Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton Excerpts(12 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord Wallace of Tankerness
I accept that there is obviously a distinction between a tribunal and a more formal court setting. It was in the context of those proposals, which are not before us in legislation, that I indicated I would respond in more detail. Likewise, I will respond to the noble Lord, Lord Howarth. He asked a perfectly straightforward and fair question and I very much regret that I cannot give him an answer, but I will certainly do so and ensure that that response is circulated to other Members who have participated.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton
Would the Minister, between now and Report, consider the experience of someone such as myself, who was removed from employment because I wished to join the appropriate trade union? Under the Government’s proposals, preventing employees joining trade unions by threatening them will, in addition to the other disadvantages, provide an incentive for unscrupulous employers to try to stop their employees joining trade unions. In my case, it was a major company which recently has gone bust.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
My Lords, it is always possible to speculate on what might happen in one case or another. To take the noble Baroness’s point, if it were a case where there were efforts to prevent her joining a trade union, that suggests that there was trade union involvement there, and one of the points that I have made is that trade unions have been a source of support over many years. However, it is difficult to look at the circumstances of one case without drawing conclusions that may be inappropriate. I simply observe that there are other forms and sources of advice that could be available in such circumstances, but perhaps not least from a trade union.
I conclude by making it clear that, as the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, highlighted, although legal aid has been removed for employment cases, it will be retained for judicial reviews and claims relating to contravention of the Employment Act 2010; discrimination claims are available there. That is consistent with what we had indicated we believed to be an important priority. In those circumstances, I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.
Fixed-term Parliaments Bill
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton Excerpts(13 years, 6 months ago)
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The Countess of Mar
In the first report from the Select Committee on Procedure of the House, which was agreed by the House, the recommendation was that:
“The motion ‘That this bill do now pass’ should be moved formally and should not normally be debated. Ministers should if necessary respond to points raised on the motion by other Lords. The motion should not be an occasion for thanking those involved in the passage of the bill”.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton
My Lords, perhaps I may draw the government Whip’s attention to the fact that the word “normally” is used here, and “normally” in your Lordships' House means that it might not always apply.
Fixed-term Parliaments Bill
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton Excerpts(13 years, 7 months ago)
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Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton
My Lords, before my noble and learned friend sits down, may I draw to the House’s attention that there was also a referendum in Northern Ireland?
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
Thank you very much indeed for that. I also draw to the attention of the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, that there was also the referendum on a north-east regional assembly. No doubt before I leave the room there will be 53 other referendums that I shall refer to.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton
The Minister appeared to me to indicate that were part of the United Kingdom to secede, that should be the subject of a national referendum. Did I misunderstand him?
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
My Lords, if I might clarify I think I said that that was one suggestion put forward by the Constitution Committee. It said that that might be one of the occasions that would trigger a referendum but it is certainly not the policy of this Government to have a referendum on Scottish independence. The Prime Minister has made it clear that that would be a matter for the Scottish Parliament. Let me make that point very clear: it was one of the cases suggested by the Constitution Committee as, possibly, reaching that threshold. This illustrates the point that these are inevitably subjective issues. Any Government who wished to make a distinction about fundamental significance would find that that could vary from Government to Government. However, I undertake that the comments made by your Lordships will be fed back, and I am sure that there will be other occasions when the issue of referendums is discussed. A number of colleagues who talked generally about referendums did not necessarily think that the subject of fixed-term Parliaments lent itself to a referendum. Against that background, I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.
Fixed-term Parliaments Bill
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton Excerpts(13 years, 7 months ago)
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Lord Cormack
My Lords, I will briefly but thoroughly endorse what the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, said. When one talks to people in the country, they say that they are desperately concerned about matters of health, education, taxation and all of those things. At the moment, they are deeply concerned about events in the Middle East and in other parts of the world. They find it quite incredible that the two Houses of Parliament, and this one in particular, should detain themselves by debating measures that are of no possible benefit to the public good, are diversionary and—to most people, whether it be in the club or the Dog and Duck—are of very little interest or relevance.
Along with the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, I urge that we have a period of reflection. We should recognise that the constitution is the most important part of our democratic heritage. It should be the plaything of nobody, and certainly the consolation prize of nobody. Therefore, I hope that the Minister, who will shortly address the House, will recognise the strength of feeling not only in the House but in the country, and will discuss with government business managers how the House can more properly and sensibly address issues that are of real importance to the people of this country.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton
My Lords, will the Minister confirm that there is nothing at present, without the Bill, to prevent the Conservative-led Government from serving a term of five years? The Bill is not necessary to achieve that end, unless the Government were to implode from within.
Lord Renton of Mount Harry
I think that is a perfectly fair point; I cede the point, but the fact is that Governments do change a great deal. We have seen it in recent years and it will go on. Others will win; they will come in for the first time. Without wishing to go into detail, I totally agree with the description by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd, of what a five-year Parliament could do, but I think that that is the right way to go and that this House should be very careful before backing a four-year Parliament.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton
My Lords, would the noble Lord care to ponder on the thought that the British public might wish to have a Government that is taking into account public opinion once every four years as opposed to once every five years? His argument is that the fifth year is the year when the Government of the day is having regard to the next election and public opinion. In my experience, the public form an opinion about Governments fairly quickly and to ask them to wait for five years before expressing that view is rather long.
Lord Renton of Mount Harry
I only make the point, before I give way to others, that it is very interesting to see just how many people voted on the AV matter and all that a few days ago: just 42 per cent. One may think that most of the public are longing and waiting to have a vote; it is not true. Most members of the public are very difficult to interest in politics and many members of the public would much rather only have to vote once every five years rather than every four.
Lord Rennard
In response to demand from the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly not to have a clash in 2015, the Government said that they would facilitate whatever was required to postpone the elections to the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly for a five-year, rather than a four-year, term. My understanding is that that will now become the norm in Scotland and Wales, and that people in Scotland and Wales have no desire for their parliamentary and Assembly elections to coincide with Westminster elections.
A year ago, in the general election campaign, both the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats said in manifestos that they wanted fixed-term Parliaments, but neither of them said for how long they should last. David Cameron said before the general election that he would seriously consider the principle of fixed-term Parliaments, but again did not say how long the period should be. So none of the three main parties specified a year ago during the general election campaign what period would be appropriate for fixed-term Parliaments.
For all the reasons I have given—the fact that there will be more pre-legislative scrutiny; we will tie in constituency election expenditure; we will tie in the boundary reviews; and we will tie in processes with the Scottish and Welsh Parliaments—I think that a fixed-term Parliament of five years is most appropriate.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton
Before the noble Lord sits down, I hope that he will forgive me for feeling that he might be using a slightly cynical argument. I have listened carefully, because I know how experienced he is in politics, but given that the coalition Government came in and announced that there would be a five-year term and then produced major constitutional change legislation without pre-legislative scrutiny, I find that argument hard to take. The noble Lord referred to his experience in the referendum campaign. My experience was that more people were saying, “When can we have a general election?” than even were fired up on AV. Those who claim that the number of people turning out in the referendum on AV is an indication of how strongly people feel about the Government may be wrong.
