Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Bach Excerpts

Tuesday 25th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bach]

My Lords, my noble friend’s Amendment 75 alters the extent to which the Boundary Commission is able to take account of possible factors extraneous to the size of parliamentary constituencies when conducting boundary reviews. It alters the weight that it can place on these additional factors. It would permit the Boundary Commission to give priority to special geographical considerations, including the shape and accessibility of a constituency, to local government boundaries, and any local ties when defining the new boundaries. It would subordinate the size of a constituency, its fit within the electoral quota, to these other factors if, but only if, the relevant boundary commission were to deem the other factors to be of exceptional importance.

The various boundary commissions are acknowledged experts in this field. They have been doing their job for a long time. It is their job to come to an informed and reasoned definition of a constituency boundary. I judge that it is they who are in the most suitable position to make an assessment on whether geographical or local factors are of exceptional importance to a particular constituency.

My noble friend’s amendment strikes us as reasonable, but I put it to the Committee that, if the Government had been amenable to accepting the Front Bench’s Amendment 75A that we debated last night, during the long debate that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, answered in the wee small hours, the amendment before us would not be necessary. As the rules currently stand, without this Bill being passed—I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Davies, for reminding the Committee of the 1986 rules, which stand today—boundary commissions are permitted to use their judgment in cases where geographical or local factors may need to override the size of constituencies. We think that this should remain the case. A concerted effort to achieve more equally sized constituencies can be consistent with allowing the Boundary Commission this discretion.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

How does my noble friend consider that the Boundary Commission could be in a position to make a well informed judgment as to whether factors in rule 5 should be considered to be of exceptional importance if it is not to have the opportunity to hear representations from members of the public in the process of inquiries?

[Lord Bach]

Obviously, I do not believe that it can. That is why I think that public inquiries, which we will come to later, are of such fundamental importance to the position.

Of course, the Boundary Commission draws up conclusions at present and then, in many cases, particularly where there is controversy, there will be public inquiries in order to see whether the original suggestion by the Boundary Commission should stand or be altered. Of course, arguments as to whether these are exceptional cases or not would be argued out both early on, I suspect among the commissioners themselves, and then also at the boundary review—that is, the public inquiry. That has proved to be incredibly successful over the past number of years and I think that the boundary commissioners, if they were standing here, would agree that this has prevented some Boundary Commission suggestions that were not very sensible coming into effect. Therefore, I agree with my noble friend’s point.

My noble friend Lord Lipsey emphasised in his amendment that he is thinking about exceptional factors. He is not advocating—nor are we, for that matter—that the factors mentioned in rule 5 should dominate in all cases, just that they should be given their due weight and that, in some areas, this weight is pretty significant. Existing rule 6, by which I mean rule 6 in the 1986 rules, says:

“A Boundary Commission may depart from the strict application of rules 4 and 5 if special geographical considerations, including in particular the size, shape and accessibility of a constituency, appear to them to render a departure desirable”.

That does not make the present rule 6 more important than size but makes it equally important. Both are considerations that the independent Boundary Commission can take into account. The difference with the way in which the Bill is drafted, of course, relates to the size of the constituency; unless the constituency is within 5 per cent, none of the considerations in the Bill’s rule 5 will come into effect.

I remind the Committee that if the flexibility in the variance in the size of constituencies were increased from the 5 per cent stated in the Bill as it stands, the problems that my noble friend set out when moving his amendment, and which his amendment seeks to avoid, would be far less likely to occur.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

My Lords, I start by indicating to the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, that in the days when I had to attend economics lectures from the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, I also had to read Richard Lipsey’s Positive Economics. I hope he will take it in the spirit that it is intended when I say that I find the noble Lord’s contributions much more engaging than what I recall of his textbook.

The amendment would allow the Boundary Commission to decide, in particular instances, that the factors in rule 5 are so important that it should override the preceding rules. It has been evident from the debates that we have had so far that the core principle of this part of the Bill is to ensure that votes cast across the country have an equal weight. The best way to achieve this is to ensure that there is broad equality in the number of registered voters in each constituency. The principle of parity must be paramount.

In introducing his amendment, the noble Lord said that there was consensus in the Committee on the principle of equity, although he indicated that there was no consensus on the 5 per cent or 10 per cent variation from the electoral quota figure. I pay tribute to the noble Lord’s ingenuity for coming forward with this amendment. He claims that it is a very narrow exemption but, while ostensibly reasonable, the amendment would undermine the principle of parity that we have said ought to be paramount by allowing other factors to take precedence over the equal weighting of votes. This could, and almost certainly would, perpetuate a situation in which constituencies can be of very different sizes, and votes cast in one part of the country can have a very different weight from those cast in another.

The amendment would override rule 2(1), so it would not just be a question of a debate about a 5 per cent or 10 per cent variation. Indeed, by that rule being overridden, the variation could be sizeable indeed. Existing differences in constituency size matter. There is a 41 per cent difference between Manchester Central, with 85,522 electors in 2009, and Glasgow North, with 50,588 electors in 2009. That means that 10 voters in Glasgow North have the same weight as 17 voters in Manchester Central. Frankly, that simply cannot be right.

