legislature based on single member constituencies in the world”.
I repeat that,
“it would be the most extreme version used in any national legislature based on single member constituencies”.
The quotation continues:
“This is true both in terms of the number of tolerated anomalies and the uniformity imposed on the bulk of constituencies”.
The Government need to respond to these concerns. Their approach to constituency boundaries is too rigid and too uniform, but they still have time to correct the problem. There is no reason why these major reports should be rushed through without any proper consultation or analysis. We invite the Government to pause for thought and to take some time to examine how their changes would impact in practical terms—the only terms that matter—on UK constituencies and the communities that make them up.
The noble Lord, Lord McNally, told the House last June that common sense and a sense of history and geography would have an influence on this process. The narrow exemptions from the electoral parity rule currently contained in the Bill are inadequate to allow for that to happen. As with so much contained, we fear, in Part 2 of the Bill, the Government need to go back to the drawing board with respect to rule 4, which is what our amendment invites them to do. I beg to move.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Skelmersdale)
I should tell the Committee that if this amendment is agreed to I cannot call Amendments 71C to 72A.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean
My Lords, I intervene briefly because in the debate on the amendment on the Isle of Wight, which my noble friend moved so successfully, I touched on the issue of Ross, Skye and Lochaber. There is a famous painting by Erskine Nicol called “Lochaber No More”, which depicts the clansmen saying goodbye to their families as they leave for the New World. It is now a part of the Fleming collection and is the picture that is most frequently in demand to be loaned abroad. There is a long tradition, and I am sure the noble Lord will forgive me for correcting his pronunciation of Lochaber.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean
I mention “Lochaber No More” because I suspect that that will be the consequence of this. As I said in the earlier debate, when I read the Bill I thought that this was a protection measure for Charles Kennedy’s constituency. He set me straight on that when I had lunch with him the other day. The most likely outcome is that the Boundary Commission will start, as it has always done, in the north; the constituency that is currently represented by Lord Thurso will become larger; and there will then be a fight between Mr Kennedy and the Chief Secretary to the Treasury for the remaining constituency. I do not know what my right honourable friend’s views are on primaries but they have always been enthusiastically embraced by the Liberal Party. If there is to be a contest, my advice to him was that he does not want it to be a primary because I think Mr Charles Kennedy will win hands down.
Lord Sewel
I do not wish to intervene in an internecine conflict within the coalition, but are the Government sure that their proposals are consistent with the Act of Union?
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean
As the noble Lord was such a great mover in the process of devolution, he is on thin ice when talking about the security of the union as a result of legislation passed through this House. However, that is a debate for another day.
I have some sympathy with the amendment because it seems perverse to set a physical limit. When we talked about the Isle of Wight the other day—I understand that the noble Lord, Lord McAvoy, has taken to quoting me extensively—I said that constituencies are not about blocks of numbers. However, neither are they about blocks of specific land mass area. I did not know how the Boundary Commission would deal with the problem, but we could end up with a new Caithness constituency, which is an entirely arbitrary line on the map, arising from this provision. Like the noble Lord, Lord Bach, we have put the proposition fairly and I do not understand why this provision is here, unless it was thought that it would provide protection for a particular constituency. That constituency, Ross, Skye and Lochaber, has worked very well. Despite his politics, the right honourable Member, Charles Kennedy, has represented it very well in Parliament.
I am always in favour of saving public money, but it strikes me as I look at the noble Lord, Lord Sewel, that there is a curious thing in the Scottish context in that we want to reduce the size of the House of Commons from 650 to 600, but the Scottish Parliament, which has 129 Members, has fiercely resisted any reduction in its size. If one wanted to give the Boundary Commission instructions, it would be far more important to try to co-ordinate the boundaries of the Scottish parliamentary Westminster constituencies with those in the Scottish Parliament, but that does not feature. Instead, we have this extraordinary thing that no constituency can be larger than the existing constituency, which in itself was created to take account of geographical and other boundaries.
I do not want to detain the House, and I certainly do not want to be accused of filibustering or anything of that kind, but the noble Lord, Lord Bach, makes an important point and I look forward to hearing the Minister’s explanation.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
My Lords, I am pleased to follow the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, and to pick up some of his points. In doing so, I will speak to Amendments 71C and 72A, which were tabled by my noble friend Lord Stevenson of Balmacara and me and would have exactly the same effect but are less elegant than the amendment moved by the Front Bench, which has put it all into one amendment while we have two. I am looking forward to reading Hansard tomorrow to see how it records our correction of the pronunciation of the Ross, Skye and Lochaber constituency. The correction is easy to say but not easy to put down in print.
My noble friends will understand why I am a bit more suspicious of the Government’s intention than my noble friend on the Front Bench. Noble Lords opposite will probably understand even more why I am more suspicious than the Front Bench. One should look carefully at the Bill, as my noble friend Lord Bach said. Rule 5(1), on page 10, states:
“A Boundary Commission may take into account, if and to such extent as they think fit … special geographical considerations, including in particular the size, shape and accessibility of a constituency”.
Size is covered, and it is included in exactly the same way as shape and accessibility.
Later, I shall move an amendment to include the word “wealth”. I am not sure that that is the best word, but I also wanted to consider how rich or prosperous a constituency is. That should be a factor. Size is covered, so why do we need the separate provision, rule 4(1), which states:
“A constituency shall not have an area of more than 13,000 square kilometres”?
Rule 4(2) then states:
“A constituency does not have to comply with rule (2)(1)(a) if … it has an area of more than 12,000 square kilometres”.
Why is the first one 13,000 square kilometres? Why not 14,000, 15,000, 13,500 or any other figure? I asked myself that when I read the Bill for the first time. Why is the second figure 12,000? Why not 11,000, 10,000 or 13,000?
Then I looked at the area of Ross, Skye and Lochaber. My noble friend will not be surprised to hear that that area is 12,779 square kilometres—that is, between 12,000 and 13,000. The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, is probably right that the Boundary Commission might perversely start at the top with Thurso and move south, so it might not actually preserve Ross, Skye and Lochaber, but I think that that is what it was put in for. It was an attempt to preserve Ross, Skye and Lochaber; why is it there otherwise? Why is it included at all? Why do we have both these provisions and why are they 12,000 and 13,000?
I am really looking forward to my old friend’s reply—I was going to say my noble friend. Last week, he reminded me that we have known each other for 45 years. We went to the Soviet Union together all those years ago as young, innocent students. My noble friend and I learnt a lot on that occasion. I am looking forward to his explanation. He has been very astute in giving us explanations on other provisions in the Bill, but this one will really test him.
I was not going to talk about the Scottish parliamentary boundaries until the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, raised them. He is now asking himself why he did so. As I say, I would have sat down by now, as noble Lords opposite, particularly those on the Liberal Democrat Benches, will be pleased to hear, but he raised a very interesting point. He is absolutely right. When my noble friend Lady Liddell of Coatdyke reduced the number of Scottish constituencies from 72 to 59, the idea was that the number of Scottish parliamentary constituencies would reduce proportionately, the boundaries would stay coterminous and we would have 108 Members of the Scottish Parliament. The Scottish Parliament was originally designed for 108 Members. One of the reasons why it went so hugely over budget was because everyone in the Scottish Parliament of all parties wanted to stick with the figure of 129. That was rather unfortunate. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, and I agree on that as well.
However, that is not the main purpose of these amendments, which is to ascertain why these figures of 12,000 and 13,000 were pulled from the hat and included if it was not to protect Ross, Skye and Lochaber. If Ross, Skye and Lochaber and Orkney and Shetland are to be protected, it certainly looks like a protection arrangement for Liberal Democrat MPs. The advice that my noble friend—my very noble friend—has given me on Hansard is that it should use rhyming slang to explain that Lochaber rhymes with harbour. That is a Welsh solution. However, that has detracted me from my main purpose, which is to say that I very much look forward to hearing the noble Lord, Lord McNally, explain the randomness of these figures and say why they are included at all.
Lord Hamilton of Epsom
I will intervene briefly on this subject as it was raised in the debate on the amendment of my noble friend Lord Fowler on the Isle of Wight. I have the very greatest reservations about putting any exemptions whatever into the Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, has made the very good point that it seems rather odd that so many of these exemptions seem to concern themselves with Liberal Democrat constituencies. There might be an argument for saying that if the only representation that the people had in these enormous geographical constituencies was in Westminster, perhaps you should keep the population of the electorate somewhat smaller, but of course that is not the case. As my noble friend Lord Forsyth has pointed out, an inordinately large number of Members of the Scottish Parliament can answer many of the worries and concerns that the electorate might have in Orkney and Shetland and in other such places in Edinburgh. That would deal with all problems of education, the Scottish legal system and many other areas.
As we all know, one reality that we live with today is that Scottish Members of Parliament who come south to Westminster have extremely little to do—except, of course, to vote, often on English matters that are of no concern to their constituents. I must confess that I am sad that the whole business of English and Welsh votes on English and Welsh matters, which was a commitment of the Conservatives in their manifesto, is notably absent for some reason from the coalition document. Presumably we must assume that the Liberal Democrats are quite comfortable with the idea of Scottish Members of Parliament coming south to vote on matters in English constituencies that do not concern their constituents at all, because they are dealt with by what is now not even the Scottish Parliament—I am told that it is now the Scottish Government—north of the border.
The whole rationale for saying that such an enormous geographical area should have fewer people in the electorate does not stand up any more when you have devolution and a Scottish Parliament that deals with so many of the problems with which people in those enormous geographical areas will be concerned. I have every support for removing that provision from the Bill. I think that it is a very great mistake on the part of those who put the Bill together to produce those exemptions in different forms, which is why I was so much against my noble friend Lord Fowler's idea that for some reason the Isle of Wight should be exempted. Once you start down the road of exemptions, there is no end to it; you produce a justification for practically every amendment that we have been hearing to this half of the Bill.
I pick up the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Bach, when he summed up my noble friend Lord Fowler’s amendment: that I was a bit of a purist. I do not quite know whether that was supposed to be an insult or a compliment, but in the circumstances I will take it as a compliment and I hope that this amendment gets a serious reading, because we must try to clean up the Bill and make it rather more rational.
Baroness Liddell of Coatdyke
Speaking as a unionist, I will not necessarily rise to the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, about what Scottish Members of Parliament can do these days, but I agree that there is a real inconsistency in the exemptions in the Bill. This is the second time in our discussions that we have had to question the choice of a number. It almost seems as though those who drafted the Bill had a book of random numbers in front of them, if we are to believe the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, who, when asked about the number of 600 Members of Parliament said that, well, it was a nice round number. Where does the number of 13,000 or 12,000 come from? It is blatantly obviously to protect the constituency of Ross, Skye and Lochaber. I will be amazed to see the Minister get out of that one.
It troubles me that the Bill has been put together in such a haphazard manner that we have these inconsistencies. If there was a pressing need to protect constituencies because of their size or their shape, I must ask again why Argyll and Bute, another Liberal Democrat constituency, is not in the Bill. I know Ross, Skye and Lochaber very well indeed. It is a vast constituency, but it is much easier to move around than Argyll and Bute. There are certain parts of Argyll and Bute—particularly some of the islands—that you cannot visit in a day. In certain areas there is no normal ferry service—you have to go either by a chartered boat or by trawler—yet it receives no special consideration in the Bill. Is it that Alan Reid is a more loyal member of the coalition than Charles Kennedy? It seems to me that those issues were raised at the time when there was some speculation that certain members of the Liberal Democrat party were not wildly enthusiastic about the coalition.
Therefore, I very much look forward to the reply of the noble Lord, Lord McNally, on this. I ask him not to go back to the book of random numbers but to give us an explanation of this very bizarre choice. My noble friend Lord Bach talked about the equalisation of constituencies in places such as Australia. I remember asking a Member from the Northern Territory how many electors he had. He replied, “Oh, I’ve got about 10,000”. I was rather startled and pointed out that in Airdrie and Shotts I had about 68,000 and that he must know the inside leg measurement of every voter. However, he pointed out that his constituency was the size of Portugal, so, even in countries where there is equalisation, there is a realisation that you cannot have the concept of constituency by block.
Lord Lipsey
My Lords, I know that the Minister is happy only when dealing with amendments that involve equations, particularly complex ones, and therefore he may not have been happy at the prospect of addressing this amendment. However, I want to point out one subsidiary advantage to the Bill of the amendment moved by my noble friend Lord Bach—namely, that it removes an otherwise technical flaw in the Bill.
The equation in the Bill, U/598—from memory, it is in paragraph 2 of proposed new Schedule 2 under Clause 11—is predicated on there being only two exempted constituencies. However, if the constituency whose name begins with Ross—I am not going to try to say the Scots constituency name as I will no doubt make some minor mispronunciation—is also exempted under the Bill, then the equation will no longer work; it would need to be U/597, and I have not seen any government amendment proposing that.
Of course, were the Government to accept—and they showed some sympathy for it the other night—the revised equation that I put forward as an amendment to the Bill, which was adaptable to whatever the number of exempted constituencies might be, this problem would be removed. However, as they have not yet accepted it, their alternative is to accept the amendment moved by my noble friend Lord Bach. At least the Bill would then be technically competent and the algebra would work, which it currently does not as the Bill is drafted.
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara
I declare an interest, as my title is Balmacara, as has already been mentioned. Balmacara is at the centre of the constituency that we are talking about—or at least it used to be until the Boundary Commission for Scotland added Lochaber to the bottom end of it, making it look rather like an elephant in shape because it has a huge area to the south of the constituency where the Member who currently represents it lives. Above that is the original Ross and Cromarty constituency, which I knew and loved when I was younger, and the two have to work together.
We have reached an interesting point in this debate because we all seem to agree that geography is not the right basis on which to describe and characterise our constituencies. However, we are struggling to come up with the right formulation for addressing the questions that lie underneath a lot of the points that have been made by my noble friends and others. The further you are from centres of high population, the more there is a case for taking into account scarcity and other issues, because, as my noble friend Lady Liddell said, when you are talking about areas as large as the one in Australia that she referred to, factors not necessarily related to population or dealing with communities need to be brought into play. I think I am right in saying that the area that we are now talking about—that is, the north-west of Scotland—is roughly the same size as Belgium, yet we are talking about the possibility of reducing the number of constituencies to three, with their MPs representing in the UK Parliament all the various things that have to be done for a constituency.
What principle will be used there? When reading the Bill, I came to the same conclusion as did many others—that is, that this must be a way of protecting a particular area. However, if it is, it is certainly very surprising that Mr Charles Kennedy, when discussing this matter in another place, did not see the Bill being phrased in that way. Talking about the size of his constituency, he said:
“It is no exaggeration to say that I can drive for five solid hours within the boundaries of the constituency, simply between point A and point B, to carry out one engagement, and then have to drive five hours back. That is just insane”.
