Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Baroness Ramsay of Cartvale and Lord McAvoy

Tuesday 25th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Ramsay of Cartvale]

I rise to support the amendment and, pace the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, I have never had anything to do in a representational capacity in a constituency in Scotland, since I am not an ex-Member of another place.

The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, will I know be very well aware of the crucial role that the Scottish Constitutional Convention played in the preparations for everything to do with the Scottish Parliament, although other noble Lords in this House are possibly much less aware of the convention and its very important role. The convention worked for some 10 years. It began in March 1989 and wound up very happily in a very celebratory meeting in 1999, when it wound itself up before the opening of the Scottish Parliament.

The convention hammered out a blueprint for the Scottish Parliament that was almost wholly incorporated into the White Paper and the Scotland Bill. The convention consisted of the Scottish Liberal Democrat Party and the Scottish Labour Party, as well as nearly all local authorities, trade unions and churches in Scotland—in fact, almost the whole of civil society in Scotland except the Scottish Conservative Party, unfortunately, and the Scottish National Party. I declare an interest here, of which I am very proud. I shared with the noble Lord, Lord Steel of Aikwood, the honour to be one of the final two co-chairs of the Scottish Constitutional Convention. In 1995, the convention launched a document entitled, Scotland's Parliament, Scotland's Right, in which it laid out its blueprint for how a Scottish Parliament should be set up and should from then on proceed once the legislation passed through the Westminster Parliament.

On the electoral system—and this is where it is very relevant to this amendment—the convention said that there should be a new method of electing Members of the Parliament. It said that the Scottish Parliament should have 129 Members, 73 elected by the first past the post system in the existing Westminster boundary areas and 56 additional Members elected from a larger geographical area through lists prepared by political parties and other organisations. The additional Members would be elected to reflect a degree of proportional representation depending on the votes cast for each list. Those additional 56 Members were to include seven Members for each of the eight European regional constituencies.

I hope that, in paying attention to what that establishes as the system for choosing the Scottish MSPs and allying it to what my noble friend Lord Foulkes of Cumnock said about the complexity of the whole system in Scotland, noble Lords will agree that because of this system—which is unique in the United Kingdom—it is crucially important that the Boundary Commission for Scotland may take into account the constituency boundaries of the Scottish Parliament. In a way, it makes the situation quite different from the rest of the United Kingdom. I support the amendment.

[Lord McAvoy]

My Lords, I suspect that not for the last time in the debates this evening I take a different point of view from my noble friend Lady Ramsay of Cartvale. The relevance of that is to do with her comments on the record of the Scottish Constitutional Convention. She says that it is relevant to what we are discussing now because it has been quoted as an example or a way of working or because the information that came from it is relevant. I do not wear quite the same rose-tinted glasses in relation to that organisation. I did not intend to speak, but as usual I failed to resist my annoyance—no, that is too strong a word and I would not say it, or not in your Lordships' House—or my reaction to the jibe from the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, about the time that noble Lords are taking to revise and review the legislation. I hope that nobody on any side of the House is intimidated by these continual jibes. We are here to revise and, I hope, to improve the legislation.

I bring myself to the relevance of the Scottish convention’s record, to which my noble friend referred. Once again we had a situation where the great and the good got together and where everybody was all caught up in an atmosphere of being nice to each other and trying to work together for Scotland. I do not criticise that, as it was with the best of intentions, but in doing so they allowed the Liberals to sucker them because the Liberals gained more out of that system than anybody else. They gained an infamous list system—infamous is the right word—of electing MSPs in Scotland. It is not even just about electing them. These list MSPs, especially the Liberals, wander all over the Westminster and Scottish Parliament constituencies, plucking the cases that suit them for political purposes and ignoring the rest. Also, instead of concentrating on the regions which they supposedly represent, lo and behold, guess where they seem to spend most of their time? Again, this is especially the Liberals. It is in the constituency where they stood as a first past the post candidate. We should not let anyone get carried away, in my opinion, by the eloquent words of my noble friend Lady Ramsay of Cartvale because it is just not right.

