House of Lords
Introduction: Lord Stephen
Agriculture: Dairy Industry
(13 years, 9 months ago)
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The Lord Bishop of Wakefield
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the impact of the recent low prices for milk in the major supermarkets on the United Kingdom dairy industry and its long-term sustainability.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Henley)
My Lords, there is no simple link between supermarket retail prices and farm-gate prices. Producers in dedicated supply groups for individual supermarkets tend to receive the highest prices for their milk. The Government believe that the market must drive price levels. It is important that large retailers cannot abuse power by transferring excessive risks or unexpected costs onto their suppliers. We therefore propose to establish a groceries code adjudicator to monitor and enforce the groceries supply code of practice.
The Lord Bishop of Wakefield
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his answer, but the situation has become even more serious. Last Friday, 4 February, the NFU published a report noting a £330 million gap between the price paid for milk and the cost of production. It is ironic that many demonstrations outside supermarket depots belong to a company that was once a co-operative of northern dairy farmers. In the light of that, will Her Majesty’s Government urgently support the European Commission’s dairy package to change the way milk contracts and supply chain contracts are negotiated?
Lord Henley
My Lords, I ought to make it clear that prices have in fact gone up somewhat. The average price in December was 26.4 pence per litre, which was a 5.8 per cent increase on a year ago. However, I appreciate that other prices for dairy producers have gone up just as fast and that they are facing quite severe problems. As regards the work being done in the EU, I think that the right reverend Prelate referred to the High Level Group on dairy. We will certainly be making appropriate comments on that and feeding in our views to what the Commission is proposing.
Lord Lea of Crondall
As I understand it, there are 17,000 dairy farms in this country and the average dairy farm gets a subsidy of £30,000 a year, which by my arithmetic is £500 million. There are 2 million cows, so each cow gets £250. I am sure the NFU will say that the cow does not get it and that the farmer does not get it. So who does get it? Could it be that the processors get it, the supermarkets get it, or the consumer gets it? Somebody must get it, so should there not be something like the Office for Budget Responsibility or the new adjudicator to clarify analytically who does get it?
Lord Henley
My Lords, I cannot confirm or deny the figures produced by the noble Lord, but I can give him an assurance that subsidies go to the farmers and not to the cows as I imagine that the cows do not have bank accounts.
Baroness Parminter
Does the Minister agree that a 3,700-cow mega dairy in Lincolnshire will be as much of a nail in the coffin for the competitiveness of small British dairy farmers as the unopposed arm lock of the supermarkets over farmers with their milk prices?
Lord Henley
My Lords, I am not going to comment on individual applications by individual farmers or farming groups for their own planning consents, but the point that should be made in terms of our own interests in this is that the welfare of the animal must always be supreme. We believe that with proper stockmanship and so on, the welfare of animals can be maintained on big farms as well as on small farms.
Lord Sewel
Can the Minister clarify into which schedule of the Public Bodies Bill the groceries adjudicator, or whatever it is, will be placed?
Lord Henley
The noble Lord will be pleased to hear that the groceries code adjudicator will not be in that Bill, but in a separate Bill being introduced by colleagues in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. I look forward to the Bill coming before this House in due course.
The Countess of Mar
My Lords, the noble Lord hinted that farmers who act co-operatively succeed in getting better prices for their milk than those who act alone. As the British farmer has such a poor record of co-operating with his fellow farmers, what will Her Majesty’s Government do to encourage farmers in order for them to get a better price for their milk?
Lord Henley
I am not sure that the noble Countess is in fact correct. The highest prices being paid for milk at the moment are coming from Wiseman Dairies with its direct contract for Tesco and the lowest current prices are from one of the farmers’ co-operative groups. I do not know whether the two are connected, but certainly it is a matter for individual farmers to decide whether they want to act together, not one for Her Majesty’s Government.
Lord Grantchester
We welcome and take encouragement from the fact that the Government are continuing with the previous Administration’s Dairy Supply Chain Forum as a mechanism to keep in close contact with the industry. Does the Minister agree that the dairy market is not dysfunctional, that the industry’s prospects are positive and that it is undertaking significant investment with a value added strategy? Price rises are feeding through what are now much better integrated relationships. Does he further agree that the problems facing dairy farmers are more the result of volatility in input costs rather than from supermarkets? I declare my interests in dairying.
Lord Henley
My Lords, I can agree with much of what the noble Lord has said. Obviously, individual dairy farmers are facing problems, and we saw a decline of 4.7 per cent in their number last year. But as the noble Lord said, prices are increasing somewhat at the moment, even though there is considerable volatility in the other prices dairy farmers have to face in terms of their milk production.
The Lord Bishop of Exeter
My Lords, I am delighted to know that the Government are still committed to bringing in a Bill to establish the office of the groceries code adjudicator. Given the seriousness of the situation that we face in dairying and other aspects of farming at present, when is that Bill likely to be brought before the House?
Lord Henley
My Lords, my understanding is that there is a good chance that it will start in another place first some time this Session, but I cannot give any precise timing at this stage.
The Earl of Sandwich
My Lords, the adjudicator was going to be situated in the Office of Fair Trading. Can the Minister confirm that the Office of Fair Trading is to be abolished? In which case, the adjudicator will have to be situated in the Competition Commission, which is also to be abolished.
Lord Henley
My Lords, I am not sure at the moment where the groceries code adjudicator will be sitting, but I can assure the noble Earl that he will sit somewhere where he can do the job that he will be asked to do as effectively as possible.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury
My Lords, will the Minister also look at the impact of predatory pricing on small, local convenience shops, which make a great contribution to their communities?
Lord Henley
My Lords, that is obviously a matter that ought to be looked at but I think everyone should welcome the fact that supermarkets deliver low prices not only for milk but for other matters as well. The consumer would welcome that.
International Development Aid
(13 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Sheikh
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they are taking to focus international development aid on fragile and conflict-affected states.
Baroness Verma
My Lords, focusing UK aid on fragile and conflict-affected states is central to our development efforts and makes a significant contribution to our national security. All UK bilateral and multilateral aid is currently being reviewed, ensuring a greater focus on results and maximising the impact of every pound spent.
Lord Sheikh
My Lords, I thank the Minister for that response. What discussions has her department had on improving the interface between different government departments to support fragile and conflict-afflicted states so that they do not become a future security risk? Can she also explain what the Government are doing to assist these states in the achievement of the millennium development goals?
Baroness Verma
My Lords, the Government’s strategic defence and security review set out a clear vision of enhanced UK work on upstream conflict prevention. Building on this, DfID, alongside the FCO and MoD, is taking the lead in developing the Government’s new Building Stability Overseas strategy to be published in the spring. This strategy will set out how we will use development, diplomatic and security tools in an integrated approach to tackling conflict and instability overseas. No fragile state has yet achieved a single millennium development goal.
Lord Tomlinson
My Lords, is the Minister aware that her statement about getting value for money for every pound spent from the development budget will be very welcome? Can she tell us which precise, ring-fenced developmental objectives were met by the transfer of £1.8 million from the DfID budget to finance the visit of his Holiness the Pope?
Baroness Verma
My Lords, the money was not taken out of ODA but was a part of DfID’s budget. The work that the Pope and the Catholic Church do overseas is welcomed; they do a lot of work through educational and medical care across the world. It was therefore not ODA money but came out of the DfID budget.
Lord Roberts of Llandudno
My Lords, I am sure that the whole House welcomes the fact that all parties here are aiming for the target of 0.7 per cent by 2013. As we are all going in the same direction, does the Minister agree that there should be even more consultation, even at a ministerial level, on how our overseas aid is targeted and spent?
Baroness Verma
My Lords, my noble friend raises a very important point. We are carrying out the bilateral and multilateral reviews and having a great deal of consultation with a great many organisations precisely to ensure that all our aid is focused on getting the best results for the poorest people in the world.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick
My Lords, does the Minister agree that in failing or failed states, where often straightforward development projects are impossible to mount, it is entirely proper, as a precursor to resuming development, to provide money to help these states? Is that view shared by the Development Assistance Committee of the OECD?
Baroness Verma
My Lords, as the noble Lord is aware, our goals are common across the OECD and our multilateral partners, and our aim is to ensure that our investment—every penny that we spend—is directed towards ensuring the best outcomes. He is aware of that.
Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale
My Lords, one year ago this week the previous Government launched the Civilian Stabilisation Group, allowing 1,000 UK citizens to be deployed to fragile and conflict-affected states. The current Government have promised to expand the work of that group. Can the Minister confirm for us today that the budgets will be available for the new stabilisation response teams and that the UK will continue to press the United Nations to make its own ambitious proposals on the international response for civilian secondments in a way which will enhance and add value to the UK’s own Civilian Stabilisation Group?
Baroness Verma
I should first like to pay tribute to the great work that the noble Lord did when he was a Member of another place. I should also like to congratulate him on the work that he is continuing to do to ensure that the relationship between Scotland and the African countries is maintained. The United Nations is of course one of our key partners; but, as I said, we are going through the multilateral and bilateral review process. This process will ensure that we are able to target and focus all our aid budget on the programmes and countries that need it the most and where the outcomes are best achieved.
Lord Naseby
Is my noble friend aware that DfID’s practical help in demining in Sri Lanka has been enormously welcome and pretty successful? But as the refugees—more than 270,000 of them—have nearly all now returned home, the crying need is for infrastructure, particularly in the health field. Will she, with DfID, look at the possibility of building at least one hospital in the northern region of Sri Lanka?
Baroness Verma
My noble friend is absolutely right about the work that DfID has done to try to reduce the suffering caused by landmines and the explosive remnants of war. As I have said several times over, we are coming towards the end of our reviews. These really can give us a greater focus on where our aid will go. However, healthcare and education are key to supporting the work that we do.
Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead
My Lords, how will Her Majesty’s Government respond to the request made only last week by the International Development Select Committee for a list of exactly which countries will qualify as fragile and conflict-affected states, which will therefore be eligible to receive increased funding?
Baroness Verma
My Lords, the noble Baroness raises an important point. She will also be aware that the reviews are coming to a conclusion. They will be able to lay out all the questions that the Select Committee raised as well as the ones that she has asked.
The Earl of Listowel
My Lords, can the Minister say what progress the Government are making towards improving the education of girls and young women in fragile states?
Baroness Verma
The noble Earl is absolutely right about education for girls and women. Women and girls are at the heart of all the work we are doing, particularly in countries such as Afghanistan and Pakistan which will be our key priority. The Secretary of State has therefore said that 30 per cent of the aid budget will be focused on our fragile states.
Disabled People: Disability Living Allowance
(13 years, 9 months ago)
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Baroness Gardner of Parkes
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether individuals currently receiving disability living allowance who have invested money and payments in aids and adaptations will be disadvantaged as a result of the proposals in chapter two of the consultation paper on disability living allowance reform published in December 2010.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes
My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name, and I declare an interest as I have disabled family members.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Lord Freud)
My Lords, the proposed assessment for personal independence payment is not intended to disadvantage individuals but to ensure that the benefit is focused on those who are least able to live independent lives. We therefore think it right that it takes greater account of the successful use of aids and adaptations than DLA does. We know that this is a complex issue, and that is why we are consulting on this point.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes
My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply and I am aware of the consultation. Under item 27 of the consultation, it would appear that those who have used their DLA to improve their lot might be disadvantaged. I would like him to agree with me that it is very important to encourage people to help themselves and remain useful members of society and that no perverse incentive should be brought into this process.
Lord Freud
It gives me pleasure to say that that is the exact purpose of this assessment. We want to make sure that the money that we do have is well directed to supporting people to have independent lives. It would clearly be perverse if people were supported to live an independent life and that support was then removed when they still needed it. I cannot envisage that that situation would develop.
Baroness Campbell of Surbiton
My Lords, will the Minister tell us how the Government expect to achieve the projected savings of £1 billion by 2015 when the highly regarded disability charity Disability Alliance estimates that 823,000 disabled people will lose vital DLA support in order for the Government to meet that target?
Lord Freud
My Lords, as the noble Baroness pointed out, the target is to reduce the spending on DLA by 20 per cent by 2014-15. But that is against a projection of a benefit that is, frankly, out of control. The actual figure in that year will basically come down to the level that it was in 2009-10, which is just below the £12 billion mark.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
My Lords, the consultation paper proposes that the three rates of DLA should be so-called “simplified” into two rates, which presumably implies—as the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell, suggested—the scrapping of the lower rate of DLA care. Lower-rate DLA care goes to those with significant need of help or supervision. Does the Minister agree with the noble Baroness that if the Government go ahead with that, it will take almost £900 million—nearly £1 billion—out of the incomes of disabled people, some of whom are among the poorest in this country? Is that what he means by saying that we are all in it together?
Lord Freud
My Lords, I disagree entirely with that premise. The personal independence payment is a new assessment of people’s needs and is designed to help people to live independent lives and to give them mobility. To that extent there can be no presumption about what is happening to existing rates. We will set these rates based on people’s requirements to live independent lives.
Lord German
My Lords, it seems to me that the consultation paper can be read in one of two ways. Can the Minister tell us whether the purpose of the PIP is to extend the level of adaptations and aids that will be available to people—to facilitate greater access and ensure that everyone who needs the payment can get it?
Lord Freud
My Lords, I can respond to that question positively in the sense that times have moved on: adaptations and aids have moved on since the DLA was introduced, and we are looking at a different environment in which people can be helped to live pretty normal lives with those adaptations. It is important that we have an assessment process and a personal independence payment that reflect what is really happening to people’s lives.
Baroness Wilkins
My Lords, does the Minister agree that the extra costs related to lack of mobility are far wider than just moving around—not least the need for extra heating, the extra wear and tear on clothes and the need to employ others to do decoration or repairs in the house and to look after the garden? How does this make the provision of aids relevant in the assessment of extra costs?
Lord Freud
My Lords, the noble Baroness is right that we need to have a pretty broad view on what mobility implies. One of the big differences between the personal independence payment and DLA is that the personal independence payment looks at the person’s ability to plan and execute a journey, not just at their physical capacity. One of the big differences with the personal independence payment is that it puts a lot more emphasis on mental competences compared with physical ones, or it raises those competences in relative terms. Many of those adaptations are clearly for physical requirements; others, the ones to meet mental requirements, will be taken much more into account.
Lord Rix
My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, has already referred to the statement, “We’re all in this together”. In that statement, were the Government including the 80,000 people with disabilities living in residential care who are going to lose the mobility component of their DLA, or were the Government simply thinking that such a valuable aid to so many vulnerable people was a total waste of taxpayers’ money?
Lord Freud
My Lords, we are taking a very close look at the mobility requirements of people in residential care. The existing arrangements are pretty patchy; the payments are used for different purposes in different places and are often pooled in a way that they are not designed for, in a very complex regulatory framework. We will be looking very closely, as part of the consultation exercise, at what the best form of support should be for people in residential care in this way.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, following on from that question, has the Minister read the evidence in the report from 27 leading disability groups entitled, Don’t Limit Mobility? The report points out that mobility needs tend to be factored into care packages only to meet specific needs in the community care assessment and not generally to meet individuals’ personal mobility needs. Do the Government therefore accept that the proposal to withdraw the mobility component of DLA for those in residential care because of double funding is based on a false premise, is simply wrong and should be withdrawn?
Lord Freud
My Lords, I have indeed read with great interest that particular piece of research. We are talking to the lobby about it and are very interested in some of the data behind it. We are in the process now of collecting a lot of information about what is really happening. It is a very fragmented area in terms of regulatory support and practice, and when we have that information I will be very pleased to share it with the House.
Sudan
(13 years, 9 months ago)
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Baroness Cox
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their assessment of recent developments in Sudan.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Howell of Guildford)
My Lords, the Southern Sudan referendum is a momentous step towards the implementation of the comprehensive peace agreement. A formal announcement of results is expected later this afternoon. President Bashir has today issued a decree accepting the referendum result, which provisionally shows an overwhelming majority for secession. We welcome the continuing commitment of the Government of Sudan. We will support north and south as they work on the remaining comprehensive peace agreement issues. We continue to support efforts to establish a lasting peace for Darfur.
Baroness Cox
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that very warm and encouraging reply. Would he agree that it is appropriate today to send very best wishes to the peoples of Southern Sudan as they celebrate that overwhelming mandate for independence announced today and to congratulate all who worked very hard to make arrangements for the referendum in very challenging circumstances? Is the Minister aware that the people living in the Nuba mountains or southern Kordofan were offered only a consultation? When I was there last year they said that they were so worried for their future under Khartoum that they might have to resort to war to fight for their own freedom, which would clearly be very destabilising for Southern Sudan. What is being done to address the needs of the people of the Nuba mountains, and especially their concerns about religious freedom, humanitarian aid and their African culture?
Lord Howell of Guildford
Certainly we welcome all the congratulations coming from around the world on what is the birth of a new nation. The noble Baroness is absolutely right about that, and she is right to point to the outstanding issues that remain. Not all problems have been solved by this referendum, particularly in relation to the areas that have worries about their relationship with the north while they remain politically under northern control. I think that she mentioned—if she did not, she will forgive me—southern Kordofan and the Nuba mountain regions. There are also the Blue Nile regions and the region of Abyei. All those regions desire to have their rights respected—their property rights respected and their political impulses respected—and all of them have yet to see a way through the necessary consultations. Those consultations will be within the framework of the comprehensive agreement, and we will work very hard with the United Nations to ensure that all the rights needed are respected.
Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead
My Lords, will the Minister tell us exactly what part the UK is playing in the negotiations taking place to deal with Sudan’s debts of $35 billion? Is it fair that south Sudan should inherit the debt which was incurred by the north of Sudan? Is the Minister aware of new figures which reveal that up to 90 per cent of the Sudanese debt owed to the UK is actually interest?
Lord Howell of Guildford
These are matters that have not yet been settled. As I said just now, there are a number of practical issues that have to be worked out. I cannot give the noble Baroness the precise detail of where the financial discussions have got to, but obviously, in as far as we are affected in the way that she described, we shall have to work out the best and fairest arrangement between the two countries. We think that these things can be done, but we have certainly not got to the point of solution yet.
Lord Alton of Liverpool
My Lords, I welcome the historic announcement that has been delivered from the Dispatch Box today. However, will the Minister touch again on the situation in Abyei to which he referred a moment ago, and on the Foreign Secretary’s recent statement reflecting on the violence between the Misseriya tribesmen and the Sudan People’s Liberation Army and the massive influx of armaments and weapons into that area? Does he agree that a reduction in the armaments levels and the removal of the militias from those areas is perhaps a prerequisite for a lasting peace? Can he also tell us something about the architecture which will be put in place to bring about the right of self-determination of the people of Abyei, who have been excluded from the comprehensive peace agreement and from the referendum?
Lord Howell of Guildford
I cannot offer the noble Lord an immediate pattern of solution to the situation. As he knows well, and as your Lordships will know, there has been no referendum in that area. There has been a demand for the people of that area to have a say. There are some quite substantial implications in terms of oil resources in the area—about 10 per cent of the oil resources of Sudan as a whole. I can only repeat what I said earlier. We will work very closely with the UN to see that consultations within the framework of the CPA are pushed forward and that the wishes and rights of the people of this region, like those of the other regions I mentioned, are fully respected.
Lord Avebury
My Lords, will the Minister confirm that the Blue Nile consultations are going ahead very well but that in southern Kordofan they have not even started? Is there not a difficulty in holding a consultation in a state where the governor is wanted by the International Criminal Court?
Lord Howell of Guildford
Yes, there are such difficulties, and I do not think that they can be disguised. As I mentioned earlier, there are difficulties in south Kordofan, the Nuba mountains and the Blue Nile region, and we will have to work very hard to see those overcome. I am personally encouraged, as I hope that your Lordships and my noble friend will be, by the tone taken in Khartoum about the outcome of the referendum and by the very substantial willingness of all parties to reach agreement on the very difficult boundary and border issues which any partition—any secession—is bound to raise. These were certainly raised.
Budget Responsibility and National Audit Bill [HL]
(13 years, 9 months ago)
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Baroness Anelay of St Johns
My Lords, I have it in command from Her Majesty the Queen to acquaint the House that Her Majesty, having been informed of the purport of the Budget Responsibility and National Audit Bill, has consented to place her prerogative, so far as it is affected by the Bill, at the disposal of Parliament for the purposes of the Bill.
Lord Eatwell
My Lords, the passage of the Bill through your Lordships’ House has been an excellent example of the importance of this House as a scrutinising and revising House. On behalf of these Benches, I thank the Treasury Bill team; Miss Jessica Levy from my office, who managed most of the relationship with the Bill team; and the Ministers, notably the noble Lord, Lord Sassoon, for the way in which they have approached the discussions and constructive negotiations on the content of the Bill.
The Office for Budget Responsibility established by the Bill is a peculiar institution. It is both outside government and of government. We need to ensure that legislation provides a framework for its independent operation as far as possible. That is what, working together, we have managed to do. We have clarified the role of non-executives, we have removed the statements in the Bill that seemed to qualify independence, we have enabled the OBR to consider issues of national risk, and we have enabled a process of external review of operations.
A number of factors remain. We on this side of the House are not entirely content with the budgetary provision for the OBR, or with the role of the charter as a qualifying agent that qualifies the OBR’S independence and instructs it.
The Countess of Mar
May I ask the Leader of the House whether it is normal to make a speech like this on the Question whether the Bill do now pass?
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Strathclyde)
It is unusual, but it is in order. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, is about to wrap up his remarks, but he was being constructive and helpful.
Lord Eatwell
I am indeed. It is appropriate to thank people, when a Bill has gone through in this co-operative manner, for what has been achieved.
I know that the Government think that this side of the House has taken a somewhat belt-and-braces approach to the independence of the OBR; I am sure that Sir Humphrey, or perhaps Sir Nicholas, does. However, it can do no harm to the OBR’s reputation to have a belt in place when the braces fail.
It is the Government’s responsibility now to ensure that this important experiment in economic governance is a success. We on this side wish Mr Chote and his team well.
Lord Myners
My Lords, my words are very much in the same direction as my noble friend’s. This has been a superb example of the House working well. We had long and detailed discussions in Committee. The Minister listened attentively and reserved his position, but came back with constructive amendments, and at all stages he kept fully informed everyone who is interested in the Bill by writing to us and keeping us up to date. It is a better Bill as a consequence of the House working effectively in the way that it did.
The Commercial Secretary to the Treasury (Lord Sassoon)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lords, Lord Eatwell and Lord Myners, for those remarks. I add my thanks to the Bill team, who did a cracking job, and to the Opposition for the constructive spirit in which we saw the Bill through.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
(13 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord McNally
That the amendments for the Report stage be marshalled and considered in the following order:
Clauses 1 to 6, Schedule 9, Clauses 7 to 19, Schedules 1 to 8, Schedules 10 and 11.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
(13 years, 9 months ago)
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16:35 - Division on Amendment A1 - Ayes: 219 / Noes: 218 - Amendment A1 agreed.
18:50 - Division on Amendment 5. - Ayes: 154 / Noes: 232 - Amendment 5 disagreed.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
My Lords, as we begin Report on the Bill, we believe that it is important that the House is updated on our position on the Bill. We invite no prolonged discussion at this stage on the timing of Report.
The Bill is acknowledged on all sides of the House to be a significant constitutional Bill that has not been the subject of what is regarded as the norm for such a Bill—either public consultation or pre-legislative scrutiny. Report has been brought forward without the 14-day gap that convention requires between Committee and Report. These conventions exist for a reason. That 14-day gap allows consideration and discussion in Committee and then the formulation of amendments for Report and preparation for their debate. There has been one sitting day between the end of Committee and Report. It is for your Lordships to judge whether the many issues raised by the Bill meant that it was never going to be possible to scrutinise it properly in the time sought to be allotted by the Government.
We think it right to register the point about the gap, but the mood of your Lordships’ House has been to encourage the participants to resolve the problem by negotiation. The Opposition have supported and participated in this actively. They have been greatly assisted by the intervention of the Cross-Benchers. We have negotiated at all times in good faith. The Government indicated a basis for agreement on the main issues, to which the Cross-Benchers have responded, with our support, in accordance with the Government’s suggestions. Cross-Benchers have discussed amendments with the Government in accordance with what they believed the Government were indicating, but no agreement has been reached.
Our system of self-regulation works only if the parties are willingly to negotiate honestly and skilfully and can reach agreement. However, we want to help the process and to do so we have agreed today that we will seek to complete Report on Part 1 of the Bill today. There is a way to go, but my sense is that your Lordships want to get on. It is a token of our good faith that we seek to complete Part 1 today. No one could suggest that that was not very reasonable progress. We want this House to consider these matters in a reasoned and reasonable way, and we very much hope that the Government will respond to this. We want this House to be able to consider and, as appropriate, vote on the key issues before us on Report to encourage resolution by agreement.
Baroness D'Souza
My Lords, last week an amendment on public inquiries was tabled from the Cross Benches as a possible means of arriving at a compromise agreement between the Government and the Opposition. The Government promised to come back with a modified amendment. Following this there was an agreement that Committee on the Bill should be completed, as it duly was, last week. We are now on Report and we have further amendments on public inquiries, thresholds and the percentage variation. Perhaps this is an appropriate time to reiterate the role of the Cross-Benchers by laying particular emphasis on their being politically unaligned.
The amendments before us—some usefully tabled by expert Members on the Cross Benches—are to do with content, not process. As the current Convenor, I do not and cannot speak for one party or another in this debate, although as individuals, me included, we will vote according to what each of us thinks are useful amendments and what is an appropriate way forward. I can say that Cross-Benchers as a group wholly support the main task of this House, which is scrutiny. It follows that anything that might interfere with that role, be it a programme timetable, filibustering or flouting of the conventions of this Chamber, would probably not be supported. Thus the normal convention at this stage is that Report should go ahead, that reasoned arguments be put, that Divisions take place and that the Bill goes to the House of Commons by 14 February. I say with some confidence that this would be the view of the majority of the Cross-Benchers.
As your Lordships know, a great deal of negotiation has taken place. However, what is now called for is that the essence of these negotiations comes to the Floor of the House and that opinions be canvassed by means of voting. Whatever the outcome of the Divisions, the Bill would go back to the other place for consideration. This is the way in which this place has, for perhaps hundreds of years, conducted its business. Many of us might feel that we should now return to these practices and that necessary compromises are made at the final stage of the Bill, which is Third Reading, next week.
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Strathclyde)
My Lords, I thank both noble Lords who have spoken in a most constructive way. I agreed with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, when he said that this should not be the occasion for prolonged debate. I very much welcome the reiteration by the noble Baroness of her role as Convenor of the Cross-Benchers, the role of the Cross-Benchers themselves and her interest in the process of scrutiny. Individual Cross-Benchers can take different views on the content of the Bill as it progresses.
It is true that there are normal minimum intervals, which have been shrunk on this occasion. The reason for that is plain. For the Bill to become law it needs to return to the House of Commons at the end of play on Monday 14 February. That has been well known by Members of this House. However, the House has flexibility to reduce minimum intervals, and that is what we are dealing with. Indeed, some of the amendments that we will deal with today were last dealt with in Committee on 30 November. The House will feel, therefore, that we will have plenty of time to examine it. Time is not unlimited. That is an important consideration. I respect what the noble and learned Lord said about completing Part 1 today. That is right, sensible and achievable. I am sorry that he did not go on to say that he would be able to complete Part 2 this week, but I have to hold out the hope that we will be able to reach agreement so that Report can be completed this week in time for Third Reading on Monday. We will also continue to work with the usual channels, because it is also the will of the House that we should try to focus the key debates on this Bill at a time that is most convenient for noble Lords to make their voices heard in a Division.
Lord Rooker
“( ) If less than 40% of the electorate vote in the referendum, the result shall not be binding.”
Lord Rooker
My Lords, it is best if I briefly state what this amendment does not do. It does not prevent the referendum taking place. It does not have a threshold that stops the proposed change in the Bill taking place. It simply allows the compulsory change in the Bill to be activated only if the turnout is 40 per cent plus. If it is less than 40 per cent, it still allows the change but requires the decision of a Minister to do so, which probably implies a debate in this House and the other place. In other words, if the turnout is 40 per cent plus, we get a binding compulsory change. If it is less than 40 per cent, it becomes discretionary. All my amendment does is to make the referendum effectively consultative if the turnout is less than 40 per cent. In fact, it takes in the debate that we had in Committee on an indicative referendum along with some of the debates on a compulsory threshold and compromises on both those issues—something that has been sadly lacking from this coalition—to try to put to the House an amendment that allows the Bill to operate in a more sensible way.