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[Lord Clinton-Davis]

I was born in the borough of Hackney. I lived in Hackney. I was a member of the council there and I represented Hackney in the House of Commons for nearly 13 years. People who came from Hackney came from all different parts of the world. There were Turks, people from the West Indies, Indians, Pakistanis and many, many Jews. The important thing was that they had a common bond, as my noble friend Lord Graham would acknowledge, and the important thing from their point of view was that they were quite different from people in adjoining boroughs such as Islington and Tower Hamlets. They had some shared preoccupations, undoubtedly, but in the main they were different and they recognised that difference. It was very important to them as far as their lives were concerned. I do not think that that ought to be underestimated. We are talking about the River Thames but we are also talking about tributaries of that river, such as the River Lea. In my time, it was absolutely inconceivable to consider that people in Hackney could be divorced from the River Lea. They were part of it, they recognised it, and when we think of the possibilities of change it would be very remiss of us to consider that the people who live in Hackney should be part of another borough. That is inconceivable.

[Lord Bach]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Morgan of Huyton for introducing this group of amendments, which have led to an engaging and important discussion about both rivers and communities. My only regret was that she did not reveal the list of bands that her son gave her to see whether noble Lords knew about Liverpool or not. I have to say I have longed for many a year to use the expression that the unfortunate High Court judge used many years ago, “Who are the Beatles?”, but I am sure all noble Lords these days know very well who the Beatles are and many of the other bands that she kept from us. I am very grateful to her for moving this amendment.

We have heard from noble Lords on all sides of the Committee today. It is interesting to consider that the following place names have arisen from their speaking: Huyton, Kentish Town, Edmonton, Furness, Jarrow, Newport, Detchant, Hill Top, Harringey, Portsea, Marsh Green, Lambeth, Tankerness—he hopes very shortly, I am sure—Hammersmith and, last but not least at all, Gateshead. For unelected noble Lords, place names are important. Lutterworth is important to me, and I am sure that Tankerness is important to the noble and learned Lord. That shows that a sense of community runs not just in the House of Commons, where it would run a great deal for those fortunate enough to represent people of a particular community, but in this House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Ramsay of Cartvale]

I think that both those things are clear about the Opposition today. Then, the Opposition were not supposed to be delaying the Bill, but my goodness they certainly took a very long time and went to very late hours in moving their amendments, which were all supposed to improve the Bill—changed days indeed, judging from the behaviour of the present Government. I suggest that it would do all noble Lords opposite a great deal of good to reflect on that. I oppose the amendment.

[Lord Bach]

My Lords, I will be brief. I agree very much with a great deal that was said by my noble friend in moving his amendment. The trouble is that we cannot support the amendment, although we think that he talked a great deal of sense about matters of important principle that have been raised before in Committee, which I am sure the Government have taken on board.

I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Ramsay for her contribution. The Leader of the House asked how many clauses were in the Scotland Bill. Perhaps he could remind us how many printed pages were in the Bill. I remind him that this Bill is now 301 pages long, many of them having been added during the last knockings in another place, and there will no doubt be a few more government amendments in this place, too.

On the amendment and why we on the Front Bench cannot support it, my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer said in the last debate that we supported the fact that Orkney and Shetland was to be a preserved constituency. The effect of my noble friend’s amendment would be to instruct the Boundary Commission in Scotland to treat Orkney and Shetland in exactly the same way as the rest of the country. The electoral quota would be applied to Orkney and Shetland. With an electorate of 37,000, Orkney and Shetland would have to be joined up with the mainland to form a constituency to meet the size of the electoral quota.

We have argued that there are cases in which special geographical and local features of an area require the Boundary Commission to think differently about how it will redraw constituencies. Island communities including the Isle of Wight, on which there was a strong view on all sides of the Committee, Anglesey, which has already been debated tonight, and Argyll and Bute, about which there is strong feeling across the House that it is not being fairly dealt with, merit such an approach. We on the Front Bench believe that Orkney and Shetland should obviously fall into this category. After all, the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986 first preserved the status of that seat. I am afraid that we cannot support my noble friend in his amendment.

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, nobody has risen to support the noble Lord, Lord McAvoy, but I would not think of suggesting a degree of mischief in his moving the amendment. I said to my noble and learned friend Lord Wallace of Tankerness that he was far too expert on the subject of this great constituency to respond to this and that I would gladly do it for him.

To reply to one small part of my exchange with the noble Baroness and the noble Lord, Lord Bach, there are only 18 clauses in the Bill. It is so long because the schedules are included in it, which would otherwise form part of secondary legislation. There is no need to remake that point; it explains the thickness of the Bill.

I think that noble Lords now understand what the amendment would do. It would remove the exemption from Orkney. We have in this Bill provided two named exemptions to the parity rule, for Orkney and Shetland and for the Western Isles, Na h-Eileanan an Iar—that is said in an Ayrshire accent, to help Hansard.

We believe that it is very important for electors that their vote has the same weight wherever they are in the United Kingdom. The noble Lord has been urging us through the debate to break down the parity. In the amendment, he is saying that we should be even more vigorous on the parity, but we have created the two exceptions named in the Bill because they are dispersed island groups that are not already included in a constituency that covers part of the mainland.