Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Baroness McDonagh Excerpts

Wednesday 12th January 2011 Lords Chamber

We have been talking about black Caribbean and African and Asian sub-continent groups, but work also needs to be done with other groups, such as the Poles. There is a huge number of Poles in Edinburgh, for example, who are eligible to vote because they have become British citizens. Again, they do not automatically register to vote. Indeed, some of them may be unaware that they are eligible. If they are still Polish citizens, they are not entitled to vote, except in Scottish Parliament and local elections, but if they have become British citizens they are entitled to vote. I hope that we will find some way of getting to them. I hope that this has been a very small contribution to the kind of suggestions that my noble friend Lord Boateng would like to come forward in this debate.

[Baroness McDonagh]

I ask the noble Lord, Lord Lester, or anybody on the government Benches: why are the roles of government and the big society mutually exclusive? I find the notion quite shocking that it should exclusively be political parties that deal with underregistration and with underregistration of individual groups. I think that government and not-for-profit membership organisations in the voluntary sector should work in partnership to achieve these goals. In the run-up to Christmas, I was out every week doing registration as part of my local Labour Party. All the political parties were doing that work, as was the local authority. We increased the register by just under 4,000 voters across the local authority. That would have brought in 1 million voters across the country if people had done likewise everywhere. Every strong democracy in any country in the world sees government as responsible for compiling an accurate register. I think that it is quite shocking that you would not see that as the role of government.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

My Lords, the life of this country has been enriched and energised generation by generation by waves of immigrants coming to Britain and forming communities here. Whether they were Huguenots in the 17th century, Jewish refugees from central and eastern Europe in the first half of the 20th century, the Afro-Caribbean influx in the second half of the 20th century or Ugandan Asians within that same period, they have all contributed immensely to our society. The brilliance and energy of this capital city, London, seems to arise from the fact that it is a completely open international city, not that that is something that any Government have ever intended. Indeed, we have attitudes to immigration in official policy that seem to be curmudgeonly and mean and which are getting worse.

The question at issue is how those members of black and ethnic minorities, and other minorities, who are legitimately resident in this country should be engaged in the democratic process, should be entered on the electoral register and should be motivated to play their part and to exercise their democratic rights as citizens. Of those people legitimately here in the minorities, far too many are grievously disadvantaged. My noble friends Lord Boateng and Lady Thornton have both explained in reference to London and to Bradford just how bad the situation is.

This polarisation of our society is shameful. It is something that we must act on and not simply contemplate with regret. The voices of those who are unenfranchised as it is need to be heard. Their needs and their aspirations need to be represented, but they will not be unless they are registered to vote and exercise their vote. The best possibilities for the future of our society depend on their doing so and on the fullest integration within our society of those minorities.

The one-nation tradition has been a proud tradition of the Conservative Party. I hope that that tradition is not in abeyance and is not dead. One nation, of course, has to be characterised by a rich diversity economically, culturally, socially and politically. The condition of the electoral register—its completeness and accuracy—is a crucial test of our progress towards achieving that fullness of integration that will enable all our people to have the opportunities that they ought to have and our society to achieve the potential that it ought to recognise and to see. Failure to achieve that political integration must be a source of division, of tension and of the impoverishment of individuals and of us collectively.

I strongly support the view that has been expressed by my noble friends in moving and speaking to the amendment, and as was expressed by my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer of Thoroton earlier today, urging the Government to accept that there should be a drive this year to achieve a step change—a major improvement—in levels of electoral registration. That has to be a responsibility of all sorts of institutions, agencies and different groups within our society.

During this debate, mention has been made of the role of the political parties, the churches, the Equality and Human Rights Commission and the Electoral Commission. We have spent some time discussing the role of local authorities and their capacity to promote electoral registration. Above all, it should be the role of the Secretary of State to lead. I hope to hear from the noble and learned Lord the Minister, in his response, some account of how the Secretary of State will lead this process.

While we can disagree with many aspects of the reforms to which the Government have committed themselves in this Bill, all of us will accept that we must have a voting system that engages people. We must have a Boundary Commission and procedures for it to ensure that the boundaries are sufficiently contemporary and appropriate for the proper functioning of our democratic system. Without the improvement that is needed in electoral registration, those reforms will be deprived of their utility and the value that they ought to have. Reform, therefore, in the sense of real improvement in electoral registration, is no less important than the other reforms to which the Government are committed in the Bill.

