Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Baroness McDonagh and Lord Grocott

Wednesday 12th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness McDonagh]

To save time for your Lordships, I shall speak to Amendment 56. I put my name to this amendment because of my understanding of politics and government, which is that what can go wrong will go wrong. It seems a complete folly to introduce a major change to the voting system when none of us knows whether the referendum will be carried or not, which means that we have to organise the legislation in such a way that it can be implemented at the same time as introducing the biggest boundary changes that any of us have seen in our lifetimes. Only one constituency in the United Kingdom is guaranteed to fight an election on the same boundary. Why do we need to do this?

I suggest that it was with some irony that the Minister from the Lib Dem Benches said that the constituency changes are important because of the great principle that one vote would be equal to one vote. We are about to pass a law that will put a system to the vote where, in some cases in some constituencies, some voters will have two votes, where, in some cases in some constituencies, some voters will have three votes, and where, in some cases in some constituencies, some voters will have four votes and up to five votes. It is not because of the principle that one vote is equal to one vote, otherwise we would be debating a referendum on a pure PR system, which we are not. We know already, because we can see it from the figures, that constituencies in the United Kingdom are largely similar. However, they also have one other facet, which is that they represent communities. I believe that moving this change to 2016 will preserve confidence in our democratic system.

It seems to me to be quite right and proper to want to reduce the timescale for the Boundary Commissions. Reducing it by half, within the current funding constraints, can be seen as possible. Reducing it to two years suggests to me that people are not being realistic about the deliberations that need to be undertaken. In addition to the cost for the Boundary Commissions, I want to ask the Minister what extra provision is being made for local authorities, as many of these changes will fall on them.

In life, big risks should be taken where there are big rewards. I do not understand where the rewards lie in introducing both these new systems at the same time when we could undermine the faith of this country in its democratic systems. An example of this at the last election was that a small number of voters were locked out of polling stations that they had attended before 10 o’clock. This caused huge uncertainty and concern among the public. What the Government are proposing to do here poses a much greater risk.

[Lord Grocott]

Amendment 56A, in my name, covers much same ground as the two amendments that have been briefly discussed today, so I do not intend to speak to it when we reach it. My suggestion is that the Boundary Commission should be required to report by 2017. It is not a date that I have picked out of thin air; it was chosen in anticipation of the time that a Boundary Commission would normally take to complete its work. Lest the Committee should think that I am a Johnny-come-lately on these issues, I point out that I am an obsessive. When you have had the experience, as I have had, of representing a constituency with an electorate of around 90,000 when your majority is around 360, you look very closely at parliamentary boundaries.

As soon as I saw in 2009 that the Conservative Opposition, as they were then, were thinking of reducing the number of MPs, my mind flew to how the boundaries would be drawn. I asked the then Minister—a splendid Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Bach—in a Written Question how long it took to conduct a boundary review. He said in his Answer of 3 November 2009 that the previous boundary review for England had taken six years and eight months and that for Northern Ireland it had taken three years and five months. I know from my experience of various Boundary Commission changes—many other people in this Committee will have had the same experience—that consulting local people and discussing whether their community should be split, joined or divided is a lengthy process. The job has been very well done by Boundary Commissions in the past and the time taken has been reasonable.

Although I knew that the Conservative Party was likely to go ahead with its pledge when it came into government, I did not think that it would substantially short-circuit the period of time required for a proper boundary review. I have proposed 2017 because I anticipate that the Bill will become an Act this year, which will give the Boundary Commission six years to do its work. I do not think that is an unreasonable period.

Anyone who has been an MP knows that boundary redistributions are pretty uncomfortable and difficult processes, as are the consequences of Boundary Commission proposals, which often mean colleague fighting against colleague from the same party for nomination for a seat. If you believe in first past the post, as I strongly do, you obviously have to accept that constituencies should be broadly similar in size and that they should be reviewed, because populations and their distribution change. However, they should not be conducted with phenomenal regularity.

I think I am right in saying that the House of Commons has an unusually, if not unprecedentedly, large number of new MPs. When they have settled into the euphoria of becoming a new MP—and it is a pretty euphoric experience—they will discover that they had not bargained for the fact that within a few months someone will come along and change the boundaries of their constituencies, probably substantially. That will put them in conflict with neighbours and all the rest of it. What is more, that will happen every five years. I almost plead with the Government for their own sake that that is not a good idea. You will not make MPs of whatever party—this is not a Labour Party partisan plea—very happy if you put them in a continual state of uncertainty about the democratic base on which they stand.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Baroness McDonagh and Lord Grocott

Monday 13th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness McDonagh]

I see the issue in a rather different way. It is part and parcel of our long march to democracy. I take as a starting point the situation 537 years ago, with the enfranchisement of some men on a property basis. We talk of the Great Reform Act 1832, where we enfranchised only some 14 per cent of men. The great reforming Prime Minister, Sir Robert Peel, represented a rotten borough that was bought for him on his birthday at the age of 21. It was only in 1918 that we allowed all men over 21 to vote, due to our embarrassment from the First World War, when people fought and died but were not allowed to vote.

