Constitutional Law

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Anne McGuire

Tuesday 15th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Laing]

As ever, my hon. Friend has expressed his view very clearly. That is exactly the point, and that is why it is so important that we are having a full debate today. This Parliament has a voice that deserves to be heard, and people throughout the United Kingdom have voices that deserve to be heard, when it comes to a matter that will affect the future of the whole United Kingdom. I have every confidence that the Scottish Parliament will hear our voices, and will take into consideration what is said in the House this afternoon and throughout the United Kingdom as the matter is debated over the coming weeks and months.

It would not be difficult for a vote to be given to people who live in the United Kingdom, outside Scotland, but who were born in Scotland. Indeed, it would be very easy. I appreciate that my right hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State will not be able to answer the points that I am making, and nor do I expect him to do so. This is a matter for the Scottish Parliament, but I am using the forum of the House of Commons to make points which I hope will be taken up in the Scottish Parliament. They may be dismissed, but I hope that they will be taken seriously.

It would not be difficult for a vote to be given to people who were born in Scotland, because everyone’s passport identifies the town in which they were born. It would not be difficult to allow a person who can show they were born in Scotland but who is registered to vote in some other part of the UK to apply for a postal vote to take part in the referendum. That is a serious point. I am not points-scoring against the SNP; I am trying to help the First Minister in his quest to broaden the franchise and show that the referendum takes into consideration the opinions of as many people as possible.

There is an irony in all this. If I were a wealthy landowner who owned a property in Scotland as well as a house in my constituency in Essex, I could vote in the referendum, because I would be entitled to vote in local government elections on the basis that I own a property in Scotland. I would not even have to be a wealthy landowner, in fact: if I just owned a little house in Millport—which is, of course, my ambition—I could have a vote in the referendum. However, because I am not wealthy and cannot afford to own a property in Scotland as well as a house in my constituency, I cannot have a vote. As we all know, there are hundreds and hundreds of people who own properties in Scotland but live most of their lives in other parts of the UK who will have a vote in this referendum. It is ironic indeed that the First Minister is taking us back to before the 1832 Reform Act, when the right to vote depended on ownership of land. What a disgrace!

[Mrs McGuire]

The hon. Lady might not welcome my intervention, because I think she may be in danger of slightly overegging her pudding. My understanding is that people have to prove to the electoral registration officers that they spend the majority of their time in the house at which they wish to be registered. While I understand the hon. Lady’s train of thought, I am not entirely sure that the image she is conjuring up of hordes of people living in other parts of the United Kingdom is accurate.

[Mrs Laing]

I thank the right hon. Lady for her comments, but my understanding is that people who have two properties in different places can vote in different elections, especially those based on a local government franchise. That is what is wrong here. If this franchise were constructed for the purposes of our historic referendum, rather than as a local government franchise, the problem would be overcome. I am making a serious request: when the Scottish Parliament debates this matter, I urge it to consider giving a postal vote in the referendum to people who were born in Scotland but who are now registered to vote in other parts of the UK.

I welcome the Edinburgh agreement. We all believe in democracy. We in this House believe in the sovereignty of the people. It is right that our Parliament should give the Scottish Parliament the power to hold this referendum, and I look forward to the fight.

Scotland Bill

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Anne McGuire

Monday 7th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs McGuire]

Indeed, but I was delighted that when I awoke, what I at first thought was a dream was in fact reality—Labour had not only won that by-election but had won it with an increased majority and an increased percentage of the poll, and a member of the coalition parties had come further down. However, I see that I am taxing your patience a little, Ms Primarolo.

I want to highlight the Electoral Commission’s comments. I am a wee bit surprised by the attitude it has taken in not supporting overnight counts, and I feel it has based its assumptions on what happened in the last election, four years ago. It makes a good point in saying that returning officers should not be expected to conduct parallel counts for the first-past-the-post and regional lists, but it is a bit disappointing that it has not recognised that part of the culture of elections in this country, and in many others, is sitting and waiting for the overnight results to come in. That happens in American presidential elections and others.

[Mrs Laing]

Does the right hon. Lady agree that although the excitement is certainly important to people like us who are involved in these matters, it is not just a matter of excitement and media presence? It is also about good electoral governance, good management of the electoral process and bringing conformity right across the country. Last year, we discovered that returning officers had held themselves responsible for what happened in their area and that many of them refused to be told or to behave in the way that the Electoral Commission thought they should. Is it not therefore up to this Parliament and the Scottish Parliament literally to lay down the law so that there is conformity of action in every election taking place at the same time?

