Health and Care Bill

Lord Baker of Dorking Excerpts

Lords Hansard _ Part 1 & Report stage
Wednesday 16th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Greengross (CB)]

My Lords, I want to add my support particularly for what my noble friend Lady Hayman has just said. This has gone on for a long time. I have been involved in it throughout my time as a Member of this House and I do not intend to repeat what I have said before. I want just to say that the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, offers a useful way forward so that assisted dying is given time in both Houses to be debated properly. It must be given serious consideration. Whether one is for or against changing the law on assisted dying, we all surely agree that this is a very serious issue worthy of serious scrutiny and debate. It is unacceptable that, once again, my noble friend Lady Meacher’s Private Member’s Bill risks being lost, due not to lack of support but to not enough time being allowed to take the Bill through all its stages.

Assisted dying is very much related to health and care, and it is appropriate that this amendment should be included as part of this Bill.

[Lord Baker of Dorking (Con)]

My Lords, this is the second occasion on which I have spoken on assisted dying in your Lordships’ House. Five years or so ago, I supported the Bill in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, and voted for it. I did not speak on the Bill in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, but I was ready to vote for it. However, as we know, the vote was not called because the opponents of the Bill feared that, if there was a vote, there would be an even larger majority in favour of the Bill on that occasion than there was earlier, because the arguments against assisted dying are shrinking year by year.

This House has now accepted on two occasions a Second Reading for a Bill to ensure that assisted dying is placed on our statute book. That is the political and democratic decision of this House, yet it has now been thwarted twice, and the thwarting is most extraordinary.

We managed to survive constitutionally in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries without trying to kill legislation by tabling so many amendments. It was a device invented by Conservative Back-Benchers in the 1970s to prevent a Bill passing through the House of Commons that prevented the hunting of foxes by dogs. A small number of devoted hunters devised this trick. The Member of Parliament was Marcus Kimball; older Members might remember it. It was a political trick which has been used in this House on three occasions: on the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, on hereditary Peers; on the Bill of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer; and on the Bill of the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher.

I remind your Lordships that the only way in which we as Back-Benchers in the House of Lords can effect personal influence on social change is through Private Members’ Bills. There is no other way in which we can effect a policy—we are all controlled by the agenda of the Government—yet we are being denied this. The democratic choice of this House in passing the Second Reading on two occasions is very clear, and it is being thwarted. That is very unfair.

I told my Whip three weeks ago that I was going to come in and support my noble friend Lord Forsyth’s Bill and vote. He said, “It doesn’t matter; it’s a matter of conscience”. He confirmed that in an email to me last week and in a conversation I had with him on Monday. I do not believe my Whip was lying—it was the Government’s view—but suddenly the Whip was changed last night, right at the last minute. Somebody must have spoken to people in the House of Lords, because the view has been very clear since my noble friend Lord Forsyth tabled his amendment. It was clear that the Government—a Conservative Government—were going to be asked to prepare a Bill on assisted dying and, in a reasonable amount of time, find time for it to be debated.

The great social reforms we have had in the last 50 or 60 years all started with the Government of the day being prepared to find time for them. The Wolfenden report in 1957 recommended the decriminalisation of homosexual activity. That was opposed by many Conservative Back-Benchers, yet the Conservative Government of the day made time for it to be debated. When David Steel produced his Abortion Bill, the Government of the day—I think it was the first Wilson Government—made time for it to be debated. Thirdly, when Roy Jenkins as Home Secretary introduced a Bill to abolish hanging, the Government of the day found time for it to be debated.

That is the principle, so I expected that we were going to have a free vote tonight. I am simply amazed that the Government have now suddenly changed the Whip. Someone has spoken to them. I do not expect the Minister to accept that, but somebody from the other House has certainly spoken to the Government and said, “We don’t want to be in a position to have to draft a Bill on assisted dying and find some time in the not-too-distant future for it to be debated”.