The first voices on the enfranchisement of women were heard in the mid-1800s. Disraeli wrote the novel Sybil and began to talk about votes for women. It was not until 1885 that the women’s suffragette movement started. However, it was not until 1928 that all women were able to vote on the same basis as men. I suppose that my sisters in this House have to think ourselves lucky that we were not French, because it was not until 1945 that women in France could vote.

We set ourselves up as a paragon of democracy that the rest of the world can look to. When we look back, we have actually taken quite a long time to come here. It was only in the last century that we started to look at age. It was only some 40 years ago, in 1969, that all 18 year-olds were allowed to vote. I look around the Chamber and I do not wish to be disparaging to anyone, but that happened probably within all our lifetimes.

Various noble Lords have talked about why 16 year- olds should be brought into the franchise because they can, for example, leave school, work full-time, pay tax, serve in the Armed Forces, and so on. However, we are at a unique point in our history dealing with serious issues that affect only this age group, including, for example, tuition fees. This issue is a huge departure and is not about a contribution to student fees, which were brought in by the previous Labour Government, but is about a Government who are wholly standing back from contributing to teaching in universities. We are in a wholly different situation which relates to an issue that will be faced uniquely by this age group. That has never happened before.

Look at today’s announcement on the education maintenance allowance. We hear a lot from the Government about how everything they do is progressive. Even though outside bodies always fail to agree, the Government say they want to be fair and to help those who find it hardest. Getting rid of the education maintenance allowance will hit the poorest members of our society. Issues such as these are unique to that age group. We have a choice as to whether we bring people into democracy and let them have a say about the big issues of the day.

The Electoral Commission has carried out much research in this area. It shows how 15 to 17 year-olds are much more interested and likely to vote than their older contemporaries. The noble Lord, Lord Newton, said he was 22 before he voted. If the voting age remains at 18, someone’s first vote is likely to be cast when they are between the ages of 18 and 24, rather than near their 18th birthday, depending on when there is an election. It looks like members of that age group are more likely to vote. I personally feel—and research bears this out—that if you vote in your first election when you are young, you gain a habit of voting and vote throughout your life. I think that the whole House would want to join me in agreeing with that.

Another social impact is that when young people are 18, they are now much more likely to move away from home to university than they were 20, 30 or 40 years ago. They are not given the same parental guidance that perhaps we were at that age when we were taken to the polling station to vote. Something struck me for the first time on polling day in the 1997 general election—and I have been active in politics since 1978. It came home to me that that was the first election, after the previous four general elections, when more than 50 per cent of first-time voters voted. I was very pleased to be out of Millbank Tower for the first day in many months. When I was knocking on doors and talking to young voters in the streets, I discovered that it was not older people who needed help getting to polling stations, but first-time voters, who asked, “Where do I go? How do I vote?”. I was struck by the number of people who were not sure of the practicalities, whether they had to pass a test, or whether they should vote electronically. A younger person will be given more parental guidance and be told that voting is a right of passage as they grow older.

For those reasons, allowing 16 to 18 year-olds to vote for the first time in this referendum will be a positive good.

[Lord Grocott]

My Lords, I have been persuaded to make only two brief points, encouraged by the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Newton. I am always slightly nervous about suggesting that I am an agnostic on a subject, but as he has given me courage, I shall begin by saying that my instinct on this is one of agnosticism. I am not sure whether I have been helped or hindered by listening to the debate and hearing what I thought were two weak arguments—one on each side of the debate.

For those who favour votes at 16, I found the argument that there was an intense interest in different forms of electoral systems among 16 and 17 year-olds very unconvincing. I acknowledge that there is tremendous interest in issues such as those to which my noble friend referred—student fees and the like, and, over the years, in bigger issues such as war and peace—but, please, not in different electoral systems. If such interest exists, it is in a parallel universe to the one that I have inhabited. I have found hardly any adults who are interested in different electoral systems, let alone people aged 16 and 17. I used to think that I understood electoral systems but, having listened to nearly all of the debates so far in the Committee stage of the Bill, I have become more confused as the debates have gone on. I did not realise that there were three types of alternative vote systems and I certainly could not answer in two sentences how the d’Hondt system operates. I find it an unconvincing argument that there is a clamour for votes at 16 and 17 on electoral systems.

However, I find it equally unconvincing to challenge the right of people to vote at 16 and 17 on the basis that they are not yet well enough informed. I agree wholeheartedly with my noble friend Lord Desai that it is a dangerous path to tread to say that there should be a test of someone’s knowledge, ability and awareness before giving them the right to vote; it should be a universal right. We all acknowledge that there has to be a dividing line somewhere on the grounds of age—at least I assume we all acknowledge that—but excluding someone simply on the ground that they do not understand the issues is a weak argument. I have been frank with the House and explained that I do not fully understand the d’Hondt system and yet I shall be voting with enthusiasm when the referendum takes place. So, faced with two weak arguments, one on each side of the debate, what does an agnostic do?