He also said that,
“the Government are trying to introduce the artificial construct of a capped number of constituencies for the whole UK. Leaving aside party politics, I think the House would agree that there are distinct and unique geographical considerations in places such as the Isle of Wight, in Cornwall, with its relationships between places on each side of the Tamar, and in the highlands and islands…A degree of sensible flexibility is called for”.
He said that,
“the crazy approach that is being applied, which simply is not suitable and does not make sense given the communities involved”,
should be withdrawn. He concluded:
“It is never too late for Governments to think again”.—[Official Report, Commons, 1/11/10; cols. 661-664.]
If that is your friend, who needs opposition?
Like several other noble Lords on this side of the House, I support the basic approach to this Bill. I think there is a good case for striving for equality of votes; I do not dissent from the central thrust of this Bill. However, I do not think that the Bill as presently constructed deals correctly with my area of Ross and Cromarty as was, or points further north. If the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, is right, the way the Boundary Commission will operate is going to leave a three-seat set of constituencies up in that northern area, with a fight between those who currently represent Inverness and those who represent Ross, Skye and Lochaber. That is not the right solution for Scotland. It does not reflect a sense of the community, a sense of the history, a sense of the clan relationships or a sense of the travel arrangements there. It is a wonderful part of the world, but it is very remote. It is very different and distinct, and it would be sad if that were to be lost in this process. We have not got this right, and this amendment, which I fully support, gives the Government a chance to think again. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say.
Lord McAvoy
There has been very considerable doubt cast in this short debate upon the integrity of this part of the Bill and how it came about. Is it not striking that not one Liberal from the Benches opposite has seen fit to defend either the decision or the integrity of it?
The Minister has been asked on several occasions by noble Lords to give the reasoning and logic behind this proposal. He should realise that it really will not be good enough not to give a precise answer. I add to the request for a full response how this recommendation came about. Bearing in mind the doubt cast upon the integrity of the decision, I ask him, in the interests of transparency and accountability—which we know the Liberals are big on—to give a public commitment to this House and to the nation that he will put into the Library all the written submissions, reasoning, papers from special advisers, political advisers or whoever that he considered before this was put into the Bill.
Lord Maclennan of Rogart
The noble Lord, Lord McAvoy, will forgive me for following him, but I wanted to hear what he had to say—and I knew he would have something to say—before I responded. The Bill, in my opinion, is not satisfactory as it deals with the large, scattered population areas of the north highlands. However, I am bound to say that the amendment would make it even worse. I hope that this will be given further consideration and, on Report, it may be possible to produce a solution which renders the representation of highland constituencies feasible and maintains the contact between the elected Members and their constituents. I recall that, when I represented the northernmost constituency of the mainland, Caithness and Sutherland, and, latterly, Easter Ross, the practicalities of going from one end to the other, or even consulting the fishing industry on three coasts about matters which were for the United Kingdom Government or the European government, were not at all straightforward. I instituted a system of telephone clinics, which is now not possible because of the change in our telephone system. The practicality of getting round and consulting the members of one’s constituency, about something such as the Falklands Islands, which I remember doing during the Falklands war, is demanding, and I do not dissent from what Charles Kennedy said in another place. In fact, I strongly agree with him.
I am not opposed to the objective of giving votes equal value, but that has to be balanced with the sense that electors have of being represented by an individual with whom they are in contact. These islands of ours are largely densely populated, but the former county of Sutherland has a density of about one person per square mile. That is quite unlike the urban areas of this country, and it ought to be recognised that it presents problems that are almost as great, or perhaps even greater, than those of island constituencies. I hope that the Government will recognise that.
Lord Hamilton of Epsom
Can my noble friend tell the House how many Members of the Scottish Parliament represent the area of his old constituency?
Lord Maclennan of Rogart
There is one MSP directly representing the area and there are list top-ups for the wider area of the highlands. That does not seem to me in any way to diminish the problem of those who are participating in national debates about United Kingdom issues whose contact with electors ought to be real, not remote. I believe that in matters of taxation, foreign policy, defence and energy policy and in matters directly affecting the prosperity of these areas, their voices should be heard and should be informed by their direct contact.
Although I do not regard the formula in the Bill as ideal, to extract it from the Bill would prejudice further consideration of what would be the better solution. I profoundly hope that we will arrive at a better solution before the Bill leaves this House.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean
Will my noble friend develop that argument? Given that the Bill currently instructs the Boundary Commission to take account of geography and size, will he explain why removing this provision would meet the points that he eloquently expresses? If I may say so, as a Member of Parliament, he very ably represented that huge area of Caithness and Sutherland. It would be helpful if he could explain why he thinks removing this provision would be an impediment to reaching a solution that meets these requirements.
Lord Maclennan of Rogart
My understanding is that the Boundary Commission’s discretion to consider this would be removed by Amendment 71B. I think that would be a mistake. I hope that the Government have not set their position in concrete on this issue and will be prepared to return to it later.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord McNally)
My Lords, I am deeply flattered by the number of noble Lords who have said how excited or interested they are about my reply. I think I have mentioned to the House before that Michael Foot once said to me that he hated reading a brief when he was a Minister because he liked to be as excited as everybody else about what was coming next.
Let me also clarify that it is true that the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, and I first met 45 years ago on a student delegation to Moscow. I always assumed that I was there to keep an eye on him and he was there to keep an eye on me, and it has been a friendship that has endured. Indeed, looking across the Chamber, I see the faces of many men and the odd woman whom I have known since my youth. It is really sad that my memory of these old friends was of their idealism and yet tonight we have had doubt after doubt about the good intentions contained in the Bill and its integrity. There has been a constant questioning of motive when, as I have said so often to this House, our motives are very clear and simple: fair votes in fairly drawn constituencies.
If we take the broad sweep of the Committee and the special pleading we have had from time to time about the particular problem of looking after an inner city and the special pleading from the large rural constituencies about their problems, we realise that all Members of Parliament in their different ways have jobs to do and I suspect it works out fairly reasonably. On the question of size, there is a simple reason for the recommendation which has nothing to do with the present incumbent of that constituency. It would have applied whether the present incumbent was Labour, Liberal Democrat or Conservative. It was simply that the independent Boundary Commission in Scotland recommended that that was about the maximum manageable size that a constituency could operate. As the noble Lord, Lord Bach, indicated, this is a problem mainly for the highlands of Scotland.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
Which figure was recommended by the Boundary Commission for Scotland? Was it 12,000 or 13,000? And where and when was it recommended?
Lord McNally
I shall have to write to the noble Lord. It was in the last Boundary Commission report dealing with the Scottish boundaries. Again, noble Lords opposite are continually looking for hidden factors, secret deals and political fixes. As I say, that is so sad from people who set off on a political journey with such idealism. As has been pointed out, special geographical considerations can be taken into account.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean
On this point about the Scottish Boundary Commission and its recommendations, the Bill instructs the Boundary Commission to operate according to certain rules, but if the Boundary Commission is of the view that the size of Ross, Skye and Lochaber is about right, surely it can come to that conclusion without being instructed to do so in the Bill.
Lord McNally
The Bill helps it in its work. This is not a time to go back to the drawing board. Most of the arguments have been rehearsed. Charles Kennedy himself pointed out the difficulty of operating in the present constituency with his five-hour drive. One of the possible consequences of the amendment is that we would be faced with even larger geographic constituencies.
We propose as a maximum size roughly that of the current largest constituency area. Since it was recommended by the Boundary Commission, we believed that it gave the best benchmark to use in our proposals. Ultimately, this is a matter of judgment. We see no reason to risk turning what are now challenging but manageable factors into potentially unmanageable and damaging factors for MPs and their constituencies in these areas. I urge the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Bach
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords on all sides who have spoken in what everyone who has listened must consider to be a proper and sensible debate at Committee stage on an important matter. The Minister did not convince me in the slightest as to why the rule is in the Bill and I have a feeling that he did not persuade the Committee either. That is quite a serious state of affairs, because rule 4 stands out as being the one whose presence in the Bill cannot be understood at all. I do not, I am afraid, get the point about the Scottish Boundary Commission. I hope that the Minister will in due course help the Committee by telling us chapter and verse about the Scottish Boundary Commission, but the rule seems effectively to apply to only one constituency in the whole of the United Kingdom. If the Government wanted to exempt that constituency, why did they not just exempt it, as they have the two others and now the Isle of Wight?
I said in opening that, even if the original intention was to protect a particular constituency, it has become apparent that that objective would not be delivered. I suppose that if there is one thing worse than trying to protect a particular constituency, it is trying to protect it and failing to do so. I fear that that may have happened on this occasion. I cannot think—I think that other noble Lords are of the same mind as me—what other explanation there can be for the rule appearing.
As for other speakers, I accused the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, the other night of being a purist. It was meant entirely as a compliment rather than an insult; indeed, he took it as though it were a compliment, which I was slightly surprised at. The noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, proposed a very sensible amendment the other night, which the Front Bench on the other side said that it would look at and take up. We very much hope that it does so, because the points that he made in his short speech tonight showed how important that should be. I am grateful also to my noble friends Lord Stevenson, Lord McAvoy and Lord Foulkes.
I was intrigued by and grateful for the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Maclennan, because he has real history in that part of the world. He said that he did not like the Bill as it was worded but that he liked our amendment even less, but I was not quite sure what he wanted. I look forward to hearing in more detail at some stage what he would like to see in place of both the Government’s attitude and ours. He said that we should be looking for votes of equal value that are balanced by a sense of constituencies being represented by an individual. We know exactly what he meant by that and we agree with him; it is exactly what we are looking for in this case. We do not see how this clause helps us to achieve that.
The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, asked the noble Lord, Lord Maclennan, why the rule could not just be taken out and reliance made on rule 5. I think that the answer to that is that rule 5 is subject to rule 2, which is the one that sets the quota, but rule 4, which is the one that sets up this particularly odd territorial constituency size, is not subject to rule 2 in the same way. They have equal worth. If tonight we took out rule 4, we would be left with rule 5, but that would be subject strictly to the 5 per cent rule and, therefore, would not prevail. I think that that is the answer to the question that the noble Lord posed.
I do not intend to divide the House tonight on this issue. We have had a very sensible Committee debate. The Government must have heard concern from all sides of the House about this clause and I am sure that they will go away and consider carefully whether this is really the right clause to be in this Bill and whether they could come up with a better version of it. It is unsatisfactory and we will undoubtedly bring the matter back at Report. By then, all sides of the House—and I do not just mean my noble friends alongside me and behind me—will want to have a better explanation as to why rule 4 is in the Bill. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Lipsey
Lord Lipsey
I understand that my noble friend’s interest in amendments diminishes considerably when their focus is removed from Scotland and taken to Wales, but that was rather a pre-emptive move from him.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
I sincerely apologise to my noble friend. I thought that the Deputy Chairman said Amendment 72A.
Lord Lipsey
I accept my noble friend’s apologies, which have added to the gaiety at this time of night.
In this amendment, we move from Scotland to Wales, but I hope that this will not be the debate when we consider the general issues about the reduction of Welsh representation under this Bill from 40 seats down to 30 seats. That falls to be considered under Amendment 89BA, tabled by some of my noble friends, and we shall no doubt want to have a full discussion on that at the time.
This is about a single constituency, Brecon and Radnor, where I have the great privilege and pleasure of living, so I know a tiny bit about it. The aim of this amendment is very simple: to afford to Brecon and Radnor the protection offered in Clause 11 to the Scottish seats that we have just been discussing, so that the Boundary Commission may—not must—if it is satisfied that other factors make this desirable, decide that the seat is big enough as it is and should not be extended.
I do not rest my case on the fascinating political history of Brecon and Radnor. I was interested in it long before I lived there, because I visited it with the then Prime Minister Jim Callaghan in the run-up to the 1979 general election. At that time, it was one of the genuine three-way marginals in Great Britain. Indeed, it was held by Labour and Caerwyn Roderick, who was a junior Welsh Minister at the time. At the last general election, Labour’s share of the vote was 10 per cent, so I think that I can be absolved of any accusation that in trying to save Brecon and Radnor I am trying to advance my party’s interests. We have an excellent candidate, but I am not absolutely confident that even at the next general election the constituency will resume its status as a Labour marginal. It was also the site of an extraordinary by-election won by my near namesake and much lamented friend, Lord Livsey. It is right that the House remembers him when it debates this matter. I might be wrong, but I fancy that he might have spoken on my side had he been here still, as we all so wish he was.
Last week, one of my noble friends was widely quoted when he referred to prime numbers in the setting of the figure of 600 Members of the other House. When he was quoted on the radio, I think that he was regarded as making a rather jokey remark, not a serious point. I am about to venture into mathematics—knowing as I do that the noble Lord, Lord McNally, so loves it—to make a serious point, although I am aware that it may not appear quite so serious on the radio tomorrow. At first blush, it may seem that Brecon and Radnor has very few claims to be too large a constituency because it is much smaller in area than the Scottish constituencies that we have just been considering. Brecon and Radnor runs to 3,014 square kilometres, which is only one quarter of the square kilometrage of Ross et cetera—the constituency that we were just discussing. If you are a Member of Parliament, however, it is of course not the area of your constituency that determines how far you have to travel. It is, in fact—the noble Lord, Lord McNally, will be taking close notes at this point—the square root of the area, which determines the distance between the points of it.
In terms of its square root, the area of Brecon and Radnor is much less different from the area of those constituencies in Scotland. It is not a quarter of the size, as it is in area, but half. If it was a square constituency, journeys in Brecon and Radnor could extend to 55 kilometres—as opposed to 110 kilometres on average in the Highland seat that we were discussing—but, believe me, those journeys are also very long and difficult. The byroads of Brecon and Radnor compare with any in the kingdom for narrowness, snowiness and the general intervention of tractors between one’s vehicle and progress. The sheep outnumber the people, as my noble friend Lady Hayter points out, although I am not suggesting that the size of the constituency should be based on the number of its sheep as well as the number of electors.
There is also a particular difficulty if you decide to increase the size of Brecon and Radnor, as you would have to, because the size of the electorate at the moment is only about 54,000. It is that Brecon and Radnor is bordered on one side by England. We have talked about ward borders, but one thing that you cannot contravene within the rules of this Bill is national borders, so the constituency cannot move out to the east to take in Leominster or any of the county towns out there. To the south, you have the valley constituencies, which are already undersized and out of which it will be extraordinarily difficult to make natural constituencies in any case. If you pinch bits of the valleys and put them into Brecon and Radnor, you make their problems worse without creating a coherent Brecon and Radnor. As your Lordships will see, that gives only two possibilities. One is to extend to the west; the other is to extend to the north. Again, with my pronunciation difficulties I am not going to say which counties and constituencies that would mean extending into, but it gives the Boundary Commission a horribly difficult task in where it is going to find the 20,000 or so extra electors that Brecon and Radnor will need to bring it up to the same size.