We are not suggesting that the Meacher Bill should come back and be debated in May or June this year, in this parliamentary Session, but there are other parliamentary Sessions in which it could be introduced: 2022-23, 2023-24 or 2024-25. If it has not been decided by the next election, I very much hope that all of the four major parties in our country—the Conservatives, Labour, the Liberals and the Greens—have a clear undertaking in their manifestos that, if they were elected, time would be found for the two Houses of Parliament to make up their minds whether they wanted assisted dying on our statute book. I am quite happy to leave that decision to the British people because, unlike the noble Baroness here, I happen to believe that the argument has moved decisively as far as the people of this country are concerned. There are now far too many people who have seen relatives or friends die long, lingering and miserable deaths.

The original argument against assisted dying was sanctity of life. I found it extraordinary that in the debate of the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, not one of the Bishops or Archbishops addressed the sanctity of life. Other arguments are now put forward: the vulnerability of people who are dying, with relatives gathering around and wanting to polish them off—things of this sort, all of which can be addressed by amendments to the Bill.

I am very surprised that a Conservative Government should decide to vote against my noble friend Lord Forsyth. He and I go back a very long way. Thirty years ago he was the chairman of the Conservative Party in Scotland—that was when we had a Conservative Party in Scotland—and I was the chairman of the Conservative Party in England. I got to know him very well, and I can think of no one who more embodies conservatism in his whole mind and being than my noble friend. Whether it was a question of lower government expenditure, lower taxes, greater freedom of choice on housing or greater freedom of choice for parents, he was there. Conservatism runs in his blood—he has the bluest of blood—and I think it an insult to him and a disgrace that the Whips on my side of the House have said we should vote against him.

I hope that this amendment will be passed and that this House will recover the sense that, without it being passed, your Lordships’ democratic choice, which has been exercised on two Bills, is being totally disregarded by a political trick. That is simply not right.

Business of the House

Lord Baker of Dorking Excerpts

Thursday 4th April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord True]

My noble friend is right. He has anticipated the fast-approaching conclusion of what I will say.

It cannot be right not to allow sufficient time to consider a Bill which, as we have heard from my Front Bench, is still flawed; on which committees that have reported raised doubts; and which was being amended on the hoof by its own proponents in the House of Commons last night. There is no argument in logic because the Prime Minister has said that she will ask for a delay. There is no argument in procedure to say that we have to pass the Bill today. It is a political position taken up by the Official Opposition—I repeat, the Official Opposition—and we should not support it.

Everything I have sought to do in politics—and, by the way, I was proud to be the bag carrier, as the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, so kindly put it, to my noble friend Lord Strathclyde—both in administration and local government, and the privilege I have in being a Member of your Lordships’ House, is to speak for freedom. One of things that defines the freedom of this House is its free procedures: the right of us all to put down an amendment and to have it heard, not closed; and the right of us all to put down a Motion and have it closed, not waved away. These things may seem small and arcane to those on the outside but, to me, they are a small part of freedom—and I have always wished to live and conclude my life in that. I beg to move.

[Lord Baker of Dorking (Con)]

Could my noble friend reflect on the fact that it would be a great disappointment if, after he sat down, someone were to move that the following person who wants to speak should not be heard? That would amount to a bigger abuse of procedure altogether. Curtailment of debate in this House is a serious matter. There should not be curtailment and I find it extraordinary that the Liberal Democrats and the Cross Benches go along with it. I remind them what JS Mill wrote in On Liberty. He warned democracy about the tyranny of the majority. He thought that that was the greatest threat to democracy. There is a clear majority on the Benches opposite that this Bill should pass. There is a minority on this side of the House. To silence the minority is very much against the principles of JS Mill, the founder of the Liberal Party. He would not have approved at all. I beg Members not to move the closure Motion too quickly because it is abuse of a basic democratic principle. This is an abuse of majority power. This House should not be sanctioning it.

Privileges and Conduct Committee

Lord Baker of Dorking Excerpts

Monday 17th December 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb]

My Lords, I was at the debate last month. I do not know if any of your noble Lordships have seen “Groundhog Day”, but this has similarities. We are going over the same ground again. I should like to make two points. First, I support the Committee for Privileges and Conduct. Its robust response to the November’s debate was superb. I was furious during the debate; I walked out at one point, because I was so angry with a Peer who was speaking. The report is fantastic and obviously I will vote for it if anyone decides to divide the House.