As I have said, I think that it would be controversial in some ways if the thresholds—on which there are amendments—were put in simply because people go back to what happened in 1979, which left a sour legacy. On the other hand, this is a major piece of UK constitutional legislation that affects every voter in the country. I am not clear that it is right to do this without more consensus than we have in the Bill. A high turnout and a small majority would be as bad as a low turnout with a large majority. Before we embark on this we should have an assessment of the result of the referendum. My compromise is that we can assess it only if the turnout is less than 40 per cent. If it is more than 40 per cent, there is no assessment and the result is binding. That is the way we have done it in the past. We have had a referendum, and then assessed the result before we make the changes. In this case there is a halfway measure—we do it only if the turnout is less than 40 per cent.
If the Government get their way—they want a high turnout on May 5—it is implied that probably the turnout will be higher. I do not prejudge that. If it is indicated by the people of this country that they are not actually four-square behind it, the amendment allows us, in certain circumstance, to have an assessment and to rethink the way forward.
The amendment is reasonable in the extreme—far more reasonable than anything I have heard so far. Twice in the past fortnight I have heard the Leader of the House mention at the Dispatch Box a package of concessions. There is no package of concessions on the Marshalled List as far as I can tell. Given what we said in Committee—we are not trying to repeat what we did but are taking part of two debates—I think that my amendment is frankly so reasonable that it should be passed on the nod. It would not wreck the Bill or the referendum and would allow a pause to assess whether the turnout is low. What is wrong with that? I beg to move.
Lord Blackwell
My Lords, I have been a loyal supporter of the Government on this Bill but I confess that this is one amendment where I have sympathy with the proposer given the role that referendums may have in other constitutional issues and the precedent that may be set. I ask myself how comfortable I would be with a referendum on joining the euro if less than one in five of the population—that is, 20 per cent—voted for it; or, indeed, with a referendum on leaving the European Union if a similar result emerged. Therefore, the Minister needs to address how the precedent set by a referendum on this issue might affect precedents set on other grave constitutional issues that might also be the subject of referendums in the future.
Lord Anderson of Swansea
My Lords, my starting point is clear and I think has widespread acceptance throughout the House—namely, that what is proposed is a major constitutional change. I hope that the House is with me in saying that a constitutional change of this magnitude should have legitimacy, particularly as the hallowed rules of the game, which have stood the test of time over a long period, are being changed. Therefore, a means has to be devised to show that such a change has at least reasonable support among the electorate. The object is to make any such change as long-lasting as possible so that any future Government are not tempted to alter the rules of the game as they would recognise that there was a sufficiently broad consensus. Otherwise, there is a danger that the change will be deemed to be no more than the view of one Government which can be properly reversed by a successor Government. I warn the Government that if they steamroller ahead—already there have been great affronts to our normal conventions on this—a future Labour Government—such a Government will arise, although we do not know when—will be tempted to say that they are not persuaded that the change has sufficient support, and therefore that they are minded to change it.
Therefore, the key question for the Government is: do they seriously think that it is important that such a change has wide popular support? Putting it another, simpler way: do not most reasonable people in the House agree that it would be absurd if only 25 per cent of our electorate were to turn out and there were to be—if I have done my arithmetic correctly—13 per cent for and 12 per cent against? Would that be considered a sufficiently strong basis for a change of this nature to be agreed? I hope that most reasonable people agree that it would be absurd if such a change were to be agreed on such a flimsy basis. It would be contrary to the spirit of our constitution, the way that we work and, indeed, the way in which this House tries to ensure a reasonable response to proposals.
I fear that there could be quite a small turnout. Between now and the proposed date of the referendum we have but two months. However strong the efforts that are made by the umbrella organisations for and against the referendum and however strongly the Government try to whip up enthusiasm, I fear that there will be substantial apathy. There is widespread disillusion at government generally; and the Deputy Prime Minister, who has been most personally linked with this proposal, is not the most popular member of the Government. Whatever the merits of the case, people may find that a convenient way of showing their disapproval of the Deputy Prime Minister is by voting with their feet. This is perhaps part of the problem of a referendum; it very much depends on who is putting the proposal and the time at which it is put. We saw that, for example, in our own referendums. In 1979, an unpopular Labour Government put forward proposals for devolution in Scotland and Wales, which, certainly in Wales, were mightily rejected. Equally, in 1997, when the bliss was in that dawn, a new reforming Labour Government managed to get not a 4:1 rejection of the proposals, as in 1979, but a majority for them—just.
On a further point of sadness, it appears that the Government are probably not in a mood to make concessions. This rather wooden response of theirs may be part of the problems of coalition politics. I cite in evidence the debate on the Isle of Wight proposal. We understood, from the excellent speech of the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, that all parties on the isle were in favour of an exception being made. The noble Lord made an extraordinarily strong case for that. It was quite clear to all of us that whatever arguments we might seek to raise it was easy to see that the Isle of Wight would not provide a precedent for other areas of the country and was unique. That surely should have been an opportunity for the Government to say, “We are a listening Government; we have heard the arguments and we are minded to change our position”. But no—the Government insisted on putting the proposal to a vote and were then roundly defeated. Worse, they then tried to claim some benefit, saying, “This is one of the great concessions that we have made”, when clearly any listening or reasonable Government not bound by a coalition agreement would have made some concession on that point.
I turn speedily to the amendment on what happens if fewer than 40 per cent vote. This provides an escape route for the Government, and I return again to the Cunningham amendment in 1979, with which I had some experience, all those years ago. I make but two short propositions. First, in many countries, there is special provision when there are proposals for constitutional change. It is not enough to have a bare majority in one or both Houses of the legislature. Secondly, there is special provision in many countries where a referendum is held to ensure that more than a bare majority is required—hence the proposal for a threshold.
I could detain the House for a long time with the results of my research on this issue. My objective is not to detain, and to accept that practice varies from country to country. I shall give a few examples, if I may, of the two propositions. First, I cite Article 5 of the US constitution, which demands that before an amendment to the constitution can be made:
“The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention”,
and so on. There is also a precedent in Germany, which I shall not quote, under Article 79 on amendment of the basic law. There is also Section 128 of the Australian constitution.
Again, because of pressure of time, I shall neither cite these amendments to constitutional provisions nor detain the House by going through a litany of other countries. I concede that all the examples that I have given relate to federal constitutions, but it can plausibly be argued that in this country we are sleepwalking toward a quasi-federal system. Already, Scotland has primary legislative powers. With the Welsh referendum in March, we have the prospect of substantially increased powers. As a slightly humorous aside, after the unfortunate rugby match on Friday one companion said to me: “Well, we may have lost the game, but we shall win the referendum”. That may be a small consolation for the result on Friday.
The object of thresholds for referendums has always been to show that there is an appropriate majority in the country for the proposal: otherwise, as I have said, it could be short lived. It would be a temptation for a future Labour Government to return to the issue if there was not a basis of sufficient consent. Clearly, there are different forms of special majority. I concede that a number of countries have a different view. For reasons of time, I will refer to, rather than quote from, the 1975 Nairn committee proposals. In this country we had a referendum in 1975 on the EU without a threshold clause, but which produced a 2:1 majority on a very significant turnout. We had the threshold commitment in 1979: I believe that Hansard will show that the Leader of the House conceded to me that this was an opportunistic response on behalf of the then Conservative Government, which fully supported the Cunningham amendment of 1979 on a 40 per cent turnout. Perhaps consistency is not something that one should hang around the neck of any politician. However, there was a threshold for the proposal for a regional assembly in the north-east and for other matters such as tenants’ choice and the education Bill.
Overseas examples are legion. Again, I will not go through the various constitutional proposals of Denmark, Ireland, Italy and Switzerland. The Government claim to be particularly close to Sweden at the moment. Sweden has strong constitutional provisions, which I will not quote, which related to proposed changes. So does Australia. The Government loudly say that they are very committed to the Commonwealth. Not only Australia but many other Commonwealth countries have appropriate provisions for constitutional change.
I end by saying that the principle is very clear. We want to avoid the absurdity of a low turnout and a lack of public interest determining a key change to our constitution. We must recognise the special nature of such a vote if we wish the result to last. If the rules of the game are to be changed, we must ensure that there is an adequate majority and an adequate consensus in our country as a whole.
Lord Howarth of Newport
My Lords, this is one of the most important issues before us on Report on Part 1 of the Bill. The amendment tabled by my noble friend Lord Rooker is eminently sensible. Surely we should all be able to agree that, where major constitutional change is concerned, there should be a search for consensus. Major constitutional change should not be made on a small participation in the vote.
I fear that turnout at the referendum will be low, partly because the question of whether we should switch from first past the post to the alternative vote system of elections is fairly obscure and technical, and partly—this is a very important factor—because this legislation, proposing as it does such important changes to our constitution, has not, as convention and normal practice require, been the subject of public consultation by way of a Green Paper or pre-legislative scrutiny. That means that there has not been an extensive debate, other than in your Lordships’ House, where the extent of the debate has been well justified in these extraordinary circumstances. In the time that will be available between this Bill reaching the statute book and the day that the Government have appointed for the referendum, 5 May, there will be very little possibility of the Electoral Commission explaining to, informing and, indeed, educating the people of this country about the choice that it will fall to them to make. Those are significant reasons why we should insist that there should be a substantial turnout if the result of this referendum is to be binding, and I think that a minimum turnout of 40 per cent, as proposed by my noble friend Lord Rooker, is well judged.
I think that there should always be a high hurdle in a referendum. It would be intensely undesirable if Governments got it into their heads that referendums were a readily available, convenient way of introducing a change that they happened to think was desirable. I very much heed the advice of the Constitution Select Committee of your Lordships’ House. In its report on referendums, it has made it very clear that it considers referendums to be in principle undesirable and inconsistent with the principle of parliamentary government. Although the committee concedes that referendums may be appropriate on significant constitutional issues, I am sure that the tenor of its recommendations is that we should not automatically reach for referendums as a convenient device for the Government of the day; rather, it should be rare and difficult for a proposition to be put to a referendum.
I take the view that, where there is to be a referendum, it should be advisory rather than mandatory. Again, my noble friend Lord Rooker has proposed to the House a very sensible compromise: if there is a majority on a genuinely substantial turnout, we accept that this referendum will be mandatory but, if the turnout is less than 40 per cent, the question of where we go from there will come back to Ministers and to Parliament. That all seems very sensible. Surely, when we are developing constitutional change, we should do all we can not only to achieve consensus between the parties in Parliament but to achieve a substantial consensus in the country. Therefore, I support the amendment.
Lord Alderdice
My Lords, I think it is only right for me to pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, who was regarded with much affection during his time as a Minister in Northern Ireland. However, that also leads me to my questions about his amendment. He was famed for his plain speaking and uncluttered thinking, but sometimes the simple response to a complex issue may not be the right one, and I think that that is the case with this amendment.
Two of the amendment’s components trouble me. The first is the notion that it should be a non-binding referendum; in other words, we say, “This is so important that we must hear what the people have to say. But if we do not like what they have to say because of the numbers who turn out to vote, the Government will then do something different from what the people have said”. I do not think that it is a very advisable to ask the people what they think but then for the Government to decide whether they will follow through on that. However, it goes further than that. The noble Lord, Lord Rooker, will be very familiar with the fact that the only elections in Northern Ireland which are not held on a proportionate basis of some kind—in fact, all the rest are held on the STV system—is the election to the House of Commons at Westminster. I could very easily see a situation where the turnout in Northern Ireland was much higher than in other parts of the United Kingdom—that is not unusual—and where there was overwhelming support for moving away from the first past the post system, as it is not used for any other elections and no one in Northern Ireland seriously proposes going back to it.
Of course they would rather have STV but that is not on the agenda at the moment. Northern Ireland could vote overwhelmingly for a move away from first past the post and the Government could say that the rest of the UK have not voted in such numbers—although the outcome is still clear—and have the freedom to ignore the situation or to espouse it. If this is what the people want, maybe we should move away from the first-past-the-post system in Northern Ireland—and perhaps in other parts of the UK—and argument could then begin to emerge that the Government had the freedom to bring forward different electoral systems for the one Parliament. That would not be a change because it is already the situation in our elections to the European Parliament. It would not help to bind things together in the United Kingdom if we had different forms of elections to the House of Commons.
I am seeking to show that what appears a simple, straightforward, elegant way of addressing a potential problem in fact opens up a series of other matters which have not been referred to in today’s debate. I give way to the noble Lord, Lord Reid, who is also a much distinguished servant of Northern Ireland.
Lord Reid of Cardowan
I thank the noble Lord for that. His argument would carry immense weight if not for the simple fact that the circumstances—historically, socially and constitutionally—in Northern Ireland are unique in the United Kingdom. Nowhere else has a referendum been held inside and outside the United Kingdom at the same time, as was the case with the Good Friday agreement; nowhere else is there a Chamber where automatically all of the parties must share a percentage; nowhere else are there constitutional arrangements which stand completely at odds with every other part of the United Kingdom, for very good reasons. Therefore, the arguments the noble Lord has made very eloquently fall on the simple point that Northern Ireland is already unique, and anything that added to that uniqueness would be marginal compared to the differences that already exist.
Lord Alderdice
I am grateful to the noble Lord for his intervention. However, I am sure he will not go back to Scotland to argue that Scotland is not unique in its history, culture and background.
The point is not the uniqueness of the situation in Northern Ireland but the importance of holding together a single system for election to the House of Commons so that various procedures do not enter into it which have the untoward effect of differentiating representation in the House of Commons. We need something which binds our United Kingdom together. That is why the simple and, on the face of it, not unreasonable proposition from the noble Lord opens up all kinds of other boxes. That is not his intention but it is a real possibility, and that is why I oppose the amendment.
Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts
Like my noble friend Lord Blackwell, I have been a loyal supporter of the Government throughout this Bill. However, like him, the amendment gives me cause for concern and I feel there is a lot in what the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, has said. I share my noble friend’s views about the danger of a precedent being created in this way without any threshold.
The noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, argued persuasively that we may not like what the people have said. However, as I understand it, under the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, 60 per cent of the people will have said nothing. They will not have said that they are in favour of it; they will just have stayed away. That is hardly an argument for there being the high-level consensus for the change that it is proposed to bring in.
Even with the noble Lord’s amendment, we could have a binding referendum with one in five people voting in favour of it, which seems a perfectly satisfactory threshold. My concern is more about different results from different parts of the United Kingdom, to which he refers. We may have different turnouts in different parts of the United Kingdom because of the nature of the elections that are taking place on the day. We may have low turnouts in one place and high turnouts in another, and large parts of the United Kingdom may feel that they have had a system foisted upon them in circumstances where they have voted against it and there is not the level of consensus required.
For me, the danger of having no minimum to which we can point as giving a level of participation across the country represents a grave danger to the unity of the kingdom, because all parts of the kingdom may not feel that they have been treated fairly.
Lord Elystan-Morgan
My Lords, I have, for my sins, tabled Amendments 11 and 15 in relation to a 40 per cent threshold, but I have considerable doubt whether those amendments are in any way superior to this one. The effect of my amendments, if I may so call them, would be completely to nullify the effect of the referendum. It would be as if it had never happened if it was carried by a yes vote but the turnout was under 40 per cent. That would be the end of it, it would be totally expunged.
The effect of the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, is very different. It states that the referendum stays. The referendum has no mandatory effect, but it has a consultative effect to which, obviously, the Government of the day would be under considerable moral and legal obligation to pay the highest heed. That is the difference between them.
The beauty of the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, is that it gives great flexibility. It enables the Government to take into consideration all the matters which are relevant to its ultimate determination, including the level of turnout. For example, if the turnout was 39 per cent, it seems to me that it would be entirely proper for a Minister to say, “In the circumstances, we see no reason why we should not accept this as, effectively, the will of the people”. On the other hand, if the turnout was 29 per cent, that might be very different. If there were special circumstances in relation to polling day, they, too, would be relevant factors to be taken into account.
The beauty of Amendments 11 and 15, however, is that they give certainty. There would be no question of any dubiety about whether the Government of the day were acting properly and fairly or were in any way tinged by partisan considerations. It would be absolutely certain. It is said that Sir Walter Raleigh, contemplating the axe that would put an end to his life, said, “It is a sharp but certain remedy”. That is what my amendments would be: a sharp and certain remedy, possessing the merit of certitude but lacking any flexibility.
Three questions should be asked about the issue which are relevant to my amendments, and I shall not repeat them if I speak on those amendments. First, how serious would it be if only a derisory turnout supported a yes vote? Secondly, is a 40 per cent turnout threshold the right way to go about it? Is it fair and just? Thirdly, would any alternative in all circumstances be worse?
I start with a proposition which I suppose that everyone in this House will accept: this situation is unique. We have never been this way before. Only one all-UK referendum has been held, in 1975 on the question of whether Britain should depart from the European Union. That was not a mandatory referendum; it was a consultative referendum. I have read the Act again. There is nothing in the Act that says in any way that it is authoritative, so it could only have been consultative. I am sure that that is the correct constitutional judgment in the circumstances.
Therefore, we have the unique situation of an all-UK referendum that is mandatory. How serious would it be if there was a derisory turnout? I believe that that would eat like acid into the very roots of our parliamentary and constitutional system. I do not believe that one can exaggerate what would be the case. There is cynicism abroad already about this House and the other place. That cynicism would be multiplied many times if it were felt that changes had been made that turned only perhaps on a percentage of 10, 15 or 20 per cent.
Lord Tyler
My Lords, does the noble Lord accept that in those circumstances an abstention counts as a no vote and so discourages participation in the whole exercise?
Lord Elystan-Morgan
I readily accept that an abstention can count as a no vote. Whether it would in most cases, with great respect to the noble Lord, I do not think anybody can say. I am quite certain that it is wrong to assume that an abstention is always equivalent to a no vote. That is my proposition. I do not think that I have anything useful to add to the matter, save to say that what is at issue is the credibility of the parliamentary system—credibility that would be greatly damaged if some provision of this nature were not resorted to.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
My Lords, this is an important amendment, which goes to the legitimacy of any change to the voting system. First, I do not believe that the stages in the argument are substantially in dispute. The referendum deals with an important constitutional issue and I have not heard anyone say that we should not have a referendum. There are people who object to referendums but, by and large, if our country is having referendums, this is an issue to have one on because it changes the voting system.
Secondly, this is an unusual Bill in so far as a referendum is concerned because it provides for a compulsory referendum, not an advisory one. By that I mean that if the vote is passed, the consequence is not that Parliament would then produce another Act of Parliament, as it did with the Scotland Act and the Wales Act, but that there is automaticity in that the Minister is required to bring forward an order that would automatically, in the light of the vote, give effect to the change in the voting system.
Thirdly, the effect of the provisions is that if, for example, there was a turnout of 25 per cent in the referendum, which no one regards as an outlandish percentage, you could end up with what is regarded by all as a major constitutional change being produced by 12.5 per cent of the country supporting it.
Fourthly, the reason why a referendum is required is that in constitutional change of this importance—and no one disputes its importance—it should be harder rather than easier than normal to effect such a change.
Fifthly, this is a change that has the support of the Liberal Democrats, while the Labour Party is divided on it and the Conservatives are against it. The effect is that it is almost certain that unlike with, for example, the Scotland Bill, the Wales Bill and the European common market in the early 1970s, Parliament would vote in favour of these changes. That means that, if there is no threshold, you have a situation where, far from it being harder to bring about this constitutional change, it may well be easier than it would have been with a normal Act of Parliament.
The noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, said that if you ended up in a situation where the referendum was passed by 12.5 per cent of the electorate, which would be the position, the legitimacy of the change would be considerably in doubt. I agree with that. It would—I quote the noble Lord—“eat like acid” at its legitimacy and put our voting system in play for whoever next forms the Government. There needs to be some protection to ensure that a major constitutional change such as this is not easier to make than through a normal Act of Parliament.
I am aware of the history of this matter, which is coloured by the threshold that was inserted in the 1978 Bill in the House of Commons. At the Committee stage, there was an interesting debate on that, during which George Cunningham, then the Member of Parliament for Islington South and Finsbury, in a very powerful speech persuaded Parliament that it would be wrong to make such a major change without there being a threshold.
Lord Tyler
Will the noble and learned Lord explain one point to me? His colleague in the other place, Mr Christopher Bryant, made a powerful speech against any threshold in this Bill, on which the Commons voted by 549 to 31. Why does the noble and learned Lord differ from his colleagues in the other place?
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
I do so for two reasons. First, if one reads Mr Bryant’s speech, one sees that he made it clear that this was a matter for the Lords to form a view on. Secondly, the amendment moved by my noble friend Lord Rooker does not provide that the proposal would automatically fail, which was what was voted on in the Commons. My noble friend has come up with what seems a sensible conclusion to make the referendum an advisory one, which, as noble Lords have heard from the quotes from the Constitution Committee, is the norm in our country. My noble friend has found a way through in relation to that.
This is important. We were unsure what our position should be precisely on the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Tyler. We had a different position in relation to a drop-dead referendum, where, if you did not get a 40 per cent turnout, that would be the end of it. Instead, my noble friend has found a way through that.
I have listened with interest and respect to what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, about the Northern Ireland position and to what my noble friend Lord Reid said. My view is that we are dealing with a voting system for the whole of the United Kingdom. Once one accepts the proposition that there needs to be something special in order to justify this change, there has to be support throughout the whole of the United Kingdom, which obviously includes Northern Ireland. Although I listened with respect, I do not think that the reason given means that the simple solution that my noble friend Lord Rooker has produced is inadequate.
The noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, said that there would be a differential turnout in relation to this referendum because there will be local, Scottish Parliament or Welsh Assembly elections in some parts of the country but not in others. If you have a UK-wide threshold for turnout, that assists in making sure that the differential turnout does not affect the result.
The Opposition support the noble Lord, Lord Rooker. We believe that what he has said will promote acceptance of AV, if that is the change, which is good for the country. If there is a majority among those who vote, but the 40 per cent threshold is not reached, it will then be open to Parliament to conclude that that is sufficient, but the matter would have to come back to Parliament. There would have to be a piece of primary legislation; it would not depend just on a statutory instrument. My noble friend’s proposal does not rule out—
Lord Rennard
Is the noble and learned Lord suggesting that it would be open to Parliament in that event to reject the result of the referendum if, say, on the mathematics that I have just worked out, 13.5 million people voted yes in the referendum—a greater number than have voted for any Government in recent general elections—and 4 million people voted against? If so, the will of 13.5 million people voting yes would not count, while the will of 4 million people voting no would. Ultimately, he says that the matter would go back again to Members in the other place to decide what the voting system should be for voters, rather than leaving it for the voters themselves to decide what system they have for choosing their elected representatives.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
The position would be exactly the same as it was in relation to the Scotland Act, where a massive majority voted yes in favour of Scottish devolution. It was open to Parliament to say no to all those people in the Act that followed, but of course Parliament said yes. Unless you take the view that one completely discounts Parliament altogether, it is unlikely that such a conclusion would be reached, but suppose that the position were that 5 million voted yes and 4.5 million voted no. Let Parliament decide what should then happen. That is the effect of the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Rooker. With respect, that is a very sensible conclusion and one that is entirely in line with our parliamentary democracy. We on this side of the House will vote in favour of the Rooker amendment and I hope that other noble Lords will do so as well.
The Advocate-General for Scotland (Lord Wallace of Tankerness)
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, for tabling his amendment and for allowing the House to have an opportunity to debate what I think has been recognised as an important issue. It was debated in Committee and we now have an opportunity to further debate it and other amendments.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, indicated, as have many other contributors, that this is a serious constitutional issue. Its seriousness is marked by the fact that there is going to be a referendum at all. The noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Swansea, made reference to this House’s Constitution Committee, whose report saw referendums as being used only for matters of the highest constitutional importance. It is fair to say that, with the exception of the proposal for a referendum on AV, the constitutional measures in the so-called CRAG Bill that we dealt with briefly before Dissolution last year were not deemed sufficiently important to trigger a referendum. The Government recognise the importance of this issue—hence the referendum.
The amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, would provide that, unless 40 per cent of the electorate voted in the referendum, the vote would not be binding. It would appear, therefore, that the intention is to make the referendum indicative should the turnout condition not be met. I am somewhat unclear what the consequence would be if the 40 per cent was not reached. I wonder, perhaps, whether the provisions in Clause 8 that mandate the Minister to make the order implementing the AV provision if there are more yes votes than no votes would remain unchanged if this amendment were taken alone. It is unclear what the ultimate effect would be. There is Amendment 10B, however.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
That is helpful. Originally it was linked and it seems to have been delinked. The amendment would change the obligation to implement the result of the AV referendum into a power to do so.
I thought that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, was suggesting that there had to be primary legislation, although I am not sure whether I heard him correctly. Amendment 10B deals with that, although I should say something about the difficulties there, because there is still a lack of clarity. In addressing these amendments, I never like to lean too heavily on the technical matters, but there are important technical issues here of which the House should be aware.
The new discretion in Amendment 10B, if it were to be carried, seems to apply whatever the circumstances and not just where the referendum is made non-binding by Amendment A1 because turnout is less than 40 per cent. We might, therefore, find ourselves in an odd situation if the turnout exceeded 40 per cent with the majority in favour of AV. One part of the Bill would suggest that the result was binding, but another would suggest that there was no obligation, because there would be a power rather than an obligation to bring forward the order. I am also unclear as to the effect of the amendment in the event that less than 40 per cent of the electorate voted in the poll and the result was against a change in the system. I strongly suspect that this is not the intention but, as it stands now, the provisions mandating the Minister to repeal the relevant clauses would still stand but the result itself would not be binding. I am sure that the noble Lord will have an opportunity to clarify that. There is a difficulty there at the moment.
In addition, the amendment offers no indication of what kind of process might be followed where less than 40 per cent of the electorate voted. Even if Amendment 10B were carried, there would be a heavy responsibility on the Minister and then on Parliament if there had been a yes vote. The Boundary Commission review would be complete but he or she may or may not bring the provisions into force. As we are all aware, the boundary review will not be completed until 2013 at the earliest. Is it really the case that we want to replace the current provisions in the Bill, which provide both clarity and certainty, with provisions that could leave us with no clear resolution for the two years following on from the referendum? I am not saying that that would be the case, but that is the possibility that we open ourselves up to with these amendments. I cannot believe that that lack of clarity would be healthy.
I assume that that is not the intention of the noble Lords who are making these proposals. Perhaps they envisage that the gap in their amendments would be filled by what the noble Lord, Lord Wills—I am not sure whether he is in his place—proposes in his Amendment 10C, which is that there would be a debate in Parliament. His proposal would introduce a statutory requirement for a debate in both Houses within 14 days of the referendum result, although as it stands it would not make the referendum indicative and so would have little practical effect.
Even if the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, provided for this or some other process, I would still find it necessary to oppose them. The Bill provides that the referendum result will be decided by a simple majority. We believe that that is right, because it is the simplest, clearest and fairest way of proceeding. When people make the effort to go to the polls on 5 May, they should know that, if they vote for the alternative vote, that is what they will get. To impose a threshold or to make a referendum indicative would be to offer some sort of consolation prize—people might get it at the very end.
Reference has been made in this debate and in the debates that we had in Committee to the 1978 situation, where, because of George Cunningham’s eloquence and, perhaps, the Opposition seeing an opportunity, a 40 per cent threshold was introduced. The noble Lord, Lord Rooker, said that there was a bitter taste. As one who campaigned in that referendum, I know that that bitter taste lingered for a very long time. To go out and campaign in a referendum and get a majority for the yes vote and then to be told that the majority did not count and did not matter was bitter. In terms of the cynicism of voters, which was referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, there would be a real danger of cynicism if people went out and voted and there was a clear yes vote and somehow or other that yes vote had to be held in suspension or might not be translated into action.
Lord Lamont of Lerwick
If that argument is correct, why does it not also apply to general elections and constituency votes, which some noble Lords wish to alter?
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
Is it not also right that it was an automatic no when the level was not reached in 1978, which is not what my noble friend Lord Rooker is proposing here?
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
There is a difference because the 40 per cent related to something different. I am not entirely sure that I follow what my noble friend Lord Lamont said, because in general elections there is no threshold for what the turnout should be to make those elections valid and no one has ever suggested putting a turnout—
Lord Lamont of Lerwick
The noble Lord is in favour of moving to an electoral system in which a simple majority is not enough. At the same time, he is saying that this referendum ought to be determined by a simple majority.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
There are different types of voting system and there will be later amendments with regard to them. This is a referendum with a straight yes or no. If in a general election there were two candidates, it would be a simple, straight case of whether you were or were not elected. The difficulty arises under our electoral system where there are more than two candidates. That is why there is a difference between a straight yes or no in a referendum, where by definition one side is going to get more than 50 per cent of the votes cast and one side is going to get less than 50 per cent.
I am aware that concerns have been raised here and elsewhere about the turnout. It is clear that we all want to see high levels of turnout. I believe that this will be the case. The fact that the referendum will be combined with other elections on 5 May will help to increase turnout. The campaigns in the run-up to the referendum will increase public awareness. The work of the Electoral Commission in promoting public awareness about the referendum and the media coverage about the referendum will help. In previous referendums, the turnout has generally been above 50 per cent. It was 64 per cent in the 1975 referendum on the European Community, 60.2 per cent in the Scottish devolution referendum and 50.1 per cent in the Wales referendum in 1997.