Lord Rennard
With great respect to the noble Baroness, I did not refer in my remarks to the events of last week in the referendum. I was simply making the point that so many people here argue for more pre-legislative scrutiny. I believe that there would be more pre-legislative scrutiny in a five-year fixed term Parliament than there would in a four-year one, because in a four-year one, the Government would be so anxious to do so much that they would not have as much pre-legislative scrutiny.
Lord Rennard
It is the position of my party that general elections in which people get what they vote for is the most fundamental democratic reform. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Owen, that if those people who support other systems, such as first past the post, really had the courage of their convictions, they would have allowed proportional representation to be on the ballot paper last week, as I believe that one day it will be.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton
My Lords, my recollection is that the noble Lord’s party voted against alternatives being put forward in the referendum alongside AV. Many of us felt very strongly that the public were being given about one-third of a question in the referendum rather than the whole question, which would have given them a choice. For the noble Lord now to claim that somehow the Liberal Democrats are in favour of the widest possible consultation is a bit hollow.
Lord Rennard
We are rather going off the subject of the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill. Briefly, I remind the noble Baroness that her party's manifesto promised a referendum on AV but no other subject. The Conservative Party promised as part of the coalition negotiations to have a referendum on AV but on no other subject. The Liberal Democrats won only 57 out of 650 seats and were therefore not in a position to insist on what we really wanted, which was a referendum on proportional representation.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
Clearly the Government could have continued for five years, but the point is that the Government are seeking to introduce the principle of fixed-term Parliaments. In wishing to introduce that principle, we believe that it should apply to this Parliament as well. It is not just the length of time; it also involves the trigger mechanisms for an election other than at the end of the five years. In terms of consistency, we are saying that what is right for the future—and we are self-evidently legislating for the future—is something that this Parliament should equally be obliged to have regard to and, indeed, to be bound by. I hope that I can make some progress.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton
My Lords, surely the point is that this Government could have determined and announced that they were going to last for five years. They could then have produced legislation for the future, were that their wish, on which there could have been pre-legislative scrutiny—which the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, believes, and I share his view, we would all have been the beneficiaries of. So why on earth are we doing this Bill now, dealing with the future?
Fixed-term Parliaments Bill
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton Excerpts(13 years, 8 months ago)
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Lord Tyler
My Lords, I have the greatest respect for my noble friend Lord Norton of Louth, who has unrivalled academic expertise and authority in matters of this sort. I am a mere practitioner, so my contribution to this debate is very much probing, rather than definitive. I am generally concerned about the drift that would appear to be the theme of this group. The Committee is provided with three options. One would remove the 14-day period for the formation of a new Government if the existing one falls; one would extend that period to 28 days; and the other would keep it at 14 days but change the process by which it would happen. We therefore have a spectrum of three amendments, representing a scale: one with no period at all in which another Government could be formed; one with a 14-day period; and one with a 28-day period. Those of us of a centrist disposition might be naturally inclined towards the middle option—Amendment 39 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Howarth of Newport. However, strictly speaking, Amendment 39 is not necessary, since it barely departs from the principle that the Government have already adumbrated in the Bill itself.
Therefore, I will concentrate principally on Amendment 35, which is the “back me or sack me” amendment. It would offer a Prime Minister who had lost the support of his or her party in the Commons the opportunity to go to the country instead of to the Palace. There is nothing wrong with that in principle. It might have provided some clear guidance to Thatcher, Major and Blair at moments when factionalism was on the cusp of becoming fratricide. However, again, the amendment is surely unnecessary. The Bill already allows for the Prime Minister to resign or for a new Prime Minister and a new Government to be appointed. What the amendment does is to take away from Back-Benchers in the House of Commons the power actively to insist on the replacement of the Prime Minister with another. That is the principle behind this change. Instead, it places the decision on going to the country, as now, back with the incumbent of No. 10. I thought Members on all sides of your Lordships’ House thought that was not necessarily the best result.
Under the Bill as it stands, a Prime Minister could effectively be disposed of, as Labour wanted to do with Blair for so long. A clear period would then exist for a new Government to be formed. Members of the Committee can imagine that, when Tony Blair eventually stepped down, the Bill’s provisions would have allowed Gordon Brown to form what he called a new Government, in much the same way that John Major did when Margaret Thatcher resigned. It is not, therefore, clear to me whether my noble friend seeks a move away from the principle that votes of confidence in the Government need not precipitate an election—the status quo—if another Government can be formed. Here is the nub of a very important principle. I wonder whether my noble friend is trying to move away from the principle that the Prime Minister must have the authority and confidence of the House of Commons to continue; and whether he is, therefore, moving towards a principle that there ought, automatically, to be an election if there is a change of Prime Minister.
In February 1974, Mr Heath said, “Who governs Britain?”. He did not say, “Back me or sack me”. We have referred to that election on several occasions in your Lordships’ House in recent months; it is one that many of us recall very well. I have no doubt that my noble friend could find much public support for that principle. However, on balance, I have always thought that British Governments should depend simply and solely on the confidence of the House of Commons to remain in office. That is a parliamentary democracy, not a presidential one.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton
Will the noble Lord explain to me why I am mistaken in recollecting that Mr Heath did say, “Back me or sack me”? That is my recollection of the interpretation that everybody I knew had of what he said.
Fixed-term Parliaments Bill
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton Excerpts(13 years, 9 months ago)
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Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton
My Lords, I keep hearing the words, “It is a matter of judgment”. I heard them from the noble Lord, Lord Marks, on several occasions in connection with giving the electorate the power to decide. I just heard a reference to the importance of time for pre-legislative scrutiny and allowing people who are about to vote an opportunity to maturely evaluate the Government’s policy. I am beginning to feel as though we live in a different place, because we have a whole plethora of constitutional reforms before us, who have to vote on them, with no opportunity for pre-legislative scrutiny and no opportunity to see how the first bit, the second bit, the third bit and the fourth bit come together.
Then, in the middle of it all, is the bit of the Bill that perhaps worries me even more than the five and four years: who, how and in what circumstances the proposed five or even four years could be varied. I have heard a variety of ways in which a Prime Minister can decide that it is a good time for an election if he thinks it is in his interest, although I think that convincing the Opposition that it is a good time for an election will be quite a hard task. Having heard all these arguments, however, I am not allowed to see what this coalition Government propose to do. This is against a background of assurances that I keep getting that they know where they are going and they know who is going with them, but it sure ain’t me because they are not telling me where they are going.