Secondly, I never thought these words would pass my lips, but the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, is wrong. He was wrong to press the amendment last time and he would be wrong to push it today. He talks about fairness all the time. Was it fair to divide the House when there was no expectation of a vote and many Peers had gone home because the debate went on for much longer than expected and they had trains to catch? As I see it, fairness is not playing a full part in this process.

My last point is a question for the Senior Deputy Speaker. Lord Lester has resigned rather than been suspended. Does that mean that he maintains his rights and privileges of access here in this House, such as eating here and so on? I am sure that many of us will feel that natural justice would suggest that he should not.

[Lord Baker of Dorking (Con)]

My Lords, I shall be brief. I find debates on the conduct of Members of this House and of Members of the House of Commons rather sad and distasteful affairs because we are being asked to sit in judgment on our friends and colleagues. That really cannot be right. History shows that there have been many more cases in the Commons than in this House, the most famous of which was the Marconi scandal, when three Liberal members of the Cabinet bought shares in the company knowing that it would be given a contract. Today they would be put in jail. Eventually a Select Committee of the House of Commons exempted them all; they were totally guiltless. In fact, one was made the Lord Chief Justice.

I agree strongly with the proposals made by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, in his speech. I do not object to the report of the committee, which has done a proper and correct job. But I also think we need an entirely new procedure and I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, that there should be a genuinely independent body operating under the conventions and practices of the legal system. Such a body should be drawn up and we should accept it, but let us know what we are accepting.

When it is recommended that a Member of this House be expelled, that should not come back to this House for approval. We then cease to be a court of justice and we become a parliamentary assembly. A parliamentary assembly has other feelings, emotions and loyalties, built on friendship and respect over the years. The public cannot possibly believe that we could act independently. By having an independent body, Members of this House must recognise that we would be restricting our powers in that position, which is absolutely necessary.

[Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top (Lab)]

My Lords, I want to intervene briefly, particularly to follow the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald of River Glaven, about cross-examination. I refer noble Lords to my relevant interests as set out in the register. I have spent a lot of time working with women who have suffered sexual exploitation and are vulnerable, but I am not saying that there are direct parallels. I am saying that there is no system that anyone believes is fully fair and objective in these cases. The most recent evidence shows that even when a judge has been aware of the advice and recommendations about how to conduct trials involving the cross-examination of women who have suffered sexual exploitation, the women’s experience leads them into mental health problems and other real difficulties.

I draw the attention of the House in particular to the recent safeguarding report from the Newcastle case called Operation Sanctuary. The person who conducted the inquiry was a barrister named David Spicer. Some lawyers in this House may know him; I am not in the legal profession so I know very few of them. He looked at the criminal court experience and court processes for supporting the victims and survivors of sexual exploitation. He said that a dedicated trial judge was appointed to preside over all the trials in Newcastle. She took care to ensure that proper processes were followed and that there was no cross-examination that went beyond what is permitted. All the complainants had access to social care and mental health professionals. However, David Spicer also reported that all the victims who gave evidence and contributed to his review complained about how they were treated in cross-examination—about the pressure, the aggressive questions about their backgrounds and motives, along with their personal details, the records of which they were previously unaware of. They told him that their long-term mental health had been badly affected, and I can testify to that, because the organisation I chaired, Changing Lives, worked with them before the trial, to get them there, and continues to work with them.

There is no perfect process. In his recommendations, David Spicer asks the Government to re-examine this issue, so that we are better able to talk about a fair process in cases of sexual exploitation. The courts do not get it right, so is it any wonder that people continue to try to find ways for this House to do it better? We should not kid ourselves that we will get a perfect process. Many women have experienced different types of sexual exploitation from what we are talking about in this case. They will suffer for years to come, and we have not yet found a fair process.

Death of a Member: Lord Carrington

Lord Baker of Dorking Excerpts

Tuesday 10th July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords, perhaps I may say just a few words as one of the Members of your Lordships’ House who served under Lord Carrington in the Foreign Office. I simply say that no Foreign Secretary I served—and I served quite a few—did I admire and respect more than Lord Carrington. He was a wonderful boss and he led the Foreign Office as it deserved to be led.