My noble friend Lord Blackwell expressed some concern about setting a precedent if there are any future EU referendums. It is precisely because of the precedent that we should not start setting thresholds. A procedural barrier such as this can lead us into uncharted waters, because someone might come along with different thresholds for future referendums. Surely it is better to have a single, straightforward vote where people know where they stand and what the outcome will be when they cast their vote.
My noble friend raised the question of the United Kingdom. We sometimes have different votes in different parts of the United Kingdom at a general election. Sometimes that leads to some tensions, but I do not think that it is suggested that it has weakened the fabric of our union in any way.
Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts
Does the Minister really think that on 5 May, when we have a Scottish parliamentary election, a Welsh Assembly election and only local government elections in England, the level of turnout is likely to be the same in all three parts of the United Kingdom—not to mention Northern Ireland?
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
It would be rash to predict the turnout, but I think I am right in saying that 84 per cent of the United Kingdom electorate will be engaged in an election as well as in the referendum. That gives every opportunity for the turnout to be higher as a result, and it is perhaps more likely to be better in all parts of the United Kingdom than if no election was being held at all that day, when there would very much be a doubt as to the turnout in different parts.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
I know that, but I think that the figure that I have seen is 84 per cent. It is recognised that London does not have elections, which is probably all the more cause for those who wish to stimulate participation to ensure that it is particularly well focused in London.
As my noble friend Lord Tyler pointed out, when the question of a threshold was considered in the other place, Members there sent a very clear message indeed, voting by 549 votes to 31 votes against the proposal. I note in particular that Mr Christopher Bryant, speaking from the opposition Front Bench in the other place, said that he did,
“not think that it is appropriate to bring in a threshold”.—[Official Report, Commons, 2/11/10; col. 849.]
His colleagues followed him into the Lobby.
The noble Lord, Lord Sewel, is in his place. During the debate on the 1997 referendum on devolution, he said:
“The threshold, as we have demonstrated, is one of the most dangerous introductions into the democratic process that has been engineered”.—[Official Report, 7/7/97; col. 467.]
I hope that he will confirm that.
Lord Sewel
I do confirm that. I also confirm that that was an advisory referendum.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
Indeed, and I do not think that that takes away from the point. As the evidence in paragraph 193 of the Lords Constitution Committee report said:
“Despite referendums in the UK being legally advisory, a number of witnesses pointed out that in reality referendums might be judged to be politically binding. Dr Setälä argued that ‘in established democracies, it seems to be very difficult for parliamentarians to vote against the result of an advisory referendum’”.
It might also have been advisory, but the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, recanting on his vote in 1978 in a debate on the Regional Assemblies (Preparations) Bill on 8 April 2003 in this House, referred to the vote after the George Cunningham speech and said:
“The result was a botched referendum in Scotland, which resulted in a "Yes" vote that could not get over the hurdle … We are now in the position where we are following the precedent set in Scotland, in Wales”—
that is, a more recent precedent in Wales—
“in Northern Ireland and in London. It would be absolutely crazy and unfair if we were to change the rules for any proposed regional referendums when we have already held referendums in so many other areas of the United Kingdom”.—[Official Report, 8/4/03; col. 188-89.]
The noble Lord spoke powerfully on that occasion.
The Bill offers simplicity. Above all, it offers certainty. Every vote will count and will not be distorted by any artificial barrier or threshold. My noble friend Lord Tyler asked the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, about abstentions counting in no votes. During our debates last week on postal votes and whether people could vote by post if they had voted in person, it was clear that a number of Members of your Lordships' House were registered in two places. They can exercise only one vote, so the other vote will technically, de facto, count as a no vote. Those who have died since the register was made up will count as a no vote, because nothing here allows the register to be recalibrated to take account of people with votes at second homes or those who have, sadly, passed on. I recall very well that these unfairnesses were highlighted time and again in the 1979 referendum in Scotland.
The certainty of the will of the people should be given effect without further complex procedures or further parliamentary debate or political wrangling, so that when people go to the polls on 5 May, whatever their view on the issue at hand, that view will be heard and given effect to. I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Rooker
My Lords, I did not expect words that I used as a Minister from that Box to be thrown back at me during this debate. Given that it has been a bit of a rush since we finished Committee, I would have thought, to be honest, that the Minister’s advisers would have been better getting ready the package of concessions that we have been promised than trawling through my old speeches—which, I would add, were on regional referendums. This is different.
The other thing that I want to make absolutely clear is that this is not a threshold in the normal use of the word. This is not what the House of Commons voted on, or against. It is not the threshold. If it is not 40 per cent, it does not stop it going ahead. I do not wish to do that, but with all the arguments and permutations that one can think of, one can imagine lots of reasonable cases to be made to proceed accordingly after the result. All I am saying is that, given the binding nature of this, as others have said, and not knowing what is going to happen in only the second-ever national referendum, and on a key issue of changing the voting system—not like elections, where Governments come and go, as someone said—it just gives Parliament an opportunity to think again, and Parliament would be well advised to take the will of the voters. I do not argue with that at all, but I simply say that the Bill is too black or white, all or nothing.
By the way, I do not claim any credit for this amendment. I wrestled last week with how I could bring back the issue of a consultative indicative—which failed in a vote on, I think, 6 December—and deal with the idea of thresholds, which I am intrinsically against for the reasons that many noble Lords have explained. Nevertheless, we have to have this as a back-up. I was wrestling with this with a very bright young person in the back of a taxi when the solution was offered to me: join the two together—make it indicative only if the voter turnout is different. We can still proceed accordingly; we can still have the referendum, still have the result, still make the change to AV, whatever the voter outcome. I am just saying that if the voter turnout is less than 40 per cent, Parliament could say, “Hang on, we had better think about this again”.
We have come a long way since those who originally proposed the alternative vote—the Electoral Reform Society and company—actually said, “It is so small a change, you do not need a referendum”. That has been their case virtually all along—that we did not need a referendum on this. I do not support the AV system in the Bill anyway, but that is not the issue. I have back-up amendments, in response to the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, because I genuinely think that you have to get a yes vote in the four countries of the UK. That is not implied in this amendment; it is there in Amendment 11A.
I accept that there is clarity and certainty in the way in which the Bill is drafted. There is too much clarity and certainty when we are dealing with an electorate of well over 40 million. It is true that on election day, as has been said—I have not yet checked the figure— 84 per cent of people are eligible to go to the polls. When you have, among the 16 per cent who are not, a massive block here in the capital city—it is not as though they are spread out all over the country—we will end up with a massive block that will get the chance to vote only in the AV referendum.
I am simply saying that this gives us an opportunity. It does not wreck the Bill—I repeat this for those who will deliberately misunderstand and misreport what we say—it does not wreck the idea of the AV referendum, it does not stop the outcome. Whatever the outcome of the election, it can still proceed if there is a yes vote. All I am saying is this; let us give ourselves, as a Parliament, the opportunity to have a rethink.
My final point is that I know that it looks simple. It is a few words—and Amendment 10B should attach to this to give discretion in Clause 8—but the general will is there. Everyone understands what we mean. If this were carried, parliamentary draftsmen would knock the other clauses into shape tomorrow to make it work. I can give noble Lords a classic example of that. The next two amendments after this—
Lord Alderdice
I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. It seems to me, and I am grateful to him for it, that in his remarks about subsequent amendments on the four separate parts of the United Kingdom, which would introduce a whole load of complexities such as vetoes, and on the question of the simplicity having to be addressed overnight by parliamentary draftsmen, he has said in effect that what I said is correct: that this is not as simple as it appears and that all sorts of complexities are introduced by opening this particular box. Therefore, I think it would be best for him to withdraw this amendment.
Lord Rooker
I said that they were a back-up. I do not speak for anyone else. If this amendment were carried, virtually half the rest of the amendments to Clause 1 probably would not even be moved—I certainly would not move mine. I am simply saying, “Let’s give ourselves a chance to think again”. If we are not prepared to do that and the House is prepared to rollercoaster on to a binding referendum in which we do not know what the result is going to be and it could be carried by a majority of one on a small percentage, then I will say, “Hang on a minute, I think I want to build some more checks into this”. However, those amendments are a back-up. If this amendment were carried, more of my amendments would disappear, so the noble Lord’s point carries no weight at all.
It is in the House’s own interest to take the opportunity to give us the chance to think again. This amendment would not destroy the Bill or the referendum and would not stop the outcome being implemented, whatever the result. I think that we should test the opinion of the House.
Lord Rooker
“(2A) The referendum is to be held on 5 May 2011 unless before then an order is made under subsection (2B).
(2B) If the Minister is satisfied that it is impossible or impracticable for the referendum to be held on 5 May 2011, or that it cannot be conducted properly if held on that day, the Minister may by order appoint a later day as the day on which the referendum is to be held.
(2C) Where a day is appointed under subsection (2B), the Minister may by order make supplemental or consequential provision, including provision modifying or amending this Act or another enactment (and, in particular, provision modifying or amending this Act as regards the meaning of “voting area” or “counting officer”).
(2D) An order under this section may not be made unless a draft of the order has been laid before, and approved by a resolution of, each House of Parliament.”
Lord Rooker
My Lords, in moving Amendment A2, I wish to speak also to Amendment 7B, which I shall move later. In line with what I have said previously, I give notice that I shall not move my other amendments. I have to move Amendments A2 and 7B as they are government amendments to make the decision that was taken on 6 December to hold the referendum before 31 October 2011 work.
The noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, interrupted me when I was winding up. I was about to say that when the House makes a change with a few words that we all understand, the parliamentary draftsmen have to draft a provision to make it work. Back on 6 December the House voted by four votes that the referendum must be held before 31 October 2011. I am told that to make that work parliamentary draftsmen have drafted Amendments A2 and 7B. The referendum is planned for 5 May. As far as I am concerned, that was always okay, but my view is that in case something prevents it happening on 5 May, the Government need a lifeboat to enable it to take place before 31 October. Therefore, on behalf of the coalition, I am pleased to move Amendment A2 now and Amendment 7B later.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
First, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Rooker, who knows the mood of the House much better than anyone else in it. It was a splendid victory. Perhaps I may also say how much I agree with his request for the list of concessions. I can help him on that. I was handed them at 2.29 pm this afternoon, and I have to say that they do not amount to very much, I am afraid. I obviously support the amendments that my noble friend is proposing. In effect, they make whole the amendment passed in Committee.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, for moving the amendment, as he said, on behalf of the coalition. He described the reasons for it. The Bill as it stood was defective, because, while the noble Lord specified that the referendum had to take place before 31 October, there was no means for identifying when the date had to be set—hence the need for an order.
The amendment also sets an appropriate test for Ministers to satisfy before using any order-making power, whereby,
“it is impossible or impractical for the referendum to be held on 5 May 2011, or that it cannot be conducted properly if held on that day”.
The test is right, because the referendum date can be moved away from 5 May only for practical reasons. It would be wrong, and have very serious implications, if the reason for that was the result of some delay that had not allowed consideration of the Bill to be completed in time.
The associated amendment to Clause 4 is also necessary in this context to ensure that the scheme which the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, envisages is properly workable. It provides a new power to make provision in secondary legislation to take account of a situation in which other polls are due to be held on any other referendum date set by the order.
Clause 4 as it stands will ensure that any poll which that clause already mentions is automatically combined with the referendum if it takes place on a new date set for the referendum. Any polls which Clause 4 does not mention would not be combined with the poll. It is impossible to say at this stage whether it would desirable to combine a referendum with other polls. A decision on that would need to be taken at the time and will depend on the types of polls.
In conclusion, I reassure noble Lords that, given the flexibility that these powers need to provide, any order made using the new powers will necessarily be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure. I end on a note of caution, because I cannot speak on this subject without saying how unfortunate it would be if the referendum were not to take place on 5 May.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean
My Lords, can my noble friend comment on the concern expressed north of the border about the coincidence of the referendum and the elections to the Scottish Parliament, and the difficulties that returning officers will have in ensuring that the count is available? The results may not be available on the Friday and be delayed. Will this be a problem, and have the Government any plans to avoid the difficulty whereby Members of the Scottish Parliament will not know for some time whether they have been elected and the position of the Administration in the Scottish Parliament, because of the difficulties of counting both polls at the same time?
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
The noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, has an amendment later that will give us an opportunity to discuss the linkage of polls. I repeat what I said in Committee last week: it is certainly intended that the votes for the Scottish parliamentary election will take precedence over the counting of the votes in the referendum. Inevitably, there will have to be verification, because Scottish election votes may be found in ballot boxes intended for the referendum. It must be for returning officers and counting officers to determine their own arrangements, because issues of tiredness have come up in the past. It is certainly anticipated that we will not have to wait until Saturday for a result.
My noble friend Lord Forsyth expressed concern about the forming of an Administration. I have been involved twice in forming an Administration after a Scottish election. If the result had been known on the Saturday or even the Sunday, it would not have made much difference. However, that is by the way, because the intention is that the counting of votes for the Scottish election will take priority over the referendum.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean
I do not wish to detain my noble friend. I understand what he said in Committee, namely that the counting of votes for the Scottish election will take priority. However, the issue is whether the process of validating the ballot papers will result in the election result being delayed. I have no idea what the results of the election will be, but it is conceivable that one political party will have a majority. It does not follow necessarily that there will be a period of the kind that my noble friend described. Given that the Government have decided to hold the referendum at the same time as the Scottish elections, they have an obligation to make sure that the result of the Scottish elections are delivered on time and are not disrupted.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
I will add that they should also be delivered accurately. Therefore, this is a matter for the returning officers and counting officers, who are best placed to judge whether counting should start immediately or the following morning.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
For once, I agree 100 per cent with the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth—the noble Lord, Lord Baker, looks very worried. I draw the attention of the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, to Amendment 5F on page 3 of the revised Marshalled List. If the Government were willing to accept the amendment—or even better, if the Committee were to accept it—that would deal with what the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, wants, for exactly the reasons that he put forward, which are sound and sensible.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
My Lords, we will return to this issue when we debate Amendment 5F. I look forward to the contributions of the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, when he moves it, and of my noble friend, Lord Forsyth. We will debate this more fully at a more appropriate time.
Lord Kilclooney
We now know the order of priority in Scotland, but the situation in Northern Ireland is getting more confusing. In the past few days, there have been many complaints about having three elections on the one day. Will the Minister tell the Committee the order of the three counts in Northern Ireland?
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
When we debate Amendment 5F, I will be able to give a clear answer to that. I do not wish to hazard a guess at this stage. I think that there has been a statement from the chief counting officer, who is the chair of the Electoral Commission, that the counting of the referendum will start at 4 pm on the Friday. I will confirm that that statement has been made, and what the order will be in the Northern Ireland elections. I think that I am right in saying that some of them are conducted on the single transferable vote, which itself takes time—I put it no higher than that. Amendment 5F does not necessarily include Northern Ireland, but now that the point has been raised I will certainly be in a position to answer the noble Lord when we come to debate it.
In conclusion, the Government still wish to see the referendum take place on 5 May. The Electoral Commission and the electoral administrators are ready. The public also will be ready, and the Government would consider it a very grave matter indeed if the referendum did not meet the 5 May timetable. In the spirit with which the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, moved his amendment, I am happy to accept it and thank him for his constructive engagement.
Lord Campbell-Savours
“Should that system be changed and a different system of electing MPs be introduced at the next general election?”
Lord Campbell-Savours
This amendment would amend the referendum question to read, “At present, the UK uses the ‘first past the post’ system to elect MPs to the House of Commons. Should that system be changed and a different system of electing MPs be introduced at the next general election?”. This is a particularly important amendment because it goes to the heart of the question that I believe will be in the minds of the electorate.
I start from the position that we are entering a period of entrenched multiparty politics in the United Kingdom. We have at least three major parties and a number of other parties on the fringe. At this stage, we should all stand back and consider the work of Professor Patrick Dunleavy of the London School of Economics and Professor Helen Margetts of the Oxford Internet Institute, who have repeatedly pointed to the break-up of the two-party system. In their 2005 paper, they pointed to the fact that in 2005 the two-party share of the vote fell below 70 per cent for the first time. At a meeting held in the Jubilee Room some three months ago and attended by a number of Members of this House of all political and Cross-Bench persuasions, Patrick Dunleavy set out the basis on which he was arguing the splintering of party support within the United Kingdom. It seems to me that Maurice Duverger’s law that plurality rule systems induce smaller numbers of parties is now being turned on its head. The fact is that plurality systems are increasingly turning in chaotic results, and this is now drawing us into a period of proportional representation and alternative systems.
I also believe that we are now undergoing a period of prolonged transition with the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly, the European Parliament, the London Assembly, the Northern Ireland Assembly and the mayoral elections all introducing new systems to British electoral arrangements. I believe, too, that the whole process is unstoppable. Indeed, when the debate on Lords reform comes to this House, it will no doubt be dominated not only by the issue of powers but by the question of which electoral system will apply in our case.
The question is: how can we manage change in relation to the House of Commons? Against the background of a break-up in the way that the electorate cast their votes, the multioptional, preferential voting scheme now on offer in this Bill can only be described as a grubby little compromise, in the sense that it is the ill-considered product of a backroom deal which in my view electoral reformers will live to regret. The fact that the Labour Government, in their dying days, tried to introduce this system in the Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill is no justification for its introduction in this Bill. Indeed, I am convinced that it would have been similarly treated if they had tried to introduce it here in this House.
I have reflected objectively, as many others will have done, on why the Liberal Democrats did the deal that they did. They probably thought that they had no option, but I believe they were wrong and that they made an historic miscalculation. They were clearly desperate to secure a deal on electoral reform at any price. There was an alternative and I think that they completely underestimated their clout during the coalition talks.
What should the negotiators have done during those discussions? First, they should have recognised that the Conservatives needed them as part of the coalition; secondly, they should have sought assurances as to continuity of the coalition, as indeed they did with the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill; and, thirdly, they should have sought and secured a May referendum but with the much simpler question that my amendment provides. The advantage in asking my question in the referendum is that the public will not get hung up on AV. In my view, AV is a complicated system which the public will never understand.
Furthermore, by asking a simpler question, we will be able to avoid rubbishing the AV system as currently proposed. If in the referendum the answer to the question I ask in the amendment was no, that would end the debate. If the answer was yes, that would mean there would be another system at the next general election. A no answer would mean that the issue was dead; a yes answer would open up every possibility imaginable. If the answer was yes, all alternative systems would have to be evaluated by some kind of inquiry and Parliament would be required to approve a new system for the next election—but, crucially, not the first past the post system, which would have been ruled out by a yes answer to the question in my amendment. Parliament could not duck the decision as it would have been mandated by the electorate in the referendum. All we need to know is whether the electorate want to end first past the post.
So who would do the evaluating and what would they evaluate? A Speaker’s conference could evaluate the system or systems in the event that the referendum was to provide a yes vote. A similar form of committee inquiry—and, in certain circumstances, even the Electoral Commission if its remit was widened—could evaluate the various systems. What would they evaluate? They would evaluate AV and its variants—that is, SV and the Australian federal system—AV plus, SV plus, AMS and STV—and they would also evaluate first past the post plus, which has never as yet featured on our agenda and which, in reality, was the system that formed the background to the Jenkins commission’s inquiry.
As to the timetable, under the question in the amendment the referendum would be in May 2011; an inquiry would be established in July 2011; and the report to Parliament would be in November 2011. It would be a factual report based on the various systems and the arguments both for against; it would not necessarily make recommendations. The legislation could be introduced in the Session beginning April 2012, which would be three years before the end of the five-year fixed-term Parliament and two years before the end of a four-year fixed-term Parliament in the event that that was approved by Parliament. The Parliament Act would not apply because the people would have mandated the Government to introduce a system based on the inquiry, which would be approved by Parliament before the next general election.
The programme could be allowed to slip six months. The referendum could be held in October—which I would prefer and which was proposed in the Labour Government’s original legislation of early last year. Parliament would take the final decision, and even then there would be an opportunity for pre-legislative scrutiny.
From a Liberal Democrat point of view this has one huge advantage: once the people say yes to ending first past the post and introducing a new system by the next election, the least you will get is AV. That is the least you get, because the mandate from the people requires a change in the system prior to the next general election. Therefore, automatically, the minimum change would be to AV and, because all options are open, the real debate would then take place.
My amendment puts everything back on the table, but in a way whereby, in the event that there was a yes answer to the referendum question, all systems would be evaluated, so we might have the opportunity to introduce a system which, in my view, is more likely to deal with the problem that exists within the United Kingdom of disproportionality in representation.
This is the last chance saloon. I hope that, although we are late in proceedings on the Bill, Ministers will consider the issues that I have raised.
The Deputy Speaker (Viscount Ullswater)
I must advise your Lordships that if Amendment 1A is agreed to, I will not be able to call Amendments 2 or 2A because of pre-emption.
Lord Howarth of Newport
My Lords, Amendment 2A is in my name and was grouped with Amendment 3 in the name of my noble friend Lord Rooker, who did not move his amendment. If I may say so, I think that he was right not to move his amendment, because I think that the amendment that has just been moved by my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours is the best of the bunch of the amendments before us.
I think that it is helpful to voters to disentangle the two questions—first, do you want change; secondly, what you want to change to? That would enlarge the range of choices that could be considered. There is a difference. My noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours would have Parliament determine which of the other systems which was not first past the post should be the one to go for, whereas my noble friend Lord Rooker wants to offer an à la carte menu to the electors straight away on the day of the main referendum. I like the scheme that my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours has put forward.
It seems absurd that if we are to go to all this trouble, to have this enormous national debate, and to give the people of this country a unique option to decide whether or not to change our electoral system, a proportional option should not be made available to them. I find it bizarre that STV, which I have always understood to be the preferred option of Liberal Democrats, will not be on the ballot paper at the referendum.
Noble Lords on the Liberal Democrat Benches have told me that I need to be more realistic, that it was not possible for the Liberal Democrats to secure that outcome in the negotiations in those few days when the coalition was formed last May. I do not believe that. At that point, the Liberal Democrats could have secured the inclusion of a proportional—in particular, an STV—option on the ballot paper.
The reality was that David Cameron and the Conservative Party had lost the election. The Conservative Party—and, I assume, Mr Cameron—was frantic to get into government. We know what the Conservative Party does to leaders who it deems losers. We have seen the fate of Mr Hague, Mr Duncan Smith and the noble Lord, Lord Howard of Lympne. I do not think that Mr Cameron would have wanted to go the same way. I think that he would have been prepared to concede something that was dear to the hearts of —canonical to—the Liberal Democrats but which they apparently did not have the nerve or the skill to insist on in those negotiations. In failing to press their advantage at that point, they did the country a major disservice. If we are to have this referendum, let us have all the sensible and serious choices—or at least a selection of them—put before the people. If it is to be only a selection of them, surely it must include STV.
We know the inadequacies of the alternative vote system—I will certainly not go into them in any detail—but the sheer unpredictability of the effect of using the second, third, fourth and fifth preferences on the part of voters casting their vote means that it would be more rational to have a lottery than to resort to this system. Moreover, there are varieties of AV. For some reason, the variety of the alternative vote system that those political parties and political leaders in this country who favour it have alighted upon is the system known as optional preference ordering. As my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours explained very tellingly in the first day of our Committee proceedings all that time ago, the evidence from Australia is that, once you cease to insist that everyone voting under the alternative vote system has to fill in all the boxes stating their preferences, the upshot is that you get a large proportion of electors only casting a vote for their preferred party. In practice, therefore, the optional preference-ordering version of AV is very little different from first past the post. It does not seem to be a sufficiently worthwhile alternative to offer the voters in the referendum. I do not mind it being there, but other serious choices ought to be on offer as well.
Lord Rooker
Although I am not going to move anything, I shall use my notes. When the New Zealand Electoral Commission looked at this in respect of AV, it said:
“while the alternative vote might represent some improvement over plurality … we do not consider this improvement would be significant and do not regard it as the best alternative to our present system”.
The introduction of this would not be so much a reform but a complicated reshaping of what it already had. That is why it ruled it out. It was not even considered. It was one of the four options, but as far as the Electoral Commission in New Zealand in the early 1990s was concerned, it was not even a runner.
Lord Howarth of Newport
It must be wise to learn from the experience of other countries that have been ahead of us in considering these matters. I contend that STV, above all, should be a major option. My own amendment simply would have added it to the question that is set out in Clause 1 of the Bill: do you want first past the post?; do you want AV? I would have added the option: do you want the single transferable vote system?
I certainly do not intend to discuss at any length the merits and the demerits of STV. The virtues of proportional representation are that it is perceived by some as being fairer and that it tackles the problem—which I think is a very real problem and one of the explanations for the disaffection with our parliamentary system and our political culture that is so widely felt in this country—of the feeling that most people’s votes are wasted, that elections are determined by small minorities of voters in small minorities of constituencies, and that other voters hardly need to take the trouble to vote because it is not going to make any difference to the eventual outcome as to who forms a Government. That feeling of unfairness—the feeling that the system at the moment does not give adequate and equal force to everyone’s vote—is a real problem. To that extent, there is a case for STV.
People will not, however, agree about what fairness is. Some will say that a fair system is a system that creates representation in Parliament that is in exact proportion to the distribution of votes between the parties in the country as a whole. Others say that a fair and representative system is one that expresses and represents communities in Parliament. That has been our tradition. The defect of PR is, of course, that it ignores people’s sense of identity in their constituency. It means that you no longer have the single member constituency—the constituency in which one person of whatever party is elected to represent and serve all the constituents—which is a very precious and valuable part of our system.
Another unfortunate consequence of STV can be that it leads to a great deal of fratricide within parties as candidates seek to persuade people to vote for them rather than for other candidates in their own parties. I will not go on about the pros and cons, except to say simply that they are numerous on both sides.
Lord Davies of Stamford
Before my noble friend leaves the disadvantages of proportional representation in any form, does he agree that among its most serious problems is, first, that it dilutes individual responsibility, and secondly, that it greatly enhances the power of party bosses because of their power to move an individual around in the list on which the party is elected?
Lord Howarth of Newport
I agree entirely with my noble friend that these are further defects. PR condemns us to a perpetuity of coalition Governments and gives disproportionate power to third and lesser parties, as we have seen for many years with the Free Democratic Party in Germany. I would not wish to vote for it, but my point is that people should be allowed the opportunity to vote on all the serious choices that ought to be considered when we are contemplating the possibility of changing the electoral system. I am confident that first past the post would prevail and I would campaign for it, but it would be a salutary exercise in our democracy if we were to reconsider what our electoral system should be, with every reasonable option being available to the people.
I am surprised, therefore, that what Mr Clegg thought of as a “miserable little compromise” in offering the option of voting only for AV now appears to him to be a happy little compromise. I fear that he regards it as a stepping stone towards another referendum, which he hopes will not be long delayed, in which people, finding that they have been sold a pig in a poke with AV, decide that they do wish to move on to STV after all. In an earlier debate I quoted the Constitution Committee of your Lordships’ House, which deprecated the resort to referendums. Indeed, I think that to lead us from one referendum to the next because the first referendum offers an inadequate choice to the people that they quickly find unsatisfactory would be a thoroughly bad thing.
For these reasons, I support the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours, and I hope that he will want to pursue it with all the vigour he can muster.
Lord Newton of Braintree
My Lords, I do not particularly want to follow the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Howarth of Newport, not least in that I would not want to go down the partisan path he took in the middle of his speech, no doubt unintentionally. I do, however, want to find out exactly what is being asked because I found myself getting a bit open-mouthed at some of the things that the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, said. Do I understand that he wants a proposition that says, “Do you want change?”, to which in any normal circumstance, even if your wife says that you need a new dressing gown or pair of slippers, you ask what the alternative is? Then, when they ask you what the alternative is, you say, “We do not actually have an alternative. There are a dozen, 15 or 20 of them”. Once you have decided whether you want an alternative, the politicians will decide what alternative you want. I am bound to say that that totally lacks credibility, and I could not conceivably vote for it.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
My Lords, at the heart of the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours is the proposition that there has not been sufficient examination of what the right system is. It reflects the thump-thump-thump throughout this debate that there has been no adequate examination of the various voting systems. I notice that the noble Lord, Lord Newton of Braintree, who is very much to be admired, is indicating from a sedentary position a word that suggests he does not necessarily agree, but I do not invite him to express it.
That is not just my view; it is the view of the two Select Committees in both Houses of Parliament, it is the view that underlay the amendment of my noble friend Lord Wills calling for a commission of inquiry, and it is the basis upon which my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours has put his amendment now. Like everything on Report, it is a refined version that says, “Let us have it, but only if there is a desire for change”. The fact that when Lady Newton of Braintree proposes that the noble Lord, Lord Newton of Braintree, buys a new dressing gown, he says yes, does not indicate that everyone, when confronted with change, says yes. Indeed, most people, when confronted with change on important political issues, tend to say no, so I will be interested to hear the view of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, on this issue, and the answer to the proposition that if the public want change, we should examine what the right change is before we give them only one choice.
