Queen’s Speech

Debate between Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top and Lord Strathclyde

Thursday 10th May 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, was a distinguished Minister with the previous Administration. At no time did he make those points in Parliament or within his Government, in all the Joint Committees that met or the White Papers that were published. They did not start quibbling about the primacy of the House of Commons then. The noble Lord, Lord Richard, in his Joint Committee has made an entirely sensible, reasonable and well argued case about the defects of Clause 2, and we will take those up. However, the Labour Front Bench in this House and, I suspect, in another place, has decided that it does not want to create a consensus, and that is why it has come up with these conditions.

[Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top]

I wonder whether the noble Lord has forgotten the establishment of the committee under the chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Cunningham, to look precisely at the powers, and so on, of this House before further action was taken on the composition of the Lords.

[Lord Strathclyde]

I am well aware of that, but it is pretty rum that the report from the noble Lord, Lord Cunningham, laid out a whole bunch of conventions that in the past two years the Labour Party, which supported it, has been very happily breaking.

What else have we got? Suddenly, in 2010, the Labour Party says that there needs to be a referendum. There is no explanation of what kind of referendum. I see that the Leader of the Opposition is now talking to her noble friend Lord Hunt; I hope that they are going to explain what they mean.

Let me bring this to a conclusion. The Labour Party’s position is that there should be no Cross-Benchers but codification to reduce the powers and a referendum before it wishes to create a consensus. Will the noble Lord and his noble and learned friend confirm that these are the Labour Party’s conditions and that it will block any consensus without them? The House will expect the noble Lord to give an answer.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top and Lord Strathclyde

Tuesday 8th February 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that clarification. The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, as a former government Chief Whip, espouses the free vote. On the whole I agree with him, but not all the time; in fact, probably not most of the time and probably not on this Bill. The noble Lord said that I should demonstrate publicly why we are doing these things and I shall try to do that. Noble Lords opposite came forward with what I thought were entirely rational arguments. However, I will try to demonstrate that, however rational they were, they start from a false premise. I will not say to the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes of Cumnock, that his amendment is defective. I do not know whether it is or not. It is of no interest to me whether it is defective or not. I know what he was trying to achieve and I accept that he had limited time to get it right, and so I think it is unnecessary to say that. I greatly admire the quality of the research done by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton. He went all the way back to 2003 and found a quotation from the Prime Minister himself, saying something that he would no doubt now regret. That shows just how far he has come over the past few years.

A number of amendments have been tabled to change the number of constituencies required by the Bill to more than 600. We discussed this issue at length on the ninth day of Committee, and I can understand why. I shall set out the Government’s thinking for today’s debate and explain why we are clear that there is a case for making what we consider to be a modest reduction in the size of the House. First, our proposal simply aims to end the upward pressure on the number of MPs and to make a modest reduction in the overall number. With the exception of the review after the creation of the Scottish Parliament, which took effect in 2005, all other boundary reviews since 1950 have seen an increase of between four and 15 seats. The fourth and fifth reviews of the Boundary Commission for England noted that the rules are currently drafted in the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986, which contributed to this problem. The fifth general review laid out the details of the issue and noted:

“We illustrate, in paragraph 2.11, how the consequence of the interplay of the existing Rules, other than Rule 1, is a tendency for an ever increasing allocation of constituencies in England in future reviews. This could be changed if the Rules were altered”.

The Boundary Commissions have no formal role in advising on the rules that they must apply. However, as the bodies which have extensive experience of the practical result of applying these rules, their views are clearly important. The changes proposed in this Bill will address those concerns, a point underlined by the British Academy which notes that the revised rules were a very substantial improvement on those currently implemented by the Boundary Commissions, have a clear hierarchy and are not contradictory.

Secondly, making a modest reduction in the overall number of MPs will allow a saving to the public purse. We feel that it is right to lead by example at a time when the whole of the public sector is being asked to make savings. We estimate that reducing the size of the other place will save £12.2 million annually, made up of a reduced salary cost of £4.1 million and £8.1 million in reduced expenditure on MPs’ expenses. I shall turn in a moment to the increased workload raised by many noble Lords. The fundamental point here is that at a time when the whole public sector is being asked to do more with less, this is a relatively modest saving but one which we think is worth making. There is no reason why MPs and the House of Commons should not be more efficient. These amendments would wipe out any prospect of reducing the cost of politics, while we believe that we should lead by example.

[Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top]

Will the noble Lord tell us what the Government’s estimate is of the increased costs in the Electoral Commission?

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top and Lord Strathclyde

Monday 15th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Strathclyde]

Given that ministerial salaries have already had a 5 per cent cut since the general election, the answer to that is: not much more. The other place has considered all of these questions carefully.

[Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top]

Does the noble Lord accept that this is a constitutional issue, not a financial issue; and that by reducing the number of MPs but not reducing the size of the Executive, the Government will weaken the Commons’ ability to hold the Executive to account?

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, I fully expect that this will be an issue that we shall discuss in detail when we get to the Committee stage. The Government have already expressed a desire to reduce the size of the Executive, but not in this Bill, not at this time, not at this stage.

My right honourable friend's proposals will result in constituencies of around 76,000 electors, and over a third of existing constituencies are within the approximate range that will result from this Bill. That, I believe, is a reasonable proposal.

We look back at how the Duke of Wellington wisely led this House to allow reform of the constituencies in another place, and we marvel at the fact that your Lordships originally resisted it. So I think that, in future generations, if people read our debates, they will marvel at any speech by noble Lords or any other ditchers or diehards who venture to suggest that the disparities in current constituencies should be preserved.

As is now well known since the debate earlier today, the Bill preserves two specific constituencies: the island groups of Orkney and Shetland and the Western Isles. Both are dispersed island groups which cannot readily be combined with the mainland. In recognition of the fact that certain parts of the United Kingdom are very sparsely populated, the Bill caps the size of a constituency at just larger than the largest now—Ross, Skye and Lochaber.

The Bill also reforms the process for boundary reviews. As one leading academic has commented on the present system of local inquiries,

“it would be wrong to assume that the consultation process largely involves the general public having its say on the recommendations”.

It is important that consultation is effective, and that is why the Bill reforms the system. It triples the time that people and political parties have to make written representations from one month to three. Local people will be better able to make their points to the commissions, and the overall review process will be faster and more efficient.