I also tell my noble friend Lord Foulkes of Cumnock that I am still not quite sure about the primacy that his amendment would seek to give the Boundary Commission—advice or guidance on taking more account—because the Westminster constituencies are the true measures of how the commission should go about its work. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, made a relevant point. There are indeed many communities, or more communities than one, in a Westminster constituency. The one that I know best, Rutherglen and Hamilton West, has about five or six with the three core ones being, as I have said before, Rutherglen, Cambuslang and Halfway. I have to tell my noble friend that I am not convinced that the Scottish parliamentary constituencies are the real thing to take account of here. I remain to be convinced. I may come back in again once I hear from the noble Lord the Leader of the House, with the benefit of his experience, and my own Front Bench but at this stage I certainly reserve my position regarding my noble friend's amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord McAvoy]

That is fine. I will answer the question. Let me make it clear that I have no intention of putting this to the vote. It is a probing amendment to find out why Orkney and Shetland is given this preferential treatment and Argyll and Bute is not. I will mention the Scottish convention briefly, because I am sure it will come up. The whole attitude at the time of the Scottish convention was to get consensus. In that mood of consensus, there was recognition of the need to get everyone on board with Orkney and Shetland getting two seats. Internally, I disagreed, but I am a democrat. I played my part within my own party to alter that and did not win. Overwhelmingly, folk were in favour of it. I know the noble Lord was not listening to that answer, but that is the answer, and I can justify it at any time. I am a democrat and will play my part within my own party. I am not one of life’s natural rebels, so I am not inclined to rebel. I would rather not encourage the wrath of the noble Lord, Lord Rennard. With that, I beg to move.

[Baroness Ramsay of Cartvale]

I must tell my noble friend Lord McAvoy, for whom I usually have a great respect and affection, that on this occasion I cannot support his amendment. I mentioned the Scottish Constitutional Convention earlier this evening. As the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, knows well, the convention considered the issue of Orkney and Shetland for a long time. It was considered for separate parliamentary representation in well debated and well considered discussions. The decision was to accord separate parliamentary representation in the Scottish Parliament for both Orkney and Shetland.

I do not pretend to know Orkney and Shetland well. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, knows—although he is not in his place—that I have had the enormous pleasure of visiting both Orkney and Shetland with my noble friend Lord Gordon of Strathblane and his family, and with the late First Minister of Scotland the right honourable Donald Dewar, when the noble and learned Lord and his wife accompanied us on an enjoyable, informative and educational political working holiday. To visit both these areas is to appreciate at once how different they are from one another and from mainland Scotland geographically, topographically, in flora and fauna, in history and socially. They are in effect two different countries, and neither of them is like Scotland as we know it. Indeed, without going too much into the historical detail, most noble Lords are aware that Norway was the mother country in the past.

That is why, allied to the physical difficulties in connections between these two, the convention was persuaded that they should have two separate seats in the Scottish Parliament. As I explained to the House earlier this afternoon, the convention worked for 10 years on hammering out a blueprint for the Scottish Parliament—one that was almost wholly incorporated into the government White Paper and then into the Scotland Act.

The question of Orkney and Shetland was considered very carefully. Everyone in the convention was aware that there were important implications for other parts of Scotland by allowing special status for Orkney and Shetland. Such a major departure from what had been the Westminster practice of treating them as one constituency was serious but, in the end, that was agreed. In fact, when it came to the White Paper and then the drafting of the Scotland Bill, all the arguments had been so well rehearsed that there were no problems in agreeing to it. Surely that has to be an important lesson for this Government. Instead of the careful, painstaking, wide consultation that the convention provided, the Government are trying to rush this Bill through with no pretence at consulting the people of Scotland or anywhere else in the United Kingdom.

The noble Lord may point, but I have not been speaking for 20 minutes. That is the length of the debate.