Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Baroness Morgan of Cotes and Nick Clegg

Tuesday 5th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

As we explained in our White Paper, we believe that the different mandates, electoral systems and terms of office, and of course the conventions enshrined in the Parliament Acts, will guarantee that although there will no doubt be an evolution in the relationship between the two Houses—that is bound to happen under any arrangement—the hierarchy between this place and the other place will remain intact.

[Nicky Morgan (Loughborough) (Con)]

The Deputy Prime Minister has just referred to the different mandates of Members of the other place, if it is reformed, and of this House. Does he not think, though, that the reforms would benefit from some clarification of those different mandates, so that the essential and long-standing relationship between MPs and constituents is not eroded?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

We already have a system, of course, in which politicians are elected to different assemblies and Parliaments with different mandates, and as long as those mandates are clearly differentiated, as they would be under the proposed arrangements, there is no clash between them. Let us remember that what the Government suggest in the draft Bill is that elected Members of a reformed House of Lords would represent vastly larger areas than the smaller constituencies that we in this House represent.

House of Lords Reform (Draft Bill)

Debate between Baroness Morgan of Cotes and Nick Clegg

Tuesday 17th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I think the hon. Gentleman has some force to his argument, but one thing we were keen to preserve in the cross-party Committee was that any reform should be designed in a manner that would allow elected Members of any reformed House of Lords to retain a certain independence and even distance from party politics. A lengthy non-renewable term was seen as one way of delivering that, not only by the cross-party Committee that I chaired but by many other cross-party Committees that have considered the issue in the past.

[Nicky Morgan (Loughborough) (Con)]

Is it not the case that if Members of the second Chamber are elected on a constituency basis, however big those constituencies are, and members of the public disagree with what their Member of Parliament has advised them, they will inevitably turn to Members of the second Chamber? Is the Deputy Prime Minister not therefore setting up a conflict that members of the public do not want to see?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

First, as I said earlier, this House will have the final say—that will remain. Secondly, I think there is a world of difference between the number of people whom we all represent as Members of this House and the hundreds of thousands who would be represented by individual elected Members in any reformed House of Lords. That would be clearly understood by the public as providing a much greater and more direct mandate to those of us in this House than to those elected to the other House.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Baroness Morgan of Cotes and Nick Clegg

Tuesday 30th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

The hon. Lady has raised this matter before and it is indeed a serious issue. It is a question of trying to match the solution to the problem. Much of the evidence appears to suggest that the real problems were to do with the organisation by certain returning officers and the resources allocated to specific polling stations, not least the one that she and I know well in Ranmoor in Sheffield, where there were particularly long queues. I am open-minded about this but, in my view, simply changing the law without changing the resources provided to those polling stations will not improve the performance of the individual polling stations.

[Nicky Morgan (Loughborough) (Con)]

T10. What reassurances can the Deputy Prime Minister give to Shepshed town council and many other constituents that they will have the opportunity to give their views on proposed new constituency boundaries before those are finalised?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

As my hon. Friend may know, we are tripling the period during which members of the public can provide written submissions as the boundary review is proceeding—up to 12 weeks. If the Boundary Commission comes up with a revised proposal, that trigger starts again and there is a further 12-week period, so in theory there is a six-month period during which members of the public can make their views known. That is a much better system than the party political rigged appeals that prevailed under the Opposition.