I was very glad that the noble Lord, Lord Patten, mentioned something not mentioned by anyone else, which was his sense of humour, which was remarkable. During those rather tedious meetings of the Council in Brussels, he was wont to write limericks about some of those around the table. When he left the Foreign Office, we collected them together and gave them to him to remind him that there were at least some useful moments spent in Brussels.

I bear my tribute to him because he was a great man.

[Lord Baker of Dorking (Con)]

My Lords, could I say two personal things about Peter? In Ted Heath’s Government, he was the most senior Minister and I was the most junior—so junior that I was often left off the list. But I did occasionally attend meetings with him, and the thing that I discovered, his great talent, was that he read his briefs with his fingertips. On any issue, he instinctively knew what the main issues were and what could and could not be done. That is a very rare gift among politicians, and it was why Ted depended on his judgment so much.

The one job that Ted gave him that he did not like was chairman of the Conservative Party, as has been said by my noble friend Lord Patten. He came to speak for me in a by-election when I was fighting for the constituency of St Marylebone, and he made the speech that chairmen have to make: “The candidate is brilliant, and the Government are the most successful for a decade or so”—both debatable. He was glad that it was all over and finished so that he could go and have a drink in the pub with the people next door.

He was never a propagandist for the Tories. I believe that he said once to the deputy chairman of the Conservative Party, who is sitting next to me, who was then called John Selwyn Gummer, “I don’t really like Conservatives”. None the less, he had Conservative instincts. He was not in the Thatcher Government for very long, because he resigned, but we were attending a Cabinet committee attended by the chairman of the coal board, Lord Marshall, who was going on and on. The noble Lord was quite right to say that Lord Carrington wrote very good limericks; he had a gift for poetry doggerel. The limerick ran:

“The noble Lord Marshall of Goring


Is frightfully, frightfully boring,

And when we come

To 20 to one

I think I’ll hear sounds of snoring”.

That shows the human nature of Peter. He need not have gone into politics. He was gifted in diplomacy, defence and business. We were very lucky to have him in the political world. He was a great public figure.

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

My Lords, as the last Member here who was his fellow member of the 1979 Cabinet of Margaret Thatcher, I also want to say a word because he was a wonderful friend. I previously served under him when he was Secretary of State for Energy in the rather fraught conditions of the early 1970s and continued to work with him in the Cabinet of Mrs Thatcher in the equally fraught conditions of the late 1970s. He was a moderating influence. It is often said that Willie Whitelaw was the great moderating influence but, in fact, Peter Carrington was also a calming force in a frankly rather raucous and not very calm atmosphere in that Cabinet.

The Prime Minister was of course very frank and open and sometimes rather brutal with her colleagues, and she would begin a conversation by saying, “Foreign Secretary, I hear you’ve been suborned by your civil servants again in the Foreign Office—what a pity”, to which he would answer quite calmly, “Prime Minister I’m not sure that’s entirely fair”. I would not have been so calm, but that was how he controlled the otherwise difficult atmosphere in the Cabinet.

There has been no mention in the tributes, but after doing all those other things he went off to the west Balkans, I think as a representative of the United Nations to try to untangle some of the atmosphere there. He came back not embittered but quite convinced that most of the leaders in that region were on the verge of madness and certainly not people to be easily dealt with. But he was very realistic—he had some rather stronger words about them, which I do not intend to repeat here.

Finally, in his very later years, when I shared an office with him here, he had views about all the leaders of all the political parties. I am afraid that he did not have a very nice word for any of us. He thought that things had gone distinctly off the rails. But this was a lovely man who performed a vast service and was a great pleasure and amusement to be with. Of course, we will all miss him dearly.

European Council: March 2016

Lord Baker of Dorking Excerpts

Monday 21st March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

Because, my Lords, we work in Britain’s overall best interests, and we are seeking to assist Europe in making sure that, in the package as a whole, what Europe does in protecting its borders and supporting people is very much in line with what we believe is the right thing to do, while retaining control of how we support these refugees. That will in future be very much in line with what Europe is doing. It is Europe that is following our lead—but what we are able to do is to retain control ultimately of the number of people who come into this country. That is what the British people want us to do—to be able to influence but to retain control. That is why, to coin a phrase, it is the best of both worlds.