What is certainly clear is that there can be no solution to those problems within the present boundaries of the county of Powys. For noble Lords who are not used to what happens in these sparsely populated areas, it is scarcely imaginable how large Powys seems, even now. My wife and I would pack the car with supplies for days to make a journey to visit the north of the county. It took me an hour and a half to get to a Labour Party meeting in the south of the county quite recently. These are enormous places, which, incidentally, create enormous difficulties for political organisations. The Brecon and Radnor constituency party is asking people to drive to meetings when they require an hour and a half or two hours’ drive to get to them, even now. Without the political parties, like them or loathe them, there would be no political life in this country. That is just a reality.
The thought of extending the constituency is difficult to stomach and the thought of the degree of the extension that would be required, given that there are no heavily populated bits anywhere near to north or west that you could add to it, is mind-boggling. This would be an absolutely enormous and unmanageable constituency. We must add to that a factor that I suspect applies in some of the Scottish constituencies, too—it certainly does in the Highlands and Islands, although not in every constituency—which is that, if you are the Member for Brecon and Radnor, every constituent expects you to know them by name, as, certainly, the late Lord Livsey did. This becomes such an unmanageable constituency that the Member, if he is to cope at all, will find it extremely hard to devote his attention to the other matters of national and international politics that should fall within the attention of Members.
I add finally that, so far as I can judge local feeling—I am not a Member of another place, so I probably do less door knocking than I would if I were—local feeling is extremely strong, if not yet as well articulated as in the Isle of Wight, that the constituency should be left as it is into the future. When noble Lords look at all these facts, the case for an exemption for Brecon and Radnor—I know that the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, will not agree with it, but he would not agree with it for anywhere—is extremely strong. This amendment would make it possible for the Boundary Commission to make such an exemption, but that decision would rest with the Welsh Boundary Commission, so it would not be imposed by this House. If the commission found a flaw in my argument, of course I would subject myself, as would the constituency, to its judgment. I believe that the constituency should be given a chance to make its case to the Boundary Commission and I commend this amendment to the House.
Lord Touhig
Before my noble friend sits down, I hope that he will let me point this out. If Brecon and Radnor were to be extended north, it would go into Montgomeryshire. If it went west, it would go into Ceredigion. The electoral populations of these three parliamentary seats put together would only be enough for about two parliamentary seats under the criteria that the Government propose, so there would be two parliamentary seats from the heads of the valleys in south Wales to Wrexham in north Wales and west from the English-Welsh border to Cardigan Bay.
Lord Lipsey
My noble friend is entirely right and, if I had dared to pronounce the words that he has just pronounced, I would have made precisely the same points. The knock-on effect from changing this constituency would be absolutely extreme. It is an example, incidentally, on which the whole House might like to reflect, of the way in which one change leads to another change and eventually to a complete, wholesale redrawing of the constituency map, to whose consequences, it seems to me, the Government have given not one moment’s thought.
Lord Desai
My Lords, I want to speak very briefly about the amendment moved by my noble friend. First, the prime number thing is very easy. My noble friend Lord Harris asked whether 600 is a combination of prime numbers. It is; it is 23 x 3 x 52. That is not a serious problem. I said the other day—I think it was on Wednesday—that the Government’s difficulty is that they have put too stringent a criterion on themselves for equalising the size of seats. I am entirely in favour of their objective, but to have spared only two seats out of 600 shows that they have adopted too stringent a criterion. If they had given themselves a bit of slack by saying 99 per cent, or even 98 per cent, we would not be going through this debate about individual constituencies which are awkward in terms of the criterion. If they had set aside 10 or 12 constituencies which could be awkward, the rest would fit into the Government’s criterion. So rather than go seriatim through all these different constituencies, perhaps the Minister could say that yes, they recognise that 598 is too stringent a criterion, and maybe something like 590 or 580 would do. Then all the anomalies could be adjusted and local sentiment satisfied, while the Government could still get the bulk of their objective of equalising seat sizes. I hope that the Minister will find that a helpful remark, not a hostile one.
Baroness Finlay of Llandaff
My Lords, I have not yet spoken in this debate and indeed I hesitate to speak now, because I am concerned about the length of time that these debates are taking and their impact on the reputation of the House. However, I live and work in Wales and am aware of the different cultures in the different areas there. That is why I felt that I wanted to support the amendment. Indeed, the first report from the Welsh Affairs Committee of this Session starts off by saying:
“The Parliamentary Voting and Constituencies Bill will have a greater impact on Wales than any other nation of the UK. Wales is projected to lose ten of its forty parliamentary seats, a reduction of 25 per cent”.
I know that we will be debating other aspects of Wales later, but I am not sure that I will be able to be in the House because I will be at work.
The noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, has made an important point. Culturally, the area of Brecon and Radnorshire is quite different from Ceredigion, from the north and from the south Wales valleys. In considering whether to support this amendment, I looked at a map of travel times across the whole of Powys. The routes for short distances are inordinately long whichever way you go. I thought it was just my poor navigation skills but in the rain and the dark, in an area where sat-navs often do not work and there is no phone signal, getting around that area is extremely difficult.
The other aspect is that the nature and history of that community are quite different from the history and the interests of the area in the valleys further south, of the Welsh-speaking area of Ceredigion and west Wales, and indeed of the north, which has natural flows because of the new main road across into England in the Merseyside area, as we all know. It makes a great deal of sense that if we talk about representation of people through their Members of Parliament, we must consider who it is that these MPs will be representing.
To have representation of that area in Powys requires someone who, like the late Lord Livsey, was hugely respected, understands the culture of that area, can represent it and, realistically, travel around it, and does not get distracted by some of the other no less important but completely different problems that affect the other areas represented by other Members of Parliament. It is for that reason that I commend this amendment to the House.
Lord Tyler
My Lords, I think that I was under the same misapprehension as the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, until I actually heard precisely what the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, said. I should say that I know the constituency in question extremely well. My brother has lived there for many years, and of course Richard Livsey was one of my closest colleagues; I campaigned for him, I worked with him and for him both in the other House and in this House, and I was privileged to attend his funeral service, which was one of the most moving I have ever attended.
We should be clear, however: this amendment is not proposing that this constituency should be made an exception. It does not add to the list of exceptions. The amendment would change rule 4 for every constituency in the country. I do not understand why the noble Lord, who is usually meticulous in preparing amendments, moved it in totally different terms. It may or may not apply to the constituency of Brecon and Radnorshire but it certainly introduces a completely new rule for the whole country. Therefore, if I may say so, the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, should look very carefully at the amendment. It changes rule 4. I understand that it may or may not apply to this constituency, but the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, is making sure that there is a completely new set of criteria for every constituency—in Scotland, England, Northern Ireland and Wales. It does not provide for an exemption.
Lord Howarth of Newport
I put it to the noble Lord that it is surely sensible, as my noble friend proposes, to develop sensible rules of general application, rather than to proceed by amending the Bill here, there and elsewhere by adding new clauses to create anomalies and exceptions to unsatisfactory rules, as we have them at the moment in the draft Bill. That is why my noble friend’s amendment is very sensible.
Lord Tyler
It does not do that; it provides completely new criteria, which would presumably change over time. That is not clear from the amendment. The amendment is defective, even in the terms in which the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, has proposed it.
Lord Elystan-Morgan
My Lords, this amendment is not confined to Brecon and Radnorshire, as I accept. It removes a colossal and monstrous injustice as far as the whole concept of a constituency is concerned. What is a constituency? What should a constituency be? I suggest that it should be, first and foremost, a community of interest that is acceptable in relation to the division of the United Kingdom into various parliamentary constituencies. Sometimes this will mean that one has to draw rather artificial lines on a map. In many cases, it will mean that one must respect ancient communities that have been there for a very long time. If you can superimpose your model on to those ancient communities, you should do so. That is what parliamentary representation is about.
In relation to Brecon and Radnorshire, it is one of the clear absurdities of a situation where one looks at the whole question of representation through the wrong end of the telescope. This piece of legislation says that you should look at representation from the viewpoint of the Member of Parliament and the number of constituents that he has. No, my Lords: you should look at it from the other end of the telescope—from the end of the ordinary constituent, who asks himself, “How accessible is my Member of Parliament to me?”. If you ask that question, you are likely to get a more reasonable and just result.
The whole question of how Wales is to be dealt with in this situation will, perhaps, have to wait for another day or two as far as this debate is concerned, but I lay down a marker. Do you think it right that Wales should lose 25 per cent of its seats, when the United Kingdom, by reduction from 650 to 600 seats, loses 7.7 per cent? Wales is not a region; it is a national community. We shall come back to that question again and again. I repeat: the whole issue, essentially, is looked at not from the viewpoint of the Member of Parliament vis-à-vis his constituents, but from the viewpoint of the individual constituent vis-à-vis the Member of Parliament.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
I took my title as being “of Kentish Town” but it could easily have been “of Ystradgynlais”. However, I felt that spending the rest of life explaining how to spell that would be even harder than it is for my noble friends to learn how to pronounce Scottish names. However, I come not just from Ystradgynlais but from Brecon Road in Ystradgynlais. It is from that point of view that I speak today. This is part of an ongoing concern. I spoke on Second Reading of the memories, which I was taught about as a child, of people in the Empire dividing up in pencil on a flat map boundaries that were going to have enormous implications for the local community. Part of this debate is undoubtedly about that, and a geographical area like Brecon and Radnor is a good example of the furthest extent to which you can describe a community in any sense of that.
The particular interest in a sense follows beautifully from the last speech, because in Wales, looking at this very much from the point of view of the people who live there rather than from the point of view of the person who represents them, we have lower car use than in other parts of the kingdom. Indeed, car use among women in Wales is much lower. The idea of being able to travel to meet your Member of Parliament is important. It is not simply a question of the Member of Parliament going to meet the constituents; the constituents want to travel either separately or as a group to meet their Member of Parliament.
Ystradgynlais, for example, very much has its own culture, its own feeling and its own identity. We have our own male voice choir, our own banks, solicitors’ firms, our Co-op, post office, citizen’s advice, library, our miners’ welfare and our own cottage hospital. There is an identity there. People share a commonality of concerns as well as of experience. Indeed, although unusually for my family I am not a Welsh speaker, there is a bit of our own Welsh there as well, which will not be recognised everywhere. I am sorry that the Reading Clerk has left; he is a great expert on this. Certainly when I lived in Anglesey for a time, my grandmother’s Welsh was not even understood up there. We, of course, reckoned that our Welsh was the best.
The issue in Wales is not simply of a community that feels its identity but of travel. My noble friend Lord Lipsey described very well the issue of driving, but imagine being a woman with no access to a car and therefore travelling by bus and trying to see her Member of Parliament. It is almost impossible to do. I have a great fear that boundaries are being drawn for numerical reasons rather than from understanding a community—particularly in the valleys, although it will be the same with water, and there will be others, as I argued for the City of London—and that ignore a recognisable community in which one can travel within a reasonable time and can have that joint representation. If we draw boundaries that ignore geographical size, we will not let down the Member of Parliament, because they will rise to the challenge; we will let down the constituents.
Brecon and Radnor only just works now. It may be at the limit of what you could call a community. It does cope, but if it were any larger it would be impossible and very sad for the people who live there.
Baroness Scotland of Asthal
My Lords, I rise to answer for the Opposition, and noble Lords will know that this is my first venture into this Bill. We have had a very thoughtful debate, and I hope that the noble Lord, Lord McNally, will not think that the interventions have in any way been cynical or lacking in appreciation for the political niceties. It is of course my noble friend Lord Lipsey who has sallied forth to save what has been quintessentially a Liberal Democrat seat now for some time.
We have had some powerful arguments. The most important thing that has come out is the need for flexibility: a more flexible approach than the rigidity which the Bill demands. We heard some powerful descriptions from my noble friends Lord Lipsey, Lord Touhig and Lady Hayter, the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, and the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, about the nature and culture of the area with which we are dealing.
My noble friend’s amendment stipulates that no constituency shall have an area greater than that of the present parliamentary constituency of Brecon and Radnor. I understand why the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, says that that surely cannot be. Perhaps I may mention as gently as I can why I disagree with him. Brecon and Radnor is one example, but an important one. The current MP, Roger Williams, a notable Liberal Democrat, followed the much loved and much lamented Lord Livsey, who represented that constituency so well. It is important to recognise that they represented England and Wales’s largest constituency. For those who live there, as has been clearly outlined, there are real difficulties in seeing their constituency MP because of the distance. It is also the most rural constituency in Wales and the 30th most sparsely populated in the whole of the United Kingdom. I am reliably informed that it would apparently be possible to fit Wales’s smallest constituency, which by geographical area is Cardiff Central, into Brecon and Radnor 176 times over. A noble Lord said from a sedentary position, “And the buses”.
Transport is a very big issue in Brecon and Radnor, and traversing its area can be extremely difficult and lead to expensive fuel bills. My noble friend Lord Lipsey said that the size of the constituency is 3,014 square kilometres. I have in my brief 3,007. I am sure that noble Lords who come from Wales will tell us who is correct. However, it is a large constituency with many difficulties. For this reason we believe that the geographical features that are particular to Brecon and Radnor should be considered by the Boundary Commission for Wales when drawing up the constituency boundaries. However, this is not necessarily best achieved by simply imposing a size quota.
Democratic Audit recommends that some small leeway might be allowed for the construction of constituencies in the Welsh valleys. We on this side of the House very much support that, although I absolutely understand what the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan said—we will talk about Wales in greater detail in due course. This debate has been short and to the point. Crucially, we argue that a more flexible approach to the new rules for boundary redesign in general would enable such consideration. I hope that the Minister, when he answers, will be kind enough to say that he will take back the salient points that have been made in this debate and consider very seriously indeed whether the context in which they are put will enable him to allow the provisions to be a little more flexible than they have appeared to be to date to Members of this House.
Lord McNally
My Lords, the first thing I would say about this debate is that it emphasises once again that not only the inner city seats have particular problems. Those on the Benches opposite tack from one side to another to suit whatever special argument they seem to be putting. I remember last week that we were urged to make all kinds of special arrangements for the inner city seats, because of the heavy case load, the large number of unregistered constituents and the like. Now we hear of the problems of constituencies such as Brecon and Radnor. I come back to a point I have made before; every Member of Parliament has particular issues and problems that affect their workload but, in the main, it evens out. It is not useful to keep making special pleadings that simply reflect the diversity of our country and the responsibilities that face each Member of Parliament.