[Mrs McGuire]

The hon. Lady makes a valid point. Like her, I do not want to overplay the excitement, in spite of our reflections on last Thursday night, because sometimes we can get carried away with that.

The continuity of the election process and the election day is important. The election day does not finish until there is a declaration of the count. It is also necessary to give people the confidence that when they put their vote in a ballot box, which is sealed, it is resealed at the close of play and transported immediately or as quickly as possible—if the two are not mutually exclusive—to the count. Part of our historic attitude to elections is the speed with which we can get the individual’s vote from the place in which it was cast to the place of the count.

We should recognise that, for the most part, we are not talking about transporting ballot boxes in the depth of winter. These elections are conducted in the spring. I have a constituency which, as some colleagues are no doubt fed up with my telling them, is the size of Luxembourg. I know that the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil) has a constituency that extends far wider than that, but in the case of my constituency, we are talking of a distance of some 65 miles, and I have never heard of any difficulties in transporting the ballot boxes in reasonable time from outlying villages such as Tyndrum in the most northerly part of the constituency down to Stirling for the count.

Scotland Bill

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Anne McGuire

Thursday 27th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Laing]

That is exactly why the provisions of this Bill, which give more accountability and power to the Scottish Parliament, are absolutely right. The hon. Gentleman makes a good argument in favour of the Bill.

Until a few moments ago, I was going to say that it is good to see such cross-party consensus on the Bill. Of course, we have cross-most-party consensus, but not consensus with those in the Scottish National party. We understand that however much they seem to be stepping back from their long-held belief that we ought to move towards an independent Scotland—I do not understand why they do not have the courage of their convictions and go ahead and ask the people of Scotland—they want to go on a different path from the rest of us on protecting and helping Scotland, and giving it the best chance for the future.

I want to pay tribute to Donald Dewar, who did a wonderful job in setting up the Scottish Parliament. That was not what I said in 1997 and 1998 as we debated the original Scotland Bill for hour after hour, day after day and week after week. It was strange that the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire said at the beginning of his speech that this Bill would not be properly scrutinised. I can assure him that those of us who spent weeks and months scrutinising the Bill that became the Scotland Act 1998 will find this nice little Bill a piece of cake in comparison. Of course it will receive proper scrutiny.

Back in 1997 and 1998, we properly scrutinised the Scotland Bill. Many of us said over and over again that the devolution settlement that was being created would not work in the long term and would have to be amended and improved. I am very pleased to see this Bill make the improvements that some of us have thought necessary for a long time.

[Mrs McGuire]

I am one of the campaign veterans from those long days and nights spent scrutinising the Scotland Act 1998. Will the hon. Lady remind us of the position of the Conservative party at that time? I am not sure whether it was so much about scrutiny as about opposition.

[Mrs Laing]

It was; the right hon. Lady is right. As I said when I paid tribute to Donald Dewar a moment ago, that was not what I said in 1997 and 1998. The position of the Conservative party at that point was to oppose devolution. Of course it was; it is no secret. I for one thought that that was the best settlement for Scotland. I appreciate, however, that the Scottish Parliament has grown in stature and become an important part of the lives of the people of Scotland. It is there, it performs an important duty and it defends the law of Scotland—the right hon. Lady will agree that I always defend that. The Scottish Parliament performs an important function in our new constitutional settlement in the United Kingdom.

Although I would originally have preferred to have seen an enormous amount of taxpayers’ money saved by our not setting up the Scottish Parliament, I now appreciate—I speak only for myself, not for my party—that it performs an important duty. As I have said for more than 12 years, however, it is essential that the constitutional settlement be improved. Donald Dewar, to whom I am still in the middle of paying tribute, worked for decades to achieve the Parliament and I am sure that all hon. Members will agree how sad it is that he did not live to see the complete fruition of his labours. Had he done so and remained the First Minister for a longer term, I believe the standing and status of the Scottish Parliament would have grown more quickly. However, it is where it is now.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Laing]

I am very pleased to agree entirely with the hon. Gentleman—this is an unusual debate.