Lord Neill of Bladen
Before the Minister answers that question, I must confess to being slightly baffled by where we are moving to. The Long Title of the Bill is that it is a Bill to:
“Make provision for a referendum on the voting system for parliamentary elections and to provide for parliamentary elections to be held under the alternative vote system”.
The amendment that the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, is putting forward drops those words about the alternative vote system. The question becomes, “Should the first past the post system be changed and a different system of elected MPs be introduced in the next general election?” We know from the many speeches that have been made that there are a mass of alternatives and variants. The population—the voters—are potentially voting for a whole series of different amendments. You have not then got the answer that you were meant to get. The Long Title goes on to say that it will provide for voting,
“under the alternative vote system if a majority of those voting in the referendum are in favour of that”.
They may be in favour of three or four different things. There is no single system for which they are voting. I find that a puzzling result and some thought needs to be given to it.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
The noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, has, as the noble Lord, Lord Neill of Bladen, has indicated, proposed an amendment which would take out the option of the alternative vote in a referendum and ask whether the system should be changed and a different system of electing MPs be introduced at the next general election. As the noble Lord said, a variety of different systems have been suggested.
I do not believe for a moment that this would lead to any clear outcome, even if this was the question that was asked. The public might reasonably be confused. What other system of elected MPs would be introduced? What kind of campaign would take place where perhaps a variety of different systems were being canvassed? How would the campaigns in this referendum marshal their arguments and present their case? You would get differing factions, with those who might want a single transferable vote, those who want the supplementary system and those who want the alternative vote. It would result in more questions being asked than answers being provided.
However, I can see that the main point that the noble Lord is trying to make is that there should be further thought on the system, if any, that should replace first past the post. I always find it touching when noble Lords opposite make speeches which appear to have the best interests of the Liberal Democrats at heart. It is very moving but, frankly, those who think that somehow the outcome of the negotiations might have been different were not actually there. Even to mention the possibility of the 1922 Committee being invited to endorse the single transferable vote only needs to be stated to show how unlikely an event that would have been.
Lord Howarth of Newport
Is it not a grievance to the Conservative Party that it can win more votes across the country, particularly in England, and still not be able to form a Government? Is the solution to its problem not then a system of proportional representation?
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
The noble Lord invited me to look to the best interests of the Liberal Democrats. I would not tread anywhere on looking at what might be considered the best interests of the Conservative Party.
If the referendum was on the question proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, and if the answer was yes, what would then be the follow-on from that? Would the Government propose a system that would have to be debated by Parliament? My noble friend Lord Newton of Braintree made a good point that you can ask the public if they want a change and if, they say yes, you then leave it to politicians to foist upon them what that change might be. Even if it was a question of, “Vote yes and we will set up a committee”, that is not really an appealing slogan on which to have a referendum campaign. Voters could reasonably claim that they had been cut out of a significant decision.
In moving his amendment, the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, said two things: that Parliament would take the final decision and that, inevitably, the next general election in 2015 would be fought on a different system from first past the post. Yet nowhere can Parliament be mandated to pass a Bill to make it an Act. We all know that a change in the electoral system would require primary legislation for it to come into law. If the voters have voted yes to wanting a change, what guarantee will there be that both Houses of Parliament would then manage to coalesce around what that particular change might be? It could be the worst of all worlds, with people voting for change and then finding that politicians have frustrated the change that they seek.
As has been made clear on a number of occasions, the attraction of the approach taken in this Bill is its clarity. We set out how the alternative vote system would work, as comprehensively done in Clause 9 and Schedule 10. Any questions about how optional preferential AV works can be resolved by looking at the Bill. That would not be the case with the noble Lord’s amendment. I urge him to withdraw his amendment and, if he seeks to push it to a vote, I invite noble Lords to vote it down.
Lord Campbell-Savours
Perhaps I can apologise for the somewhat staccato nature of presenting my amendment because I was caught short and could not work out finally which notes I had to refer to.
Let me answer the critically important question raised by the noble Lord, Lord Newton of Braintree. The facts are that no one, anywhere, has done any homework on how AV works. Maybe the Liberal Democrats have done some, to work out to what extent it will benefit them. In the event that the amendments had fallen in a different order today, I would have been able to produce earlier during our proceedings the evidence that I will produce under the next amendment—that is, figures which show that a complete miscalculation has been made by the Conservative element in the coalition as to how AV operates, drawing on the Dunleavy material from 1997. A lot of people have not done their homework and are presuming, because there is an item on the agenda that says “AV is presentable and works”, that somehow that is enough authority for Parliament to carry the legislation in the form that it has. No work has been done and, until it has been, it is highly irresponsible for any Government to present to the British electorate a question in the form in which this is currently being submitted. No work has been done.
All I was doing in my amendment was drawing attention to the fact that no work has been done and that all the electorate have to say is, “We do not want first past the post any more”. Then, Parliament could, by whatever means, with the aid of Government, establish inquiries to examine and evaluate all the systems and then come forward with recommendations. Let me be absolutely frank: once you have got rid of first past the post, due to the complexities of alternative electoral systems, it needs Parliament to decide on what system is selected. You cannot leave that very complicated question to the public. A complicated series of options—a whole of spectrum of systems—has to be placed in the event that you widen that offer to the electorate.
I stand by my amendment. Unfortunately, for whatever reason and the time factor, I will not have the opportunity of voting upon it today. After the next amendment, when I produce evidence of what happened in 1997, some Members of the Committee might well think, “I wonder what we are doing”. If I might put it bluntly, they know not what they doeth. I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Lord Campbell-Savours
Lord Campbell-Savours
I had hoped to speak at some length on this amendment on Report but understand that agreements have been made on Part 1 so I do not intend to delay the debate. Perhaps I can start by explaining why I have been pushing SV during the course of this legislation.
The supplementary vote is a variant on the alternative vote. It is one of the three systems which we have discussed at length in Committee. We have the Australian system, the Queensland system, and the supplementary vote system. It is not my favourite system for electoral reform—my favourite is a PR list system or an AMS system—but is a compromise. If you have two options on the agenda—alternative vote, Queensland, or alternative vote, supplementary vote—then I will always pick the supplementary vote. The reason I want to present the preamble to my case today on that basis is that I intend to criticise some aspects of SV along with AV. I am criticising a family of systems which generally come under the alternative vote.
To get the preliminaries out of the way, the supplementary vote is already used in 13 cities in the United Kingdom. It is used in the mayoral elections, and it was used in the London election to elect Boris Johnson. Many people think when they walk into the polling booth in London and vote for a mayor for London they are voting under an AV system. They are not. They are voting under a particular system within the family of AV systems, the supplementary vote, which is not what is on offer in this legislation.
The key question we have to ask about those 13 mayoral elections is whether the supplementary vote changes election results as against a first past the post system. It has done on four occasions, where the second-placed candidate on the second count has won the seat and where the first-placed candidate on the first count has, therefore, lost. In that sense, therefore, it can influence election results.
Furthermore, the supplementary vote was the recommendation of the Plant commission, which was established by the Labour Party in 1990 to evaluate different electoral systems. In Committee I read on to the record a part of the Plant commission’s report and its recommendations.
The next debate that took place on the supplementary vote took place in 1998, when London mayoral elections were established in the system in legislation. Nick Raynsford, who was then the Minister, in conjunction with many outside bodies which lobbied him on behalf of the various systems, decided that the supplementary vote was the appropriate system. It is a used and tried system within the United Kingdom.
I now want to move the debate from pushing my system within the family of AV to another argument. Within the family of AV systems there is a problem which has never been debated in Parliament. To know what the problem is you have to look at a paper produced immediately after the landslide victory for the Labour Party in the 1997 election. It was called Remodelling the 1997 General Election: How Britain Would Have Voted Under Alternative Electoral Systems by Professor Patrick Dunleavy, Helen Margetts, Brendan O’Duffy and Stuart Weir. This is the only piece of good, clear evidence of what happens when you introduce alternative vote systems within the United Kingdom. Again, however, it is an extrapolation.
I could spend an hour quoting from the paper but I have taken out the salient paragraphs which should influence opinion. The writers simulated what would happen under AV under the landslide victory for Labour in 1997. They said:
“Our simulation approach developed over the two 1990s elections seeks to get as close as possible to how a new system might work via several innovations … asking survey respondents to complete alternative ballots for the rival systems, immediately after they have voted in a general election”.
In other words, after they voted in a general election they then asked them questions. The paper continued:
“In 1997 ICM Research interviewed a sample of nearly 8,447 people across 18 regions of Britain for the project, achieving a response rate of 82 per cent”.
That is a very substantial sample, asking questions about how people would have voted under AV in 1997. They combined,
“regional responses for each type of voter and information from the general election on first preferences to extrapolate how second and subsequent preferences would be structured under the alternative voting systems at the level of local constituencies”.
The authors then took Queensland AV and SV and found:
“To simulate an SV outcome” —
Remember we are talking about a sample of 8,500—
“we looked at all 301 constituencies where the winning MP in 1997 had only plurality support, identifying the top two candidates who would go to the second stage of the count, and also those candidates who would be eliminated … The outcomes were dramatic”.
Tory MPs should read this stuff because it then says:
“Across the country as a whole the Conservatives would have lost”—
a further—
“55 seats, cutting their representation in Parliament to just 110 MPs”.
Lord Campbell-Savours
My noble friend might ask, “What’s wrong?”, and there may well be people in the Labour Party all over the country repeating, “Yes, what’s wrong?”. I will tell you what is wrong: we know it is wrong. We know if we were being reasonable, we could never have cut back the Conservative Party to 110 seats in 1997. It would have been a ludicrous result, producing, as the paper states,
“less than 19 per cent of seats in Britain compared with their vote share of 31.4 per cent”.
So here we have it. This system, we are told, is about fair votes; it is about somehow matching the number of seats with the votes cast in a general election, turning out in 1997, in the Labour landslide victory, 19 per cent of seats in Britain compared with their vote share of 31.4 per cent. That is a huge difference, and it is wrong that we should be introducing a system that potentially can lead to results on that scale.
“Such an outcome would be the most severe under-representation of the Tories in British history. The biggest reduction in Conservative seats would occur in the south west”.
It might well be there would be those who would argue, “Well, they are only Conservative seats that are being lost”, but it works both ways because AV exaggerates results and swings. You can get huge swings against a party which could just as well be the Labour Party and we, too, could be reduced to a rump. The Conservatives have simply failed to understand the dangers inherent in the system they want to introduce.
The paper goes on to point out:
“Under SV the Liberal Democrats would have won another 38 seats on top of their existing 46”.
We now know why they want to introduce the system. It clearly distorts. Then what does it say?
“Under SV Labour would also have gained 17 more seats, buoyed up by extra transfers from supports of eliminated Liberal Democrats, further boosting their already disproportionate majority, giving them over 68 per cent of British seats in Parliament on the basis of 44 per cent of the vote”.
This is this super system that we are introducing. This is the system we are told is fair votes. On the basis of the 1997 general election, the landslide victory for Labour, we would have won over 440 seats. What a ludicrous system. What a ludicrous proposition has been put before Parliament.
I go back to the amendment and the question posed by the noble Lord, Lord Newton of Braintree. People have not done their homework, and something needs to be done about that. We need a referendum question that invites people to say no to first past the post. Then let us get the inquiries established because the homework has not been done.
On the classic Queensland AV, the authors go on to say,
“We assessed AV’s impacts by examining whether the tiny differences in second preferences from the SV ballot would have changed any of the SV simulation outcomes in any constituency but we could not identify any such cases”.
The proposition before the House is that we do something we should not be doing. The Tory Government should stop this, and stop it now. We are on Report. They should go away and come back at Third Reading having fully considered the implications of the Dunleavy work from 1997. I know that the Minister will get up and say, “It doesn’t matter. It’s all gone through. It was approved by the House of Commons”, but they did not know what they were doing. They did not understand the implications of this system. We are dealing now with a major change in the constitutional arrangements of the United Kingdom. If we produce exaggerated results that would have given Labour 444 in 1997 and a massive majority much larger than we actually had, we are making a major error, and I appeal to the Government to think again before it is too late.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
That was a very powerful speech by my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours. He certainly does his homework very effectively. Like him, I wish that some Members of Parliament had done it. In the past few weeks, I have listened to a number of Conservative Members of Parliament and to some Labour Members of Parliament, and I am not sure that they know exactly what they voted for and its implications not just in terms of the voting system, as my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours said, but of the reduction in the number of Members from 650 to 600. That is something we will come to later. The purpose of a revising House is to try to draw attention to this, so I am really grateful to my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours, as I am sure the House is.
I want to raise one point. What can we do to stop this misapprehension that everyone elected under this system of AV has achieved the support of 50 per cent of the electorate? We discussed this in a previous debate, and I think it was my noble friend Lord Rooker, in his usual eloquent way, who pointed out the various systems. As I understand it—I am open to be corrected if I am wrong because I do not want to go on if I am—if the system used is that everyone is required to use all their votes, so that if there are 10 candidates, they vote from one to 10, that does apply. However, as I understand it, in the system that has been proposed and that we are being asked to approve, that is not required. You can vote one, two or one, two, three or one, two, three, four and so on—
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
Or just one, which my noble friend Lord Grocott and I would prefer. Yet again last week, in spite of the fact that this House has said it on a number of occasions and other people have said it, the Liberal Democrats—and I absolve the Tories of this—were saying, and the Guardian was repeating, that everyone elected under the system being proposed will have the support of 50 per cent of their constituents. That is manifestly untrue, and it is about time that the Liberal Democrats stopped spreading these lies.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, has moved an amendment which would change the referendum question to ask voters whether the supplementary vote system should be used instead of first past the post rather than the alternative vote system. It will come as no surprise, because it is the content of the Bill, that the Government are committed to providing for a referendum to be held on whether the alternative vote system should be introduced for elections for the other place. We had these debates on a number of occasions in Committee.
I know the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, has a degree of authorship of the supplementary system that is used in the London mayoral election. We have heard on a number of occasions his concern about the alternative vote provisions in the Bill. It is always very invidious to say how people might hypothetically have voted when that was not the system that was used. The comments made by the noble Lord and the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, were quite legitimate points to be made in the referendum campaign, when the parties and the different participants will take their own view about the merits and demerits of the alternative vote system. I can confirm that under the provisions in the Bill, which the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, accurately described, voters may express a preference for as few or as many candidates as they wish or, indeed, for one. As the noble Lord rightly said, that could mathematically mean that not all Members elected to the other place had secured 50 per cent. As we debated last week when we were considering the material now on the website of the Electoral Commission for discussion, which will be sent out to stimulate interest and to explain the proposition before the voters on referendum day, that point is made in the material that it will be putting out.
Clearly the noble Lord’s amendment to adopt the supplement vote system will limit voters’ choice in expressing preferences for candidates standing at the election as they would be able to express a preference for one or two candidates only. The Government are not persuaded that the AV provisions in the Bill should limit the number of preferences that any voter may express at an election. We consider that not limiting the number of preferences that a voter may express under the alternative vote will enable MPs to be elected with a broader level of support, although I make the qualification that as you can cut off and do not need to vote for everyone, it will not necessarily mean that an MP will achieve 50 per cent.
As my noble friend Lord Strathclyde explained in Committee, the Government believe that the optional preferential form of the alternative vote is the right form of AV to be put before the people. For elections to the House of Commons, voters will be able to express preferences and should be able to express as many or as few preferences as they choose. They should not have their ability to express preferences constrained in the way proposed in the noble Lord’s amendment. The optional preference form of AV avoids voters being forced to vote positively for political parties that might be distasteful to them, such as those on the extremes of politics. There is no indication in the amendment about how in detail the supplementary vote system would work. The attraction of the Bill as it stands is that for all the arguments that might take place about how AV works, the Bill sets out that process in Clause 9 and Schedule 10. Questions about how AV works can be resolved by looking at the Bill. That would not be the case with the amendment, which lacks clarity. I therefore urge the noble Lord to withdraw it.
Lord Bach
I understand that the supplementary vote system is used in mayoral elections. Indeed, on 5 May, there will be a mayoral election in what I describe as God’s own city, Leicester. It is the first mayoral election that will presumably be under the supplementary vote system. If the Government get their way on this, it will be slightly ironic that at the next general election the public will also be asked to vote on whether an alternative vote system in the manner set out in the Bill should be adopted for the United Kingdom for future general elections. Do the Government intend to do anything about the way SV is used for mayoral elections, or are they content with it for that but not for AV generally?
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
I think the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, helped to devise the system for mayoral elections that we have inherited. There are no proposals to change it. We are talking about elections to the other place. I have made it very clear that we see the merit of a system where preferences can be expressed as far or as little as individual voters wish. For the purposes of electing the House of Commons, we prefer it to the supplementary vote which by its very nature limits the extent of the preferences that the individual voter can indicate. On that basis, I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Campbell-Savours
My Lords, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, said that the Government believe that it is the best system. I dispute that. If he looks at his notes, he will see that that is what he read: the Government believe that it is the best system. Perhaps he would like to check his notes, but I wrote his words down. I will stand corrected if I misunderstood what he said.
All I am saying is that the Government may believe it, but Conservative Back-Benchers in the House of Commons have never been confronted with a real discussion. People do not know how this system works. I challenge any Conservative Back-Bencher here today to tell me, to assure the House, that Conservative MPs in the other place know how this system works. When these matters were debated in the other place, there were about five Conservatives in the Chamber. Everybody was whipped in to vote as part of a contractual agreement within the coalition. There has been no discussion. I cannot understand why Ministers are not listening to their own people. Why not carry out a consultation even in these last days of dealing with the Bill. Why do they not carry out a consultation on their own Back-Benches? They may even, if I might modestly suggest, send them a portion of the contribution that I have made to the debate, drawing on the statistics that have been produced following the sample poll of 8,500 people in 1998. Maybe it is then that they will realise what they are doing. Ah, finally we have tempted one out of the box.
Lord Tyler
If the supplementary vote is so persuasive and so self-evidently the best system, how was it that the noble Lord was unable to persuade his own party over many months that it was the best system? On several occasions, his own party produced proposals for the alternative vote, in the Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill, at the general election and then following the general election. If the noble Lord wants to be persuasive, why does he not start with his own colleagues?
Lord Campbell-Savours
I can give the noble Lord a very honest answer. It is because I, like many people in the Labour Party, woke up one day—I think that it was in December 2008—and read in the Guardian newspaper that we were going to insert an amendment into the Bill to introduce the alternative vote. We had no notice whatever that that was the intention of the Labour Government. That is the answer to the noble Lord’s question. We did not know anything, and if we had known we would have set out to block it—as happened in 1998 when Nick Raynsford was faced with having to take the decision on whether we picked SV or AV.
I shall deal with one point that the Minister raised, when he talked about giving everyone the opportunity to use all their additional preferences. In the work by Dunleavy with the 8,500 samples, this was the conclusion that he drew on exactly that question—that AV would have produced the same results as SV in 1997, so far as could be determined. That conclusion raises an interesting question about whether the multiple ranking of candidates under AV is really a worthwhile feature, compared with the simpler and perhaps easier-to-explain ballot paper and counting methods used in SV. The noble Lord, Lord Tyler, shakes his head, but that is based on a sample of 8,500 people in 1998. Where is the evidence to the contrary? There is none, because the homework has not been done.
I have made my case. If I am still alive in 10 years’ time, and if this referendum question comes back in the affirmative on the AV system, I will have the pleasure of saying, “I said that it wouldn’t work and I was able to forecast that freak results would completely discredit the system and lead to a further review of it”. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Howarth of Newport
“( ) the persons who, on the date of the referendum, have attained the age of 16 and who would be entitled to vote as electors at the subsequent parliamentary election,”
Lord Howarth of Newport
My Lords, my noble friend Lady Hayter of Kentish Town is unable to be in the Chamber this afternoon. She expresses her regret and asks if I might move Amendment 3, which is down in her name. I have another amendment in the group, Amendment 3A, which is intended to provide words to the same effect as my noble friend’s amendment, although my noble friend’s amendment does so more felicitously than mine.
Noble Lords will recall the arguments that my noble friend Lady Hayter put forward in Committee and the eloquence with which she did so, urging the House that those,
“who … have attained the age of 16 and who would be entitled to vote as electors at the subsequent parliamentary election”,
should have the right to vote in the referendum that will determine the electoral system under which the subsequent parliamentary election will be fought. For my part, I do not favour lowering the voting age to 16 for general elections. However, I submit to the House that the situation at this referendum will be entirely exceptional. I imagine and rather hope that it will be the only such referendum for many years, although one must acknowledge the possibility that if the choice of electoral options is not widened people may find themselves deeply dissatisfied, as my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours has warned. So it is possible that there would be a public move to hold a further referendum before so very long, but at least we would not expect another referendum this side of the general election.
The future constitution and electoral system under which candidates are returned as Members of Parliament is the constitution and the system that will belong to the new generation in this country. It would be appropriate that those who have attained the age of 16 by 5 May should be entitled to participate in making this particular decision so that when they come to be able to exercise their vote for the first time at a general election, presumably in May 2015, they will have shaped the decision that determines how the election will be fought and what the voting system will be on that occasion. It is a simple matter of fairness. It would do something useful in engaging the interests and involvement of a new generation of young people, and I hope very much that the proposition will find favour with the House. I beg to move.
Lord Dubs
My Lords, I shall speak to the amendment in my name, Amendment 4, which is on a somewhat different issue, although it has been put in the same group—so, for the sake of speed, it is probably better that we discuss them as part of the same thing. I would not normally want to raise an issue like this, but there are two reasons why I feel it appropriate to do so on this Bill. First, we are being asked to agree to a referendum—and we as Members of this House will be allowed to vote in that referendum—that will determine how the voters of this country choose their MPs. Yet we in this House are not allowed to vote for MPs. This is a total anomaly. I do not want the Government to say, “That’s fine”, that they are persuaded by my argument, and then take away our right to vote in the referendum. But it is an anomaly in terms of logic; in the way that the provision is drafted, we have reached this somewhat illogical position.
My second reason for raising this matter is that I had the privilege of serving on the Joint Committee on Human Rights. The chair of the committee wrote about the issue of Members of this House voting and received a reply from the Deputy Prime Minister. I shall quote three sentences from the letter, because they are relevant to this Bill and this amendment. I quote from the middle of the letter from the Deputy Prime Minister to the chair of the Human Rights Joint Committee on 25 January. He said:
“The Lords sit in their own right. The Commons are elected by the remainder of the estate of commoners to represent them in Parliament. There was therefore no case for the Lords to vote to elect representatives, since they were able to sit in Parliament anyway”.
He goes on to say:
“The fact that members of the House of Lords have a voice in Parliament makes it legitimate to deprive them of a right to have their voice also heard through their elected representative in the Commons”.
That is also not a very logical argument, I say with respect to the Deputy Prime Minister. The issue about voting in elections is about choosing a Government, not about having a voice here. Of course, we have that after the election, but this is about deciding and helping to influence who will vote. I appreciate that if we did have the vote, the turnout of Lords voting in elections would be pretty well 100 per cent, because I know that we would jolly well rush off and vote. But that is not the key point in the argument. It is rather anomalous, when many of us here canvass hard for our parties in elections, that we have to admit to our fellow canvassers that we do not have a vote at all—“I’m just doing it for you lot”. That is how it works. It is an anomaly.
I do not think that the Government will bow to this argument now but I hope that they will accept that the Bill is illogical in this respect, and say that it is something that we should be able to consider at an early stage in order to put right this anomaly. If the House of Commons decides to give prisoners the vote—I hope that they will, although many people do not agree—it will be even more anomalous for us to be left out of the equation.
Lord Strathclyde
I am grateful to both noble Lords who have spoken, and I wholly understand why the noble Baroness could not be here to move her amendment. It will be no surprise to the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, that the Government have no current plans to lower the voting age. I recognise that there are different views on the question of whether the voting age in this country should be lowered to 16, but if we are to have that debate, it needs to be had in relation to elections more generally, and the passage of the Bill does not provide the right platform. It was ingenious of the noble Lord to say that, because the referendum is of constitutional interest, the voting age should therefore be lowered on this one occasion, but I am afraid that it cut no ice with me.
We do not think that these amendments would be practically sensible in the context of this referendum. No doubt, when the dust has settled on the Bill, there will be opportunities seriously to debate longer-term issues on voting age. Although the noble Lord has had a good go on the Bill, we do not believe that this is the right place for such a provision. The same goes for the noble Lord, Lord Dubs. He very carefully avoided the trap of saying that if we were to be logical, we should not give Peers the right to vote on the referendum. If we had done that, of course, he would have been the first to say that we should; and I think it is fair enough that we should.
The noble Lord, Lord Dubs, may not have realised, and I do not think that it was his intention, but the way his amendment is drafted would in effect make it impossible to run the referendum properly. The amendment leaves the date for the referendum intact, but because of the way it is written at the moment, no one would be able to vote in the referendum. The amendment’s intention is that Peers cannot vote in the referendum until the restriction on their voting in parliamentary elections is removed, but, taken on its true legal meaning, the amendment would effectively mean that we would have to postpone the referendum entirely until such a time as Peers are no longer disqualified from voting in a Westminster parliamentary election.
These two amendments are grouped because we believe that it is right that we should not muddy the water on the Bill by dealing with these issues differently from the way that we have done. The House knows that the Deputy Prime Minister hopes to come forward soon with proposals on the future of this House and that he is chairing a committee which comprises Members from all three major political parties. I am sure that in the course of debate on that subject we will, over time, reach greater clarity on the subject of Peers voting—if they are still to be called Peers—in general elections and in other elections as they come up. I hope that, on that basis, noble Lords will feel able not to press their amendments.
Lord Howarth of Newport
The Leader of the House is a hard man to cut any ice with, as he has shown consistently throughout proceedings on the Bill. He has stated rather than made his case that eligibility to vote in the referendum should be determined by the same principles as eligibility to vote in a general election. However, faced with his adamantine opposition, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Knight of Weymouth
Lord Knight of Weymouth
My Lords, Amendment 5, in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Boateng, seeks to remove subsection (1) from Clause 4 and returns us to our debate in Committee on whether it is appropriate to combine the referendum with other voting: in this case, local authority elections in England, a local referendum in England or a mayoral election in England. I confess that I am currently not sure how I would choose to vote in the referendum. In many ways, I would like more time to consider the issues and balance up my feeling that the current system is probably not that fair with my unwillingness to get that worked up about it. Probably, therefore, I should just let the status quo ride, given that I am not that fussed about the change, but I need to think about that.
That is one basic, straightforward argument for not having this on 5 May, but we have had that debate already. There are specific problems with combining the poll with other elections that come down to two principal things—confusion in the campaign and confusion at the ballot box. Taking the first, I put a scenario to your Lordships, many of whom are familiar with political campaigning and the process on the ground—for many of us, that is partly how we got here. We are dependent these days on a large number of volunteers delivering leaflets, knocking on doors, phoning people up, tweeting and doing whatever else we do in modern campaigning and being, by necessity, partisan about how they do it when they are fighting things like local government elections here in England.
All this activity is geared towards polling day, when electors are to be turned out in one’s cause behind the candidate of one’s choice. I am concerned as to how, if there is a referendum on the same day as all that activity, political activists on the ground can simultaneously campaign on one or the other side of a very important question about how MPs get into the House of Commons and for their political party. They will be simultaneously what we might describe as comrades and opponents. It is very difficult to understand how that will work in practice.
I know that he is not in his place, but the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, told us that he does not pay too much attention to Members on this side of your Lordships’ House trying to be helpful to the Liberal Democrats. I do not believe that this combination is at all in the interests of the Liberal Democrats. Among political activists, those volunteers on the ground who one would expect by and large to do a lot of the work in a referendum campaign, I do not believe there will be so many in the Conservative ranks or massive numbers in the Labour ranks—I do not believe that the majority of Labour activists will be campaigning for a yes vote. That will leave the Liberal Democrat activist base having to carry a substantial part of the workload in the yes camp in an AV referendum, and it will simultaneously have to defend actions that I will not go into but which have proved slightly controversial in their association with this coalition Government. I do not think, therefore, that this gives this question the chance to be properly debated and put to the country, because I do not think we will have a sufficiently resourced and balanced set of campaigns on both sides. Thinking through the practical implications, noble Lords, with their understanding of how elections and referendum campaigns work, will see that this is not very practical.
My noble friend Lord Bach of Lutterworth raised the Leicester mayoral election on 5 May. The same issues will arise there—this is not just about trying to combine local council elections on the same day as the referendum. Mayoral candidates might be asked to take a position on the referendum, and their political parties feel that it is appropriate to put on leaflets what their position is on the referendum question. We then get into complicated questions as to how election expenses are accounted for on those leaflets. Should a mayoral candidate be endorsed, we could continue to go on and on about the consequentials, and that is not the order of the day.