Lord McNally
Every time I reply to a debate, the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, finds something on which to ask a question. I can only answer the debate—and this time it is about Wales. Go on then; we might as well keep to the rules.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, did not worry about a flurry of interventions from behind him the other day, so I am sure the noble Lord, Lord McNally, will be able to deal with one or two from the Opposition.
The noble Lord rightly points out that we argue that Members of Parliament in inner cities have large workloads and that in rural areas they have particular responsibilities, extra work and extra difficulties. If you put those together, is that not an argument for not reducing the numbers from 650?
Lord McNally
No, it is an argument for having fair votes in fairly drawn constituencies. One or two Members concede that the principle of votes of equal weight is important—and that is what keeps coming up against the Opposition’s objections. The flexibility that is consistently being urged upon us by the Opposition would, if we accepted every one of their ideas, fatally undermine the concept of votes of equal weight, and they know that. I am willing to leave it to the independent Boundary Commission to work out some of the issues that have been raised. As I have pointed out before, there are matters within the guidance that would give it certain flexibility, but not to throw the baby out with the bathwater—and the baby in this case is votes of equal weight.
Lord Elystan-Morgan
Every Member of the House would agree that the touchstone here is the concept of equality. However, equality can mean an arithmetical exactitude when looked at objectively from the viewpoint of the Member of Parliament towards his constituency, but there is another concept of equality from the viewpoint of the ordinary elector—in other words, “Do I have an equal access to my Member of Parliament compared with a person in an urban constituency?”. That must be considered.
Lord McNally
Of course one cannot argue that someone who lives in north Kensington has more difficulty than someone living in a rural constituency. However, this applies in many constituencies. Although it is quite right that the question of travel should be brought up, I know well that Members of all parties who have represented large constituencies have shown tremendous diligence in making sure that they get around their constituencies and are accessible for surgeries and so on—and, of course, galloping down the line towards us is a whole range of new technologies that are transforming the relationship between Members and their constituents. However, I hear what has been said.
Down the Corridor, Members have regular contact and discussions online with constituents, which is a healthy development in our democracy. As my noble friend Lord Tyler pointed out, the amendment would adjust the maximum geographical size of any constituency to the size of Brecon and Radnor. Under the Bill the maximum area set is, as it happens, that of Ross, Skye and Lochaber. If the amendment were carried, more than 10 constituencies would be out of line with the UK electoral quota and that would result in too many exceptions to the principle of fairness through equally weighted votes across the country. The amendment departs from the fundamental principle of the Bill that a vote, wherever it is cast in the UK, should have broadly equal weight. For that reason I ask the noble Lord to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Scotland of Asthal
Does the Minister accept that rule 5 is subject to rule 2 and that rule 2 provides the primacy? When it comes to flexibility and interpretation from the commission, does the noble Lord accept that that would be very limited indeed? The whole point of the amendments is to give the commission the sort of real flexibility that it needs to meet some of the difficult issues with which we are now dealing. I invite the noble Lord to look again at rule 2 because it seems to set the primary course which the commission would have to follow. Rule 5(3) states that this rule has effect subject to rule 2.
Lord McNally
I do not resile from that. The Bill aims to provide fair votes—votes of equal weight in fairly drawn constituencies. I am not giving way again. The flexibility that the Opposition seek is the flexibility to undermine the Bill and we are not conceding.
Lord Campbell-Savours
I have a question for the noble Lord. The Explanatory Notes state:
“The factors are similar to the existing ones. They may consider special geographical considerations, such as the size, shape and accessibility of a constituency”.
What do the words “accessibility of a constituency” mean to the noble Lord?
Lord McNally
They mean exactly what they say. They are guidance to the Electoral Commission in making its judgments. These are all matters of judgment.
Lord Lipsey
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply. A large number of government supporters are in the Chamber tonight and I am delighted to see them. They may have come in having heard that the Opposition were conducting a filibuster and behaving poorly, contrary to the rules of this House, and that we were not subjecting the Bill to scrutiny. They may even have felt that Ministers were being incredibly patient in treating a succession of filibustering speeches as though they should be answered seriously, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, has done throughout the debate.
The noble Lord, Lord McNally, has been a friend of mine almost as long as he has been a friend of the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, and it gives me no pleasure to say what I am going to say. The perfunctory and, at the end of his speech, bad-tempered response of the Minister gives the lie to what has been said. We have had an admirable debate on what I agree is only one constituency, but for the people in that constituency it is their constituency and for the people of the neighbouring constituencies those constituencies are theirs and the electoral geography of Wales is its electors’ geography.
We have heard very moving speeches, which were particularly noted as they came from a quarter which had no reason to filibuster for a single second, as the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, made clear. The noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, and the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, made admirable cases in favour of this amendment. Therefore, I find the way that it was treated—I use this word to avoid any asperity of speech—disappointing.
I wish to deal, first, with the intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, who was half right. He is right that the amendment has a wider application than Brecon and Radnor. He may not have heard me say that Brecon and Radnor is the largest constituency in England and Wales. I am afraid that I am not qualified to talk about Northern Ireland but I suspect that most of the 10 constituencies that would be affected by this amendment are in Scotland. This matter can be dealt with in one of two ways. You can say that the case I make for Brecon and Radnor embraces all seats where there is a very dispersed population—in earlier debates we heard eloquent pleas on behalf of other Scottish seats—and that therefore the exemption should indeed apply to all Scottish seats, or you can say that Scotland has a very dispersed population and cannot have more than a certain representation, particularly in the light of devolution, and that therefore an exception should be made for Scotland. There is something to be said for either of those approaches but that does not knock down the amendment that I have proposed, nor does it influence its effect.
Lord Tyler
Does the noble Lord accept that, if the amendment were added to the Bill, it would not even preserve the integrity of the present seat of Brecon and Radnor? All it would do is apply a new rule, under rule 4, to every part of the United Kingdom. However, you could still find the boundary changes in mid-Wales all too damaging to the communities to which other noble Lords have referred, because the amendment only talks about a size issue; it does not talk about the existing constituency of Brecon and Radnor. If I may say so, I think that the noble Lord has misled the Committee—I would not normally say that because he is usually absolutely meticulous—by saying that the amendment would in some way defend the present integrity of the seat; it would not.
Lord Lipsey
My Lords, I was going to go on to refer to the noble Lord and I will do so in a minute but that is yet another nitpicking point. It is up to the Boundary Commission to decide whether to preserve Brecon and Radnor. I said that in my speech. I did not mislead the Committee on that point. The chances of the Boundary Commission deciding to preserve Brecon and Radnor and then saying, “Perhaps we’ll have a little bit of that in or take a little bit of that away” is so absurd a notion as to cast doubt on what could be going on in the mind of the person who did it. The noble Lord, Lord Tyler, does indeed have a close relationship with the constituency of Brecon and Radnor. The people of Brecon and Radnor were very pleased to see him make the long journey to attend Lord Livsey’s funeral service and it was good to see him there. Frankly, I am surprised that he has not fallen in love with it and that he wants to see it dismembered by this Government.
As I said, the noble Lord, Lord McNally, did not seek to address the specific questions that I raised but just made some general points, the main one of which was wholly spurious. It is believed—we have heard this from other Ministers as well—that this Bill creates votes of equal weight. It is possible to have a system in which all votes have equal weight. It is called PR and most of us are against it. However, in our system all votes do not have equal weight. The only votes that determine the result of a British general election are those cast in marginal seats, so the great majority of voters cannot hope to have any impact on the eventual result. That is why politicians of all parties pay particular court to the middle England voters, as they used to be called—sometimes it is Worcester man or Essex woman or whatever. Theirs are the only votes that count because they are in marginal constituencies. In using that argument, I fear that the Minister merely illustrates the vacuity of the Government’s general case, and it is only a general case that he has put up against the particular factors, which I believe to be of some force.
We have learnt quite a bit from this debate—I hope that the Government’s supporters have learnt something from it—which is that the Bill needs to be looked at in detail and improved to reflect the realities of the electoral geography of our country, not theoretical concepts dreamed up by backroom boys who have no experience of the geographical realities of the great country in which we live. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
My Lords, I am asking the Committee to agree to delete the words,
“may take into account if, and to such extent as they think fit”,
and insert “should take into account”. Some noble Lords may think that that is just an emphasis of words; it is much more than that. Changing “may” to “should” shows our intent. We want that to happen; it is important; I think that it must happen. It is vital that the Boundary Commission takes into account special geographical considerations, local government boundaries and local ties that would be broken by changes in constituencies and the inconveniences attendant on such changes. If the Boundary Commission does not do that, frankly, what is the point of the Boundary Commission? Surely all noble Lords would want the Boundary Commission to take these factors into account, not to leave the provision at “may”.
I am hopeful, as are many other noble Lords, that there may be some movement on the Government side to take in the concerns expressed in this House. I hope that we will not be disappointed later this week. This is this House doing its job, because there is no one else left to provide the detailed scrutiny. Is it not right that the Boundary Commission should take it into account that having a constituency on both sides of the Mersey or on both sides of the Thames may not be the best drawn constituency? Is it not right that the Boundary Commission should take into account the realities of rural communities in Lincolnshire and the relationship between those communities? Is it not right that the Boundary Commission should take it into account that Nottingham City is a unitary authority? It has three Members of Parliament representing seats contained wholly within its boundaries, and there are considerable differences between the city and the rest of the county. Is it not right that the Boundary Commission should look at the historic county of Rutland and decide that it is better that it stays with Melton to form one parliamentary seat, rather than being chopped up and thrown to the winds? Is it not right that the Boundary Commission should take account of ward boundaries, as they are the building blocks of our constituencies? Is it not right that the Boundary Commission should take into account the uniqueness of Corby?
As I draw my remarks to a close, I look forward to the debate and the Minister's response.
Lord Davies of Stamford
We touched on this matter before, but it seems to me important to make the point quite clearly that there seems to me to be all the difference in the world between “may take into account” and “should take into account”. I ask noble Lords to put themselves in the position of members of the Boundary Commission—or members of any commission charged by Parliament to undertake an important task. If you have a criterion that says that you “may” do something, that is not a positive criterion; that is not guidance that this is a value on which Parliament sets some store; that is not a message from the people via Parliament to respect certain considerations or to take them into account. It is not a positive criterion at all—it is the absence of a negative criterion. The phrase “may take into account” means that, if you are minded to do so, if you really want to do so, we do not prevent you from doing so. We do not deny you the opportunity of doing so. However, there is no positive suggestion whatever that these considerations should be taken into account. Can that seriously be the Government’s intention? Is it seriously the intention of anyone in this Committee that some positive value should not be ascribed to considerations such as local government boundaries, for example, or, going back to our former debates, a sense of local community and so on? Surely the whole tone of our debates has been that these are genuine values, and the question is: what sort of trade-off should we make between these considerations and the desiderata, which are genuine, as I have always admitted, in terms of uniformity of numbers? I give way to my noble friend.
Lord Howarth of Newport
When the Bill says “may take into account”, is it not either disingenuous or simply confused? In reality, the 5 per cent limit in tolerance around 76,000 voters means that in practical terms it will be impossible for the Boundary Commission to take these other factors of geography and local government alignments and so forth into account, should it wish to do so. It can perhaps take them into account but there is nothing it can do about them.
Lord Davies of Stamford
My noble friend makes a very important point. It is a separate point but it is obviously clearly related. If you allow someone to do something or if you provide a purely permissive criterion—what I would call the lack of a prohibition; that is all it is—the question is whether they will have the slightest motivation in the first place to use that permissive ability that they have been granted. As my noble friend says, there is no suggestion at all in the Bill that these matters should be given any consideration or value whatever.
It is perfectly true that, until now, historically the Boundary Commission has in practice tried to respect local government boundaries and county boundaries in almost all cases, although I gather from our earlier debate this evening that there may be some exceptions in respect of ward boundaries, for example. Nevertheless, we are now giving the Boundary Commission new instructions which do not set any explicit value on these things at all. The Bill says, almost reluctantly, “Well, you can take account of these things if you really insist on doing so”. However, as my noble friend said, we then provide other constraints—particularly that of the 5 per cent rule and the requirement to reduce the number of MPs by 50 to 600, which we know will produce a very large number of boundary changes. In practice, that will make it certain that, even if the Boundary Commission is minded to take advantage of its ability under the Bill to consider matters of local boundaries, it will not be able to do so. The commission is receiving no indication whatever from Parliament in the Bill as it currently stands that it might be desirable to retain the tradition which it has long maintained of respecting these boundaries. Therefore, I think that there is all the difference in the world between “may” and “should”, and I congratulate my noble friend on bringing this dilemma to the fore. It is something that we really do need to discuss.
We have heard time and again from the Government and elsewhere on the government side that, other things being equal, they believe it is inherently desirable that local boundaries are respected. Can they not, if they wish to do so, come up with different wording which at least reflects the value that they acknowledge we should be attributing to these considerations? Can they not send a signal to the Boundary Commission which says in effect, “If you possibly could, we would be delighted if you were to take account of local boundaries”? Can we not send some signal or instruction to the Boundary Commission saying, “For generations”—ever since 1949, I believe—“you’ve been right to take account of these considerations. Please don’t drop that now. We aren’t trying to tell you that that was wrong. We aren’t trying to tell you that you should go back on that tradition or those values and ignore them. We’re not just giving you a reluctant permission if you really insist on taking account of these things; we would like you to do so if you can somehow manage it”.
That surely is the sense of the message that Parliament wants to send to the Boundary Commission—the sense of the message that has been articulated in different ways from all parts of House, including from the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, who has taken an important part in these debates. Surely the Government cannot really, on reflection, be entirely satisfied with this very negative formulation of “may”. I hope they can accept the proposal of my noble friend that the text should be changed to “should”. If not, can they not find some better way of encapsulating the message which, I am sure, in good faith, they themselves have been delivering to us, not just tonight but throughout our deliberations on this Bill?
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
We are debating not just the amendment moved by my noble friend Lord Kennedy but, if I understand it correctly, we are dealing with 12 amendments—each one of great importance. Perhaps it is worth noting that, if we actually had wanted to filibuster, we could have degrouped all these amendments and taken two hours on each of them. Maybe, since there are no Cross-Benchers here, there is no one here to convince of that, so I will get on to the specifics of the two amendments that I have tabled and left in the grouping.
Amendment 74B, which I particularly want the Minister to take note of, relates to the use of ward boundaries. My recollection was that, in reply to a previous debate, the Minister—the noble Lord, Lord McNally—confirmed that he saw ward boundaries as the building blocks for all of the boundaries that we were going to look at, whether there were 600 or 650, whether they were preserved or whatever. We on this side were all encouraged by that. If he wants an amendment to encapsulate that very simply, and to accept an amendment—which would be really welcome on this side—Amendment 74B is exactly the one he could accept. I do not think there is anything deficient in it; it is exactly the right thing.