I have been asked to vote on changing the system of votes, which is being put to the people in the AV referendum, without being told what is being proposed for people being elected to this House. All these things keep being thrown at me by people who say, “Oh well, it is a matter of judgment”. In the end, a bit like the dance of the seven veils, all will be revealed. However, I want to know the whole picture now before I am asked to start pulling apart some of the parts of the structure of our constitution. The argument is therefore surely that it would have been better if the coalition had concentrated on fewer Bills that made fewer changes to the constitution, had put them out for quick pre-legislative scrutiny and did not Christmas-tree them. Those who have been in government know that the minute the whole plethora of people in any department see a Bill looming, they start hanging little baubles on it, complicating it and muddying the whole picture. I am therefore uneasy.
On the use of the term “judgment”, I think that it is a bit arrogant of the coalition—a new form of government in this country for a long time—to say, “We are making a judgment about when you can vote to judge us, and we are restricting the way in which it is going to be done”. Perhaps, having a somewhat warped political mind, I can see that it is just possible, in reaching an agreement to form a coalition, that neither party trusted the other and so the five years had to be set in concrete in case either one pulled the rug from under the other. However, I am then assured that in the middle of the Bill is the opportunity for the Prime Minister of the day suddenly to pull the rug out anyway, although I suppose he would have to get his Deputy Prime Minister to support him.
On the argument about the length of time that it takes to bring in legislation, in my view the public out there have the right to expect to be able to voice their view on what happens in the future. It is just possible that, within the next two years, some people who are currently members of the coalition will not want to be tied to a fixed term of five years. They could be members of either party; it is not always the most adulterous one who ends up getting divorced.
I am concerned. Why cannot we have a big picture for all these constitutional changes? Why cannot we substitute this judgment that we ought to be laying in concrete an agreement of convenience for this particular Government? Why are we wasting our time legislating to set that in concrete? We are wasting our time because they can do that anyway. They do not need this Bill to do that, so why on earth are we being told that they do? I am beginning to get suspicious, because from certain Benches—from parties to this Government—I keep hearing, “Well, we are voting for this now. It is not what we really want, but we will get what we want next time”. I have met the odd person out there who has said to me, “Hey, I watched that debate, and the Lib Dems said that they do not really like AV, but it is better than what we have, and anyway it is a road to somewhere else”.
Finally, I cannot resist remembering when I sat on those Benches over there during the first stage of House of Lords reform. I heard a member of Her Majesty's loyal Opposition at the time—a former Home Secretary—come out with the words, “The wicked thing the Labour Government are trying to do is force an extension of the life of government”. Who is doing it? Not us. Can we please have the big picture, can we ask the British people what they think, and can we not patronise them by saying, “You need longer to be able to judge us”?
Lord Wills
My Lords, I think most would agree that there is merit in the arguments on both sides of the debate on whether the term of Parliament should be fixed. However, if there is merit in the argument for the term being fixed at five years, it is merit that passed by both the Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrats until the coalition agreement enlightened them. Nearly a year after that agreement, Ministers have still not managed to find a way of articulating that case persuasively.
The Government’s proposition is that they have a mandate for this proposal—this was one of the arguments used by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, on Second Reading—because an appetite for political reform was manifested at the last general election. That is a questionable proposition, to put it at its politest, because it conflates an arguable general distrust and dislike of politicians with a wish for a specific proposal for a five-year fixed term for Parliament. The Government’s argument that five years is somehow part of our political culture—the Deputy Prime Minister has made this argument—ignores inconvenient facts about the average length of post-war Parliaments. Of the last seven Parliaments, for example, four have lasted for about four years and three for five years. Moreover, the proposition, which Ministers have also advanced, that the Parliament Act somehow supports this proposal confuses setting a maximum term with fixing a norm. Then, of course, there is the selective quoting of international examples, nearly always in discussions of constitutional reform—a refuge for the intellectually desperate.
Does it matter that the Government have so inadequately made the case for a fixed term of five years? I think it does. This is not a matter of a finely balanced judgment one way or another, with there being really nothing very much to choose between a four-year term and a five-year term. Of course there is an element of judgment in these things, but, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd, so eloquently set out, the overwhelming weight of expert opinion is in favour of four years. Anything longer inevitably—logically, inevitably—delays the calling to account of the Executive, and it creates an accumulating democratic deficit.
In the absence of any persuasive arguments for a five-year term, this flaw is toxic. It is particularly toxic because of the process by which this Bill has been brought before Parliament and the damaging perception that this has created the motivation behind the selection of five years as the fixed term for Parliament. Due process and perceptions of motivation matter especially for constitutional legislation because they can create public trust in the integrity of our constitutional arrangements or they can destroy it. A constitution which does not command the trust and respect of the citizens it serves is a constitution without value.
So what has been the process for this Bill? There has been no manifesto commitment to its key detail or any compelling argument for it. There has not been a Green Paper, a White Paper or public consultation. The process has consisted simply of ramming this hastily and poorly drafted Bill through Parliament as quickly as the business managers can get it through. This creates a perception which has been widely voiced. I am very grateful to my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer for telling the House about the account given in Mr David Laws’ history of the formation of the coalition agreement. I am sure that Mr Laws did not wish to be quite as unhelpful to his colleagues who remain in government as he has turned out to be. Nevertheless, the citizen might legitimately ask, “Why did the Government suddenly abandon a historic Liberal Democrat commitment to a fixed four-year term?”. Why would two parties which are locked in an uneasy embrace, trying to find a way to govern together that does not lead to an electoral annihilation for one or other or both of them, suddenly decide to extend the fixed term to five years?
My noble and learned friend Lord Falconer’s quote from Mr George Osborne tells us everything that we need to know about this. The Government have yet to come up with one good argument about why the motivation for this move to a five-year term is nothing more than the search for short-term, partisan, political advantage, seeking to stay in power, locked together, for as long as they possibly can. Sadly—I say sadly because I know that many Members on the Liberal Democrat Benches have long and honourable histories of espousing constitutional reform—this sort of short-term partisan manoeuvring is coming to characterise this Government’s constitutional legislation. It injects poison into the system. It creates suspicion where there should be trust and volatility where there should be stability. This really is no way to legislate for constitutional matters.
Accepting this amendment would help to neutralise this poison, but I fear that the Minister—characteristically amiably, no doubt—will try to find reasons for resisting it. I fear that the Government will ignore the reservations, which we have heard over and over again in this debate, which has gone on now for nearly one and a half hours, just as they have ignored all the other doubts about their constitutional legislation, and that they will just whip this Bill through. Despite that, I hope that the noble and learned Lord who moved this amendment will test the opinion of the House on the matter, if not now then at Report. This House should do its constitutional duty whatever view Ministers take of theirs.