There is a fundamental danger that the referendum will be ignored by electors in terms of thinking about it, but they will participate in the end because they will turn out to the poll, the paper will be given to them and they will feel that it is their duty to vote. They will not have had the opportunity to give the proper consideration that this question deserves. Like me, at the moment, they are probably pretty much undecided, although they might have a bit of a gut feeling about which way they will go, and they need more time to think about it.
The second question is confusion for electors in the ballot box itself. Most of us are not used to referenda. I voted in the referendum—no, I did not; I was not old enough to vote in the referendum for membership of the European Union, and I do not think that a referendum question has been put to me since in any of the areas where I have lived, so I have never taken part in a referendum and I am not used to that scenario. It is probably straightforward enough to work out how the mechanism of the ballot paper works, but I am familiar with the scenario of being given quite a few ballot papers on polling day.
I live in a wonderful area of Dorset where we have both a borough council and a county council, and I have lived in areas where I have served on a town council. On 5 May, in parts of the constituency in Dorset that I used to represent—Purbeck—there will be town council elections and district council elections. I do not think that there will be any local referendum questions, but I would not put it beyond the wit of the people of Swanage to want to have a referendum on whether or not they want a free school in the town, because there are some people campaigning for that, so they might already have been given a third ballot paper. To add a fourth starts to create logistical challenges for the people who are administering the elections. How many ballot boxes do you need? Should you separate them off at the point of the votes being cast? In that case, you will need four in each of the polling stations. Should you go for one ballot box and then separate them all out, with all the potential for error that goes with that? Doing this creates all sorts of logistical problems for running an election and, most importantly, it has the potential to confuse electors with all these different pieces of paper that they will have to express their opinion with.
Clearly, this referendum should go ahead. It is very important that the question should be properly debated, with a well informed campaign. I do not believe that we can have that well informed campaign by 5 May. Thanks to the excellent work of my noble friend Lord Rooker, we now have the possibility of being able to have it between now and 31 October, with a whole set of amendments voted on by this House to make that feasible. I encourage the House to say that as a matter of principle it is too confusing to combine the polls. I beg to move.
Lord Howarth of Newport
My Lords, I agree with my noble friend Lord Knight of Weymouth. The issue at the referendum is simply too important for it to be right to confuse it with all the other campaigning issues that will be abroad in the land on 5 May. Campaigning armies stir up a great deal of dust, and we should not cloud this issue. It is a most important moment in the national life when people have the opportunity to decide whether they wish to change the electoral system for returning Members of Parliament. They should be allowed to consider that question in isolation, calmly and at reasonable length.
As we have noted again and again, there has simply been too little earlier and wider debate as a prelude to holding this referendum. There was no Green Paper or White Paper and no adequate scrutiny in the other place, while Select Committees of both Houses were obliged to produce their reports in some considerable haste. The quality of journalistic discussion of the issues of the referendum remains poor; as my noble friend Lord Foulkes observed just now, it is still being trotted out as a commonplace that the virtue of the optional preference system of the alternative vote will be that at any rate every Member of Parliament will be returned with no less than 50 per cent of the vote. That is not true, but journalists keep on recycling this inaccurate account of what the optional preference system of the alternative vote will provide, so we and the Electoral Commission will need longer to inform the people about what is at issue. If the people are distracted and confused by a whole lot of busy, energetic vocal contention about a series of other electoral issues, I do not think that they will be able to reflect with the care that they need and gain the clarity of view that they ought to have when they take this immensely important decision.
One of the Government’s justifications for holding the referendum on the same day as other elections on 5 May is that it will improve turnout. I question that. There will of course be plenty of voters willy-nilly in the polling booths—they may or may not wish to use all the different bits of paper that are handed to them as they go towards the booths—but I am not sure that, not having had the opportunity to consider with the care and thoroughness that responsible citizens would wish, they will necessarily be disposed to vote in the referendum as well as in the other elections. In all events, we will get a better quality of turnout and a more thoughtful one if we have the referendum on a separate date.
It seems wrong in principle and particularly inappropriate that the case should be made that having a referendum on the same date as other polls will cause a higher turnout when in London, this capital city, there will be no local elections on that day. There will be differential turnout and there will be the most detrimental effect; if the proponents of the argument that it should be held on the same day in order to improve turnout are correct, it will follow that Londoners will have less of a voice in this crucial decision.
Additionally, there is the question of respect to the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly. The Scots have expressed themselves already in no uncertain terms; they consider that it was disrespectful to them that the coalition Government simply decided that they were going to impose a requirement to hold a referendum on the same day as the elections to the Scottish Parliament, and your Lordships’ Select Committee on the Constitution was also censorious on that point. The Welsh, similarly, do not like it; they had already decided that the other referendum to be held in Wales in the early months of this year, on the question of whether there should be an extension of primary legislative powers to the Assembly, should be held separately in March so that it should not be confused and clouded by the other campaigns and the other voting on 5 May.
There will be problems at a practical level for returning officers and counters, and in determining what expenditure is to be attributable to which campaign. These are not negligible considerations either. Even at this stage, it would be the right thing for the House to recognise that it would be detrimental to all the campaigns—detrimental to the clarity of conduct of the referendum campaign, but equally so to the clarity of conduct of the local, Scottish parliamentary and Welsh Assembly election campaigns—if they were all to be cluttered and confused on the same day. It would be better to draw back, have a better quality of campaign over a more sensible timescale for the referendum and hold it on any of the dates that are now made possible in consequence of the amendment that the House made in Committee about the requirement regarding the date on which the referendum should be held.
Lord Touhig
My Lords, briefly, my Amendment 5B would leave out subsection (2) and prevent the AV referendum being held on the same day as the Welsh Assembly elections. As in other parts of the country, the people of Wales will face voter fatigue. On 3 March, as my noble friend Lord Howarth has mentioned, we have the referendum on more powers for the Welsh Assembly. That is very important; it could change the way in which the Assembly works in its relationship to the Government and Parliament and might have long-term implications for our constitution. On 5 May, we have the elections for the Welsh Assembly, and now the Government want to hold the AV referendum on that date as well.
It is with a heavy heart that I say to the Government that throughout this debate they have shown nothing but contempt for Wales and its people. Wales is to lose one-quarter of its parliamentary constituencies. Twenty per cent of the whole reduction in the number of parliamentary constituencies throughout Britain is expected to come from Wales. However, despite our debate on Wales, which some noble Lords said was the best debate we had in the House throughout this Bill, the Government were not prepared to move. I say to the noble Lords on the government Benches that Wales is not a colony run by governors-general. We are used, with the exception of the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, to Conservative Secretaries of State who do not represent Welsh seats sitting in London in government, but Wales is not a colony. We are part of the United Kingdom and a nation in our own right. We deserve to be treated better than this.
The Government have so far been unwilling to move. If they are not prepared to move on this matter, households in Wales will, over the next few months, face a deluge of material through their letter boxes—material saying yea or nay to more powers for the Welsh Assembly, material for the Assembly elections from all the parties and material saying yea or nay to AV. Our National Assembly is still young and still growing. It still has a long way to go to win the hearts and minds of the people of Wales and establish itself in the way that its Members would wish. However, its role may change even further after the referendum on 3 March. We should give the Welsh Assembly election the dignity and status it deserves. It should be held alone, without any other election that day.
What really annoys me about this whole issue is that the Conservatives do not support AV; the Prime Minister says that he will campaign against it. The Liberal Democrats do not support AV; their leader has described it as a “miserable little compromise”. Yet such is the Government’s opinion of Wales that they are prepared to treat its people in this most disrespectful manner and push through holding a referendum on AV on the same day as the election for the Welsh Assembly. I say to the noble Lords on the other side only that if they persist in this way, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats will pay a heavy price come the next election—and they will certainly deserve to.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
My Lords, that is almost a reason not to support the amendment to which my noble friend Lord Touhig has spoken. I will say just a few words in support of Amendment 5D in my name and that of my noble friend Lord McAvoy. As my noble friend Lord Howarth said, the Scottish Parliament, by a substantial vote of 90 to 30, called on this Parliament and the Government not to hold the referendum on the same day as the elections to the Scottish Parliament. The Prime Minister Mr Cameron, when he was elected, spoke about an agenda of respect—of mutual respect—for the Scottish Parliament. However, one of the first things that the Government did was to ignore the views of the elected Scottish Parliament—the people who know best because they are there on the ground and will campaign in the election. That is one strong argument in favour of the amendment.
The second is that there will be two confusing campaigns. In a previous debate, when I indicated my total support for the sane and sensible remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, even Members of this House drew a sharp intake of breath at that unusual alliance. That alliance will be there again—campaigning in Scotland against AV, which the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, and I are both against. However, we will be campaigning on opposite sides in the Scottish parliamentary election, and that will cause confusion. I use the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, as just one example. There will be many such people. Indeed, I previously said that the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde—whom I remember saying he was against AV early in the debate—and I could be tramping the streets of Mauchline together on the same side in the referendum but on entirely different sides in the campaign for the Scottish Parliament. That will cause confusion. The posters will be confusing, as will the campaign with loudspeakers. I am not allowed to repeat arguments but, as I said previously, the two campaigns will cause confusion.
My last point is about the franchises. I have made the point before but will make it in a different form now because the Ministers have still not addressed it. There will be difficulty in dealing with two substantially different franchises when in Scotland, as my noble friends know, many Polish, German and French people will be entitled and able to vote in the Scottish Parliament election but not in the AV referendum. It will cause great confusion, which would not arise if the polls were not held on the same day. Respect for the views of the Scottish Parliament and the confusion caused by two campaigns and two franchises are very powerful arguments that should make the Government think again.
Lord Dubs
My Lords, my noble friend Lord Knight and others have indicated clearly why it is not appropriate to hold the referendum on the same day as these other elections. My amendment refers to Northern Ireland, and I briefly add a Northern Ireland dimension to further the arguments that have already been made. I remember, about 11 years ago, the referendum in Northern Ireland on the Good Friday agreement. It also took place in the Republic on the same day. The build-up to that referendum was enormous. Everyone in Northern Ireland knew what the issues were. A brochure on the Good Friday agreement had been put through their door. Friends of mine who lived there discussed at home how they would vote in the referendum. It was very clear. It was a single issue and one of crucial importance to the people of Northern Ireland.
I contrast that with what will happen this time. Very important elections for the Northern Ireland Assembly and for district councils are to take place in Northern Ireland. A great deal has happened since the last Assembly elections to the balance of power between the DUP and the Ulster Unionists and so on. These elections will be very important and rather different in tone, content and substance from a discussion on the voting system for general elections.
The political parties in Northern Ireland are also entirely different from those here. I am not sure where the Conservative Party and the Ulster Unionist Party will stand in the future. They were together at the previous general election; that agreement may or may not last into the future, but this is not the occasion to debate that bit of folly. The parties are different, so there is no carry-over from, say, Lib Dem policies to what will happen in the referendum.
As was mentioned earlier in a brief discussion between the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, and the noble Lord, Lord Reid, the voting systems in Northern Ireland are different anyway. STV is used for both the Assembly elections and, as the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, said, the district council elections. The starting point is very different, and that is what will be in people’s minds—not the election process for general elections. The possibility of confusion will be enormous. The Northern Ireland argument is at least as strong as, if not stronger than, the arguments that have been put forward by my noble friends. It will be confusing and I do not think we should do it.
Baroness Liddell of Coatdyke
My Lords, I support the amendments of my noble friends, but I also ask a specific question of the Leader of the House. Over the weekend the Scottish media brought to my attention the speculation that the budget of the SNP minority-controlled Administration in Scotland could be defeated, and that that could lead to an early dissolution of the Scottish Parliament. Given that everything we have debated in Part 1 of the Bill is predicated on the Scottish Parliament elections taking place on the same day as the referendum, what is plan B if it transpires that the Scottish Parliament elections take place in March? There is speculation that it could be in March. As an Ayrshire man, the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, will recognise the expression,
“The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men
Gang aft agley”.
Things frequently “gang aft agley”. Will the noble Lord reflect upon this and give us some indication of what would happen?
The noble Lord deployed a very powerful argument that the reason for putting both on the one day was because of the £12 million cost of the referendum. It would seem that we might have a general election in Scotland in March and then a referendum on 1 May at a quite disproportionate additional cost. I would therefore be very interested in plan B.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
My Lords, I understand the current position to be as follows. The AV referendum can, but does not have to, take place on the same day as the other elections that we have been referring to in this group of amendments. As I understand it, Clause 4(8) deals with the position if they do not occur on the same day. The amendments on the local authority elections, local referendums, Northern Ireland Assembly elections, Welsh Assembly elections and Scottish Parliament elections would all, in effect, forbid those elections to take place on the same day as the alternative-vote system. That is the issue; we should not be allowed to combine. The Opposition support all the amendments that would prevent combination, in effect, for the arguments that we have already heard.
First, there is a swamping of the AV issue. The Constitution Committee of this House wrote a report that said that, where you combine elections with a referendum, the evidence from other experiences shows that there is a tendency that the elections to Assemblies that affect peoples’ lives will swamp the question. This is a bad conclusion to reach because we all agree upon the importance of the question. Secondly, if you have so many elections in so many places, it puts pressure on the organisation—see what happened in the 2007 Scottish elections as a result of more than one occurring on the same day. Thirdly, there will be differential turnout—namely, some places may have higher turnouts than others because there are elections. It would be wrong for the result of something as important as this to be determined simply by the coincidence of elections of another sort being held. Fourthly, there is a lack of clarity. It becomes more difficult for the public when a person who is standing for election says one thing that people support and then opposes a particular proposition that the public might otherwise agree with. Fifthly, there is a lack of respect. Respect between the Parliaments is important. The decision was made to combine without there being any consultation whatever.
There appears to be only one argument in favour: the saving of approximately £12 million. This is a significant amount of money. It is worth ensuring that having a clear and simple vote on the question of whether there should be an alternative vote system is dealt with properly and with clarity. The Opposition support the whole range of amendments that would prevent combination.
Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, noble Lords opposite have expressed a clear and consistent view about combining these elections on the same day. The noble Lord, Lord Howarth, used the word “confusing”. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, used the word “swamping”. The noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, also said that it was confusing and so on. There is this thought—this idea that I have picked up loud and clear—that it will be difficult and awkward for the electorate to take a view and for the various organisations to campaign effectively. I am not saying that noble Lords opposite do not have a point, but I think that we have dealt with them. Indeed, the Electoral Commission said recently:
“We have always recognised that there would be both advantages and disadvantages associated with holding elections and referendums on the same day … On balance, we believe that it should be possible to deliver the different polls proposed for 5 May 2011 if the key practical risks to the successful conduct of the scheduled elections and a UK-wide referendum are properly managed”.
We have worked with the Electoral Commission and others in government on the combination of provisions in this Bill to make sure that the combination rules are conducive to well run polls on 5 May.
There are good reasons to combine them all on the same day. It is significant that we will increase turnout. That is one of the many good reasons for holding a referendum on this date. The noble Lord, Lord Dubs, mentioned London. It is true that there will be no elections in London. However, in other parts of the country, there will be, which means that 84 per cent of the electorate of the United Kingdom will be going to the polls on 5 May. This strikes me as an important and significant reason to have them on that day.
Crucially, all the amendments seem to misunderstand the nature of combining polls. I know that some noble Lords would rather not have the referendum on 5 May. However, preventing it from being combined with other polls is not the way to express these concerns. The simple administrative process of combination allows polls that are happening on the same date to be taken together, polling cards and polling stations to be shared and so forth. The consequences of these amendments would be that the referendum and scheduled polls could take place on the same day but that they would not be combined administratively. Naturally, this would result in a waste of money, in logistical difficulties for electoral administrators and in inconvenience to voters.
What is the reason for combination? The first is money. It will save the taxpayer approximately £30 million, which is a significant amount of money when compared with the cost of holding the referendum on a day when no other polls are taking place. The savings will be made because the costs of particular relevance can be shared between different polls being held on the same day. For example, costs of providing polling stations, hiring premises and equipment, paying polling station staff, and the savings can and will be shared between the referendum and the other polls taking place on 5 May. I also advise that the referendum will be administered on the same boundaries as the elections that are scheduled to take place across the whole of the UK on 5 May. From an administrative and cost point of view, it therefore makes sense to run them as combined polls.
The noble Lord, Lord Touhig, specifically mentioned the situation in Wales, where, unusually, there will be a referendum and then elections. My understanding is that the coalition Government and the Welsh Assembly Government agree that it would not be to anyone’s advantage to ask electors to vote in three polls—for the Welsh referendum, the AV referendum and the Welsh elections—in the space of a few months. The so-called respect agenda in Scotland is also an important question, but again I think it was right for the Government to make the announcement to Parliament. This showed a respect for Parliament rather than to the devolved Assemblies and Parliaments.
There will be the scope for confusion. However, I believe that those who are running the yes and no campaigns have ability and judgment. In fact, the noble and learned Lord is taking part in one of those campaigns. I am sure that he and his colleagues will be able to see their way through this and run a successful referendum combined with the other elections on 5 May.
Lord Knight of Weymouth
My Lords, the Leader of the House has attempted to justify this combination and has tried to respond to some of the points made in the debate. However, his central argument hangs around money and convenience more than anything else. He said that the Electoral Commission considered that the situation we are discussing is just about possible provided all the risks are managed, but we needed to hear more about what those risks are and how they are to be managed. The noble Lord, Lord Howarth, referred to differential turnout, and the noble Lords, Lord Touhig and Lord Foulkes, discussed competing franchises, the problems with the respect agenda in Wales and Scotland and the acute confusion in Northern Ireland. However, I did not hear how those risks, and the ones that I raised, would be managed. Therefore, I am not minded to withdraw the amendment. I wish to test the opinion of the House.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
“, but the count for the Scottish parliamentary general election shall not be delayed as a consequence of the combination of polls.”
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
My Lords, I move this revised amendment in substitution for the original Amendment 5F. I thank the Clerks in the Public Bill Office for helping me to revise the amendment and bring it into order. It appears before noble Lords rather late in the day, but that would not have happened if there had been the normal period between Committee and Report stage. I hope that the House will forgive me for moving this revised amendment. I am most grateful to the Clerks for their speedy revision on my behalf.
Last Monday, following a report in the Scotland on Sunday, I said that there was great concern throughout Scotland that—as the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, said earlier, and as my noble friend Lady Liddell of Coatdyke has also said—if the count is not taken immediately after the close of polls in the Scottish parliamentary election, some of the excitement, and a speedy follow-up with the announcement of the result, could be lost as a result. As noble Lords who have participated directly in elections will appreciate, the public’s interest in the election is important. It is an entirely separate issue, as the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, pointed out, from the question of whether the count for the parliamentary election is held before the referendum count. We accept the sequence—the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, explained it on a previous occasion, although it is the subject of another amendment in this group—and we accept the explanation. The question relates not to the order in which the counts are taken but to their immediacy.
As noble Lords from Scotland will know, I am not one to kowtow to the Scottish media—far from it. There are some people in the Scottish media for whom I have great respect. There are others for whom I do not. Nevertheless, it is an important part of elections that, immediately after the casting of votes, people go to the count with adrenaline coursing wherever adrenaline courses. They take part in the count and see the way things are going, and the result—in particular in Scotland in the 73 first past the post constituencies. As the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, rightly said, after this election there may not be a coalition that will take some time to form; there may be a clear result. The way that the polls are going, with a substantial lead for Labour, a clear result is becoming more likely. People will want to know how things are going in the constituencies.
This would not be an issue, but some—although not all—returning officers have said that it will be difficult to carry out the count immediately because the counters will be too tired. They may have been polling officers in polling stations before moving on to do the count. Of course, that problem can be dealt with if different people are used for the count. Fresh people can be brought in, if necessary, so that we get the result. The candidates, agents and supporters of the parties will stay up late into the night for the results to come through. It is part of the British and Scottish tradition that we see the results come through. The TV will cover it. It will get more people interested in the Scottish elections and make them more likely to take part in future.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean
Perhaps I have misunderstood this. Obviously the noble Lord has studied it more carefully than I have. Perhaps he can explain why this could not be resolved simply by having two ballot boxes, one for MSPs and one for the referendum. Would that not resolve the problem of tiredness? I do not think that people will be waiting anxiously for the result of the poll on AV.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
That question was raised on a previous occasion in Committee. The Minister—I think it was the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness—said the problem was that some electors might inadvertently put a ballot paper for the election into the ballot box for the referendum. The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, sighs and shrugs his shoulders, but that was the explanation given by the Minister. I agree that the first thing that needs to be done is the validation of ballot papers. However, once they have been validated, which should not take very long, the referendum ballot papers can then be put aside for whenever that count will take place, and the count can be started of all the ballot papers for the Scottish Parliament elections. I do not think that opening ballot boxes and verifying ballot papers will cause much delay. It will delay things a bit, but not as much as stopping the count altogether and starting the next day, which is what some returning officers have suggested.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean
I return to the point about people putting ballot papers in the wrong boxes. Surely it is not beyond the wit of returning officers to organise a polling station in such a way that that is avoided.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
I agree with the noble Lord. I was going to say “my noble friend”: that is the way things are going. There are some strange bedfellows already in the coalition, but I am not suggesting that there should be any others. If the amendment is passed, accounting officers and returning officers are more likely to ensure that all the ballot papers go into the appropriate boxes. It will put greater pressure on them if, in the terms of my revised amendment,
“the count for the Scottish parliamentary general election shall not be delayed as a consequence of the combination of polls”.
If that is agreed by this House and by Parliament, that would put pressure on the returning officers to make sure that people cast their votes in the appropriate ballot boxes.
Lord Kilclooney
My Lords, if the count for the Scottish Parliament gets priority over the count for AV, does that mean that the results for AV in Scotland will be revealed much later than the results for AV in England?
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
No. In England, Northern Ireland and Wales, the sequence is that the AV count will follow. The sequence is the same in each part of the United Kingdom. I propose not to change the sequence but to bring further forward the AV count in Scotland, because we will have the Scottish parliamentary election count earlier. If that takes place immediately, the AV count will be brought forward. This excellent amendment has that limited advantage as well. I am most grateful to the Public Bill Office for advising me. Strong views on this are held in Scotland. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, who is replying to this debate, takes as much interest in the Scottish parliamentary elections as I do. I have seen him at counts in Ayrshire on occasions. Usually I am smiling and he is not, but I am sure that he will not worry about that and will give the amendment sympathetic consideration.
Lord Lipsey
My Lords, my Amendment 35 in this group has much the same purpose, namely to deal with the worries that have been expressed in the Scottish press and in this House about the count in Scotland. It has had the effect of flushing out some reassurance. The Electoral Commission has publicly stated that instructions to the returning officer in Scotland will be that the count on the AV referendum is not to start until 4 pm. There may still be a case for putting this in the Bill. I look forward to the Minister’s response to this short debate.
Lord Martin of Springburn
My Lords, I was interested to hear the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, say that he did not kowtow to the press. He agreed to sponsor me in this House. We had a discussion a fortnight beforehand and I said: “George, try to keep your name out of the newspapers”. He did, but hard as he tried, he could not keep his name out of the papers. He certainly does not kowtow to them, but he does make sure that he is in them.
There is an important principle here about the count taking place in a few hours after the close of the poll. Every political party represented in this House and in the other place depends largely on volunteers giving up their time to help in the political process. Without them, we would not have the political parties or the democratic process that we have. These men and women work months in advance—they are working now—to try to win their party a seat in their constituency or, in Scotland, on the list. They give of their time and sometimes they take holidays in order to do so. They negotiate with their employers to take a holiday that they are due and, when election day arrives, they take the day off. For manual workers and blue collar workers, that means giving up a shift, and they can well manage to stay on till the small hours of the morning and hear the result for which they have worked so hard. Sometimes they are disappointed; on other occasions, they are over the moon. However, it would be different if the count were left until later. It would not be practical for people who are paid an hourly wage to stay on and lose another day’s income. For that reason, it is important that we keep the tradition.
There is also the comradeship that one finds at the count. It is a great gathering place. Perhaps you will not have seen party workers with whom you are friendly other than at a conference and you ask how things are going in their constituency. There is banter and even friendly rivalry between the parties. It is a good time for political people to all be under one roof, and I think it is a tradition that we should keep. For young people, it is a way of learning about the political process—how to take guidance from the agent or how to be a count agent—and to see the process in action.
I do not think it will have been forgotten that the last count at the Scottish elections was an absolute shambles. Electronic equipment had been brought in to do the counting, although everyone was used to manual counting. The machines did not work and, as a result, at certain constituencies the counters and returning officers had to seal the boxes and even the whole building, allowing the workers to go home to rest and come back the following day. I ask the Minister to ensure that that shambles does not happen again.
During the debates on this Bill, I have mentioned the Electoral Commission. I have no reason to pick on the commission but it will have to learn from its mistakes. It had some input into the decision to use electronic equipment at those Scottish elections and, because of that, it was not possible for independent adjudicators to find out what went wrong—in other words, they could not carry out an investigation. The taxpayer had to pay for a gentleman called—if my memory serves me right—Mr Gould to come from Canada to do the investigation, and the cost involved was substantial. That would not have happened had the Electoral Commission had some foresight. My criticism is that it tends to jump in without thinking through the consequences. Therefore, I hope that the counts that take place during the night and the wee hours of the morning continue and that we will learn from the mistakes of four years ago.
Lord Kilclooney
My Lords, earlier I raised the concerns that exist in Northern Ireland. I can understand the concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, regarding how the count will proceed in Scotland, where two elections are held on the same day. The position in Northern Ireland is more confusing because we have three elections on the same day. I warned that this could cause confusion and over the past few days I have certainly experienced increasing unease in Northern Ireland about the count following these three elections. Two will be based on STV—one to the Northern Ireland Assembly and one to the district councils—and the third one on AV.
When I raised this matter with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, he said that when he came to respond to this amendment we would get an answer on what priority would be given to the counts for the three elections in Northern Ireland. Therefore, I should like to know in which order the counts for the three elections in Northern Ireland will take place, and whether we will have to wait for the result on AV to come through in Northern Ireland or whether it will come out at the same time as in England, Scotland and Wales.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
We support the principle behind these amendments, which is for the AV count to take place after those for the Welsh Assembly, Scottish Parliament and local elections, the local elections count being caught by the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Lipsey. Whether that requires an amendment to the Bill or whether it can be dealt with by a clear statement from the Minister depends on what the Minister says, but we support the approach of these two amendments.
Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, it is useful to have had this short debate on this subject and I hope that what I say will be welcomed by the noble Lords, Lord Foulkes and Lord Lipsey, in whose names the amendments stand, and by others who have spoken in the debate. It is always good to hear the noble Lord, Lord Martin of Springburn, talk about great traditions. He finds great comradeship—if that is the right word—on traditional matters. In the dim and distant past I have been present at Glasgow counts, as well as at Ayrshire counts, so I understand what he means about the comradeship that occurs.
We debated this matter in Committee, when my noble and learned friend Lord Wallace made it clear that the parliamentary polls will, once everything has been verified, be counted ahead of the referendum poll. That is the principle that will underlie everything. The Government’s policy is very clearly that the votes relating to the elections, wherever they take place, will be counted before those of the referendum. The referendum count will come last, and the chief counting officer can, using her power of direction under paragraph 5(5) of Schedule 1, direct counting officers in the discharge of their functions or require them to take specified steps.
I refer noble Lords to the paper published by the Electoral Commission in December 2010, which is also available on its website. It sets out the chief counting officer’s intention to direct that the referendum count should not begin before 4 pm on Friday 6 May. The noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, referred to that. The decision to start counting the ballot papers cast in the referendum poll at 4 pm was reached in the light of discussions with the senior returning officers from all areas of the UK and followed consultation with a number of interested organisations and affected parties, including electoral administrators.
The timing of the count is ultimately a matter for the chief counting officer to direct. I understand that the Electoral Commission is satisfied that the assumptions underpinning this direction will mean that the referendum count should not delay the results of the scheduled elections. I am also aware that specific discussions between the commission and administrators are taking place to ensure that counting officers in Northern Ireland are equipped to carry out concurrent counts and that, in any event, this should not result in a delay in the results being announced for any poll. Therefore, I do not consider that this issue needs any further clarification in the Bill.
To those such as the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, who would like a quick result, I say that the Gould report, which he will know well and has prayed in aid, considered overnight counts and came out clearly against them. Gould said:
“We recommend that if the polls continue to close at 10:00 pm, there should be no overnight count of the ballot papers ... To achieve the highest level of confidence in the counting process, it is essential that the emphasis is on the quality of decision-making related to the count, not on the speed with which the count is conducted”.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean
Perhaps I am mistaken, but did not the Gould report also recommend that we should not combine referenda or other electoral tests with elections to the Scottish Parliament?
Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, different bodies have said different things on different occasions. We are entirely happy that we have the confidence of the Electoral Commission and other bodies to do it in this way.