I remind my noble friends in particular that when I first stood for election in 1970, both for the United Kingdom Parliament and for the City of Edinburgh Council—I got elected to that council in that year but not to the Westminster Parliament—at that time in Scotland, there were effectively two layers of government: local government, elected by first past the post, and the United Kingdom Government at Westminster, elected by first past the post. I am sure my noble friend Lord McAvoy remembers those halcyon days only too well. In 2011, we now have councils and larger wards elected by the single transferable vote; we have the Scottish Parliament, elected by the additional member system; we have Westminster, still elected, thankfully, by first past the post, and the European Parliament, elected by a strange system of proportional representation.
I am not blaming the Government or their predecessors for all of these—
Lord Davies of Stamford
I am grateful to my noble friend for giving way. I have been fascinated by this description, which is very clear and concise, of the extraordinarily complicated voting system there is in Scotland. What proportion of his former constituents does he think would be capable of setting out as clearly as he has just done the clear categories involved in voting for these different levels of government and the mechanisms employed in each case?
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
Actually, quite a lot of them, because we still have a very good education system in Scotland, at a very high level. We have provided explorers, inventors, and leaders, not just for the United Kingdom but for the Commonwealth and around the world. The first Labour Prime Minister anywhere was in Australia and he was a Scotsman—indeed, he was an Ayrshire man, even better.
Nevertheless, the noble Lord’s point is absolutely right. It is a very complicated system, not just for the Scottish voter, who can understand it, but for the administration. That is why anything that can be done by the Government to simplify the arrangements instead of making them even more complicated would be good. As I was saying in mitigation, I do not blame Conservative or Tory-led coalition Governments for bringing in all these schemes. Far from it—Labour Governments brought them in, and I think it is unfortunate that we have ended up with such a complicated system. That is why I argue the case for Amendment 74B. I hope that some of my colleagues will elaborate on that at a later stage.
The other amendment that I want to talk to at a little greater length is Amendment 74A. I think that, with no disrespect to my other amendments, it is one of the most important, if not the most important, amendments that I have tabled. As I mentioned on an earlier amendment, page 10 sets out that a Boundary Commission may—one of the amendments suggested “must” should replace “may”—
“take into account, if and to such an extent as they think fit … special geographical considerations, including in particular the size, shape and accessibility of a constituency”.
My amendment is probably not the most elegant, but I think it is a key amendment. It adds “the wealth of a constituency”. That is probably not the best word to use. It could have been “deprivation” or “poverty” in contrast to wealth. The Minister, with all his advisers, will correct me if I am wrong, but my recollection is that way back in the early 1970s when the Boundary Commissions were looking at boundary reviews, a similar factor was included for their consideration. I seem to remember going to boundary hearings—which we still have, unless this Bill becomes an Act—and as well as arguing the physical boundaries, arguing the case for the relative poverty and deprivation in an area. I think that should be included.
The noble Lord, Lord McNally, who generously gave way to me for an intervention in his reply on the previous debate, was arguing very convincingly a conclusion that he did not come to. It was that lots of constituencies have particular problems. In rural Scotland, the problem is sparsity. It is an astonishing fact that Scotland represents one-third of the land area of the United Kingdom and the highlands of Scotland represent one-fifth. That is a very strong argument for what my noble friend Lord Stevenson and others were arguing earlier on about the importance of sparsity.
Equally, the noble Lord, Lord McNally, said that others from inner-city areas were arguing the particular problems of inner cities and deprivation. That is absolutely true. This side has been arguing that. They are not conflicting arguments, they are complementary, and they are arguments for not reducing the total number of constituencies. We have been deploying them because some areas have inexplicably been taken out to be made special cases, whether Orkney and Shetland or the figures that we discussed earlier that give special status to Ross, Skye and Lochaber. I think we need specifically to include something in relation to deprivation.
Scottish Government findings have shown that in 2008-09, 34 per cent of individuals in deprived areas were in relative poverty, before housing costs, but in the rest of Scotland, that figure was 14 per cent, which is a huge difference. That means extra problems of benefits and housing that Members of Parliament have to deal with. I know when I was a Member of Parliament, housing and benefits were the top issues that I had to deal with. That was in a relatively deprived former mining area.
Lord McAvoy
My noble friend makes a fascinating point about the sparseness of population in the rural constituencies in Scotland. Is he aware that the Act of Union in 1707 gave Scotland 45 seats in the new 558-seat Parliament and 16 elected Peers in your Lordships’ House? Of those 45 seats in the House of Commons, 30 represented the 33 Scottish counties. Twenty-seven counties were given a single seat and three pairs of smaller counties alternated with one another in electing a Member. This reflected the situation that the counties had in the Scottish Parliament by 1707, although in 1690—not a particularly good year in many ways—a redistribution Act was passed that increased the number of commissioners returning to the Scottish Parliament. Even in those days, the system was selective and took into account all sorts of circumstances.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
My noble friend is right. I could not have put it better myself. He also reminds me that our noble friend Lord Sewel made a pertinent intervention earlier, to which neither the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, or the Minister replied, about the Act of Union. Something that we might look at over the coming days is whether the provisions of the Act of Union are being adhered to or whether they are being broken by this Bill. That is something that we had not really thought of until the noble Lord, Lord Sewel, raised it, but there may be some provisions in the Act of Union giving particular guarantees to Scotland that are not contained in this Bill.
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation in a recent report said that since the 1980s wealthier people have moved to the suburbs while the poor remain in inner cities, again strengthening the case for some account being taken of the wealth of the constituency.
Lord Kinnock
In an earlier exchange, the noble Lord, Lord McNally, was somewhat scornful of arguments made from this side of the House that additional workloads had to be borne by Members of Parliament representing deprived areas, such as inner-city areas or poor rural areas. Does my noble friend think that in those circumstances, with a reduced number of Members in the House of Commons, the people of whom he speaks, who have relatively low incomes and who live in relatively deprived circumstances, would take up the suggestion offered by the Minister to resort to electronic means of contacting their Member of Parliament? What does my noble friend from his extensive experience think would be the incidence of resort to electronic means of communicating with Members of Parliament satisfactorily undertaken by people from deprived backgrounds, particularly the elderly?
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
My noble friend is right. It is the highly articulate middle-class people who have access to a range of electronic equipment and can use it. As my noble friend knows, until the end of March I am an elected Member of the Scottish Parliament. I get a lot of e-mails from constituents, but they are almost invariably highly articulate middle-class constituents, particularly younger and middle-aged people. The older, less well off do not have the same access to this kind of equipment.
Lord Howarth of Newport
Is it not unfortunately true that people who are significantly less well off than those in the affluent constituencies that my noble friend was just talking of will be even less likely to be able to afford to resort to electronic means of communication given the cuts in benefit that the coalition is planning? At least, until now, they might have had the opportunity to go to the public library to find a computer to communicate with my noble friend’s successor as Member of Parliament, but that, too, will be less likely to be available for them as a result of the cuts to public library provision.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
My noble friend is again right. I sat through about half of the debate on housing benefit and was really impressed by the speeches from all sides, particularly from the Liberal Democrats— including my old friend the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope—all arguing against the cuts in housing benefit. The cuts will certainly make it more difficult for poor people to access their elected representatives. As my noble friend said, cuts to library services will have the same effect.
To illustrate the increasing demand in MPs’ casework, I quote a couple of examples that I hope, since they do not come particularly from Labour, might convince Members opposite. According to Wilks-Heeg and Clayton, authors of Whose Town is it Anyway? The State of Local Democracy in Two Northern Towns, published in 2006 by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, an MP in the 1950s or 1960s, which is even before I was a Member of Parliament and probably even before my noble friend Lord Kinnock was—
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
At that time, the report says, an MP,
“might have required less than a few hours each week to respond to the handful of letters she received from constituents. By contrast, a newly-elected MP told a Hansard Society meeting at a party conference in Autumn 2010 that she had received over 20,000 emails to her parliamentary address between May and September 2010”.
That indicates the growing volume of work. An eloquent description of the crushing casework demand of an inner London MP was written by Greg Hands, then Conservative MP for Hammersmith and Fulham, in December 2007. He said:
“Incredibly, I have at present between 700 and 800 unresolved immigration cases—that’s out of a total constituency of just over 80,000 electors”.
If a third of an inner London MP’s casework is immigration-based, an inner-city MP is likely to be doing half as much other casework as an MP with very few such cases, as I had in a rural area in Scotland. That is not satisfactory in terms of equality of representation. This points to the sense of equality of population rather than registered electorate being the key criterion, as an MP represents the whole constituency. That is covered in an amendment to which I shall come later this morning.
Lord Davies of Oldham
My noble friend has spoken about wealth in constituencies and has just reflected on the question of immigrants in constituencies as well. Is he aware of the phenomenon that always struck me so forcefully as a former MP for Oldham, which had a very significant Asian community, which was that the figures and statistics for the earning power of the constituency, which was very poor, could not take into account the fact that a significant number of people, despite earning very limited amounts of money, were in the practice of sending a considerable percentage of their earnings back home to poorer relatives elsewhere? For me, it brought to mind something not dissimilar to the old-fashioned tithe, when 10 per cent of one’s income went to the church. That did not count as revenue or income that the state could tackle because it was secreted for the church. A great deal of the few resources that individuals in the immigrant community in the United Kingdom command is expatriated.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
My noble friend is absolutely right. I found it starkly revealing to sit next to colleagues in the House of Commons who represented constituencies in Bradford or Birmingham, where more than half the people whom they represented were from immigrant families. They may not have been immediate immigrants—they might have been second or third generation—but there were a huge number of them. It was a real revelation to me to find out about the huge workload arising from that. Repatriation of some of the money that they raised was one way in which their spending income was reduced. My noble friend Lady Liddell was in the same situation as me, representing a former mining constituency. We had a huge case load of former miners, after the previous Conservative Government under Mrs Thatcher forced the closure of the mines in Scotland and elsewhere. They were getting compensation for pneumoconiosis, silicosis and vibration white finger. I had not dozens but hundreds and hundreds of people coming to see me and each of them had a huge problem to raise. So we learnt that from each other.
Lord Howarth of Newport
My noble friend draws attention to the large volume of casework that falls to be carried out by Members of Parliament representing, for example, former mining constituencies or constituencies with a high proportion of immigrants resident in them. In doing so, does he not highlight the fancifulness of the Government’s contention that they will save £12 million by reducing the size of the House of Commons from 650 to 600? I understand that that £12 million is compounded of £4 million for MPs’ salaries and £8 million for their office costs. In light of the factors that my noble friend has just mentioned, they are plainly not going to save the office costs component of that. In fact, those costs would have to rise for individual Members of Parliament to enable them to carry out their duties. Would not it therefore be better to be done with it and stay with at least the existing number of Members of Parliament?
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
I absolutely agree. The more that we go through this Bill, paragraph by paragraph, the more it unravels—and the more it becomes clear that the original contention that we should reduce the number from 650 to 600 is absolutely crazy. The initial premise forces the Government into all the other crazy things in the Bill, such as preserved constituencies and the figure of 13,000 square kilometres.
Viscount Eccles
Does the noble Lord not think that he is stretching the meaning of the word “scrutiny” rather wide? In that connection, I strongly recommend to the party opposite that it should not try to form a team for “Just a Minute”, because it would be ruled out of order in no time at all both for repetition and for deviation.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
Has the noble Viscount seen the groupings list for today? Is he aware that in this group there are 12 amendments, all dealing with matters of great importance? I am talking to two of them—one in relation to the ward, which I dealt with in about five minutes, and a very important one about poverty. I know that the noble Viscount perhaps does not understand poverty—
Viscount Eccles
None of the amendments in the group refers to the reduction from 650 to 600. The recommendation in the 1986 Act, which rules today, was 613. Sometimes, if I may say so, the word “scrutiny” is being murdered.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
Sometimes, also, actions have consequences that are unseen and unpredicted. It is only when we examine collectively the provisions that these unintended consequences become obvious. It is our duty and responsibility to point them out. But before the noble Viscount intervened, I was coming to the end of what I was saying.
Lord Howarth of Newport
Might the implication of the intervention by the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, really be that we have not tabled enough amendments to enable us to scrutinise every aspect of the Bill point by point? Indeed, I suggest to my noble friend that he is being remarkably constrained. For example, we should consider the fact that in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario in 1997 the opposition parties tabled 11,500 amendments to a Bill intended by the Progressive Conservative Government in Ontario to amalgamate metropolitan Toronto with the city of Toronto. Does that not make my noble friends on this side of the House appear to have been remarkably self-disciplined and restrained in their tabling of amendments?
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
I certainly agree. I feel almost inadequate in terms of our scrutiny in the light of what my noble friend has said, but I finish—
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
Does my noble friend also agree that having no Green Paper, no White Paper and no draft Bill has caused some of the problems that we are experiencing now?
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
My noble friend is absolutely right. I would have preferred to have had the opportunity of being on a committee to scrutinise the Bill before it came before this House. I would have been happy to deal with some of these points during the pre-legislative scrutiny. However, I know that many of my noble friends will want to come in on one or other of these 12 amendments and I certainly do not want personally to detain the House any longer.
Lord Rennard
My Lords, the statement from the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, that he does not wish to detain the Committee any further will perhaps be a welcome relief to the small number of people who may be watching the parliament channel at the moment. Anybody who is watching or perhaps even reads this debate in Hansard tomorrow will clearly see that in the past 26 minutes we have had yet again an extensive and irrelevant filibuster in the Committee, rather than serious scrutiny. I suggest to anyone following this debate that, were they to look at the last half-hour of our debates on Wednesday night—or the early hours of Thursday morning—which were again led by the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, they would see the clearest possible proof beyond any reasonable doubt for any Member of the Cross Benches, any Member of this House or any member of the public that these are simply delaying tactics of a wholly unreasonable nature. Students of political history such as me will have studied how—
Lord Rennard
No, my Lords, I am sorry. I am not going to give way because we should try to make progress. I will say why: there are some significant points that we should be looking at in terms of scrutiny. I agree with some of the points that the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, has made on the ward boundaries. If we were to look at all 12 amendments in this group, the last three of them, which are in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Tyler, are technical amendments to flag up formally to the Boundary Commissions the importance of the ward boundaries. Unlike Amendment 74B in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, they are rather more correct because they deal with the issue of the ward boundaries in its relevant place within the Bill, rather than in just one place.