Lord Rennard
My Lords, I am sure that noble Lords opposite will have an opportunity to explain their points. Perhaps I may briefly explain the third reason for my having decided that five years is better than four years. It is again a question of consistency. We agreed relatively recently and after lengthy debate—the longest that we have had in the time that I have been here—on the system for parliamentary boundary reviews. It has been established that there will be five-year reviews of constituency boundaries. It would be madness to say that one should redraw the constituency boundaries every five years but then not to have general elections every five years. To have a general election every four years but to redraw the boundaries every fifth year would put the two processes completely and quite unfairly out of sync. On that basis, I decided that five years rather than four was more logical and more democratic.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton
Would the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, care to comment on the fact that the first reason he gave for changing his mind applied before he espoused and promoted his manifesto for the election? Between his saying, “Vote Liberal Democrat; we’re in favour of four years” and reaching the conclusion that it should be five years, the people went and voted thinking that it was four. The noble Lord knew about the legislation that had been passed by the previous Government. I see a pattern however. I am grateful to him for his comment on five-yearly parliamentary boundary reviews and I shall go away and think about that very seriously.
Lord Rennard
I thank the noble Baroness, particularly for her latter point. In response to her first point, about how I should have known all this before 2005, I say very honestly that if all of us ignored all the evidence and all that we had learnt during the past six years, this place would be a poorer place and our legislation the poorer for it. I have reflected over the six years and have been convinced by many people that there should more pre-legislative scrutiny and more draft legislation. In 2005, I did not feel so strongly about that. Some of the more recent evidence points me in the direction of being strongly in favour of five-year, rather than four-year, fixed-term Parliaments.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
The noble Baroness’s final point is a huge leap. As I explained at Second Reading—as did the noble Baroness, Lady Jay of Paddington—there is a spectrum between the complete flexibility that you have under the present system, which is subject to a maximum term, and the system in, I think, Norway, where there are quite rigid terms in which there is no way out if anything happens. There was a consensus that if we moved to fixed-term Parliaments, as I believe is right and as is proposed by the Bill, there should nevertheless be a mechanism to call an early election if certain circumstances arose. There was some degree of consensus on that. When we come to Clause 2, we will debate those mechanisms. I merely observe that the Constitution Committee thought that the mechanisms were fit for purpose in terms of what we are dealing with.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton
We have heard in this debate references to all former Prime Ministers using their judgment in their own party-political interests and that of their own futures. How do I explain to people outside that the present Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, arriving on the figure of five years, were not doing the same thing?
Fixed-term Parliaments Bill
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton Excerpts(13 years, 9 months ago)
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Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton
My Lords, between now and the next stage of this Bill I wonder if my noble friend could ponder whether, as has been proposed, the reason that AV is going to a referendum is because it could not be got through the House of Commons. Does that mean that we must have a referendum on Lords reform if it proves impossible to get it through your Lordships’ House?
Lord Grocott
What a persuasive argument—I am completely convinced by that.
If the Government are going to reduce the power of the voters over their Government, they must give us a very convincing argument as to why that is desirable. Of course, I very much hope that my amendment becomes entirely surplus to requirements, because I very much hope that the Committee will decide later that we should have four-year gaps between Parliaments. I do not agree with fixed terms, but if there is to be one I hope it is four years. For the first time in my life I am operating entirely in accordance with the Liberal Democrats’ manifesto and I hope they will be voting with us on four-year Parliaments. However, if the Government unilaterally reduce the power of the electorate to have general elections and to make their decisions about Governments, I hope that they will only take this power away on the authority of the electorate in a referendum.
Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames
My Lords, the noble Earl is entirely right to say that the Bill is capable of extending a Parliament under the two-month extension proposal. That is the reason why the Parliament Act does not apply. That does indeed give this House the right to veto the legislation, but it is a non sequitur to suggest that it follows from that, and that alone, that this is a fundamental reform of the type to warrant a referendum.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton
Can the noble Lord, Lord Marks, explain to me, because I listened to the logic he was developing, how changing a system of voting for a Chamber of Parliament, where that Chamber is already elected, is a greater change than introducing a system of voting for a Chamber of Parliament which is not elected at the moment? I raise this as somebody who is in favour of reform—I do not want to be dismissed as somebody who is not—but I find a real fault line in his argument, unless he is about to conclude that he thinks there should be a referendum on Lords reform.
Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames
My Lords, the noble Baroness’s logic is seductive and attractive, but it misses the point that, as all noble Lords accept, this House accepts the primacy of the House of Commons. Therefore, a change to the voting system for the House of Commons, which alters the entire electoral system for the House that has democratic primacy, should have different weight accorded to it from that of a change to the composition of the upper House.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton
My Lords, can I just press the noble Lord further? As I understand it, the noble Lord’s party’s view is that AV is, to a degree, an acceptable alternative to the present system of first past the post. However, I believe quite senior members of his party have said they regard AV as a staging post. If your Lordships’ House were to be elected by a system that was further down the staging-post road, would we not be in a difficulty, using the reasoning of the noble Lord’s own party, given that it is not certain that the democratic legitimacy of the House of Commons —which I accept—would be accepted by a more democratically elected second Chamber?
Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames
My Lords, the noble Baroness is perhaps addressing a debate that we are yet to have on another occasion. It is well known that in the past we have favoured, and indeed do favour, other electoral systems. It is also well known that the coalition agreement commits us to a proportional system of representation for the election of Members of this House. However, noble Lords will accept, I hope, that that is a matter for another day and what we are now concerned with—if I can just finish my response to the noble Baroness—is considering an amendment which calls for a referendum on the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill and a separate referendum on the question of four years or five. The future electoral system for this House is of interest and of course of some relevance, but it is not central to this point. I give way to the noble Lord.
Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames
My Lords, I do not accept that. It is not the abolition of a House to change its composition, however attractively the point might be put.
I remind your Lordships’ House that we had a very significant constitutional reform with the Constitutional Reform Act 2005, whereby the highest court in the land, having been constituted by a committee of this House, was replaced when the Supreme Court was established. Nobody then argued that there should be a referendum on that very significant and wide-ranging change in the constitution.
Both the noble Lords, Lord Grocott and Lord Howarth of Newport, addressed the question of four or five years. That is an important point which we are addressing in this Bill and on which there will be a separate debate during this Committee stage, and I would not be at all surprised if either or both of them contributed. However, the point here is not the length of a fixed-term Parliament, which is a matter of judgment and on which many speeches were made at Second Reading, including my own, but whether this is a matter for a referendum.
There are a number of further points. In a lengthy consideration of the Bill by the Constitution Committee —which I might say was not an enthusiastic report endorsing the Bill and the way it had been handled—it was not suggested that this was a matter for a referendum. Had it genuinely been believed at that stage that there were respectable arguments that this was a fundamental issue of a nature that required a referendum, I suggest that it would have been put before the committee and either adopted or rejected.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton
My recollection is that the Constitution Committee took the view that there should have been pre-legislative scrutiny, which would have led to many of these points being discussed properly, particularly the role and relationship proposed in this Bill between the Prime Minister and the Speaker in another place.
Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames
My Lords, the noble Baroness is absolutely right to draw attention to the fact that the Constitution Committee thought that pre-legislative scrutiny would have been a good idea. Nevertheless, the committee heard evidence over a number of days and read a great deal of written evidence from some of the leading academics in the land and nowhere was it suggested that this was a referendum issue in my reading of the evidence of the report. That was the point that I was attempting to make.
The other point of importance that I would invite noble Lords to consider is that the principle of fixed-term Parliaments was subject to manifesto commitments of the Labour Party and my own party and in neither case was there a suggestion that it should be the subject of a referendum rather than legislation. The Conservatives embraced that commitment very shortly after the election, and the Members of Parliament elected as Conservatives to represent their constituents did not seek to interpose a referendum before this legislation should become law.
There is a danger, which I urge the House to bear in mind when it considers these amendments, that we move from a representative democracy, which the vast majority of us value a great deal, to government by plebiscite. If you lose sight of the principle that only fundamental changes require referendums, you move some way down that road.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
My Lords, my noble friend’s point goes to the heart of whether one should have a fixed-term Parliament, bearing in mind that no Parliament can bind its successor. We debated the arguments for fixed-term Parliaments at Second Reading. I believe that they would ensure that Governments were able to plan, as indeed could Parliament, for a fixed period, and that they would not allow a Prime Minister of the day to seek an opportune moment to go to the country earlier than the full length of a Parliament for partisan reasons. This is an advance on what we have at the moment.
The point I am making is that if the Bill becomes law as it currently stands, the Prime Minister’s hands will be tied. If he saw an advantage some time in the spring of 2014, it would not be possible for him to cut and run because, if the Bill was on the statute book, he would not be allowed to do so. The fact that the Bill ensures that Parliament cannot otherwise be dissolved means, as the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, remarked at Second Reading, that the Prime Minister has given up an important power.
We could debate whether the electorate have been denied as many chances to go to the polls as otherwise. The crude arithmetical approach—I do not mean crude in a pejorative way—adopted by the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, did not take into account that in no case since 1945 would any circumstances have arisen that would have triggered the mechanisms for early Dissolution or an early election under Clause 2; he assumes that that would never have happened. However, if one looks at history, it may well have happened in 1951 when there was a consensus between the parties that an election was needed. It may well have happened in February 1974. I know that my noble friend Lord Cormack thinks that the then Prime Minister, Mr Edward Heath, was wrong—and, indeed, as the electorate pointed out, he probably was—but there may well have been circumstances then in which it was felt that the Government of the day, and, one assumes, the Opposition, would not have stood in the way of an election, and that could have triggered Dissolution. It may well be that, as a result of that election in 1974, when there was no working majority for any party, another election may again have been agreed.
The point I am trying to make is that you cannot simply indicate that every Parliament would have gone the full five years since 1945 because there may well have been circumstances during these years that would have triggered an election. That is the whole point of the provision of trigger mechanisms, which no doubt the Committee will debate in due course. With issues such as no-confidence Motions and their wording, there is plenty of material and meat for debate.
My noble friend Lord Onslow, in his response to my noble friend Lord Marks, asked whether the Bill would extend the lifetime of this Parliament. My noble friend Lord Marks was right to say that it has the potential, if the power is used, to extend the date by two months in certain agreed circumstances, such as the foot and mouth outbreak in 2001. However, it is important to put on record that the general election last year took place on 6 May and that the first meeting of the new Parliament took place on 18 May; therefore this Parliament can continue until 18 May 2015. The latest date on which an election could be held is 11 June 2015, so stipulating the date of 7 May 2015 does not extend the life of this Parliament. The power is there to be used in exceptional circumstances and is subject to the votes of both Houses, and that is why the Parliament Act would not apply.
The amendment invites the Government to hold a referendum on whether the general election should be held in May 2014 or May 2015, although it makes no provision for the result of a referendum to be reflected in the length of a fixed-term Parliament after that general election. I think we get the spirit of what the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, is moving. My reaction is similar to that of my noble friend Lord Brooke; I am not sure what the public will make of being invited to choose the date of the next general election. I suspect that they would consider that as one trip to the polling station that they did not need to make.
The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, asked my noble friend Lord McNally which issues would be submitted to a referendum, and my noble friend replied:
“the Government believe that Parliament should judge which issues are the subject of a national referendum”.—[Official Report, 24/1/11; col. 671.]
Indeed, it will be possible for Parliament to make that judgment on any legislation.
As to the referendum on the alternative vote, let me try to put into context where we are. I do not make any bones about the fact that in the aftermath of the last general election, when quite clearly no party had an overall majority, there were coalition negotiations in which we tried to seek agreement. This has put in place a Government who are doing things of which my noble friend Lord Onslow heartily approves. I have been involved in coalitions in devolved Administrations, and there is inevitably an element of give and take and compromise in the negotiations. It is quite clear that the Conservatives did not support electoral reform in the shape of the alternative vote, and I do not shy away from the fact that some movement was required on that if there was ever going to be a coalition that would address the immediate economic crisis facing the country. There was therefore an agreement that there should be a referendum on the alternative vote, a policy that had been in the Labour Party’s manifesto. The Conservatives did not espouse a policy for fixed-term Parliaments, but they were prepared to accept it as a part of a coalition agreement because the Liberal Democrats were prepared to accept many other things. This has subsequently laid the foundations to get us out of the economic and fiscal mess bequeathed to the Government.
Both the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats had a commitment to a fixed-term Parliament in their manifestos, although neither of them said what the period would be—certainly the Liberal Democrats did not say so. We had party policy papers from the past, but we did not say four years in our manifesto. Crucially, neither party said that there would be a referendum on that commitment. Contrast that with the Conservative Party, which indicated that it wanted referendums on British membership of the European Union and ceding further powers to Brussels.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton
The Minister is very careful in his choice of words. Can he assist me? What should I say in the referendum campaign to people who ask me whether there will be the same AV system for voting for Members of the House of Lords? If it is not to be the same, what should I say to people who ask me why we should not have the same system for the House of Lords? The fundamental flaw in the Government’s policy is not the options that they choose on an individual issue, but that when they all come together they begin to look like a committee trying to design something but not knowing how many legs it has or whether it has two heads.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
Far be it from me to suggest how the noble Baroness should answer questions about the merits of the AV system. I am not sure which side she is on but I should like to think that we are on the same side. I cannot answer her question because I am not a member of the committee looking at Lords reform and have not seen its proposals. I genuinely do not know the answer to the question.