The noble Lord, Lord Kilclooney, asked about later announcements—how they would be made across the United Kingdom and whether they would all be made at one point. I can confirm to the House that there will be one announcement for the whole of the United Kingdom. That is one of the reasons why the Electoral Commission is organising the counts.
Any provision that seeks to add specific provisions to the timing of the count may well be complex and would be apt to confuse administrators at this late stage. It is likely that any amendment would need to be replicated for each election on 5 May. We have a clear statement of government policy and the clear view of the Electoral Commission. I hope that that is sufficient for the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, to withdraw his amendment and for the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, not to move his.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
I have received the Minister’s response with mixed feelings. He prays in aid of Lord Gould—it was the noble Lord, Lord Martin, who mentioned Lord Gould—and I remind him that, although the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, was shaking his head, the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, was right to say that Lord Gould recommended that the polls should be separate.
Lord Martin of Springburn
The person I referred to was not the noble Lord, Lord Gould; he was a Canadian gentleman. He certainly was not a Lord.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
I have a noble friend Lord Gould, whom I absolve of any responsibility for this.
Mr Gould, the Canadian, suggested that the elections should be separated. In fact, the Scottish Parliament took a decision to delay the local government elections for a whole year as a result of that and suddenly it finds the referendum spatchcocked in to create extra problems for it. Although extra problems will be created, they are not in any way as bad as the problems described by the noble Lord, Lord Martin, where the electronic counting came on top of the voting on two ballot papers, one of which was the most confusing I have ever seen in my lifetime—and I have seen ballot papers in the Soviet Union, the United States of America and elsewhere. It was a crazy ballot paper. I hope and expect that these ballot papers will be simpler and that the count can take place.
I am disappointed that the Minister still presses that the count should not be held overnight. I am worried that the chief counting officer will have responsibility for this. As I understand it, the chief counting officer is the chair of the Electoral Commission. What the noble Lord, Lord Martin, said about the Electoral Commission will be echoed by a number of Members in this Chamber. However, it has improved with the recent addition of political members and, I hope, will now be more sensitive.
Notwithstanding what the Minister has said, I hope that the chief counting officer and the chair of the Electoral Commission will have heard this debate loudly and clearly and will recognise the pressure to have the count overnight, not only from this House but also from all political parties in Scotland. Although I accept that, as the Minister said, it may not be best to have that written into the Bill, I hope that it will be taken into account—otherwise the chief counting officer will be even more unpopular in Scotland than Mr Alex Salmond. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Rooker
“(8A) Where a day is appointed by an order under section 1(2B)—
(a) if that day is the same as the date of a poll mentioned in subsection (1), the Minister may by order make provision disapplying that subsection or any of paragraphs (a) to (c) of it;(b) if that day is the same as the date of a poll mentioned in subsection (2) or (3), the Minister may by order make provision disapplying the subsection in question;(c) if that day is the same as the date of a poll mentioned in subsection (4), the Minister may by order make provision disapplying that subsection or either of paragraphs (b) and (c) of it.(8B) Where a day is appointed by an order under subsection 1(2B), and that day is the same as the date of a poll not mentioned in subsections (1) to (4), the Minister may by order—
(a) provide that the polls are to be taken together, and(b) make provision for and in connection with the combination of the poll.(8C) An order containing provision made under subsection (8A) or (8B)—
(a) may make supplemental or consequential provision, including provision modifying or amending this Act or another enactment (and, in particular, provision modifying or amending this Act as regards the meaning of “voting area” or “counting officer”);(b) may not be made unless a draft of the order has been laid before, and approved by a resolution of, each House of Parliament.”
European Council and North Africa
(13 years, 9 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Howell of Guildford)
My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall now repeat a Statement made in another place by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister. The Statement is as follows.
“With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a Statement on last week’s European Council and comment on today’s review by the Cabinet Secretary of the papers relating to the release of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, which was published at 1 pm today.
Taking the Council first, three issues were discussed: first, the continuing efforts to tackle instability in the eurozone; secondly, the role of energy and innovation in delivering a comprehensive growth strategy for the European Union; and, thirdly, the situation in Egypt.
Let me take each in turn. First, eurozone members are quite rightly looking at ways to resolve some of the underlying problems of the euro crisis, including by strengthening economic co-ordination arrangements. My job is to protect and promote Britain’s interests. As I have said before, it is in our interests that the eurozone sorts out its problems. A strong and stable eurozone is in Britain’s interests.
But in my view there are three absolute essentials for Britain. First, we should keep out of the euro. Secondly, we must make sure that we are not dragged into a new mechanism for bailing out the eurozone in future—and, as I described from the last Council, we have achieved that. Thirdly, and most complex, while we should not prevent eurozone countries from coming together to deal with the problems that they face, we must make sure that this does not compromise the single market, which is an important British success story in Europe and remains one of our key interests.
There is a danger here, which is that in developing stronger co-ordination eurozone countries start affecting things that are more properly part of the single market of all EU members. I made sure that this point was recognised at the Council and secured specific assurances to protect the single market. As the statement by eurozone countries, which we all debated, makes clear:
‘Building on the new economic governance framework, Heads of State or government will take further steps to achieve a new quality of economic policy coordination in the euro area to improve competitiveness, thereby leading to a higher degree of convergence, without undermining the single market’.
The next issue is energy policy. Extending the single market to energy has been a long-held objective of recent Governments of all parties. Achieving this could add up to 0.8 per cent of European GDP and mean another 5 million jobs across Europe by 2020. Also, if we make a 20 per cent improvement on energy efficiency by 2020, that could significantly reduce the pressure on household bills. A single market in energy is good for jobs, competition and energy security, so practical co-operation with the rest of Europe on this is firmly in our national interest.
The Council agreed that,
‘the EU needs a fully functioning, interconnected and integrated internal energy market’,
and that,
‘the internal market in energy should be completed by 2014’.
We also agreed that,
‘major efforts are needed to modernise and expand Europe’s energy infrastructure and to interconnect networks across borders’.
This is something that Britain strongly supports, not least as we plan for the North Sea offshore supergrid.
The conclusions on innovation are also completely in line with what Britain supports and has been trying to achieve. Innovation and energy policy are part of the growth strategy being developed in Europe and we will publish our own proposals before the next European Council, which will specifically be discussing that subject.
Next, let me turn to Egypt. I was determined that the Council would not produce one of its heavily caveated and unclear statements and I believe that the declaration has a number of very positive aspects. The first is that the Egyptian authorities should,
‘meet the aspirations of the Egyptian people with political reform not repression’.
Secondly, it is clear that transition is needed to broad-based democratic government. The statement is emphatic that,
‘this transition should start now’.
The European Council was clear that this has to involve the building blocks of free and open societies and democratic institutions, such as freedom of assembly, the rule of law, freedom of speech and free and fair elections.
There is a strong case—and the statement reflects this—that the EU needs to look hard at its role in the region. We have spent billions of taxpayers’ money in Egypt and neighbouring countries, with carefully crafted association agreements and action plans offering funds, access to our markets and other assistance in exchange for progress on the rule of law, democracy and human rights, but in Egypt there has been little or no progress on torture, the judiciary, democracy or ending a 30 year- old state of emergency. It is time for Europe to take a more hard-headed approach, where the conditions on which we give money are real and insisted on. I reaffirmed this message in a call with Vice-President Suleiman this afternoon and I urged him to take bold and credible steps to show that the transition that they are talking about is irreversible, urgent and real.
Finally, let me say a word about the release of the Lockerbie bomber, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, and the report that has been released today by the Cabinet Secretary. I have not altered my view, which I expressed at the time, that releasing Mr Megrahi was a very bad decision. He was convicted of the biggest mass murder in British history and in my view he should have died in jail. It was a bad decision and the previous Government should have condemned it rather than going along with it.
I commissioned this report during my visit to Washington last July. At the time, there was renewed controversy around the decision, with a congressional inquiry into it and calls for a UK inquiry, and concerns were being put forward, quite forcefully, in America that the whole release may have come about as a result of pressure by BP on the British Government to pressure the Scottish Government to make that happen.
I do not believe that that is true and this report shows that it is not true. It was a decision taken by the Scottish Government—the wrong decision, but their decision nevertheless. But in view of the continuing speculation in the UK and the US, I thought it right that all the British government paperwork should be re-examined to assess whether more should be published and I asked the Cabinet Secretary to do just that.
That is what Sir Gus O’Donnell has now done. In order to address the concerns that were being expressed, he was asked to look at three specific areas: first, whether there was any new evidence that the British Government directly or indirectly pressured or lobbied the Scottish Government for the release of Megrahi; secondly, whether there was pressure placed on the Scottish Government by BP for the release of Mr Megrahi; and, thirdly, whether the Libyans were told that there were linkages between BP’s investment and the release of Megrahi either under the prisoner transfer agreement or on compassionate grounds.
The report and all the paperwork, running to 140 pages, have been placed in the Library of the House. All decisions on the declassification and publication of papers belonging to the previous Administration were of course taken independently by the Cabinet Secretary. Under the convention covering papers of a previous Administration, he has consulted as appropriate former Ministers and the former Prime Minister. Sir Gus was assisted by the former Information Commissioner, Richard Thomas, to provide an independent validation. He saw all paperwork, redacted and unredacted. His job was to advise the Cabinet Secretary whether his report and the documents now being published are consistent with all the materials that were reviewed. He was also tasked with determining whether this is a fair and accurate account of events. This he has done. He is content on both counts.
The Cabinet Secretary concludes that it is clear from the paperwork that the former Government were clear that any decision on Mr Megrahi’s release or transfer under the prisoner transfer agreement was one for the Scottish Government alone to take. He finds that none of the materials that he reviewed contradicts anything contained in the former Foreign Secretary’s Statement to the House in October 2009. He makes the same finding with respect to the current Foreign Secretary’s letter to Senator Kerry in July last year and with regard to statements made by the former Prime Minister on this matter. He notes that it is evident that the Libyans made explicit links between progress on UK commercial interests in Libya and removal of any clause on the prisoner transfer agreement whose effect would be to exclude Megrahi from it. He notes that, after Megrahi had been diagnosed with terminal cancer in September 2008, the then Government’s policy was based on an assessment that UK interests would be damaged if Megrahi were to die in a UK jail.
The Cabinet Secretary finds—this is a key point—that,
‘policy was therefore developed that the Government should do all it could’,
while respecting devolved competences,
‘to facilitate an appeal by the Libyans to the Scottish Government for Megrahi’s transfer under the PTA or release on compassionate grounds’,
as the best outcome for managing the risks faced by the UK.
One of the Foreign Office papers released today makes it plain that,
‘facilitating direct contact between the Libyans and the Scottish Executive is a key part of our game plan on Megrahi’.
Another Foreign Office paper from January 2009 states:
‘We now need to go further and work actively but discreetly to ensure that Megrahi is transferred back to Libya under the PTA or failing that released on compassionate grounds’.
Frankly, this tells us something that was not made clear at the time. It goes further than the account that the former Prime Minister and the former Foreign Secretary gave. We were not told about facilitating an appeal, about facilitating contact or game plans. Indeed the Cabinet Secretary’s report states:
‘Policy was therefore progressively developed that HMG should do all it could, whilst respecting devolved competences, to facilitate an appeal by the Libyans to the Scottish Government for Mr Megrahi’s transfer under the PTA or release on compassionate grounds as the best outcome for managing the risks faced by the UK’.
Honourable Members will be able to study the paperwork and consider these issues for themselves. However, I do not believe that these papers justify calls for a new inquiry. What they provide is further evidence that this was a flawed decision by the Scottish Executive—which we knew already—and they point to some broader lessons from this affair. It is clear from these papers that the previous Government badly underestimated and in fact failed seriously even to consider, except as an issue to be managed, the reaction in both Britain and the United States to the release of Mr Megrahi—above all among many of the families who lost loved ones.
The key point to me that emerges from reading the paperwork is that consideration was given to the most basic question of all: was it really right for the British Government to ‘facilitate’ an appeal by the Libyans to the Scottish Government in the case of an individual who was convicted of murdering 270 people, including 43 British citizens and 190 Americans, and 19 other nationalities? That is, for me, the biggest lesson of this entire affair.
For my part, I repeat: I believe that it was profoundly wrong. The fact that 18 months later the Lockerbie bomber is today living at liberty in Tripoli only serves to underline that.
Mr Speaker, I commend this Statement to the House”.
My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean
My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement given in another place earlier today by the Prime Minister.
I start with the conclusions of the European Council on Egypt. The Egyptian people continue to show enormous courage and great steadfastness in their desire for fundamental and lasting change in their country. We support the call for a clear and transparent path towards transition as soon as possible. I also join the Government and leaders of the European Union in condemning any attacks on peaceful demonstrators and urge the authorities to allow the people of Egypt to continue to exercise their right to free and peaceful protest in their own country.
We also welcome the European Council’s condemnation of attempts to restrict the free flow of information through the blocking of e-mail and the internet, as well as the intimidation of those who are endeavouring to defend human rights and of journalists. I am sure that many of us regret the blocking of the broadcasting by Al-Jazeera and the blocking of its ability to broadcast what was going on. Many of us often disagree with Al-Jazeera; it has none the less played a significant role in opening up freedom of the press in the Middle East.
The process of transition is undoubtedly under way in Egypt. It must be guided first and foremost by the people of Egypt. We in Britain must also be prepared to stand up and speak out against any techniques that are deployed in that country which amount to the repression that has been used in recent months.
Can the Minister update the House on the Government’s views about the talks involving Vice-President Omar Suleiman and the opposition parties, and whether the Government believe that these may lay the ground for a transition? We knew at the weekend —I am sure that the Minister, as did I and many others, received reports coming directly out of Egypt—that many in the opposition parties were willing to talk, but that the Muslim Brotherhood expressed a great reticence to do so, at least initially; they have been engaged latterly. Omar Suleiman has a good reputation, not just in Egypt but throughout the region, and with many of his interlocutors in this country and, indeed, in the United States. I hope that the Minister will be able to give us some reassurance that he will be able to lead these discussions in a way that leads towards a fruitful conclusion.
Can the Minister also offer us the latest thinking of the European Union and its allies on the difficult issue that may now pertain around the role of President Mubarak during this transition? I recognise that this is a very sensitive point, but we all know that opinion is enormously divided in Egypt over what should now happen to President Mubarak. This is not a straightforward point that the western powers can dictate. There is an enormously difficult point about reaching a settlement which will run in a way that will have some real resonance and lasting ability to command the central ground in Egypt.
On the nature of the transition, do the Government agree that any transition has to include not just the provision of free and fair elections, but also the building up of democratic structures? I am thinking in particular of an independent judiciary, diverse political parties, and a free press. Democracy is not just about elections—although of course elections are an essential prerequisite —but it is important that the structures of the rule of law and respect for human rights are also part of the mix of what we consider to be a democratic state.
Can the Minister also update the House on the steps the Government have taken to ensure the safety of British nationals in Egypt during the current turbulence? Is the Minister satisfied that all British nationals wishing to leave Egypt have been contacted and have been facilitated in this respect? Can I also, on behalf of the Labour Benches, thank all our staff in the embassy in Cairo—our enormously able, outstanding ambassador, Dominic Asquith, and the diplomatic team that he leads?
Perhaps I may turn to the other matters discussed in the European Council last Friday. On energy policy, we welcome the Council’s conclusions on the internal marketing of gas, electricity and the North Sea grid. We also welcome the Council’s plans for the improvement of Europe’s energy infrastructure, and the routes for energy across the globe, which in many ways were so disrupted during the dispute between Russia and Ukraine in 2008. This is a very important matter. We have touched upon it in recent debates in your Lordships’ House and I am sure that the Minister will wish to expand on his remarks on that.
May I also ask the Minister two questions about how our policy at home relates to the discussions in Europe? First, we note the Council’s conclusions on the importance of renewable energy. Will the Minister update the House on the implementation of the renewable heat incentive, which is a crucial part of Britain’s energy strategy? The incentive was due to come into force in April this year, but it has now been delayed. Is the Minister now in a position to tell us when it will be introduced, and, if he is not, perhaps he will be kind enough to write to me about that afterwards?
Secondly, on the financing of energy investment, which the Council rightly flags up as an important challenge, can I ask the Minister to update the House on the green investment bank? The Government committed themselves to build on our plans when we were in government. Can the Minister tell us whether the Government now plan it to be a fully fledged bank, as many have argued?
On the wider economy, I welcome the Council’s conclusions, but I note that the conclusions on the summit are that,
“the overall economic outlook is improving”.
I fear that for many families and young people in the United Kingdom, it really does not feel quite like that at the moment. Will the Minister tell the House whether the Prime Minister shared with the members of the Council the recent experience of the United Kingdom and whether he went so far as to warn his colleagues that cutting budget deficits too far and too fast can have damaging effects on growth and on employment? It is a serious point—it is the point of real difference between us in this House.
I turn to end with the case of Mr Megrahi. The Lockerbie bombing, as we all acknowledge, was a terrible atrocity. It destroyed hundreds of innocent lives and it scarred the lives of many families. When I was first a Minister, I remember so vividly meeting with the Lockerbie families and discussing with them what could be done to try to bring those responsible to justice. It was a humbling experience. Those families were not seeking revenge. They were seeking justice. Many of them had a breadth of vision over what they wanted to happen, which did them enormous credit and which I have always remembered.
The Cabinet Secretary, Sir Gus O’Donnell, has researched and written a serious and thorough report into the papers relating to Mr Megrahi’s release. There are three significant conclusions to Sir Gus’s report which pertain to Mr Megrahi’s case. First, the United Kingdom Government were worried about the impact on British interests of Mr Megrahi dying in jail, precisely as the former Foreign Secretary said in his Statement to the other place on 12 October 2009. Secondly, the report makes it clear that there is no evidence that,
“UK interests played a part in Mr Megrahi’s release by the Scottish Government on compassionate grounds”.
That is an enormously important point and one which I make no apology for stressing in making my reply to the Statement. Indeed, Sir Gus concludes that the former Government went to great efforts not to communicate to the Scottish Government their view. I think that that point might have been stressed a little more in the Prime Minister’s Statement. Thirdly, Mr Megrahi’s release on compassionate grounds was a decision that Scottish Ministers alone could and did make.
Those are the fundamental points, not perhaps the extraneous matters of which the Prime Minister spoke so eloquently in another place. That is because the message of today’s report is that Mr Megrahi’s release was not influenced by the then UK Government. It is a crucial point for us in this country, and I hope that when the Minister replies to the points I am making, he will acknowledge that as a central fact.
On the question of what Parliament was told, can the Minister confirm that the Cabinet Secretary concludes that,
“none of the materials that I have reviewed contradicts anything in the then Foreign Secretary’s Statement … or statements made by the former Prime Minister on this matter”?
The Statement talks about the broader issues, but I am bound to say that on this it misses the central point, the one that matters above everything else, and that is that the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 must live in the memory of this country and the United States as a dreadful atrocity. It was the duty of the Labour Government and now it is the duty of the coalition Government to take every step they can to ensure that this never happens again. That is the central point we should concentrate upon.
Lord Howell of Guildford
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness and I will try to answer as many of her questions as I can, given the obvious time constraints. What she has to say is highly relevant and I hope that I can cover her remarks in detail. First, I am grateful for her support for the broad approach both of Her Majesty’s Government and of what was agreed at the European Council—that an orderly transition is the right posture and that we insist on the right of the freedom to protest. We are concerned, as we would be in any political evolution in any society—this is a global age—about anything which restricts e-mail, blocks the media or undermines the position of journalists to go freely about their tasks in a way consistent with liberty and freedom. We are at one and there is nothing to debate in that because clearly it is the right way forward.
On the new talks, the noble Baroness will appreciate that things are moving all the time and that the process, chaired by Omar Suleiman and including the leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood, has only just begun. She asked whether they will lay the ground for progress. I hope so, and we think that this is the right way forward, but we are watching from outside and obviously these matters must be dominated and controlled by the people of Egypt themselves as they work out their new political destiny.
I would have to give the noble Baroness the same answer to her question about the position of President Mubarak. This is a matter for the people of Egypt to sort out in ways that we hope will be consistent with the core principles that she has enunciated and I have agreed with. However, it must be for the Egyptian people to decide. There is quite a broad point to be made about the danger in the west, and perhaps with our transatlantic allies as well, of assuming that western values and templates are going to shape the pattern of events in Egypt and elsewhere in the region. That is not necessarily so. Those ideas might have been relevant during the 20th century, but in the 21st century we are dealing with a new landscape where there is both a dispersal and a new distribution in the transfer of power and influence to other forces, not least the gigantic forces of the internet, the mobile telephone, mass television and instant communications enabling protests to be e-enabled and rapidly organised. This is a different scene and it seems that not every policy maker in the west has fully understood that.
She asked whether we can help with the creation of democratic structures. We do help through our programmes and those of our fellow EU members, both through the UN and directly. They assist with helping democratic patterns and attitudes to grow, but there is always a problem. Just as someone said that you cannot create a tree because it must grow, so you cannot create and build a democracy out of nothing. As the noble Baroness very acutely observed, it is about a lot more than elections, voting and ballot boxes, and it is indeed more than about concerns for human rights and the rule of law. It is about the idea of those who have power or authority using them with restraint. In the language of Edmund Burke, if I may quote him given my own party antecedents, I think he said that there is a policeman, or a policewoman I should say, in each one of us. If there is that inner restraint within individuals, there will be democracy. If that restraint is not there, democracy can become warped and produce quite the opposite result, as has certainly been the case many times in the tragic history of the 20th century.
The noble Baroness went on to ask about travel advice, so let me give her the latest information as I understand it from my brief. We are currently recommending that British nationals in Cairo, Alexandria and Suez leave by commercial means if it is safe to do so. We advise against non-essential travel to Luxor. We are keeping a close eye on the Sharm el-Sheikh situation, where the majority of British nationals are, and we continue to judge that the situation in the Red Sea resorts remains calm and peaceful. Further, as I was able to tell your Lordships the other day, we have very substantially reinforced our embassy team on the ground, and since 29 January we have helped more than 2,000 British nationals to leave Egypt. We also have a hotline for distressed nationals to call for advice and we have chartered two planes to provide additional capacity. That is the latest travel advice, and I would be happy to try to elaborate on it. However, it seems to be fairly straightforward at the moment.
I turn now to the other questions raised by the noble Baroness about Europe. She asked whether we support the need for energy infrastructure, and I can say that we most certainly do. It is fundamental that if there is going to be a competitive energy market in Europe, it must be possible for energy in the form of piped gas and interconnected electricity to move east, west, north and south in the continental European system, to part of which we are actually attached. That must be possible without regulations and controls at every border and it requires the pipeline and electricity cable infrastructure to do it. However, it is not yet in place, so we have seen the extraordinary pattern of gas shortages in one part of Europe while another part has ample supplies. It means that reliance on monopoly suppliers further east—namely, from our Russian friends—is unnecessarily great. None of that points to the kind of balance we need, so we say yes to the infrastructure.
As for the renewable energy commitments, I can give the noble Baroness some, but not all, of the information she asked for. The green investment bank allocation of £1 billion from departmental budgets and the significant asset sales are proceeding. We are pushing for the EU to demonstrate leadership in tackling international climate change, including by supporting an increase in the EU emissions reduction target from 20 per cent to 30 per cent by 2012. As we know, that has not yet been accepted by all European countries or industries, but we believe that that is the right way forward. I have a lot of other details in my brief that were covered by the Prime Minister and his colleagues at the European Council, which I shall gladly discuss with the noble Baroness at any time she wishes.
Her final remarks were on the eternal economic debate, and the pace at which one seeks to cut deficits. All I would say is that the overwhelming view of the rest of the European Council was that of support for the British strategy. The point was made again and again by a number of leading authorities throughout Europe that this is the right way forward, and the point was also made that it is the confidence of the international markets and the necessary confidence in our international credit which are the absolutely vital aims. Once those are weakened, the real job destroyer would click in. That must be the prime aim and any deviation from that would be quite disastrous, in terms of jobs and human suffering in this country and weakness in our economic recovery, as my right honourable friend the Chancellor has also made vividly clear on many occasions.
Finally, on the difficult issue of Mr Megrahi and the Cabinet Secretary’s report, the noble Baroness asked me to acknowledge certain points which I gladly do. I reiterate that the report makes absolutely clear that there was no conspiracy between BP, the British Government and Scottish Government, as some people allege. That is made absolutely clear. There is no contradiction in the report with anything said by the former Foreign Secretary or by the former Prime Minister. That is also clear.
Nevertheless, the comments remain, to which my right honourable friend the Prime Minister called attention in the other place, that the policy was being developed to,
“facilitate an appeal by the Libyans to the Scottish government for Mr Megrahi's transfer under the [prisoner transfer agreement] or for release on compassionate grounds”.
There was the paper from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office saying that,
“we now need to go further and work actively but discreetly to ensure that Megrahi is transferred back to Libya under the PTA or failing that released on compassionate grounds”.
My right honourable friend said that,
“this tells us something that was not made clear at the time”.
I think it is right for those who were involved to react and make clear their views as they wish. It seems that we now have to look back at what is for many people the most tragic and terrible situation with greatest sympathy but also look forward to better and wiser times in the hope that nothing so terrible, so appalling, will ever happen again. I hope that meets most of the noble Baroness’s questions.
Lord Hylton
My Lords, I apologise to the Minister for being a fraction late for his opening words. However, I read the whole of the Statement earlier today. I welcome the general thrust of the Statement as regards Egypt because it is a good deal firmer than anything we have previously had. I put to the noble Lord three brief questions.
First, what information have the Government received, if any, concerning the safety of Mr Wael Ghonim, a Google executive and also a leading protester? He is thought to have been arrested in Cairo. Are the Government making representations about extra-legal detentions, both of Egyptians and foreign journalists, together with allegations concerning disappearances of people in Egypt?
Secondly, would the Government favour a three-man presidential council, which would only include one military person, to supervise the transition? Finally, have the Government noted a possible serious conflict of interest over the United States’ special envoy and his business interests?
Lord Howell of Guildford
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord. I will answer the first point in general terms. Of course we are concerned about all extra-legal detentions and even more about reports, which existed long before this revolutionary situation began, of torture and other illegal practices. Of course, we make constant representations through our posts on that. As to the specific individual to whom he referred, I will write to him about the very latest information we have on that.
Secondly, on the three-man presidential council, that is taking us deep into the kind of arrangements that it is up to the Egyptians to develop for themselves. As a student of history, the talks of three-man presidential councils coming out of revolutions has a slight tinge of 19 Brumaire 1798 and the first three consuls—of which Napoleon Bonaparte was one. We all know where that went. I think it is much better for us not to advise the Egyptians on these matters.
I shall have to ask the noble Lord to repeat the third point as I did not quite get it down.
Lord Hylton
It concerns a possible serious conflict of interest arising from the business interests of the United States’ special envoy to President Mubarak.
Lord Howell of Guildford
I imagine the noble Lord is talking about Mr Frank Wisner. In the interests of diplomacy, I should be careful to avoid any specific notes except to say, as my right honourable friend the Prime Minister did in another place, that the special envoy’s views on the internal matters of Egypt and the position of the President seemed to deviate slightly from those of the American Secretary of State. I think I can say no more than that on that particular issue.
Lord Steel of Aikwood
My Lords, I am sure my noble friend will understand that the trauma and horror of the downing of the Pan Am flight was felt particularly strongly across the south of Scotland, where we all felt sympathy with the people in Lockerbie. For that reason, I will confine my questions to that issue.
He will recall, as he said a moment ago, that the previous Government told the public and the House of Commons that this was entirely a matter for the Scottish Government and that they were not putting pressure on them. That is true. Would he agree that Sir Gus O’Donnell has shown, as he quoted a moment ago, that policy was developed whereby the UK Government were doing everything short of telling the Scottish Government what they had to do to secure Mr Megrahi’s release and that we have to conclude that the Government were telling the truth but not the whole truth?
The other part, not mentioned in the prime ministerial Statement which the Minister repeated just now, is that Sir Gus O’Donnell’s report also tells us that the Scottish Government were raising other policy issues with the UK Government at the same time as dealing with that difficult and grubby issue. That had not come out before, either. Sir Gus’s report appears to cast some doubt on not the veracity—because lies were not told—but the straightforwardness of both the UK Government and Scottish Government at the time. In the words of the final sentence of a Scotsman leader this morning, “Something is being concealed”.
Lord Howell of Guildford
I do not want to move further than the words expressed by Sir Gus O’Donnell and the conclusions drawn by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister. My right honourable friend said that the report indicates that while there is—to repeat the words of my noble friend—no doubt at all about the veracity of the statements made by senior members of the previous Government, it is clear that there was more to tell and that some pieces of the total picture were lacking. That is where my right honourable friend and the Government stand on this matter. It must be for all those who were involved at the time to establish what they believed to be the position. Indeed, some of these remarks were made with force and feeling by the people who were directly concerned when the matter was discussed in the other place earlier this afternoon. I am not going to go further than that.