I was surprised to hear the noble Lord, Lord Lester, say to the Committee that the law will not change attitudes, as one of the virtues of the equality legislation with which he is so honourably associated is that, while it may have taken decades longer than many of us would have wished to achieve the purposes that were enshrined in it, the way in which it has worked has been, as much as anything else, declaratory: it has stated a principle and established new norms in our society so that people understand what is proper. Gradually, attitudes and practice have conformed to that. I believe that the law can change attitudes. If this amendment is incorporated in the Bill, it will, by the declaration that it makes, help to change attitudes for the better and will have significant practical effects. I think that we should welcome that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord King of Bridgwater]

Perhaps I may complete what I was saying; I shall be extremely brief. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Soley, who said that this matter takes time and should have been done some time ago. There is no question that the electoral arrangements of this country have shown a considerable bias in recent elections. The purpose of the amendments —the noble Baroness, Lady Liddell, referred to this—

[Baroness McDonagh]

My Lords—

[Lord King of Bridgwater]

Perhaps I may complete the sentence. The noble Baroness, Lady Liddell, referred to the fact that a number of frightfully useful amendments have been tabled that require all sorts of further consideration to be given in the interests of minority communities and younger people. All sorts of things should be dealt with and full reports should be made on them. No efforts should be made to change the electoral arrangements of this country and the Boundary Commission should do no work until all this important work has been undertaken. I say this simply not as a former Conservative Member of Parliament but as someone who sees the Conservative balance and remembers the 2001 election, in which we won the vote in England. I cannot remember—perhaps someone will remind me—but I think that we ended up with 60 or 90 fewer seats, having received more votes in England. The whole thesis of the Opposition is to keep the situation like that.

The suggestion that we are seeking to gerrymander—I have heard the phrase and the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, referred to it—has been made from the other side of the Committee, although perhaps not by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours. He and I worked together on many occasions quite harmoniously. In that situation, it is absolutely sensible—

[Baroness McDonagh]

My Lords—

[Lord King of Bridgwater]

I am on my last sentence if the noble Baroness will allow me to finish. In that situation, it is perfectly responsible for the Government to deal with the matter. I hear noble Lords opposite saying that they have been dealt with in an aggressive or dismissive way. However, the Ministers on the Front Bench seem to me to have been extremely reasonable and accommodating, as the former Lord Chancellor used to be when I raised issues in the House. That is the tradition of this House. Very difficult issues are being dealt with here. I hope that this House will rise to the occasion and recognise that we have a very difficult problem, which must be dealt with in a responsible and constructive way. I have not spoken previously on this Bill but I think that this House will do itself great damage if it cannot recognise the responsibility that it has to deal with these issues. They are primary matters. A number of noble Lords here would have taken great offence in the other place if they had thought that your Lordships were interfering with issues which they considered to be principally their concern as elected Members of Parliament. I rest my case.

[Baroness McDonagh]

I appreciate that the noble Lord, Lord King of Bridgwater, has not taken part in previous debates but, by getting to his feet, he has exposed the problem with the legislation. The problem is that it is built on a falsehood, which, as he explained, is that there has been a bias in recent elections. There has not. His problem, as he set out in his 2001 example, is that he believes that the Conservative Party takes more votes to get elected than Labour because of a differential size in constituencies. It does not. I shall not do it at this late hour, but in future debates other Members will produce Conservative documentation that they have read. This myth has gone on for many years. It takes Conservatives more votes than Labour to get elected because of the social, economic, demographic issue that in Labour seats we primarily represent those on lower incomes than in Conservative seats and with all sorts of other factors that people appreciate. We have lower turnout and those social, economic demographics are not simply particular to the United Kingdom but are the world over. People being on lower incomes—with less education, language problems, less mobility, shift-working and so on—means that they are less likely to turn out. Irrespective of the changes that the Government make, that will always be the case.

The relative size between Labour and Conservative seats is no different other than in Wales, where the number of seats was defined by a previous Conservative Government in 1986 when they made that requirement because of the geographic consequences of a change in the number of seats.