Unlike other arguments relating to other amendments within this group, it seems to me that the importance of our amendments is that they are not prescriptive in that they do not demand that ward boundaries never be crossed. However, they say to the Boundary Commissions that they are an important building block. They should not necessarily always be adhered to but they should be taken into account to some degree. The origin of these last three amendments within the group was my own puzzlement in looking at the wording of the Bill, where there is a reference to wards in Northern Ireland but none to ward boundaries in England, Scotland or Wales. I thought that it would be helpful if a little clarity were given to the Boundary Commissioners about the importance of ward boundaries as one of the factors that they should take into account.
As we know from the informal evidence provided by their members, the Boundary Commissions will, in any event, have every intention of looking at ward boundaries, but it would be better if the legislation were improved, if possible. I hope that the Minister will respond by saying that this is something that might be considered as an improvement to the legislation.
The language with which we look at issues such as ward boundaries or other boundaries is, in my view, of some importance to the Boundary Commission processes. There are alternatives within these different amendments, using either “should”, “must” or insofar as they see fit. It seems to me that there is a good reason why the previous legislation on Boundary Commissions and this legislation tend to use the phrase “insofar as they see fit”. You can suggest that boundary commissioners look at different criteria when they redraw the constituency boundaries, but it is very hard to rank them in any priority or say that one carries more weight than another. The commissioners have to look at competing priorities. By saying, “in so far as they see fit”, independent and impartial people would be given the power to choose the relative weight of geographic ties, minimising inconvenience and such factors, and we would also avoid the danger of getting to the end of this process and the boundary commissioners being drawn into political rows and continuous legal challenges. By using the phrase, “in so far as they see fit”, we would allow the boundary commissioners to exercise their judgment while minimising legal snarl-ups thereafter.
Lord Kinnock
I am very grateful to the noble Lord and I have a great deal of sympathy with the case that he is putting forward. However, will he not join me in recognising that, before any Boundary Commission gives consideration to this Bill, let alone the Bill as amended in the way that the noble Lord wants, they are completely ensnared by the reality that, in all and any circumstances, they must return boundaries for precisely 600 constituencies, or, more appropriately, 598 constituencies because two are protected? Does that not remove a great deal of the effective discretion that should be employed, in the way that he suggests, by independent-minded boundary commissioners taking full account of precisely the arguments that he is making and arguments that have been deployed on both sides of the Chamber in our debates hitherto?
Lord Rennard
I do not accept that the democratic principle is such a constraint. The criteria in the Bill given to the four Boundary Commissions are remarkably similar to the criteria we have had in historic legislation dealing with how the Boundary Commissions work. There is then the issue of the number of seats, but I do not accept that the number of seats will affect too much the way in which the boundary commissioners choose to judge the importance of those competing factors.
Lord Rennard
I am sorry but I will not give way again on this point. Perhaps I may be allowed to finish the point that I am responding to from the noble Lord, Lord Kinnock, and again make the point that I have had to make when this position has been taken many, many times in debate on many amendments during the passage of the Bill over the 12 days of Committee so far. It seems to me that it is not uncommon in many countries for Parliaments to fix the size of Parliaments, usually through a written constitution. As the noble Lord, Lord Kinnock, will know, my party, and I in particular, think that it is very important to have a written constitution. I believe that in this country we are moving, in one way and another, towards a written constitution, but it is absolutely not unprecedented nor considered remotely undemocratic in other countries for Parliament to determine the number of seats that there should be. In the United States, for example, it is the constitution that sets out that there shall be two members of the Senate for each state. That appears very early in the principles of the United States constitution. Therefore, I do not accept that the Boundary Commissions are unduly constrained in this way.
Lord Rennard
No, my Lords, I want to make progress on my argument and allow us to proceed with a couple of issues of serious scrutiny that I still want to raise in this group of amendments. The first concerns the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, making the boundary commissioners take into account their perceptions of the socioeconomic base or relative wealth of each constituency. Over the decades in which many of us have been involved in Boundary Commission processes, I have not heard it seriously argued by anybody that the boundary commissioners are anything other than impartial and independent. However, my view is that we should not start asking them to exercise their judgment about the relative wealth of different constituencies, using different, competing socioeconomic factors, or to try to use their judgment to suggest that, because certain MPs have a lot of problems of this nature or fewer problems of that nature, these seats should be varied in some way. How could the boundary commissioners possibly be expected to remain being seen to be impartial and independent in their judgment? I suggest that that is not a serious factor that the boundary commissioners should have to take into account.
Having seen many submissions to public inquiries on Boundary Commission processes and read many of them in the past, I have thought that the criteria which people sometimes think could be applied are not serious ones on which you would expect the commission to impartially draw the constituencies in the way that it has.
Finally within this group, I want to comment on Amendment 76, which concerns eliminating references to the euro regions with particular regard to the way in which the Boundary Commission for England works. That does not seem a sensible way in which to suggest that the Boundary Commission for England should go about its business. The Bill is not prescriptive in saying that it must follow the boundaries of the euro regions but, if it is to work in a sensible way across the whole of England, it could not possibly start in, say, Northumberland, go down to the Isles of Scilly and then go across to Kent. In order to make this effective, we need to retain the language in the Bill suggesting that the euro regions may be building blocks that the commissioners use, saying that they will want to work simultaneously on the south-east, the south-west and the north-east, and have a proper process of scrutiny that could be effective with online representations. They will need to work simultaneously on the different regions rather than across England as a whole.
Lord Soley
The noble Lord who has just spoken makes a fundamental mistake when he says that Parliaments in other countries decide the size of constituencies. He is right that they do, but the problem here is that the Government are deciding it. In other countries, political parties agree it, usually jointly or independently. That is all I want to say about that but it is an important point: Governments do not decide the structure and size of Parliaments; Parliaments decide that, and they normally do it by consent.
Lord Tyler
Does the noble Lord not recognise that the House of Commons has voted?
Lord Soley
I certainly recognise that. I also recognise that this is a bicameral House and I hope that it stays as such. One of the jobs of a bicameral House is for the second Chamber to revise what the first Chamber has done, and that is particularly important on constitutional issues.
I return to the core amendment. I want to speak only on Amendment 73, but there is a wider point here that affects some of the others. There is great diversity in this group of amendments, and it might have been better if some of them had been separated out. Those tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Rennard and Lord Tyler, might have been better as a separate group because there is quite a bit in them that is separate from the others.
I want to focus on Amendment 73 in the name of my noble friend Lord Kennedy, where he suggests replacing the word “may” with “shall”. Many people in this Committee will recognise that the wording of a Bill and the use of words such as “may” is critically important, because it carries legal weight. The word “should” is not very different from “may” and, I say to my noble friend, not much better.
This point is important because it relates to some of the other amendments in this group. Why do we not use “shall” in relation to my noble friend’s amendment? It is a stronger commitment. The Minister will know that, in several other places following this, “shall” is used. The obvious example is in rule 6 of the new schedule, which states:
“There shall continue to be … a constituency named Orkney and Shetland”.
The Government want that to be legally enforced, so the use of “shall” is essential. In rule 5, however, as my noble friend has picked out, “may” is used. In other words, it states:
“A Boundary Commission may take into account...special geographical considerations”.
The Explanatory Notes to the Bill and many of the things that Ministers have said from time to time indicate that they also regard the things listed in rule 5(1)(a) to (d)—that is, special geographical factors, local government, local ties and the inconvenience attendant on such changes—as very important. Schedule 2, the measure that is driving them forward on this Bill, says:
“The electorate of any constituency shall”—
so there they are using a very strong form of wording that has strong legal force. However, back over the page, as I say, they use the much softer “may”, which does not have that commitment.
I am after an answer from the Minister because this question affects other parts of the Bill—certainly some of those affected in this group of amendments—but I am trying to focus on one for the sake of clarity. There is in fact no reason why we should not also use “shall” in rule 5. If we are all saying, as the Government have done, that we want these things to be taken into consideration, the use of the word would not undermine the use of “shall” in rule 2(1)—
“The electorate of any constituency shall”.
It would simply instruct the Boundary Commission in a much more forceful way to take into account the factors that Ministers and Members on all sides of the Committee say are important. I do not see why we should not ask the Boundary Commission to do that.
The Minister might well say that it could bring up legal challenges. I understand that that could be a problem. We do not want lots of reviews by the courts of such things. Having said that, there is no way that we can assume that these factors are not important. Nor is there any reason to assume that the number of challenges in a court of law would necessarily be different if we used the softer “may”. That does not rule out a legal challenge. It might make it more difficult to win but it does not rule it out, as I understand the law.
I will focus my comments just on this one point, but it is very important because it runs throughout the Bill. I understand why the Government, for party political reasons, have locked themselves into “shall” for the number of seats in Parliament. What I do not understand is why they cannot also use “shall”—the stronger legal version—for issues that they say are important and we all say are important. This is perhaps the best example. My noble friend Lord Kennedy has drawn attention to that discrepancy. The Minister needs to explain why we cannot have a straight change to the Bill here, so that it reads:
“A Boundary Commission shall take into account, if and to such extent as they think fit”,
followed by the four factors.
Lord Campbell-Savours
The intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, in response to my noble friend Lord Kinnock, ignored one simple issue; the Bill introduces a cap on seats. Once you introduce a cap, there is no flexibility. Whatever responsibilities, powers and so on you give the Boundary Commission, it will always have that in mind in whatever decision it takes on any boundary in the United Kingdom.
I will come to the wording of this rule in a minute, but I will first reply to something else that the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, said. In his preamble to dealing with the amendment, he addressed himself to the parliamentary channel and those who are listening. In so far as he did so, I will equally do so. He appeared to be in order because no one objected. It is important for people who are watching the parliamentary channel to understand that we are sitting here now at half past midnight—we may well sit all night—because some of us believe in a very simple principle. Because this is a constitutional Bill, the process by which it is being dealt with in Parliament is the wrong one. There has been no Green Paper, no White Paper, no prior scrutiny of draft legislation and no consultation with the political parties. A number has simply been pulled out of the air, inserted into the Bill in the middle of frantic negotiations over the formation of a Government, and handed to parliamentary counsel or the people who write legislation to produce it in the Bill, which now has to be rammed through both Houses of Parliament.
That brings me to the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Tyler. He said that the other House voted on the Bill. It is true that it voted on it, but there was no real debate in the House of Commons on this matter because of a contractual agreement between two parties to a coalition. That contractual agreement means that there is no free debate between two major parties in British politics: the Liberal Democrat party and the Conservative Party. If there are people watching the parliamentary channel, they might for once stop and think that there may be an explanation for what is going on in the House of Commons. I have put it in my language; I am sure that all my noble friends could put it in theirs if they so wished.
I move now to the comments of the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, who referred to 318. I do not think 318 was a cap, was it? It was a target.
Lord Bach
It is important that we get this absolutely right at this stage. I do not want to prolong this. I want to speak on my amendment in a moment, but let me just say that rule 1(1) of 1986 rules says:
“The number of constituencies in Great Britain shall not be substantially greater or less than 613”.
You add to that the Northern Irish figure, which is between 16 and 18, making a total not more or less than 630. I think the wording is very important, and I think the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, will appreciate that. This Bill does something quite different.
Lord Campbell-Savours
I am sorry. I got the numbers wrong, but the point that I am making is very simple. It was not a cap; it was a target. That is what is wrong with this legislation. We are talking about caps and not targets. When you have targets, the Boundary Commission then has flexibility. It knows what Parliament wants, it knows what people are moving towards, but it can take into account all the additional pressures and considerations that normally arise during the course of public inquiries about decisions that it has to take.
I turn now to the actual wording of the rule. The amendments that we are dealing with are essentially about rule 5(1) on page 10 of the Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Rennard, quite rightly refers specifically to this question of, “If they think fit”. Those words are very important, because they are part of the first sentence in the rule:
“A Boundary Commission may take into account, if and to such an extent as they think fit”,
when considering these matters. That leaves it with two options. It can either take them into account or it can ignore them. If it goes on to ignore,
“(a) special geographical considerations, including in particular the size, shape and accessibility of a constituency;
(b) local government boundaries as they exist on the most recent ordinary council-election day before the review date;
(c) any local ties that would be broken by changes in constituencies;
(d) the inconveniences attendant on such changes”.
in my view it would not be carrying out its function.
The Boundary Commission’s function is to consider those matters, but if it cannot carry out its proper consideration of those matters because of the cap, its whole raison d’être is defeated and it may as well not even bother to carry out any function at all. The Government might just as well draw up the map and not even have a Boundary Commission.
Lord Kinnock
In the context of an earlier debate that we had on the constituency of Brecon and Radnor, much was made of the fact that because Brecon and Radnor is about a third or a quarter of the size of the very large Scottish constituencies, the whole process would be altered radically if that amendment had been adopted. The noble Lord, Lord Tyler, made the point, and he made it very trenchantly. Because there is a cap—not a target, as my noble friend has said, but a cap—every one of those considerations on rule 5(1)(a) to (d) would be in play so far as the Boundary Commission is concerned in Brecon and Radnor, but it will have to ignore most of (a) to (d) because any rational consideration of this most rural of English and Welsh constituencies means that in order for the number 600 to be reached, there will have to be an extension, either northwards into Montgomeryshire, Sir Drefaldwyn, or further to the west into Ceredigion or into the south Wales valleys. None of those considerations could be brought to bear by the Boundary Commission simply because it could not afford to deviate from the number 600 by one, let alone by the 13 that would have been possible under the 1986 legislation or other numbers that have been targets under predecessor legislation.
Lord Campbell-Savours
I would like to have heard in the debate more references to the distinction between targets and caps, because that is essentially what we are debating. I agree with my noble friend. I was listening to the intervention of my noble friend who moved the amendment, and the intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, who referred to the new constituency that would be created being the maximum. It would be a huge constituency that would be utterly unmanageable, where the issue of accessibility would simply have gone out of the window, which is why I asked the noble Lord, Lord McNally, how he understands the relevance of accessibility. That constituency would have no proper representation. It would not be possible in the context of the size of the constituency that would be created. It could not, by any stretch of the imagination, have proper representation.
However, I wish to use paragraph 5(b) to the proposed new schedule, referring to,
“local government boundaries as they exist on the most recent ordinary council-election day before the review date”,
as a peg to draw attention to the conversation that took place at one of my dinner engagements last week. Someone raised an issue, and I suddenly thought, “That is particularly relevant to what we are discussing in this House”. The whole process in which we are involved is, we are told, essentially about equalisation. The noble Lord, Lord McNally, keeps referring to votes of equal value. That is a very interesting principle. The question is: where, when and in what circumstances do you apply that principle? I want to draw attention to other circumstances where that should equally apply, if you take the word that everyone is using, “localism”, into account. I want to see whether this localism—a sort of bottom-up principle—applies to this area.