Lord Anderson of Swansea
My Lords, the Statement sets out a more hard-line approach in respect of assistance to Egypt. Was this co-ordinated in any way with the US? I am recalling that Condoleezza Rice said in Cairo in 2005 that the US would no longer give priority to stability over democracy. Is the implication that, had there not been a revolution in Egypt, we would still have continued to spend billions of taxpayers’ money in Egypt and neighbouring countries with no reciprocity in terms of progress on torture, the judiciary, democracy and so on? Secondly, it is of note that the Prime Minister spoke to Vice-President Suleiman. It is the Vice-President who is co-ordinating the discussions with a number of the opposition parties. Is there any implication that, as some are suggesting, the President himself is fading more into the background, leaving the lead to the Vice-President?
Lord Howell of Guildford
On the question of co-ordination with the United States, my honourable and right honourable friends, both in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and, obviously, in the Government as a whole, are in constant contact at all levels with United States officials. It would be naive, however, to stand at the Dispatch Box and pretend that these huge upheavals and events do not present to policy-makers and experts, no doubt in Washington and other capitals, something of a dilemma.
The pattern of the past produced a sort of stability, but it was the kind of stability that could be upset at every moment, as it was. The combustible materials were there; it was a question of when someone threw in a match. That is what happened in Cairo. That raises for the most balanced and clear-thinking people a dilemma as to whether the new pattern is going to improve on the old pattern or, indeed, where the new pattern will take us. We all know the adage about revolutions devouring their own children. They can turn into an opportunity to be seized for the good, as my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary was rightly saying the other morning, or they can slide away in an unpredictable series of sequences, like the French Revolution, to which I referred earlier.
It is hard to answer the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, about how we and the Americans can be totally accurate in our predictions and the certainty of where to go. It is very difficult. We are monitoring and watching the situation very carefully, as are the Americans. We are reinforcing our concern in this nation and the American concern in their nation for liberty and freedom and the basic principles of civilised existence. We are hoping that these patterns will be reflected in whatever emerges in Egypt and, indeed, in other turbulent political scenes in the region. There is no guarantee or certainty, however, and this must be realistically and reasonably understood.
As for the pattern of power deployment inside Egypt and whether Omar Suleiman is now taking the reins, I do not think that I can comment beyond what we have all read in the newspapers. Mr Mubarak clearly wants to stay a few more months. He has appointed Omar Suleiman to take the lead in these negotiations. It is right that our leaders should contact him to understand as much as we can of how he sees the situation. This must be a dialogue that will, I hope, develop further in the future as we see what path these discussions take and what part the Muslim Brotherhood leadership and other political forces in Egypt play in them. This is really, for us, a matter to hope about rather than a matter in any way to interfere with. This is for Egypt to decide.
Lord Ryder of Wensum
My Lords, I refer to the energy section of the Statement. I hesitate to ask my noble friend this question in light of the fact that we have shared views on energy policy over many decades. The Prime Minister’s Statement sets out that 5 million extra jobs will be created over the next nine years, by 2020, by virtue of this new energy policy. On what basis and by what calculation does the Prime Minister reach this figure, bearing in mind that even the communiqué issued by the European Council did not state how many extra jobs would be created? Can my noble friend also explain to me on what basis the Prime Minister has worked out that there will be a reduction in the pressure on household bills by virtue of the policy that he has set out this afternoon, bearing in mind that the European Council did not discuss the financial dimensions of this policy? Indeed, the European Council last weekend was not permitted to discuss the financial dimensions of this policy. Perhaps I can help him. There is a document, which was not tabled at the Council but is being circulated within the Commission, that shows that the cost of this policy over the next years is €1 trillion. I ask my noble friend: who is to pay the €1 trillion for the energy policy that the Prime Minister has set out today claiming that 5 million extra jobs will be created and that household bills for energy will go down?
Lord Howell of Guildford
I am grateful to my noble friend for a series of near-impossible questions. These estimates are inevitably estimates. They are based on what one hopes is an unfolding sequence of policy, which leads first—and one must recognise this—to the incentives for fossil-fuel energies to be replaced by more efficient use of those same energies so that eventually higher bills become lower bills, and, secondly, to the replacement of fossil fuels in a number of areas by non-fossil alternatives and renewables. At this moment, my noble friend says, “Ah, but that means all renewables are far more expensive than fossils fuels”. At this moment, pound for pound and kilowatt hour for kilowatt hour, he may be right, but how is this going to evolve in future? The world is concerned about the high-carbon situation now and its effect on climate. The world is aiming for a low-carbon, greener world, and this Government are determined to move along that path to greener, cleaner energy and greater energy efficiency. That will lead in due course not to higher bills but to lower bills. I emphasise “in due course” because in the mean time, as he probably knows from receiving his monthly or quarterly energy bills, all our energy bills are looking a bit more expensive. We have to look through the present situation to a longer term where we can see new products and new patterns developing to support a low-carbon, secure, affordable energy pattern that would benefit not merely Europe and our own country but also the developing world, which, of course, has an enormous thirst for abundant but cheap and affordable energy.
Lord Kilclooney
My Lords, because of the shortage of time, I shall ask two brief questions. One relates to corporation tax. It is widely reported in both the United Kingdom press and the southern Irish press today that both President Sarkozy and Chancellor Merkel have recommended a standard rate of corporation tax. Was that proposal to apply to eurozone countries only or to all member nations of the European Union? Was the principle of a common corporation tax agreed or opposed by the United Kingdom?
My second question relates to Egypt. If you watch Al-Jazeera television or Press TV, you will see increasingly that the European Union and the United States are coming out of this problem very badly indeed. For example, when you see that the United States provided tear gas canisters to the Egyptian police to fire on the demonstrators, that is very bad publicity. In fact, the United States seems to be in total disarray about what to do about Egypt, and the European Union is not very clear either, even in the Statement repeated this afternoon. We now know that both Germany and France have stopped all further sale of firearms to Egypt. Has the United Kingdom stopped the sale of firearms and, if not, why not?
Lord Howell of Guildford
I believe that we are no longer selling firearms or weapons of any kind to Egypt, but I would certainly have to double and treble check that in every aspect, because—who knows?—there may be some channels where that is not absolutely secure.
On the second part of the noble Lord’s question, I think that his words are a shade impetuous, if I may say so. We are watching a very rapidly changing pattern—a wind of change, as some have said, blowing through the whole of this area. None of us knows what will happen. Anyone who claimed that they knew exactly what would happen next or what pattern would be involved inside Egypt, Tunis and other areas, including Yemen, would be putting forward a false prospectus and making claims about which they could not be certain. There are doubts and debates in Washington policy circles; we can see that—it is perfectly obvious, as I have said to the noble Lord, Lord Anderson. In the European Union countries there are the same concerns. We want to see a balanced democratic pattern emerge in these countries; we want to see prosperity, stability and an orderly transition. Who can lay down exactly what the path should be—which leaders should stay in authority, which should hold or surrender power or how it should be done? We pray and hope that it is done with minimum bloodshed and maximum concern for individual freedom and democracy and all the things that we value.
In the noble Lord’s first question, I think that he is referring to the much commented-on Franco-German competitiveness pact, which does not seem to be very widely supported by other EU members. Certainly, the idea of a single pattern of corporation tax or some of the other suggestions, such as harmonisation of detailed aspects of labour markets and wages, did not go down at all well at the European Council meeting.
Lord Bew
I thank the Minister for reading out the Statement. On the Libyan aspect of the Statement, I declare an interest as having been a member of the parliamentary delegation for Libyan and Northern Ireland reconciliation, led by the noble Lord, Lord Brennan, who is in his place. One thing that emerges very clearly from the Cabinet Office report today is that the Libyan Ministers to whom we spoke knew more about recent UK policy on this matter than those of us who were on that delegation. As long as the noble Lord is a Minister in the Foreign Office, will he ensure that those who go as part of future parliamentary delegations to Libya know the full background of recent UK policy to the country that we are dealing with? Otherwise, one is at a disadvantage.
One interesting thing raised by the Cabinet Secretary at the beginning of the document is the issue about anticipating American reaction. This is quite a remarkable thing; after all, it was not hard to calculate that the United States’ reaction to the release of Mr Megrahi would be hostile. There is an argument, as the Prime Minister explicitly stated, that the last Government got it wrong, but at the heart of the report we read that our embassy in Washington said that there would be a hostile US reaction. In the same part of the report, there is also a suggestion that perhaps the State Department was not making its position fully clear. Can the Minister throw some light on an absolutely remarkable piece of British history—a failure to calculate something that was so predictable, which was the United States’ reaction to this release? The evidence in the report seems conflicted to some degree. It is such a striking thing that I wonder whether the Minister has any comment on it.
Lord Howell of Guildford
To be brief, because time is out, of course I will ensure that my colleagues in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office make every effort, as they always do, to provide the best possible up-to-date briefing. Sometimes matters are moving so fast that it is hard to be absolutely up to date and sometimes when one is on a delegation in another country—and I have led many in the past, as chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee in another place—one finds the local view and perspective seemingly different, even with a conflict of facts. We will do our best.
As to the US reaction to the release of Mr Megrahi, I think that it was generally realised that this would be greeted with great concern by the United States; everyone was fully aware of that. Many people thought, probably not just as a result of that, but for other reasons, too, that it was wrong to release Megrahi—those many included my right honourable friend the Prime Minister—but we have our own views in this country. I am not saying that in this case the decision was right—I think that it was wrong—but we are entitled to develop our own world perspective and our own views on how the new landscape is changing, as well as to remain very close to our allies and friends in Washington while being in a relationship that, to quote my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary, is “solid but not slavish”.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
(13 years, 9 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
My Lords, Amendments 8 and 9 are in my name and the name of my noble friend Lord Bach. Clause 5 refers to exceptions to the spending rules in the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 for the proposed referendum on the voting system for the House of Commons. Amendment 8, the first in this group, seeks to emphasise that the broadcasts that are exempted are referendum campaign broadcasts. We contest that referendum-related materials and party election materials must be differentiated. Our second amendment, Amendment 9, picks up the same point. If political parties are allowed to use their election broadcasts to argue the merits of the referendum, that could lead to claims that the argument has been weighted more on one side than the other. Once you can use an election broadcast to promote views on one side or other of the AV or non-AV debate, the playing field is no longer equal. Party election broadcasts, which are an opportunity for all parties, should be about the elections for individual office holders, not the referendum.
The Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 and the Bill seek to create a level playing field where expenditure should not be the determinant of who wins. If that can be got around, because of the combination aspect, it leaves the possibility of the expenditure being distorted. Everyone agrees that the referendum result should be determined on its merits, not on who can spend the most money. The changes that are recommended by our amendments are important. It should be in the interest of all parties and none that clarity over the administration of press coverage and expenses during the election period is maximised.
My noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours, who I am happy to see in his place, said, when this issue was debated in Committee that,
“it is vital that we have a level playing field wherever possible during the referendum campaign”.—[Official Report, 15/12/10; col. 617.]
I trust that your Lordships’ House would agree.
In Committee, the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord McNally, saw the importance of the issue. He said:
“We recognise that there is an issue to be discussed”.
I can inform the House that there have been no such discussions. We have not been approached by the Minister or by his officials, and I have seen no draft amendment. The noble Lord, Lord McNally, continued:
“There would have to be discussions without preconditions on either side. If the noble and learned Lord wishes to press the amendment, I shall resist—and that would be a mistake for both of us”.—[Official Report, 15/12/10; col. 621-22.]
I agree.
We withdrew our amendment in Committee, relying on the good faith of the Minister, but there has been nothing since then. I read the noble Lord, Lord McNally, whom I admire and like and am happy to see back, as being someone who would do something about this, so I would be keen to hear from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness—I assume that he will be responding to this, only because there is no other Minister on the Bench apart from him—what has happened about this.
The position in Committee was that the Government were acknowledging that there was an issue—namely, that a political party could use its party political broadcast to promote one side or the other in the referendum campaign, thereby getting around the expenditure limits, which we all agreed to be equal for everyone. That is why I withdrew my amendment, but we have heard nothing. Perhaps the Minister could enlighten us about what happened.
Lord Soley
I support my noble friend on Amendments 8 and 9; they are important. I do not want to spend time on this, but I re-emphasise what has been said; on several occasions we have been promised changes and concessions that have been needed throughout the Bill, but we have had nothing. This does not reflect well on the Government; it reflects very badly, and it is a large part of the reason why we have problems on this.
I shall address the issues in the amendment. There is no doubt in my mind that it is important to keep the funding and the financing separate between elections. My noble and learned friend has made that point. The issue is also covered by the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 in that—and I understand that the Electoral Commission has this view—the Act makes it clear that there should always be a distinction between the various elections in the funding available for them. Along with the Electoral Commission, we make the point—I certainly want to emphasise it—that we should continue to make sure that there is a separation in the funding of elections. A referendum should not be muddled up in a party election broadcast that is actually talking about the election of people as opposed to the outcome of a referendum.
The other thing that the Electoral Commission drew attention to—and this was the first time that I had had a chance to think about it—is that Section 127 of the 2000 Act to which we are all referring currently prevents broadcasters from transmitting,
“any broadcast whose purpose (or main purpose) is or may reasonably be assumed to be”,
to further a referendum campaign. That is what we want to avoid, and my anxiety—this is the point that the Minister has to answer—is whether that wording in the Act would cover all aspects of an inclusion of statements about the referendum in any party political broadcast. It would clearly exclude a party political broadcast that focused particularly strongly on the referendum. It would stop a party putting out an election broadcast that focused maybe 50 per cent of the time on the referendum. I am not sure, however, that that section of the 2000 Act would prevent a reference to the referendum in a way that might encourage people to vote one way or the other. For example, the party political broadcast could be almost entirely on that party’s general policies but could end with a statement at the end that, for example, “We also believe that by voting this way or that on the referendum, you will assist our policies”, or, “You will assist this change”. In other words, it is not clear to me that one sentence in that broadcast would be excluded under the 2000 Act. We need some clarity on that.
The Advocate-General for Scotland (Lord Wallace of Tankerness)
My Lords, these are important amendments. I immediately take the point made by the noble and learned Lord on the follow-up to Committee. I regret any discourtesy that has been felt by the noble and learned Lord. While he was making his comments, I had the draft of a letter to him; I have now had it confirmed by the Leader of the House that it has been issued. It is dated with today’s date, so he might not have received it yet, but it is a fairly comprehensive letter that runs to almost three pages. I will not read it out or put it on the record. I apologise if the noble and learned Lord has not yet received it.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
What on earth is the point of sending me a letter, which I have not had a chance to consider, that arrives after Report has started?
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
I can only confirm the factual position. I fully take the point that the noble and learned Lord has not yet had an opportunity to consider the letter. I have no idea when it was put into the system. I saw a draft earlier but was not in a position until now to confirm that it had been issued. As I indicated, I apologise for any discourtesy to the noble and learned Lord.
I turn to the two amendments. On the first one, as we explained in Committee, the Government introduced the clause to which the amendments relate in the other place after the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee identified an ambiguity in the current legislation—the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000—over whether publication of material about the referendum by a media organisation in favour of a specific result would be caught by the spending restrictions that apply to the campaigning groups. Clause 5 provides that the costs of covering and reporting on the referendum in the media are not referendum expenses. In the interests of the freedom of the press, it would be wrong for the spending restrictions to apply in this way. I think that is common ground across the House.
The amendment moved by the noble and learned Lord seeks to add “referendum campaign” before “broadcasts” to line 7 of page 4. This would go against Schedule 13 to the PPER Act 2000, which sets out that,
“agency fees, design costs and other costs in connection with preparing or producing”,
referendum campaign broadcasts are to be included as referendum expenses. I am not sure whether it was the noble and learned Lord’s intention to exempt such expenses from counting, but the Government do not agree that this should be the case. Designated lead campaign organisations are entitled to free referendum campaign broadcasts in terms of airtime, but the expenses incurred in respect of the production of these referendum campaign broadcasts do and should count towards referendum expenses. Therefore, it would not be right to accept this amendment, which would exempt these production expenses from counting.
Another reason why we do not agree with the first amendment is that it would bring back the ambiguity that we sought to remove through Clause 5 by limiting the provision to referendum broadcasts only. It would not therefore cover other types of broadcast, as it was designed to when we added it to the Bill. The result would be to reactivate the question of whether any broadcast other than referendum campaign broadcasts would be caught by the spending restrictions as they are currently drawn. It would then be ambiguous as to what would and would not count as referendum expenses in other types of BBC or Sianel Pedwar Cymru broadcasts—such as news programmes and politics programmes—other than those for the referendum campaign. We all agree that the media play a vital role in building public awareness and presenting facts and opinions on the matters raised by the poll. This amendment could prevent media comment if the spending limit for referendum expenses was reached. This would not be right. That was also the view of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee in the other place. We believe that accepting this amendment would go against the Committee.
We agreed in Committee to consider carefully the second amendment. I can assure the House that the Government have done so. I regret the lateness of the letter, but the position is set out in it. The Government agree with the principle that party election broadcasts should not be used as referendum campaign broadcasts. As was highlighted in Committee, there is a clear definition of what constitutes a referendum campaign broadcast under Section 127 of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act—to which the noble Lord, Lord Soley, drew our attention. Any broadcast whose purpose or main purpose is to procure or promote an outcome in the referendum is a referendum campaign broadcast. Referendum campaign broadcasts can be made only by the designated lead campaign organisations. The current law therefore already provides that the purposes—or main purpose—of party election broadcasts must not be to promote or procure a referendum outcome. Therefore, we can be assured that party election broadcasts cannot be used by political parties as a significant referendum campaign opportunity. In a moment, I will come to the crucial point that the noble Lord, Lord Soley, raised.
Section 127 of the PPER Act provides a safeguard against a political party using a party election broadcast as a referendum campaign broadcast. However, it also provides appropriate leeway for broadcasters to make a judgment call as to whether material that a party might want to broadcast strays beyond mentioning the referendum in passing in an election broadcast and into the realms of what would become a referendum campaign broadcast.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
Is the noble and learned Lord saying that, if one of the purposes of a political party’s broadcast—though not its main purpose—was to encourage people to vote in a particular way in the referendum, it would infringe Section 127 of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act?
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
What I said was that, as I understand it, under Section 127, any broadcast whose purpose or main purpose—there is obviously a difference; a purpose is not necessarily a main purpose—is to promote a particular outcome would fall foul of Section 127.
The point I was trying to develop is that there is a judgment call to be made as to whether we recognise and accept that material that a party might want to broadcast that strays beyond mentioning the referendum in passing in election broadcast and goes into the realms of what then becomes, in terms of the Act, a referendum campaign broadcast. In one view, a statement that briefly refers to the referendum—the fact that it is taking place and sets out whether the party supports a particular outcome—is merely an expression of the party’s policy. Such a statement may be necessary to explain the policy platform of the party’s election campaign and may not qualify as referendum campaigning in a wider sense. If that is right, this sort of content may have a legitimate and logical place in a party election broadcast. Going further than that—for example, by setting out the arguments in support of its favoured outcome—may cross the line and move towards it being a broadcast that is subject to the limitations in Section 127. Obviously the Government are not the ultimate arbiter here and the views of the broadcasters are critical. However, this amendment would remove any ability for the broadcasters to take a flexible approach to these sorts of issues.
Having spoken with the broadcasters, the Government think that this sort of flexibility can be sensibly administered without causing undue harm to the referendum or election campaigns. Indeed, not providing that sort of flexibility might cause undue harm to effective and fair campaigning. There will be party election broadcasts for the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly, the Northern Ireland Assembly and local elections on 5 May.
We have discussed the technicalities of the noble and learned Lord’s amendment and how these party election broadcasts would be regulated in practice during a referendum period with colleagues from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, representatives from the BBC and the Broadcasters’ Liaison Group, Ofcom and the Electoral Commission. It is clear that in matters of political broadcasting, particularly political advertising, broadcasters are frequently required to make a judgment about what constitutes correct practical interpretation of the legal requirements. The need for broadcasters to make a judgment in interpreting Section 127 of PPERA would not be unusual in this context.
I readily accept that on one view the amendment could be seen as helpful for broadcasters as it draws a black and white line in legislation as to what material can and cannot be included. The Government are concerned, however, that this approach would go against a well established system that is already in place for dealing with matters of party political coverage and would unnecessarily limit the ability of a party to show how its position on the referendum forms part of the wider policy platform on which it wishes to campaign in the elections on 5 May.
Lord Soley
I was trying not to intervene but I have to do so in view of what the Minister has just said. The type of statement that would worry me is if the party political broadcast was majoring on, for example, giving more power to the people—which might be about a range of things, local authorities or whatever— and it said, “If you vote this way or that way on the referendum, that will increase your power”. I suppose that we need to go back to the broadcasters on this, but I do not think that that ought to be allowed. The Minister makes a fair point; we want to allow the broadcasters flexibility but they need to be aware that a statement like that would be seen as giving significant support to the referendum one way or the other.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
I am grateful to the noble Lord for the way in which he presents a very tricky and complex issue. I think I indicated that one of the difficulties was the possibility of limiting the ability of a party to show how its position on the referendum formed part of a wider policy platform. The point I have been trying to make is that broadcasters have experience in this matter. It is probably invidious for Governments to decide what goes too far and what is on the right side of the line. There is also a question of whether legislating to such specificity on the content of party election broadcasts could risk limiting a political party’s freedom of expression. I do not think that anyone here would wish that to happen.
Lord Tyler
I have had experience of this matter. Is not the reality that anyone preparing a broadcast will always err on the side of caution as it would be a very expensive scenario if broadcasters were told, “We think you are infringing the requirements of the 2000 Act”, and they therefore had to amend dramatically, or even withdraw, the intended broadcast? Therefore, I should have thought that the present flexibility is much safer than the provision which the noble and learned Lord is trying to include in the Bill.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
My noble friend makes a fair point. The last thing any political party wants is to find that, after having spent money, the broadcast has to be pulled. I shall discuss in a moment approaches that have been made to the political parties by the chair of the Broadcasters’ Liaison Group. I suggest that the appropriate place for further rules on the content of party election broadcasts would be under the framework established by the Communications Act 2003, where existing regulation of political broadcasts lies. The chair of the Broadcasters’ Liaison Group wrote to the political parties in November 2010, highlighting the existing provisions and opening lines of communication on the subject. It might be useful to read the content of the letter into the record. It states:
“If you are considering including any references to the referendum in your PEB, then we draw your attention to Section 127 of the PPERA. This section prevents broadcasters from transmitting any broadcast where it’s purpose, or main purpose, is, or can be assumed to be, to further a referendum campaign for a particular outcome other than by the designated RBCs. Therefore if you intend to include any references to the referendum in your PEB, I’d be grateful if you could contact me well in advance so that the BBC is able to make a judgment about whether the proposed PEB may put it in breach of the statutory provision”.
It is the Government’s view that this established mechanism of communication between the broadcasters and the political parties will effectively manage the situation and answer queries from the political parties as to what they can and cannot include in their broadcasts. The broadcasters’ guidance is the most appropriate place to deal with this matter, as for other aspects of political coverage.
These are important amendments. I again apologise that the noble and learned Lord saw the letter at a late stage, but I hope that, given what I have said, he will recognise that a lot of consideration has been given to this, including engagement with the broadcasters, the DCMS and others. I hope that the House will agree with the Government’s conclusion that, after careful consideration with relevant stakeholders, the current provisions, along with the broadcasters’ guidance, are the right way to deal with party election broadcasts during a referendum period, rather than amendments to the Bill. Against that background, I ask the noble and learned Lord to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord McNally, is here and has recovered. He will remember what I said in Committee. I completely trust him, and I am more than happy to accept his assurances and to discuss the matter in the spirit in which he made the offer. I am absolutely sure that the two of us can reach a solution that is acceptable to both of us.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, and the noble Lord, Lord McNally, will also remember that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, intervened in the same debate and said:
“I think that I am right in saying that at the moment a party-political broadcast in connection with a referendum is allowed, so long as that is not the principal or main purpose, or some such phrase, of the broadcast. It may be that what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, and others have identified is a question of whether or not that general provision is wise or whether it should be modified. The question may go somewhat further than just this referendum and that issue needs to be looked at”.—[Official Report, 15/12/10; col. 622.]
That was the issue to which my comments and the comments of the noble Lord, Lord McNally, referred.
I completely exonerate the noble Lord, Lord McNally, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, of any fault on their part, but the consequence of what happened is that I have today been handed a letter, which I am reading while the noble and learned Lord gives what appears to be a wholly unsatisfactory answer. He appears to be saying that in order not to lose flexibility, it is important that political parties should be able to make a casual reference to the referendum in their party political broadcasts. He rejects my Amendment 9, which would mean that there would be certainty about the position and a level playing field. What would that protect? As I understand it, it would protect a political party’s right to mention the referendum. Superficially and on the face of it, that would seem to be utter nonsense and something which, if I had had an opportunity to talk to someone of the stature of the noble Lord, Lord McNally, or the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, before they gave voice to the note I have here, would perhaps have been modified. That was the impression left by the assurance I was given by the noble Lord, Lord McNally.
I am disappointed at the lateness of the letter from the Leader of the House. I make it clear that I am not remotely blaming the noble Lord, Lord McNally, and the noble and learned Lord, because they are under different sorts of pressure, but it is an unfortunate process, which means that assurances are being given which, because of the speed with which we are operating, are not being delivered on. Although it is unusual to do so, I will bring this matter back at Third Reading. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Rooker
Lord Rooker
I wish to move the amendment formally because it was connected to the earlier Amendment A1. I beg to move.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
My Lords, while I note that the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, has moved the amendment formally, we discussed it in context earlier and it is important to recognise that it goes much further—
The Deputy Speaker (Lord Skelmersdale)
My Lords, either an amendment is moved or it is not. If it is not moved, the phrase is “not moved”. If words have been spoken—as they have been by the noble Lord, Lord Rooker—the amendment has been moved. That is why I called it.
Lord Rooker
In that case, I will move it, but obviously I will not press it. I fully accept that this must be brought into order, which cannot be done by inserting “may” in place of “must”. That is what the noble and learned Lord said. The evidence of that related to another issue, which was to do with the date. This may need a couple of hundred words from parliamentary counsel. I fully accept that while the two amendments are linked—I was questioned about this at the time; they should have been linked—this is not the solution. It does not solve the problem for the Government or parliamentary counsel. At some point, this has to be tidied up. I fully accept that Amendment 10B will not do this.
The Deputy Speaker
Amendment re-moved:
“Page 6, line 19, leave out ‘must’ and insert ‘may’”.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
The amendment is re-moved but not removed—yet. I fully accept the spirit in which the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, re-moved it. As he recognises, this is not entirely consequential. We could get a turnout of 80 per cent and yet, with this change, we would still create a power rather than an obligation. I do not need to elaborate, as the point has been made. The Government cannot accept the amendment. In the spirit in which the noble Lord re-moved it, I ask him to withdraw it.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
My understanding when I was a Minister was that, when an amendment was carried, the Government would bring forward amendments to tidy up the Bill to reflect the position in relation to the plain intent of the amendment—in this case, Amendment A1. We always did this and we expect the Government to make the rest of the Bill reflect the effect of the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Rooker.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
My Lords, perhaps I may assist the House from my memory of our long period in opposition, when the noble and learned Lord was a Minister. There were two occasions on which the Government might have taken action. One was when it was agreed in advance that an amendment was consequential on an amendment that was carried. I believe that that is not the matter to which the noble and learned Lord referred. He may be referring to the second occasion, which was that, when an amendment was carried, the sense of the rest of the Bill had then to be tidied up in order to reflect the spirit of the decision taken by the House.
Perhaps the noble and learned Lord would confirm that it is the second of those occasions to which he refers, because there was no agreement that this amendment was consequential on the first when the Division took place earlier today. That is not to say that the Government refuse to look at the implications of the Division’s result. However, the noble and learned Lord will be aware that there was no undertaking to consider this amendment as consequential on the first and he will of course appreciate that there is a difference between the two positions.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
My Lords, I am entirely unclear what the difference is. Amendment A1 states:
“If less than 40% of the electorate vote in the referendum, the result shall not be binding”.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, says that if one puts in “may”, one makes it unbinding even if the turnout is more than 40 per cent. Is that consequential or is it tidying up? I have no idea. I would like to know what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, is promising to do. With respect to the Chief Whip, I found the distinction meaningless, unhelpful and ill informed.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
It is customary, when a noble Lord accuses another Member of the House of being ignorant, to give them the opportunity to reply.