I do not think that it would be appropriate to go into the merits of Lords reform in the context of this Bill, but I pick up the point made by my noble friend Lord Tyler that in all the discussions with the previous Government on the committee chaired by Mr Jack Straw, it was never anticipated that there would be a referendum. As was confirmed by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, the purpose identified was that a White Paper would propose either a wholly or a substantially elected second Chamber, which would go into the manifestos of the three main parties. Indeed, that proposal was put before the electorate in the manifestos of the three main parties. I did not find it a very convincing argument that there should now be a referendum on Lords reform or anything else just because this Government have brought forward other constitutional measures.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton Excerpts(13 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord Rooker
It is certainly wrong about it being fatal; I will argue that until the cows come home. The Electoral Commission bordered on being wilful. I was about to come to the point that the noble Lord raised, which is a very fair one, about the register. My point is this: after the referendum, when everything is counted, if it comes down to such a fine definition that we have to look at the number of people currently on the register who died or left the country before 5 May—in addition to such elements as foreigners who are able to vote in some elections but not for Westminster—we will have precisely the situation that I seek to avoid in a binding referendum. If all those factors come into play—that is, if the result is narrow and there is an argument over the numbers—it will be the very reason why we should not have a binding referendum in the first place.
My compromise is to say that the threshold should be 40 per cent. My original compromise was that it should all be consulted on. The House threw that out by 17 votes in November. That is my point. If it comes down to the fact that these issues start to matter, we will have a serious problem on our hands. Therefore, if the referendum was not binding, Parliament could then look at it, Ministers could advise Parliament, we could take a rational view and maybe—I fully accept this—still go ahead and introduce AV. This amendment does not stop the introduction of AV. If the circumstances are such that we have that problem, we will also have a problem that is even bigger.
I have listened to what the Electoral Commission told the Select Committee and to the chairman of the committee, who swore blind that she voted for this amendment in the Commons last year. She did not. The amendment in the Commons last year, which was defeated by around 500 votes to a couple of dozen was on a killer, fatal threshold. The Labour Party voted against it and quite right, too. If the threshold was not met, that would be it—the referendum would be off. That is not what this is about. Those who refuse to accept that are being disingenuous about the situation we have arrived at. It is not too late.
In other words, this amendment is directly consequential on what the House passed last Monday. Irrespective of what the Government choose to do in the Commons in the morning, it would be wrong to reject it—I make no assumptions either way—on the basis that the Electoral Commission said that it cannot define “votes” and “the electorate” if we cannot today add this consequential bit to the amendment we passed last Monday. One flows from the other. If the argument is not used tomorrow, this does not apply. However, is it intended that the Electoral Commission brief the Commons and say, “This won’t stand. As we told the Political and Constitutional Affairs Committee last week, ‘votes’ and ‘electorate’ are not defined.”? Since I have made a modest attempt to define them in the context of the Bill, that would be quite wrong. The amendment should be added to what we passed last Monday.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton
My Lords, I thought I heard my noble friend be told by the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, that not voting would count as a no vote in the referendum. This worries me deeply. With my noble friend’s amendment, Parliament will be able to decide, however many people vote for or against AV. That is my understanding. By not voting, people will not contribute to a no vote barring AV being adopted. It is merely a question of whether it becomes automatically binding on Parliament or whether it becomes something that Parliament can judge. I was deeply worried by the description of the noble Lord, Lord Tyler—
The Deputy Speaker (Lord Skelmersdale)
My Lords, the House should remind itself that we are at Third Reading. The amendment has not yet been moved. There will be an opportunity for any noble Lord to address questions to the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, when he decides what to do with his amendment in due course. May I take it that this amendment has been moved?
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Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton
I have just one question. Will my noble friend give thought to the fact that in the Welsh referendum campaign, for example, results were announced constituency by constituency? I remember it well because Carmarthen’s results came in last and that was the constituency I had campaigned in. If misleading information was put out in one area of the country, would that then lead to a request that the whole thing be done again; or would it relate only to individual constituencies where such misleading information had been put out?
Lord Grocott
That is a very good question from my noble friend, to which I do not know the answer. No doubt, given the great resources of the part of the Civil Service that deals with this Bill, the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, will be able to give an answer that satisfies my noble friend.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
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Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton
Can my noble friend or the Minister tell me whether the sort of flexibility that the Leader of the House referred to today would allow margins of flexibility on the final number—that keeps reminding me of a book in which the answer is 42—so that it would then be easier to have regard to local differences? I think my noble friend Lord Rooker, whom I respect enormously and have worked with for years, may be able to take a slightly more laid-back view on this issue than, for example, a Minister were he or she to dare to go to the boundary between Lancashire and Yorkshire.
The Advocate-General for Scotland (Lord Wallace of Tankerness)
My Lords, Amendments 68 to 71 specify more explicitly the way in which the Boundary Commissions are to draw up new constituency boundaries and take some discretion away from the Boundary Commissions. They provide that constituency boundaries must be contained within existing county boundaries and must not split local government wards and propose limits on the number of local authority areas that constituencies can cross. With the exception of Amendment 69 on wards, they appear to be directed at English local government structure only. I am not sure whether that was the intention or whether they were intended to apply to other parts of the United Kingdom as well, but I am not going to nitpick over that because in moving the amendment the noble Lord, Lord Snape, indicated that they were important and that has been reflected in the debate that we have had.
The Bill provides for the Boundary Commission to take into account local government boundaries within the range of flexibility provided by the Bill. Projections indicate that with that flexibility it would be possible to have constituencies varying from 72,000 to 79,000 electors. The Bill’s provisions represent a rebalancing of the rules in existing legislation; namely, the equality in the weight of a vote and the flexibility to recognise local factors. We believe that the existing legislation results in unclear and potentially contradictory sets of rules. Indeed, the Boundary Commission for England has said that each rule taken on its own is quite clear but it is required to apply all the rules and its experience, and that of its predecessors, is that there is often conflict between them.
What is proposed in the Bill with regard to Rules 2 and 4 is to have a hierarchy, as was said in one of the exchanges. It is because of this rebalancing that we have given precedence to the size of electorate and the geographical area of each constituency over other factors in Rule 5, such as local government boundaries. I believe these other factors are important, and that is why we have provided the Boundary Commissions with the flexibility to consider them. I emphasise to the noble Lord, Lord Haworth, that it is possible for the Boundary Commission to have regard to local ties. The Boundary Commissions have regard within a 10 per cent band of the UK electorate quota between the largest and smallest constituency. We believe that the provisions of the Bill represent a reasonable balance between these factors and ensure a system where votes have equal value throughout the United Kingdom.
In response to a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, there is nothing in the Bill or in the Boundary Commission rules at the moment to move individual electors from one local authority area to another. But as is the case at the moment, some constituencies cross London borough boundaries. In fact, 19 out of 32 London borough boundaries are crossed by a constituency boundary. That does not transfer the individual elector within that local authority area.
Lord Grocott
What, that,
“no district or borough ward shall be included in more than one constituency”?
In my book, that comes under the great heading of common sense. I recommend that to the Committee as being splendid. It is not exactly severely top-down and not nearly as top-down as what is in the Bill, where, irrespective of boundaries, the history of communities, mountain ranges or rivers—if we had any deserts, they would no doubt be subdivided into several constituencies—there is what I call a top-down solution, which aims simply at precise numerical conclusions.