I want to give as an example what is going on in Westminster, where we now sit. We are within the area of the Westminster local authority. I have here a list of all the wards within that authority. I was wondering how far this principle of equal votes of equal value applied in Westminster. I simply draw the attention of the House to what is going here. If we are prepared to have flexibility here in Westminster, why can we not apply the same flexibility throughout the whole of the United Kingdom? In every ward in Westminster there are three councillors. There are 20 wards. I want to draw attention to the variation in electorates within the council area where the Houses of Parliament stand. Knightsbridge and Belgravia has an electorate of 6,400, Tatchbrook has 6,400, Churchill 6,500, West End 6,600, Marylebone High Street 6,700, Little Venice 7,100, Maida Vale 7,200, Warwick 7,200, Vincent Square 7,300, Abbey Road 7,300, Bayswater 7,400, Church Street 7,500, Regent’s Park 7,600, Hyde Park 7,700, Bryanston and Dorset Square 7,800, St James’s 7,900, Harrow Road 7,900, Queen’s Park 8,100, Lancaster Gate 8,200 and Westbourne 8,300.
It seems that in Westbourne, the 8,300 electors voted in three councillors; but if you live in Knightsbridge or Belgravia, the 6,400 electors vote for three councillors. Where are votes for equal value there? We are dealing with the budget of one the largest local authorities in the country. I understand that Westminster’s budget is greater than those of some government departments. What about votes of equal value? Councillors elected to those wards are taking decisions on the use of these vast resources. I find it incredible that—guess what?—the largest electorates to elect the three councillors are in the Labour wards. So, built in to the arrangements for this votes-of-equal-value principle is an arrangement in Westminster whereby Labour voters are penalised and the individual voter has less influence on the expenditure of Westminster City Council. So much for votes of equal value.
Someone else told me that this is going on all over the country.
Lord Howarth of Newport
The situation in the constituency of the Cities of London and Westminster is even worse than my noble friend has suggested. It is a constituency where underregistration is particularly extreme. It is thought that the registered electorate in that constituency is only some 60 per cent of the 16-plus population. So we are talking about extremely skewed patterns of electoral representation in both local government and the Westminster constituency of this part of London.
Lord Campbell-Savours
My noble friend has referred to an issue that I intend to raise. I do not know whether we will be going at eight o’clock or nine o’clock tomorrow morning, but we may well get to the amendment where I wish to raise that issue. I have some important information to place on the public record about the population of the Westminster area and we can perhaps deal with those matters later on.
On the Westminster statistics, when I was in conversation today with others I was told that Westminster has by no means the worse differential in its electorate; there are parts of the country where some councillors are elected in wards with half that number of people on the register. I give way to the noble Lord, Lord Garel-Jones.
Lord Garel-Jones
If the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, finds the lack of equalisation within boroughs so offensive, why does he not find it so for parliamentary constituencies?
Lord Campbell-Savours
I do not know whether the noble Lord popped in at this hour or a couple of hours ago, but he will find that it is the inconsistency that is worrying me. If we were to have a consistent approach on these matters, then the Boundary Commission would have, to some extent, greater flexibility available to it in the decisions it is required to take.
Lord Liddle
I support, particularly, the first part of the argument of my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours and the argument of my distinguished noble friend Lord Kinnock. The key point about this section of the Bill which the Government have not satisfactorily answered is that the function of the Boundary Commission, as it has operated since the Boundary Commission was established by all-party agreement during the Second World War, will be drastically curtailed by this legislation.
Although all the nice, reassuring words about taking account of communities, geography and so on will still be there, the work of the Boundary Commission will be curtailed as a result of the cap on the number of MPs. The Bill does not say that we should have 600 MPs but the Boundary Commission can increase the numbers by five or 10 or 15 in order to take account of local circumstances; it imposes a rigid number. There is also the corset of the 5 per cent on either side of the quota. The effect of these two measures will be to completely change the flexibility and discretion that the Boundary Commission has been able to exercise, under all-party agreement, since the Second World War. Why do the Government feel that they have a mandate to make that change without consulting all parties through a Speaker’s Conference? What argument do they have for doing this? I do not think that there is a good argument.
Once again, from my own part of the world, I shall use an illustration of what the impact of these changes will be, so that the noble Lord, Lord McNally, understands how he is tearing up decades of cross-party agreement on how the Boundary Commission should operate. Let me talk a little about my beloved Cumberland. Before my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours became MP for Workington, I remember as a young man that the Boundary Commission came up with a proposal that Cumberland—this was before Cumbria—should be created—
Lord Rennard
Will the noble Lord tell us which amendment he is speaking for or against in these remarks?
Lord Liddle
I am in favour of the amendments that would change the wording from may to shall or must because I feel very strongly that the wording is being kept as it was in the previous legislation but disguising that a fundamental change is being introduced. The noble Lord, Lord Rennard, knows that very well. It is all part of a deal that his party has done with the Conservative Party without consultation with other parties, which is without intellectual justification.
Let us think about the situation in the 1960s when the Boundary Commission suggested that Cumberland should come down from four to three seats. There was an inquiry and it was decided that on grounds of community and geographical representation the four seats should be kept. In the 1980s and 1990s, with the new county of Cumbria, as I mentioned before, the quota did not justify having six seats. The Boundary Commission used its discretion that because of the special geographic nature of Cumbria, there should be six seats. That is what the Government will destroy. The Boundary Commission will not have the ability to show such discretion. We are all in favour of equal-size constituencies and the principle of equality, but you have to have around the edges flexibility to cope with special situations. Therefore, I urge the Government to think again.
Lord Bach
My Lords, Amendment 75A, to which I shall speak shortly, is in my name and that of my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer. The Committee has just heard a superb speech from my noble friend Lord Liddle, which both parties in government should take note of. He put his finger on the problem with this part of the Bill more clearly than has been done before. The debate has highlighted once more what we think is the Government’s undoubted folly in seeking to subordinate every other factor in the construction of parliamentary boundaries to the overriding goal of creating seats that fall within the bounds of a very narrow electoral quota threshold.
We do not oppose moves to create more equally sized constituencies; indeed, we support them. That is already the letter and spirit of the present law and what the Boundary Commissions strive to deliver. We recognise, too, that the current law could be improved in that regard. We have tried to help the Government to deliver such an improvement but, alas, they have chosen to reject every amendment that we have advanced. As a consequence of this failure to engage in the normal and proper process of revision in this House, which is the role that this House is traditionally supposed to perform, serious flaws will be left uncorrected in this legislation. I appreciate that the Government have taken away one or two amendments to look at and we welcome that very much, but there has not been the normal give that Governments accord to Bills of this kind.
The focus of this debate is the proposed new rule 5, headed “Factors”, in Clause 11. We believe that this is a prime example of the Bill’s fundamental defects. As the Committee knows, rule 5 lists a number of factors that the Boundary Commissions are permitted to take into account when drawing up constituencies. These include having regard to special geography, issues of accessibility, local government areas, local community ties, the inconvenience attendant on changes to constituency boundaries and the encouragement to work within the framework of the existing European electoral regions. Of course, these are all sensible factors that ought to be considered by a Boundary Commission in the course of its deliberations and should impact on the outcome of such deliberations, but the interplay between this rule and some of the other rules set out in the Bill mean that the Boundary Commissions will not be able to give proper weight to this list of factors.
Take the issue of inconvenience. Rule 5(1)(d) states that the,
“Boundary Commission may take into account, if and to such extent as they think fit … the inconveniences attendant on such changes”.
But if we read across to rule 9(2)—that reference appears to be a small drafting error—we find that,
“rule 5(1)(d) does not apply in relation to a report under section 3(1) of the 1986 Act that a Boundary Commission is required, by subsection (2) of section 3 of that Act as substituted by section 10(3) above, to submit before 1 October 2013”.
In other words, inconvenience attendant on boundary changes may be considered by the Boundary Commission in future reviews but not in the review that the Government intend to rush through before the next general election.
However, even if that anomaly was removed, there would still be a problem about Boundary Commissions taking into account not just inconvenience but any of the factors in rule 5. This is simply—I am sorry if I am repeating a point that has been made before, but it is fundamental to the understanding of this Bill—because sub-paragraph (3) of rule 5 states that the rule is,
“subject to rules 2 and 4”.
Those are the rules relating to the electoral quota and, in the case of rule 4, as we have debated today, to the area of constituencies. In other words, the Boundary Commission may take account of a variety of factors but only within the bounds of the overriding requirement to make constituencies adhere to within the 5 per cent threshold of an electoral quota and consistent only with the special rule on the maximum territorial extent of a constituency.
The major problem here, to which the government side appears deaf, is that the degree of tolerance from the electoral quota is just too narrow. Rule 5 might state that Boundary Commissions may take into account geographical factors, local ties, issues of accessibility and so on, but the Government know that the very tight threshold regarding the electoral quota means that in practice—this is the point that the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, was making—it has very limited room for manoeuvre. We know that because the heads of the Boundary Commissions have said that the strictness of the electoral parity target will mean that local authority boundaries will have to be criss-crossed, county boundaries overlapped and wards divided. We know that islands will have to be split, historic borders transgressed and natural boundaries such as rivers, valleys and the sea just plain ignored. The Boundary Commission secretaries conclude that the application of the electoral parity target is likely to result in many communities feeling that they are being divided between constituencies.
Ironically, the Bill exposes the problems caused by the 5 per cent threshold in the special exemptions that it gives to Northern Ireland and parts of the Scottish Highlands and Islands. That begs the question why Northern Ireland and the Scottish Highlands and Islands are the only places in the United Kingdom deemed worthy of rescue from the iron law of the electoral quota. Why are other islands or areas of peculiar geography not being afforded special protection?
When we come to Amendment 79A, we will debate that more fully. For now, we can rest on the knowledge that many parts of the UK have been, without any adequate explanation, denied that special treatment. We are trying to help the Government to tidy up the Bill and to avoid some of the negative outcomes that are the inevitable consequence of the severe electoral quota requirement, both by suggesting a number of areas that should be guaranteed an allocation of whole seats and by proposing a greater tolerance in the electoral quota threshold.
We propose that, although a 5 per cent disparity from the electoral quota should be the general aim of the Boundary Commissions when drawing up constituencies, an outer limit of 10 per cent ought to be allowed where overriding factors such as those that we have discussed on all sides of the Committee warrant it. The amendment would not make any difference to the Government’s aim of adjusting a perceived electoral bias; it would just deliver a more sensible process. Alas, up to now, the Government in this House refuse even properly to debate this matter and do not give us a response as to why they are taking this attitude.
Baroness Liddell of Coatdyke
For the sake of the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, I say that I shall speak to Amendments 73, 74A, 74B, and that my remarks will be about rule 5(1)(c). The noble Lord, and the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, claim that this is a filibuster. He needs to get out more. I remember the Scotland and Wales Bill of 1978. As a young reporter, I remember covering Mr Tam Dalyell during that debate. I want to say that he spoke for days, but that may be exaggerating. On one occasion, he spoke for about six hours. To me, that is a filibuster. In all my interventions, I have kept my remarks very brief—to some extent because the air conditioning is going to my throat; perhaps I will get a cough sweet whenever I get an opportunity to go out of the Chamber.
I compliment my noble friend Lord Kennedy on introducing Amendment 73, because it gets to the heart of where the Bill has gone wrong and reintroduces some common sense. The Bill has been cobbled together from two different directions and been rapidly put through the Clerks with, I repeat, no consultation, no pre-legislative scrutiny, and no discussion through the usual channels. As a consequence, we have a Bill which is a dog's breakfast.
One area that most concerns me is the framework within which the Boundary Commission will operate. All of us who have attended Boundary Commission hearings know that sometimes, when the first stab is made at the shape of the boundary, extremely bizarre results come out. The late John Smith, on 10 May 1994, two days before he died, addressed the Boundary Commission about the new constituency of Airdrie and Shotts, which would have resulted in the town of Airdrie being cut right down the main street because a bureaucrat somewhere had thought, “We need to get some numbers right here”, and took no account whatever of the cohesion of the town, the history and the nature of the communities built up within that area.
If the Government accepted Amendment 73 on rule 5(1)(c), we could ensure that any local ties broken up by changes in constituencies should be taken into account by the Boundary Commission. That is a lot more sensible than the rather vague construction contained in the Bill.
Lord Kinnock
In deference to noble Lords who have asked for specific references to the amendments that we are supporting, I am supporting Amendments 73 and 74. That is because the debate on these amendments seems to have been a focus of the real difference between those who uphold the Government’s position implacably, and more reasonable counsel who really do understand what the implications of this part of the Bill so far as democratic representation in the House of Commons really amounts to.
By way of preamble, I say to the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, and to an extent to the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, that yes, of course it is true that, in countries with written constitutions, the back-up of constitutional courts, and all the systems of appeal and representation attached to that, Parliaments do fix the number of seats in their democratic, legislative assemblies. But we do not have a written constitution; there is no prospect of one emanating from this Bill or any other Bill that I can see in the coalition agreement, and therefore I am sure they will accept this pragmatic point. We are not discussing these proposals in the context of a written constitution or anything resembling one, and if the legislation proves to be wrong in application, there is no process of appeal that can be used by the citizens of this country, noble or not ennobled, to try to rectify the problems that might result.
My second point is attached to that. It is true that parliamentary bodies or congressional bodies under the terms of written constitutions set the number of seats in their houses of representatives, and we are all familiar with the case of the United States Congress and the fact that there are very small states with exactly the same number of senators as very large, heavily populated states. There are complaints about that, but everybody is familiar with it, and it would take a constitutional volcano to dislodge that hallowed reality.
The same thing applies to the overall numbers of the lower House of Congress, the House of Representatives, but the term “gerrymandering” was effectively given meaning by the way in which, over decades, that House has been used to sort and re-sort, mix and mangle, constituency boundaries for representatives who are elected to the lower House of Congress. Some cases, in some states, in some congressional constituencies, are a mockery of democracy widely acknowledged in the United States. So even there, where there is a written constitution and Congress sets the number of seats, there is an openness to abuse that my democratic friends—with a small “d” democratic because they come from both parties—deeply regret and would like to see changed.
This is one of the reasons why they have admired our pragmatic, deliberative system of the Boundary Commission with the built-in appeals process which dislodges control of the number of seats from political hands, accepts the idea of a target number of seats in our democracy and then leaves the detail of deliberation and boundary setting, and consequentially the eventual number of Members of Parliament, to detached, independent persons who must rely not only on their own judgment but on the rational arguments and local considerations submitted to them from the localities for which they are setting the parliamentary boundaries and by that means substantially determining the quality of representation and government that is enjoyed by the people of this country.
Lord Campbell-Savours
Is not the distinction between us and many of these other countries that we have a first past the post system? It is critical in this discussion because you can get away with a cap system where you have proportional representation and far larger seats that are more able to gather in fringe candidates. That is a very important distinction.