The Deputy Speaker
My Lords, it might be helpful to the House if I remind noble Lords that we are on Report.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
I apologise. I was keen to find out the position of the Government in relation to this. What the Chief Whip said was unhelpful. It is important for the Government to state their position.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
My Lords, the vote took place only a few hours ago and the Government are still to consider how they will respond to it. In answer to the noble and learned Lord’s question, this is neither a consequential amendment, as the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, and I have indicated, nor is it a tidying-up one, because it does not tidy up. It goes much further than that. Indeed, it breaks the linkage, because it would make the power permissive rather than a duty. As I indicated, that could therefore mean that the power was there in any circumstance. Even if there was an 80 per cent turnout at the referendum with a 75 per cent vote in favour, the effect would not be to oblige the order to be brought forward to implement a yes vote. That was not what the House voted for and therefore I cannot accept the noble Lord’s amendment, which I think he fully understands.
Lord Rooker
I do. I do not want to fall out with my noble and learned friend but I accept the distinction that the Chief Whip gave in respect of this amendment. The position is the same as with Amendments A2 and 7B, where one is consequential on a change in the date. This looks simple and it is simple. The point is that the House knew what the situation was with the date change, just as it does with Amendment A1. In the morning after they have slept on it, the Government may take a view and say, “We’re going down the other place. We’re going to get this kicked out anyway”. That is a tough call when the support of the Cross Benches is taken into account. However, some rewriting of other parts of the Bill is required—it is not just a question of “may” or “must”—and I fully accept that. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Davies of Stamford
“( ) over one third of those eligible to vote in the referendum have voted in favour of the answer “Yes”, and”
Lord Davies of Stamford
My Lords, this amendment has been very happily and felicitously overtaken by the House’s decision to adopt Amendment A1 in the name of my noble friend Lord Rooker. I think that it is possible to produce substantive arguments in favour of a threshold before a referendum comes into effect and it is possible to produce another set of arguments in favour of a threshold before a referendum becomes mandatory. However, I suspect that the whole House will be unanimous on this. It would not make any sense whatever to have two thresholds in relation to a referendum. Therefore, I have no intention whatever of asking the House to vote on this or of taking the matter further. I just want to make one comment.
Whatever the substantive arguments for the two types of threshold that I have just outlined, my noble friend Lord Rooker seems to have won the argument in favour of his approach and his amendment. The House of Commons has not yet pronounced on that. It has considered the approach, although not the actual figures, that I suggest for a threshold and it has rejected it. It is right that this House should be very conscious of the views of the elected House on a matter such as this. My noble friend Lord Rooker has come forward with a totally original idea. It was not considered in the other place or by anyone in this place before he ingeniously came forward with it. Therefore, it is with great pleasure that I say that my own amendment ought, in my view, to be eclipsed, overtaken and indeed buried by Amendment A1, and I have no intention of taking it any further.
The Deputy Speaker
No, my Lords. That is not on. Amendment proposed: in page 6, line 21, leave out paragraph (a) and insert the words printed in the Marshalled List.
Lord Grocott
My Lords, this amendment is one of a group. Now that the amendment has been moved, I assume that we can speak to the amendments in the group, of which two stand in my name. I have no intention of saying anything about Amendment 12A, which would require a 50 per cent turnout in order for the referendum to be carried. Technically, I could probably push it a little further but I accept that my noble friend’s amendment is an improvement on that and that it is probably more acceptable to the House, so I do not intend to say any more on that amendment.
However, I do intend to say a couple of words about Amendment 12B, which is not as printed on the Marshalled List. The gremlins got into that somehow. The way in which it is written in the Marshalled List makes no sense whatever. It basically states that the referendum will not be carried if 25 per cent of those who have voted in the referendum have voted yes. Obviously, by definition, if only 25 per cent of the people who have voted in the referendum have voted yes, the referendum would not be carried. The amendment as it stands is nonsensical, which is why there is a manuscript amendment that contains what I intended to say—that the referendum would not be carried unless one in four of the electorate voted yes.
I try to take a common-sense approach to legislation in a debate about a major change to our constitution. We have already decided that the electorate are not the real electorate but the people who are on the electoral roll; they do not include the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, who are not on the electoral roll. However, leaving that aside, I simply suggest that 25 per cent—one in four—of the total electorate should vote yes in order for the change in our constitution to take place.
I have done this at the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, in Committee. He is looking startled and I am not surprised. He put forward an objection to my amendment that required a 50 per cent threshold on turnout. He asked what would happen, given the 50 per cent threshold, if 49 per cent voted yes in the referendum and no one or less than 1 per cent voted no. He is looking puzzled. The point that he made is that, in those circumstances, according to my amendment, the referendum would not be carried. I hope that I am carrying the House with me at this stage. I am not even carrying the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, with me, which is particularly worrying.
I shall try again. His objection was to my 50 per cent turnout threshold—in other words, the referendum would be dead if half the electorate did not vote. He asked what would happen if 49 per cent of the electorate —which was wildly optimistic from his perspective—voted yes and no one, or one or two, voted no. He said that in those circumstances my amendment would be grossly unfair to the yes campaign because, despite getting 49 per cent of the electorate’s vote, it would not carry. That was his point. Has the penny dropped?
Lord Tyler
The penny dropped a long time ago—many hours ago. The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, is wrong about the arithmetic. I was talking about the circumstances in which 45 per cent voted yes and 4 per cent voted no, so there would be no qualification. However, if 44 per cent voted yes and 6 per cent voted no, then it would carry.
Once you get into this game, the noble Lord’s colleague in the other place, Mr Christopher Bryant, was absolutely right to say:
“I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman about thresholds in referendums because, broadly, they are not a good idea”.—[Official Report, Commons, 2/11/10; col. 846.]
In fact, with one exception—the Scottish case—thresholds in referendums are a new development in our constitution and I honestly think that we should give them very careful consideration. Mr Bryant was right: this is just as much a change to our constitution as the big changes that we keep being told that this referendum is introducing.
Lord Grocott
I am quite hurt. I have brought forward an amendment that precisely meets the noble Lord’s objection, which was—I repeat—that a huge number of people could vote for the yes campaign and it would still not carry if it was less than 50 per cent of the total turnout. So—having established that point, I hope—I have therefore brought forward this amendment which meets his objection. It states that it would require 25 per cent of the electorate for the yes vote to carry, which obviously completely removes the problem he identified in relation to my 50 per cent turnout threshold.
After my long preamble, far longer than I had intended, perhaps I may point out that all the amendment suggests is a change in our electoral system—which the Liberal Democrats, throughout my adult life and probably before then, have been saying is what the electorate is desperate for. I say simply that it would be a good idea if you could get one in four of the electorate to vote in favour because that would validate the referendum. Apparently, they are resisting that commonsense proposal as well.
We are in a silly position, unless someone wants to intervene from the Liberal Democrat Benches. I cannot believe that even Liberal Democrats would argue that if only three people voted in the referendum—two in favour and one against—that would be a valid basis on which we could change our country's constitution. If any of them thinks that that would be fair, right and sensible, will they please intervene? I am not filibustering; I want to get this over with as much as anyone else does. If they cannot tell me, the only difference between us is the level at which the threshold should be. In the absence of any intervention, I must assume that they are in what is, frankly, a silly position.
That would not matter to me too much, were it not for the fact that this referendum will not necessarily be the last one of this Parliament, because I have to take Nick Clegg at his word, confusing as that seems at times. He has described this as just part of the greatest reform package since 1832—greater than women's suffrage, universal adult suffrage, or anything of that sort. We have two more Bills coming down the line: one to establish fixed-term Parliaments and the other to abolish the House of Lords in its present form and replace it with a fully elected House.
It seems that, under the Bill, if three people in the United Kingdom vote in the referendum—two in favour and one against—we change the constitution. I ask those noble Lords who say that this is not as important a constitutional issue as abolishing the House of Lords in its present form the following question. Would any of them be happy with a referendum, should it come—and my word it ought to; it would surely be indefensible to have a referendum on a change in the voting system but not on one which effectively abolishes one of the two Houses of Parliament—on a two, one vote in the country? Or do they think, as I and other noble Lords do, that there should be a rather more convincing demonstration of the public will on abolishing one of the two Houses of Parliament? The danger of the present situation is that we have no threshold, which means that the precedent will have been set that future referenda on changing the constitution, however big that change may be, could be done on a very small turnout and a very small yes vote.
It is late, I do not intend to press this to a Division, but I am intrigued to discover that there is no one, apart from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Tankerness, who is highly skilful and whom I assume will respond to the amendment, can explain that. I assume that the noble and learned Lord has a graphic explanation as to why he would be comfortable with a very low turnout and a very low yes vote changing our country's constitution.
Lord Lipsey
I understand why those on the Lib Dem Benches do not rise to their feet to dispute the amendments. But, as one who, on the AV referendum, agrees with them, I shall do and speak for a minute or two. I think that thresholds are a bad idea in referendums. I supported the amendment proposed earlier by the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, because it seems to me that, generally, a pre-legislative vote is a good thing, but I do not support a threshold.
If there is a vote on this, if the threshold proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Davies, is to be reached, it will require 264 Peers to vote in the Content Lobby for it to be carried. If that of the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, is to be reached, we will need a total turnout of 316 Peers. And if that of the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, is to be reached—50 per cent, and 25 per cent yes— we need 395 peers to vote with 198 saying yes. I do not see why we should have a different test for the legitimacy of the vote in the country than we have for the legitimacy of the vote in our own House. Thresholds are arbitrary, they introduce bias, they distort debate and they have absurd consequences. I deal very briefly with each of these. As regards them being arbitrary, look at the range of numbers before us. They could be nice round numbers. As Sir Patrick Nairne, chairman of the independent Commission on the Conduct of Referendums, said, the main difficulty in specifying a threshold lies in determining what figure is sufficient to confer legitimacy. There is no answer to that. On the bias aspect, one side has to achieve only one thing—
Lord Davies of Stamford
I find that my amendment inadvertently has provoked a rather interesting discussion on this matter. I am listening to my noble friend with great attention. Of course, there is no scientific way of determining what the particular figure might be, but is my noble friend arguing that even if a major constitutional amendment is, say, passed by 6 per cent voting in favour, out of 10 per cent who vote altogether, that that would be an adequate degree of legitimacy justifying constitutional change?
Lord Lipsey
It is a good point that my noble friend makes. The answer to it is that that is why I want a pre-legislative referendum, so that the judgment can be made in the light of all the facts after the referendum and not be made in advance in what is necessarily an arbitrary way.
On bias, one side has to achieve only one thing: it has to prevent a majority voting against the change it opposes. However, the yes campaign has to do two things: it has to win more votes and to do better it has to make sure that the turnout is up. This also raises questions about legitimacy of the result. Would the side against which this bias exists really regard a result achieved in this biased way as legitimate? In my view, it would not, although it might rely on a verdict of Parliament after a referendum as a legitimate verdict in the circumstances.
My third point is that the threshold distorts debate. What we want in this referendum is both sides putting their strongest possible case in front of the electorate either for the proposed change or against it—whichever they want. But this case gives the no campaign an incentive to put two different arguments: “Vote no if you must vote, but we’ll get just as many votes if you just don’t bother to turn out”. It is the sit-and-watch-telly no campaign. That does not seem to be a very good idea. The experience of Italy—I will not go into it in great detail—where abstentions are not a vote does not reflect well on this practice. Nor indeed does the consequences of the introduction of the threshold in the first Scottish referendum on devolution, which led to the issue being completely unresolved in fact until the 1997 referendum finally settled it. The referendum did not have the effect that everybody wanted it to have of settling the devolution process.
Finally, my noble friend Lord Grocott has just described one absurd result where two people vote for and one against. I accept that that is an absurd result. But it is no more absurd than the result that would stem—I am sure he was not intending this—from the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Davies, where 32 per cent vote yes, 1 per cent vote no, and yet the referendum automatically, and without further debate in Parliament, falls. That would be at least as absurd a result as the one my noble friend Lord Grocott predicates.
I have rattled through an argument that deserves more probing and profundity, because the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, came out with a perfectly viable solution to these competing considerations. I was, therefore, very glad to hear that the noble Lord, Lord Davies, was not going to press his views to a vote. However, I think that the House should briefly be exposed to the case against these thresholds as well as the case for them, if only to reinforce itself in its wisdom.
At one stage I thought about abstaining on my noble friend Lord Rooker’s amendment because of my dislike of thresholds, which for once in my entire time in the House of Lords would have affected the result. It is a good thing I did not, so phew. The House of Lords might consider the argument that I have briefly developed and decide that, in view of it, we made a wise decision earlier this afternoon, albeit narrowly.
Lord Howarth of Newport
My Lords, perhaps I may say a word about Amendment 14 in the name of my noble friend Lady Hayter of Kentish Town. Her amendment would provide that if there is not a majority in support of changing the electoral system,
“in any one of the four parts of the United Kingdom”,
the proposition should fall for the United Kingdom as a whole. I certainly hope that there is common ground around the House that we wish to strengthen the Union and bind the peoples of the four parts of the United Kingdom in one coherent political system and, as far as possible, in one political culture. It would be singularly unfortunate and divisive, were the referendum to be lost in one of the four parts—let us suppose, for example, that the people of Wales were to vote no but those of England, Scotland and Northern Ireland were to vote yes—if the people of England, Scotland and Northern Ireland were then to impose their preferred version of an electoral system on the people of Wales. I think that that would be divisive, traumatic and very unfortunate.
Lord Tyler
Is the noble Lord really saying that it would be divisive in those circumstances when it is clear that what would be much more divisive is that if one part of the United Kingdom was able to veto the clear majority of the decision of the rest of the United Kingdom? That is a complete nonsense.
Lord Howarth of Newport
The noble Lord sees things in a mirror glass world and he is entitled to look at them from that perspective. However, I invite him to consider what the impact on the sentiment would be in Wales if, having voted against the proposition that, say, the alternative vote system should be used, it was none the less to be imposed by the rest of the United Kingdom on the people of Wales. I think that that would create a grievance and that it would be an unhappy development. The amendment in the name of my noble friend is well worth the House meditating upon.
Baroness Thornton
My Lords, I do not intend to address Amendments 12 or 15. The noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, spoke in the earlier debate on Amendment A1 moved by my noble friend Lord Rooker, and I follow his lead in saying that we do not intend to pursue these amendments.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
My Lords, we have had another interesting debate on, as the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, indicated, the difference between the amendments we are discussing here and those which were debated earlier. I only wish that the strength of the argument deployed by the noble Lord against thresholds had been sufficient to persuade everyone to abstention, even if I was unable to do that, but that did not happen.
The manuscript amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, which would mean that 25 per cent of the electorate would have to vote yes is a reflection of the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Stamford, which seeks that 33 per cent of the electorate should vote yes. We then have a straightforward 50 per cent eligibility to vote proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, and the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, which the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, spoke to, regarding the individual constituent parts of the United Kingdom. I acknowledge also that the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, did not speak to the amendment in her name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan.
I think the arguments against thresholds were put very eloquently by the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, and are a cogent argument as to why the threshold-against turnout, particularly although not exclusively, does not necessarily lead to fairness compared with a straight situation where people are invited to vote and the majority wins. But the proposals that relate to a threshold that the yes vote has to reach are particularly pernicious. Earlier the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, referred to the 40 per cent threshold that was imposed on the Scotland and Wales referendums in 1979. The Welsh referendum did not arise because there was a very strong no vote, but although 64 per cent of the electorate turned out in Scotland and a majority voted in favour of devolution, it was not implemented for another 20 years. It did not settle the question. It left, as the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, said earlier, a bad taste. Of all thresholds, it does not satisfy the electorate and particularly those who campaign and those who would seek a yes vote.
The amendment that the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, spoke to on behalf of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, would seek a requirement of a majority vote in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, rather than a simple majority of all votes taken together. This is a UK-wide referendum on what the electoral system should be to elect the House of Commons in the United Kingdom Parliament. I believe it transcends particular localities or regions. The pros and cons of the system will be debated and considered by people regardless of where they live.
In Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, uttered words of caution against this kind of amendment. He said that,
“to seek to set one nation within that kingdom against another kingdom is neither desirable nor wise”. [Official Report, 20/12/10; col. 827.]
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, rejected this type of amendment because,
“we should do everything to promote coherence in the United Kingdom. That means that, where we are voting on a national voting system, implementation of any referendum should be guided by what the national vote is”.—[Official Report, 20/12/10; cols. 843-4.]
If we were to find, for the sake of argument, that the rest of the United Kingdom—Wales, Northern Ireland and England—had substantially voted in favour of a change yet Scotland had a narrow majority against, it would be unacceptable that that one country with a narrow majority against should effectively exercise a veto over all other parts of the United Kingdom.
Noble Lords who have spoken to their amendments have indicated that they are not going to press them given the vote that was taken earlier. On that basis, I ask the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Stamford, to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Lipsey
Lord Lipsey
My Lords, at an earlier stage on the Bill, I described this as the buckle that linked the AV bit of the Bill with the constituencies bit. It is a slightly peculiar buckle as the constituencies bit goes ahead even if AV does not because the referendum is lost, but AV cannot go ahead if the constituencies bit does not. I suppose that reflects the bargaining strength of the two sides during the coalition negotiations.
I do not see any great point in labouring this issue any more. The Government are not showing any great willingness to split the Bill, as some of us suggested from the first that they would be wise to do. All I would like to hear the Minister say is that this is a political deal and so has to stay. I do not even ask him to say that this is a sordid, low, political deal between two unequal partners which should never have taken place. I do not expect anything like that from the noble and learned Lord. If he would just say that this is a political deal and would the House kindly accept it on that basis, I shall do so and withdraw my amendment.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
My Lords, my name is on this amendment as well. To slightly increase the excruciation for the noble and learned Lord, it is impossible to understand what the basis of the conditionality is. Assume that 99 per cent of the population were to vote in favour of changing the system to AV, even if something happened to prevent the Boundary Commission changes being introduced, then, as I understand the Government’s position, they will not introduce AV. Why is that? What is the logic? The only logic must be some sort of political deal. Honesty would help the noble and learned Lord a lot.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
My Lords, these amendments, as the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, has indicated, seek to undermine, even remove, the link between the commencement arrangements for the AV and for the constituencies parts of the Bill. Anyone who has ever been a political realist would recognise that in terms of a coalition one part of the Bill—the first part—had greater salience and resonance with the Liberal Democrats, and the same applied to the Conservative Party when it comes to Part 2. I believe in equality of votes across the United Kingdom and I have not had difficulty, therefore, in arguing that case.
The issue of linkage has been one which we have debated from the outset. The noble Baroness, Lady McDonagh, raised an issue about it as we started Committee stage and withdrew her amendment, and the parties and the coalition Government have made it very clear that these two parts are linked. The question has been raised—it was hinted at by the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey—as to why, if the referendum does not produce as successful an outcome as the Liberal Democrats would wish to see, we are tied in, as it were, with the boundary change. Quite apart from the fact that, as I have already indicated, there is something right in principle about trying to seek greater equality among constituencies, as a liberal and a democrat I would find it very difficult to say, if the people had expressed their view in a referendum and said no, that somehow or other we should try and thwart another part of this Bill which is linked.
There is nothing wrong in parties entering into an agreement that they then make their best endeavours to deliver; in fact it is honourable and perfectly proper. I believe both parts of this Bill hang together and are linked. They give the people a say as to whether they want to change the way in which the House of Commons is elected while also ensuring that the House of Commons is elected, be it on first past the post or on the alternative vote, in constituencies that are much nearer to being equal.
On that basis I would invite the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Lipsey
As the Minister was making his remarks the unworthy thought occurred to me that perhaps we should have a referendum on the constituency changes. You would get a jolly good turnout in Cornwall and people in the Isle of Wight would be flocking to the polls with those from Brecon and Radnor and Anglesey, all to say no to this. Then the Minister would be able to say, “As the British people have spoken, I cannot force this down their throats”. That perhaps is a little too much. The boundary changes will no doubt, if agreed by this House and by Parliament, go ahead at the end of the day. There seems little point in pushing the matter any further and I therefore beg to withdraw my amendment.
Lord McNally
(b) does not affect any election held before the first parliamentary general election following that day.”
Lord McNally
My Lords, this amendment removes the power in Clause 8(4) to make a transitional or saving provision when implementing the AV provisions through an order made under Clause 8(1). Instead, it inserts the provision that any order made under Clause 8(1) will not affect any election held before the first parliamentary election following that day.
The Government have brought forward this amendment in response to the recommendation of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee that the power in Clause 8(4) should be subject to the negative procedure. This was on the grounds that,
“the power to include transitional and saving provision may determine which form of voting system is to apply in the case of a particular parliamentary election. That is a significant power, which ought to be subject to Parliamentary control”.
This Government attach great importance to the views of this and other Select Committees, and we have reflected carefully on the committee’s recommendations. As my noble and learned friend Lord Wallace indicated in Committee, we had envisaged that in the event of a yes vote in the referendum, this power might be used to provide that any parliamentary by-elections held between the commencement of the AV provisions and the subsequent general election would take place under the existing first past the post system. That is because the Government take the view that it would not be appropriate in the intervening period between the commencement of these provisions and the subsequent general election for by-elections to take place under the AV system, since that would have the result that the House of Commons would contain Members elected under two different electoral systems.
The Government are content to accept the committee’s conclusion that the issue of the powers in Clause 8(4) should be addressed. However, the effect of applying parliamentary procedure to the powers proposed would run contrary to the Government’s stated intention that the referendum on the voting system should be binding. Moreover, this House has already expressed its view on this issue by voting on the first day in Committee against an amendment to make the referendum indicative. In order to meet the Committee’s concern, the Government have instead brought forward this amendment, which removes the powers in Clause 8(4) and instead makes the position on by-elections held in the period between the AV provision coming into force and the first parliamentary election on AV clear in the Bill. This provision goes further than the committee’s recommendation by making the Government’s intentions absolutely clear in the Bill. On reflection, we think this is preferable to leaving the issue to future secondary legislation, which would be the effect of following the committee’s recommendation. I beg to move this amendment, and I hope that the House will support it.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
I welcome the noble Lord, Lord McNally, back to front-line service on this exciting Bill. We have missed him a lot in every single respect. He has explained that very—
Lord McNally
Since this is my only opportunity, I thank those on the Labour Benches for sending me a bouquet of cut flowers. After MI5 had dismantled it, it was put in a vase in my room.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
And did they find what we hid in it? We genuinely welcome the noble Lord back. He is very popular on our Benches. He has explained this very clearly. We have no problem with it. We think the critical point that he is making is that by-elections after the passage of the Order in Council that brings the boundary changes into effect, which is the last stage in bringing in AV after a yes vote, will not be conducted under AV until after the first general election is conducted after AV. We have no problem with that.
Lord Howarth of Newport
Lord Howarth of Newport
My Lords, Amendments 16B, 16C, 16E and 16F are intended to substitute for the optional preference AV system the obligatory preference AV system. We touched upon this issue in an earlier debate, and on the first day in Committee my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours spoke very powerfully indeed on this topic. I none the less ask your Lordships’ indulgence to permit me to say a very few words about this because it is an issue of prime importance in this Bill.
My amendments, if they are technically valid, would replace the Queensland system, which is what the Government are proposing in the Bill, with the Australian federal system, and there is a very important difference. If you are voting in an Australian federal election to the Australian House of Representatives, you are required to vote for all the candidates on the ballot paper in the order of your preference. If you fail to do so, your vote is invalid. In the optional preference version of AV that applies in Queensland, you do not need to vote in order of preference for all the candidates; you may, if you prefer, vote for only one candidate. It is quite instructive to see what has happened in Australia over the years. The system that now operates in Queensland was introduced in 1992. Initially, when that was done, very few voters failed to express all their preferences in rank order, as had been their tradition—only about 20 per cent, initially. However, as time went by, more and more of them realised that they did not need to cast all these preference votes and they stopped doing so in very considerable numbers.
The turning point came in 2001, as my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours told the House in Committee, when the Australian Labor Party ran a “just one vote” campaign, because it had realised that it was more likely to be in the interests of their candidates that they should discourage people from exercising all the preferences that they might. To concentrate all their votes on one candidate is termed “plumping”, a term originally coined in 19th century England when elections to school boards were introduced. Under that system, an elector was permitted to exercise perhaps 20 votes—a vote for every member of the school board—but they were allowed to cast all their votes for the same candidate. The object of that provision was to try to ensure that representatives of Christian minorities were represented on school boards. However, what actually happened in practice, very interestingly, was that it was organised that people would plump or concentrate their votes in support of women candidates, because it was felt to be desirable that women should serve on school boards. That plumping was very beneficial to the feminist cause in the 1880s and thereabouts. The term has been borrowed in Queensland.
The result of the practice of plumping in Queensland, as we are told by the academic authority of Messrs Rallings and Thrasher from the University of Plymouth, is that in 2009, 63 per cent of those who turned out at the state elections in Queensland voted for just one candidate—and, in some constituencies, the proportion was as high as 73 per cent. Even when the political parties urged their supporters to use their preference votes in the manner associated with AV, they did so decreasingly. For example, the Greens urged their voters to exercise all preference votes, and to exercise their second preference in support of Labor, but very large numbers—46 per cent—of those who gave their first preference to the Greens did not do so; they made no other choice. We have seen the same effect in the London mayoral elections, where there is a modified version of AV in the supplementary vote system. A significant percentage—perhaps one in five voters—vote for only one candidate.
I am not a supporter of AV, but if the proponents of AV want to see the benefits that they profess that AV would confer, I suggest that they would do better to have the proper AV system—the obligatory preference system—rather than the one that is being proposed in this Bill. If we have only optional preference voting under AV in this country, it will rapidly turn into a pretty close replica of the first past the post system. People will scratch their heads and ask why on earth they have been through all this palaver, why we have had a referendum, and why—if they did so—they have voted for an alternative vote system that turns out to be remarkably similar to the first past the post system that they have rejected. This needs very careful thought, and it is not too late for the Government to give it that thought. I beg to move.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
My Lords, the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Howarth of Newport, would provide that, under the alternative vote system, voters would be required to express a preference for every candidate standing at the election. As he indicated in moving his amendment, we had some debate on a related issue earlier in the evening. In the Bill as drafted, by contrast, voters may express a preference for as few or as many candidates as they wish—indeed, as the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, observed, even just for one. We believe that this approach gives maximum choice to voters. We would not support a system where voters were required to express preferences for all the candidates standing at the election.
In Committee, my noble friend the Leader of the House explained that the Government believe that the optional preferential form of the alternative vote system is the right form of AV to be put before the people. There is a genuine issue here and a genuine debate, but we believe that for elections to the other place, if voters are to be able to express preferences, it is only right that they should be able to express as many or as few preferences as they choose; their ability to limit their preferences should not be constrained in the way that the noble Lord suggests.
Furthermore, the optional preferential form of the alternative vote avoids putting voters in the position where they are obliged to vote positively and to give a preference for political parties that may be wholly distasteful to them, such as those on the extremes of politics. Indeed, it is not impossible that people might be dissuaded from casting a vote at all if they felt that they had to go to the ballot box and put a number beside a party that they found extremely abhorrent. That would be the opposite of what those who support the alternative vote would say is the aim of using it as the system for electing Members to the House of Commons.
The noble Lord, Lord Howarth, mentioned Australia. In those elections where a compulsory form of AV is used, voters must indicate an order of preference for every candidate on the ballot paper, as he described, in order for their vote to be valid at all. The noble Lord’s amendment does not specify what would happen if a voter did not express a preference for all candidates. Would that vote be declared invalid? It is not clear what would happen in those circumstances. There is a danger, of course, that it could risk disfranchising voters who did not wish to express a preference for all candidates standing at the election. Against that background, I urge the noble Lord to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Rooker
I am reluctant, but I cannot resist this, because of what happened in Committee. The noble and learned Lord has just deployed the case against the compulsory system and I agree with him on that, but is it the case that when the AV system in the Bill, the optional system, comes to be deployed, the Deputy Prime Minister will not be able to cite a single other democratic country where it is used to elect the national parliament—not one? Have I got that right? I have missed something in the debate otherwise. In other words, we are saying that it is better than the compulsory preference system, but nobody uses it to elect a national parliament. All the examples given tonight—and the provincial elections in Canada can be used as well—are for state parliaments and state Governments in Australia, not for the national Parliament. The national House in Australia, of course, has the compulsory preference system. This optional AV system is not used anywhere else in the world, but that is what is going to be offered to the British people. Have I got that right?
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
The simple answer is that I do not know and I would not want to confirm something that I do not know.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
The noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, says from a sedentary position that it is right. Be that as it may, the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, prefaced his remarks by saying that he did not support the compulsory system and preferred the optional preferential system. If we believe that that is a better system than the compulsory system, I think that that is what we should stick with. If it is the case that there is not another national legislature that does it, so be it—we are devising a system for the House of Commons.
Lord Howarth of Newport
My Lords, I think that it is clearly implicit in my amendments that, if people did not use all their preferences, their vote would be invalid, as is the case in federal elections in Australia. The noble and learned Lord rejects what I suggest; be it on his own head. If Ministers in the Government wish to make a botch of their attempt at electoral reform, so be it. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.