There is no doubt about where I think the determinations of our boundaries should come from. It is precisely as I have described. However, an essential ingredient of it—we are not yet there in the Bill and I am certainly not going to talk about it now—is the crucial importance of local inquiries in which local people can participate. I have sat through nearly all our proceedings on the Bill and, as ever, my noble friend Lord Rooker has encapsulated why we are where we are. As he rightly said, it is the certain knowledge that we are not going to have these local inquiries that makes this Committee stage so important. This is the only point at which sensible local opinion can be expressed at a national level.
I am sure that some will correctly and energetically argue that the views of local people should be taken into account. I dare say that the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, will do so when we come to the debates on the county boundaries in Cornwall. Like everyone else in this House, I have been getting lots of e-mails and messages from people in Cornwall and there is almost an air of desperation in them. I was prompted to think that by the comment of my noble friend Lord Rooker— that this was essentially the local inquiry going on now, precisely because the people of Cornwall know perfectly well that, if we decide in Committee that county boundaries will be ignored, this will be their last chance to have anything sensible to say about that. To me, that is an indictment of the approach that the Government are taking, which is—I know that they will deny this and find ways of explaining it—essentially to end local community involvement within flexible rules, not within rigid rules, to determine local constituency boundaries. I plead for more flexibility.
I will not trespass too far on to other legislation, but when I thought about it I realised that this desire to make all the rough edges smooth, to apply a straitjacket to our constitution and to make it all work according to rigid rules seems to be an almost pervading view of the Government in a lot of the constitutional legislation that they are bringing forward. I do not know whether that goes right across government. In fairness, the Liberals have been quite consistent about this, but we are now saying that constituency boundaries should be very rigidly drawn and shortly we will be told the dates of all future general elections—presumably until the sun swallows up our planet. Every five years there will be a general election, come hell or high water, on a precise date. There will be no flexibility. I will not go into those arguments, but, my word, I will want to develop them when we reach the Bill about fixing the term of Parliaments.
I think that I am right in saying that the Liberal Democrats are very keen on us having a written constitution, which will lay all these things out and, of course, lead to the interpretation of the rules being adjudicated on by the courts. The beauty of a lot of our electoral and constitutional arrangements—this certainly applies to the drawing of constituency boundaries—is that they have been flexible. They apply the greatest principle that you can apply in any constitution, which is the principle of common sense. They allow for rough edges not to be smoothed out. This is particularly true in the case of the four nations that are the constituent parts of the United Kingdom. We all know that it is a slightly unusual arrangement, whereby one of the four countries totally dominates all the others numerically, but there are all sorts of accommodations, one of which we shall come to later, in respect of Wales, which is severely affected by the Bill.
I cannot write a constitutional doctrine explaining how the British constitution operates in relation to the four constituent parts of the United Kingdom, but I can say that it has worked pretty well, that people are pretty free within it and that they understand the system in which they operate. If there are a few anomalies here and there, so be it. I fear that what we are seeing in the Bill in relation to constituencies and constituency boundaries is yet another step along the road. I may be alone in this; I have been called a constitutional conservative by the noble Lord, Lord McNally, who, sadly, is not here. If that means someone who believes in common sense in the operation of the constitution, then I plead guilty. My noble friend’s amendment passes the test of common sense for me. It allows flexibility locally and that is why I support it.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton
My Lords, I noticed that the Minister did not respond to the question that I asked him and my noble friend Lord Bach about whether the flexibility regarding numbers that has already been determined by your Lordships’ House, with the decision on the Isle of Wight, will be allowed to affect the number referred to by the Leader of the House, the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, as “a nice, round figure”. It is important that we should know that when we are debating different views about the terms on which new constituency boundaries will be drawn.
I make the passing comment, in light of my experience in local government, that it is not only for MPs to be able to work with the local authorities in their area. My noble friend Lady Henig, who was on Lancashire County Council at the same time as I was, will recollect that there were many occasions when we sought to influence our Members of Parliament serving Lancashire. There could have been difficulties had the boundaries of those constituencies crossed county boundaries. On the whole, we had a good working relationship, to the point where, on one unique occasion, Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman lobbied me to find a way around the ban by her right honourable friend the Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, on our giving children free school milk. That remains a unique memory for me. Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman was very concerned at that time about EU milk subsidies.
The sense of locality among political activists is important. There is a mistaken belief out there in the country that the political parties have thousands and thousands of political activists who ought to knock on their door every time there is an election. If we can do anything during the passage of the Bill to explain that it ain’t necessarily so, it would be a good thing. I remember knocking on the door of one Labour supporter in a county council election and being told, “I have been waiting 10 years for someone from the party to knock on my door”. I said, “That is because you, as a party supporter, are not out knocking on doors”. He said, “What do you mean?”. I said, “Tonight, there are about 18 people out”. This was in what was then the borough of Preston. The public will not understand the debate about the importance of place in terms of political activists, but your Lordships will, from experience.
The sense of place and of belonging is critical. In my experience, having lived in London, Shropshire, Staffordshire, Lancashire and Leicestershire—I was born in Leicestershire—the sense of place in the major conurbations is less, particularly since the abolition of the GLC, although I found, when talking to schoolchildren there, that the sense of place of West Bromwich overrode the new title of Sandwell. The sense of place is critical in building political interest, activism and co-operation around a community, not only within the parties but between the parties. The sense of place matters and in that context, and because of my previous experience—this is a former interest—as leader of the Association of County Councils for England and Wales, I have to say that certain parts of the country, such as Wales and Lancashire, have a very strong sense of place.
My noble friend Lord Grocott made the point that this is the only opportunity to debate these issues, because the Bill deprives local communities of the opportunity to put their case. As somebody who has attended most of our proceedings on the Bill, I feel bitterly resentful that I am accused of filibustering for being here and debating this, when I would very much like to go home, because the Government have conceded that local people could do the job that we are attempting to do here. I am surprised, although I intend no discourtesy to the Minister, that the Liberal Democrats are giving up the opportunity that, in our experience, they have taken so often in the past to make a very full presentation at a public inquiry into constituency boundaries at local level. If we want an active democracy, people need to feel that they are part of the system that creates the constituencies and determines boundaries. The Bill is going in absolutely the opposite direction.
I shall sit down now, but I shall come back to this subject in other parts of the Bill. The Minister may go away and think that my speeches are not necessary, but he could stop them at any point by accepting that the people in the areas that I have referred to and lived in—Leicestershire, Lancashire, Staffordshire, Shropshire, Wales and London—can make their own case, because this is not the place where that ought to be done.
Lord Newton of Braintree
The last thing I want to do is extend the debate but somebody needs to say that the picture of idealised perfection that the Boundary Commission arrangements have had up until now, implicitly presented by some of the things that have been said, is simply not the case, especially in an area of rapidly expanding populations.