During the passage of the original Scotland Act, many of us argued that it would work in that form only if one made the assumption, as the then Government understandably wanted to, that there would always be a Labour Government in Westminster and a Labour majority in the Scottish Parliament. That is how the settlement was set up. Now that the situation has, happily, changed, it is important that the whole constitutional settlement should be updated to take account of that.

[Mrs McGuire]

I respectfully suggest to the hon. Lady that that was not how the settlement was established. I do not think that any Labour or Liberal Democrat Member at that time would have expected that, for ever and a day, there would always be a convergence of the same political parties in both Westminster and Scotland. I would have hoped that the hon. Lady would give us credit for having established a far more robust devolutionary settlement than that. I think the past few months have vindicated the work that was done at that time.

[Mrs Laing]

It would be wrong to go back over arguments that we had more than a decade ago, but I stick to my point: it is necessary to make updates because of assumptions that were made then.

Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Anne McGuire

Tuesday 16th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Laing]

I appreciate that the hon. Gentleman cannot see that, but I have said that I can see it. It is a perfectly proper constitutional principle that a Parliament should sit for five years. Now I am putting the practical side of the argument, which is that in the political and economic situation in which we find ourselves—as a result of the mismanagement of our country’s economy and social policy for 13 years by a bad, Labour Government, who did the people of the United Kingdom no favours whatever—it will take more than just two or three years to put this country back on its feet. Therefore, we should have a five-year term. It is what the people of our country need; it is what we as parliamentarians have a duty, in the name of stability, to give the people.

[Mrs McGuire]

Thank you for calling me, Miss Begg. It is a great pleasure to see you in your place today.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing) on her dynamic speech. She has always been a participant in constitutional debates. We have often not seen eye to eye, and, frankly, I am not sure that we are going to change that this evening. However, she spoke with her usual vigour, vim and—in her way—logic. For those who do not know, she and I have always had an issue with some Members of this House who could never pronounce her name properly—that is, as we pronounce it in Scotland. I know that I am not allowed to mention names, but I am sure that she knows what I am talking about. [Hon. Members: “Go on!”] In Scotland, we would pronounce the hon. Lady’s name “Lang”. I will leave hon. Members to work out the difference, because, without usurping the Chair, Miss Begg, we would normally—[Interruption.] No, sorry, we would say “Layng”, not “Lang”. After 13 years down here, I have almost gone native.

I would like first to comment on one or two other previous speeches in this debate. There have been some powerful contributions to this debate. On the principle of the four-year term, although I did not agree with the analysis on three years put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Austin Mitchell), he and the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr Shepherd) made telling statements about re-energising our democracy at regular intervals. Frankly, it is arrogant of us in this House to assume that we should not go out there and re-energise our democracy at reasonable times. I am not convinced that five years is the right period to re-energise our democracy. Indeed, the dynamic of the British political infrastructure is built around four-year terms. The hon. Member for Epping Forest assumed that somehow Parliament was in a different position from the other elements of our democratic infrastructure, but I do not think that we are, in that they are underpinned by the same principle that if someone is elected by the people, then every so often, after a reasonable interlude, they should have to regain that mandate.

As an aside, the hon. Member for Epping Forest is a fantastic successor to Sir Patrick Cormack—I hope that she will take that as a compliment—in that she says the word “Parliament” with such gusto and conviction. Her articulation—I think that is the word—of the word “Parliament” brought back fond memories of Sir Patrick.

There is a dynamic in the British parliamentary system. There is also a logic to the four-year term, which has been built up over many years, yet the one thing that has been missing from the Government’s case in proposing five years is logic. There is absolutely no logic to their case, although the hon. Lady’s honesty perhaps got us closer than anybody else on the Government Benches was prepared to admit. This is not about logic or principle; this is about sheer political expediency. The current Government tell us that their activities in managing the economy will deal with the deficit in four years, so why are they afraid to go back to the electorate in four years? Why do they need to extend this Parliament for an extra year? Some elements of the coalition Government are in a lifeboat, waiting for the general election of 2015—a political equivalent of the Carpathia—to come by and lift them out of the seas in which they find themselves. That is the only reason for proposing a five-year term.

It is preposterous to introduce a five-year element into a well established cycle of elections every four years. It is almost like the Olympics: if we can divide the year by two, then it should be an election year. Every other democracy that we have highlighted today has gone down the road of four years—in the case of the American Senate, the division is by two. We have a well established political infrastructure in this country.