Lord Kinnock
It is not an area into which I want to stumble because I do not want to have a debate this evening about the benefits or disbenefits of proportional representation, save to say that my one reservation about having a much more proportionate system of representation in this country, which I favour in principle, is the implied departure from single Member constituencies. I believe that it is not beyond the wit of this House, the other House or the political community in general to discover ways of ensuring that there are single Member constituencies where the Members are elected by a much more proportionate system, but the reality remains the one spelt out by my noble friend: there are accompanying systems where the number of parliamentary seats is fixed by the Parliament buttressing considerations of vital importance, and even that does not safeguard those systems against distortion or abuse in the way that the Boundary Commission system intact has done in this country.
My final point specifically refers to the paragraph entitled “Factors” on page 10. My point is straightforward. Whether the legislation eventually provides that Boundary Commissions may, should or must “take into account” the considerations set out “as they think fit”, as my noble friend Lord Liddle said earlier, future Boundary Commissions will not be able to exercise a judgment “as they think fit” according to a group of sensible criteria laid down in this Bill.
Why not? It is because of the eunuch clauses in this Bill. Eunuch rule 2 is the 5 per cent rule. Eunuch rule 4 is the 13,000 square kilometres rule. Most of all, under eunuch rule 1 there will be 600 Members of the House of Commons. There is no possibility that the Boundary Commission should be given not a target but a cap, a fixed figure, regardless of all the surrounding realities, the requirements of constituents, the workload of Members of Parliament or any of the other considerations entered into this debate in this House or in the House of Commons. There is no possibility that the Boundary Commission will in any realistic sense be able to act “as they think fit” according to these listed factors. It will be circumscribed and supervised utterly by the figure of 600. Just in case that is not enough, it will not be able to make an adjustment of more than 5 per cent either way in the numbers. And just in case that is not enough, there are the two figures of 12,000 square kilometres and 13,000 square kilometres, which would make a constituency that is the size of many countries in the world, and would forbid consideration to be given from a very remote—indeed, the most rural—constituency in England and Wales, such as Brecon and Radnorshire. That would be regardless of consideration for the West Country, beloved of the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, the moors of northern England or any of the realities that relate to the Lake District. Decisions cannot be made on the pragmatic basis of the influence of size, the remoteness and scarcity of the population, the workload of Members of Parliament or any other objective consideration to a margin of, let us say, 10 or 12 seats or, for the sake of argument, 13 seats. That would give us the England, Wales and Scotland figure of the 1986 legislation.
Why legislate for cosmetic purposes when on the previous page of the Bill the discretion being awarded to the Boundary Commission is torn to shreds and thrown to the wind by the limitations imposed by the preordained figure of 600? I know that there are noble Lords opposite who are true servants of democracy and who have dedicated their lives to trying to improve the way in which the citizens of this country and other countries are represented and governed. I beg of them, when we give further consideration to these issues related to “Factors” and the real powers of discretion, the real powers of objective judgment and the real powers to act as it thinks fit that are awarded to the Boundary Commission, to record their reservations and insist that enough discretion is given to the Boundary Commission to permit it to do its job effectively in democratic terms and with the integrity which it has so richly earned during the past 60-odd years. If it is not given enough discretion to alter the total number of seats in the House of Commons from 600 to a few more, it is being made the object of ridicule, which is why I describe the rules that will effectively deprive it of the essential power of discretion as the eunuch rules.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
My Lords, I start by apologising on behalf of my noble friend Lord McNally, who, as some of your Lordships noticed, left some moments ago feeling somewhat unwell. I know that that is not something that he would do lightly. I have the slight difficulty of having not having been in the Chamber for the whole debate, and I intend no discourtesy to the Committee in that. I shall do my best, although some of the arguments are perhaps familiar from previous times.
The amendments adjust the factors that the four national Boundary Commissions are to consider in drawing up boundaries. In some cases, they give the commissions additional tasks or they take away their discretion. In most contributions, the size of the House of Commons was raised. We debated that at considerable length last week and I do not propose to rehearse the arguments again.
As the noble Lord, Lord Bach, indicated when he spoke concisely to his amendment and those in this group, the criticism that would appear to come from the other side of the Committee is that although the Boundary Commission is given discretionary factors which it can take into account to the extent that it thinks fit, it is nevertheless subject to rule 5(3), which says that the discretion,
“has effect subject to rules 2 and 4”,
with rule 4 being the area, which has already been debated today, and rule 2 being the electoral quota and a 5 per cent variation either way.
I appreciate that I repeat myself from previous discussions when I say that these rules are designed to ensure that we rein close to the electoral quota whereas, while the quota is the focus of what the Boundary Commission is currently expected to do, circumstance and the factors of flexibility that noble Lords seek in this case have taken boundaries reviews ever further away from it. It is worth repeating that the British Academy Policy Centre, in commenting on the Bill, states that,
“the rules set out in the Bill are a very substantial improvement on those currently implemented by the Boundary Commission”.
We believe that the rules set out in the Bill strike the right balance. Some noble Lords have argued that we should remove the English Boundary Commission’s ability to take European regions into account. Others say that we should compel it to do so. The Bill says that the commission should have the discretion if the regions help them to manage the review, which is the right balance.
The noble Lord, Lord Foulkes of Cumnock, moved an amendment that would have added wealth as a factor. The Government cannot agree on principle that people should be banded together in constituencies on the basis of similar income. I am not quite sure how such a thing would be measured by the commissions even it was desirable. I can confirm that wealth was not a factor in previous boundary legislation. Our view is that the factors in the Bill are broadly those that are in existing legislation and that have worked well in previous reviews. Again, I believe that this is the right balance.
As I have indicated, some amendments compel the commissions to have regard for the rules, and some remove the primacy of the parity requirement. Our position is that the rules give due discretion to the commissions, but I reassure noble Lords that while the legislation says, “may take into account”, it is not open to a commission simply to disregard the factors on a whim, as has perhaps been suggested in some contributions. So further tightening up of the wording is unnecessary and could prove unhelpful.
I have already said, as we have indicated in debates on previous amendments, that the Government will consider how we can add wards to the list of local government boundaries that the commissions are asked to consider at present. As for parity, the rules give flexibility within a 10 per cent variation from the smallest to the largest constituency. Again, I believe that that strikes the right balance, giving us flexibility to recognise properly local factors while ensuring that votes are fairer and have more equal weight—a principle to which even Members on the Front Bench opposite have said that they agree. On that basis, I apologise for not being able to answer as fully as my noble friend Lord McNally would no doubt have wished to, but I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
First, I wish the noble Lord, Lord McNally, well. He has had a very tough day—we all have—and I hope he just needs sleep and a meal and nothing more than that.
I thank all noble Lords for their contributions in this important debate. My noble friend Lord Davies of Stamford agreed with me that the point of “may” or “should” was to give very clear instructions to the Boundary Commission. My noble friend Lord Foulkes of Cumnock made very many important points—on wards, on his time in local government and on electoral systems. His points about the wealth of a constituency were very interesting. We may come back to that on Report and expand those points further.
The noble Lord, Lord Rennard, made some points that I agreed with, although I did not agree with him on the points that he made about scrutiny. We have had no Green Paper, no White Paper and no draft Bill, which is part of the point of the problem we have today. My noble friend Lord Soley made some important points—that parliaments of other countries, not Governments, decide the number of seats. My noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours, made the crucial point that introducing a cap on the number of seats undermines the provisions that the Boundary Commission takes account of elsewhere.
My noble friend Lord Liddle reminded the House that the function of the Boundary Commission is curtailed because of the cap and the 5 per cent tolerance figure. His point about the Speaker’s Conference was well made. My noble friend Lord Bach hit the nail on the head when he said that the cap was, above everything else, the problem. He also pointed out that the failure to engage with the Opposition was a real problem and that the timescale of the review is a problem in itself. My noble friend Lady Liddell of Coatdyke made some excellent points. She explained that she witnessed some of the problems that we have been discussing both as a politician and a journalist. My noble friend Lord Kinnock, in supporting my amendment, made some very pointed and incisive comments about a written constitution and the very difficult situation that we find ourselves in today. He made a very powerful case.
In conclusion, I was going to say to the noble Lord, Lord McNally, who is not here now, that he is not someone I have had the pleasure to talk to yet. We have said hello to each other in the corridor and stuff, and he is always very friendly to me and says hello. It must be a very frustrating time for him, but he really does need to take a leaf out of the book of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness. I do not want to get my head bitten off, but we need to look at these things very carefully.
I hope that the discussions that we have this week will bear fruit. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Tyler
“( ) boundaries of existing constituencies”
Lord Tyler
My Lords, I recollect that some 10 hours ago the noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, my noble friend Lord Strathclyde and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, encouraged us to be brief and to the point, and I shall be extremely brief and to the point on this very simple amendment. I shall resist all temptation to take a leisurely lane in my constituency—as was the case last week, so often during the middle of the night. Instead, I shall simply move a very straightforward amendment that would be a modest improvement to the Bill.
Under rule 5, there is no reference to existing constituencies. That, I believe, is a pity, and this simple reference in Amendment 74BA would simply add an appropriate respect for existing constituency boundaries to the list of criteria that the four Boundary Commissions should take into account in making recommendations. It is very simple and useful. It would indeed take up the point made by the four Boundary Commissions: that they want to have, to such an extent as they think fit, responsibility for examining these sorts of criteria. I very much hope that my noble friend the Minister will feel able to accept this modest improvement to the Bill. I believe that all parties in both Houses, and, more importantly, the public, will welcome the recognition of the need to avoid unnecessary disruption to existing constituencies. I therefore beg to move.
Lord Davies of Stamford
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, may not have expected me to rise to my feet to support his amendment, but I do so willingly. I shall also do so briefly. The effect of his amendment, as I see it, would be to create a bias in favour of not changing existing constituency boundaries. It would in fact be, for the first time in our system, recognition of the costs of change. There are costs of all kinds: costs in disruption, costs to the political parties and to local authorities and, above all, the unquantifiable but very real cost that we have discussed throughout our proceedings of individuals feeling less attached to the constituency that they thought they were a part of.
As I understand it, the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, has taken into account all these considerations and said, “Surely, when in doubt, don’t make a change”—or even if there is a small doubt, do not make a change. He has not attempted to quantify the instructions that we would be giving to the Boundary Commission if we accepted this amendment. He has left it to the judgment of the Boundary Commission, which is right. However, he has alerted it to what the view of Parliament would be if his amendment were adopted—the view that it is important, whenever possible, not to change existing loyalties and perceptions of local constituencies and much better to preserve the status quo. It is a very sensible amendment. The noble Lord is to be applauded for having conceived it and brought it forward. I hope that it meets with the approval of the whole House.
Lord Lipsey
My Lords, this is not only a sensible amendment but a very important one. Because the noble Lord moved it very briefly—he was right to do that, given that he knows that the House is sitting very late tonight and is keen to make further progress—its full significance could not be brought home to us. It is important for what it does, because it is obviously right that this should be one of the factors that the Boundary Commission takes into account. It is more important for what it symbolises—the fact that there is, on all sides of the House, recognition that we should be very chary about going into this situation of a permanent revolution in constituency changes.
By itself, the amendment would contribute only modestly to avoiding that malign outcome, because it has to be combined with what is at the moment the 5 per cent rule in the Bill, which, as we have seen so often, causes knock-on effects. One constituency grows slightly, which changes the next one and the next until, in the end, it is very difficult to preserve boundaries. It also has to be combined with the five-yearly review—another unwise feature of the permanent revolution. Nevertheless, a chink of light has seeped under the door on to the true nature of this Bill and the true changes that need to be made to it. Given that it comes from the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, I cannot believe that the Government will not wish to recognise this and support the amendment that he has laid before us tonight.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Stamford, and very much with my noble friend Lord Lipsey. I agree with the important amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, which is in his name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Rennard. They obviously understand history. They know what happened in the 1950s when, as the second boundary review came around after the Second World War, MPs rebelled at the thought that there were going to be so many changes in constituencies. That was completely reflected in debates that we had earlier in this Chamber, in which ex-MPs and non-ex-MPs pointed out that, if you break the link between a Member of Parliament and his constituency, you undermine democracy and you create uncertain relationships. The then Conservative Government produced a Bill that, in effect, made the disruption much less. From this Front Bench, we support the principle underlying what the noble Lords, Lord Tyler and Lord Rennard, are seeking to achieve, which is to reduce the disruption.
However, the speech that my noble friend Lord Kinnock made has to be borne in mind, because we can reduce the disruption only by so much if we have what he described as the “eunuch” clauses. I anticipate that there will be those on the Benches on which the noble Lords, Lord Tyler and Lord Rennard, sit who think that the way to deal with the points made so persuasively by my noble friend Lord Kinnock would be by moving the 5 per cent up to 10 per cent; they think that that would make a substantial contribution to dealing with the point about the ongoing relationship with a Member of Parliament.
So, yes, I support the amendment proposed by the two noble Lords, but I also hope that they will engage in this debate properly. By that I mean that I hope that they will put forward arguments and amendments that they think will genuinely improve the Bill. I read the amendment that the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, has put forward as doing that, but I very much hope that they will feel able to express honestly their view as to whether the threshold should be 5 per cent or 10 per cent. If they did that, they would, I think, unlock one of the principal problems in the Bill.
I very much hope that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, whom I congratulate on dealing with the last amendment—he was rather given it beyond the last moment—will find it in his heart to support what the noble Lords, Lord Tyler and Lord Rennard, have proposed. However, I also hope that he will address the issue that the amendment goes only so far and that it is only if we add more discretion—5 per cent to 10 per cent—that we make it meaningful. It is important to take into account what has been said in these debates quite widely across the House—that it is not a good idea to have a constantly changing constituency with a constantly uncertain Member of Parliament.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
My Lords, this amendment proposed by my noble friend—in a way that, I am sure, if I may take the words of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, he genuinely thinks will improve the Bill—would add existing constituency boundaries to the list of factors in rule 5 that the Boundary Commissions may take into account when drawing up their recommendations for new constituency boundaries. I think that it is a perfectly reasonable proposal and we certainly agree with noble Lords that this would aid the Boundary Commissions in drawing up their recommendations, not only in the first boundary review but obviously in the subsequent ones as well. As has been said, it is the case that, particularly in the first review, the Boundary Commissions expect that there will be a considerable change owing to the reduction in the number of seats from 650 to 600. Nevertheless, I believe that this amendment will allow for the merits of existing boundaries to be taken into account where appropriate, thereby ensuring that the boundary commissioners do not have to start with a blank page. Therefore, the Government are content to accept this amendment.