I happen to have been a Member of Parliament a lot longer ago, admittedly, in the county of Essex which has had a rapidly expanding population and went through several boundary changes. I am bound to say that the constituency I represented included parts of two districts, Chelmsford and Braintree; it would have included parts of two PCTs, had they existed at the time; it related to two police divisions, to quote examples used earlier; and indeed, it had three different postal districts in its geography. I found not the slightest difficulty in representing all those parts and strands to the best of my ability. My former constituents might have views on whether I did it well or badly overall, but I found no difficulty at all in relating to both Chelmsford and Braintree councils and all the other bodies to which I referred. I do not think that we should have it presented, as some have, that the situation is a dreamworld without the Bill.
My other point is that the constituency that I represented has now been split into two and the two main towns within it are separate. Frankly, I think they probably like it as they were about the same size and there was a degree of rivalry so they are happy to be split up, even though they are still in the same local government district. One of them is now part of the constituency consisting of parts of three districts: Braintree, Colchester and Maldon. I do not believe that the new MP is having any difficulty representing all those parts of her new constituency. Let us not overplay our hand on this and recognise that there will be difficulties whatever system we have. There is a degree of flexibility in the Bill’s proposals. Last week there were discussions about increasing that degree of flexibility. There is already enough flexibility to make it quite possible not to have the abacus concept that the noble Lord talked about just now.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton
Does the noble Lord agree that in the case of both the boundary reviews he spoke about, local people had the opportunity to say whether they were happy or whether, for example, they wanted the two towns to be split, whereas this Bill would not allow that?
Lord Newton of Braintree
I understand the point made by the noble Baroness, and it is yet another point that has been done to death. The suggestions that community is all, regardless of other circumstances, which has been implicit in quite a lot of what has been said, and that somehow this is death and disaster compared with the situation at present, are complete and absolute poppycock.
Lord Davies of Stamford
I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Newton, has heard and taken note of those remarks. I say to my noble friend with the greatest friendliness that I do not intend to try to turn myself into an expert on the electoral history of Maldon. I come back to the point that I was making, which is that I think the public in general rightly expect us in a Committee on a Bill of this kind to do two things. One is to explore to the full the details in the Bill to open up every possible angle of vision to ensure that we look through the consequences. It is very important in any Committee on any Bill to try to identify the possible unintended consequence or consequences of it.
On the whole, this House has done a job in that regard of which we can be proud. What disgraceful negligence it would have been on the part of this House if we had not discussed Wales at all, which my noble friend Lord Touhig has just mentioned, given that the other House has apparently failed to do so. Anyone who has read that wonderful classic of Welsh literature, How Green Was My Valley, knows that the mountains create a real cultural and social barrier between the different Welsh valleys. There has been no opportunity to explore Wales, or Manchester for that matter. I have heard more about the electoral districts and history of Scotland than I have ever done in my life. Of course, I am very tempted to talk about the beautiful town of Stamford and say what a tragedy and monstrosity it would be if it were divided up and part of it were taken away and put into Leicestershire or somewhere else, but I will not go down that route despite the blandishments of my noble friend Lord Graham, a man whom the whole House holds in the very greatest regard. I simply say that we are doing that part of our job properly, well and thoroughly, and it is quite right that we are doing so.
The second task which the public as a whole would expect of us is to make some progress, or at least to attempt to make some progress, towards consensus, because the public always think that we should try to get consensus on constitutional matters. The public are right about that, and I think that most of us, in our heart of hearts, all feel that we should try to get consensus. There has not been much of an effort to get consensus for a long time, but such an effort has been made this afternoon, and that is very important. The Bill does not deal with wards at all, but the Minister has said that he will take that on board and come back to the Committee with something on wards. That is a very positive statement. I take it in good faith, as we all do, and I do not think that we need say anything more about wards this afternoon, and I shall not do so.
Views have been expressed on both sides of the House, including by the noble Lords, Lord Rennard and Lord Newton, that counties are important. We can all argue about how important they are in particular contexts, but it is clear that they are important. Paragraph 5 to Schedule 2 says simply that the Boundary Commission “may” take account of counties. However, that is just permissive; it implies that you can do so if you really want to. It does not accommodate the counties. We debated earlier the preceding group of amendments, some of which would have forced the Boundary Commission to take account of counties. My noble and learned friend proposes a very reasonable middle road in Amendment 71A: namely, that the Boundary Commission “should, where practicable” do so. In other words, there is flexibility but no insistence. If the Boundary Commission feels that other more important considerations ought to override the sanctity of county boundaries, so be it. That is real progress and a sensible way forward. I hope that it may be the basis of consensus on this important matter of counties.
I think that there is also consensus on a third and very important point, which was made by the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, from the coalition Benches: namely, that you cannot achieve these things and give the Boundary Commission any flexibility in practice unless we look again at the 5 per cent limitation. Otherwise, anything that we tell the Boundary Commission will be completely negated by the 5 per cent rule. What you cannot and must not do—I do not think that any of us would want to do this—is to give the Boundary Commission a contradictory brief and put it in a situation whereby it cannot solve the problem that it is being set. That would be quite wrong. If there is to be flexibility to enable the Boundary Commission to take account of county boundaries or other local factors which it considers to be important, it is clearly necessary to look again at the 5 per cent rule. I think that consensus has emerged in the course of our proceedings on that very important matter.
Fourthly, and finally, I sense there is a growing feeling that something needs to be done about my next point, not necessarily by continuing with the present status quo but not necessarily, either, by having what is in the Bill, which is nothing at all. We need to ensure that we do not just say, “Leave this matter in this House and never again is there to be any open discussion of the principles of our electoral boundaries”. That would be a very unnatural situation. Therefore, we need to preserve something like the public inquiry system. My noble friend Lady Hughes explained how that had made a big difference in Manchester in a recent case to which she drew our attention, and I know of other cases in which that has happened.
I think I mentioned that I, with some supporters, gave evidence to a Boundary Commission. We did not win our point but there was a general sense of satisfaction that we had been able to air it and that the arguments had been properly, duly, publicly and transparently weighed. We do not need the existing form of public inquiry. My noble friend Lord Rooker set out how he thinks that the whole process could be more rapidly conducted. I was very interested in his suggestion in that regard, which seems a promising avenue of discussion under the heading of future amendments on the Marshalled List. However, some sort of public and open appeals process is absolutely essential if we are not to put ourselves in a situation whereby the great and the good, if we can describe ourselves in that way—perhaps we are the great and the bad—take an irrevocable decision and then hand over to a bureaucracy the right for ever after to take decisions behind closed doors and subsequently announce to the grateful public what their electoral boundaries will be without it ever having to explain itself in public in any kind of open forum.
We have made considerable progress on those four principles this afternoon. The prospect may be emerging through the mist of a structure that could command the consensus that we all regard as very desirable for a Bill of this kind.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton
My Lords, does my noble friend, like me, remember successive Governments and successive political parties trying to undermine the sense of place of Rutland, and failing?