[Lord Baker of Dorking (Con)]

Could the Minister say whether she thinks that the Turkey deal is realistic? After the assessment of immigration status has been approved—either genuine refugee status or none—those who have been declined could amount in Europe to hundreds of thousands. They will have to return to Turkey, but suppose they just sit there and refuse to go to Turkey with their wives, their children and their sick parents. Will there be forcible repatriation? Whenever we have had to do this in Britain, there has been only a handful of cases a year and they are always very difficult. I should have thought that with hundreds of thousands it is well-nigh impossible.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

I am sorry that my noble friend is quite pessimistic about the chances of this scheme working. It clearly requires a lot of expert planning to make sure it works properly. It will be regularly reviewed to ensure that it works. One of the main planks of this plan is for Turkey to protect its borders and ensure that people are not leaving there in the first place. The plan is not just about dealing with people once they get to Greece. It is about limiting the number who leave Turkey in the first place and about being very proactive in the water in terms of turning boats back before they have left Turkey’s shores. This is a comprehensive plan, and it has to be executed in a very comprehensive way.

English Votes on English Laws

Lord Baker of Dorking Excerpts

Thursday 2nd July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

I hope that the House will forgive me if I do not answer all the questions that the noble Lord has asked; I think that he extended them beyond the number that we would normally have time for. He suggested that I had somehow played a part in annexing powers. I cannot stress enough to the noble Lord and to the House that the way in which we operate, how we do our business and the powers that we have are not affected by the changes happening in the other place. We will continue to be able to do precisely what we do now. The change is taking place in the Commons. When we seek to amend a Bill and it applies specifically and only to England, clearly it is right that the English MPs have a voice. However, as I have said, the House of Commons as a whole will retain its voting rights.

[Lord Baker of Dorking (Con)]

My Lords, I warmly welcome the Statement and the Government’s decision. More than 10 years ago I took a Bill through this House to do this but it fell to earth in the Commons, so I welcome this announcement. Does my noble friend agree that it is an affront to representational democracy that the Scottish Member of Parliament for, say, Glasgow Central would be allowed to vote on domestic matters in the constituency where I live—Dorking—on housing, education, highways, agriculture and planning when she could not vote on those issues in her own constituency? I happen to remember when Enoch Powell, in responding to Tam Dalyell’s incessant speeches, dubbed this the West Lothian question. I am very glad that after 40 years we have been able to find an answer to it.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

I am very grateful to my noble friend. He described exactly the issue that we are trying to address here. At the moment, a lot of people who live in England feel it is unfair that Scottish Members of Parliament are able to contribute to decisions on matters that affect only people in England. That is what we are trying to address with our pragmatic and proportionate approach to giving MPs in England a stronger voice.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Baker of Dorking Excerpts

Monday 6th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Snape]

My noble friend is indeed being helpful and I am grateful. The fact is that we got it wrong. At least that is certainly the opinion that many of us hold, and we will continue to get it wrong if we continue to support it. I accept the sincerity of my noble friend and my noble friend Lord Rooker. I remember a conversation that I had with him in 1987 after the then—from the party’s point of view—unsuccessful election. I asked him why he was in favour of PR. I cannot imagine why we were discussing PR—we must have been stuck on a very long train journey. I hope that I am not betraying any confidences when I say that my noble friend was brutally honest and said, “Because we can’t win under the present system”. However, we did eventually win under that system. The Liberal Democrats argue that they cannot win under the present system because their votes are diffused throughout the United Kingdom. I understand why they campaign in favour of proportional representation and I would understand them supporting some parts of the amendment before your Lordships tonight. However, I wish that they would be a little more honest, as was the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, in their declared support for AV. It is totally in their interests, although it is against everything for which they have campaigned for over 100 years.

[Lord Baker of Dorking]

I feel that I almost have to ask permission of the Labour Party to participate in this debate. For the past hour and three-quarters, we on this side of the Committee have been privileged to attend a Labour Party seminar on electoral reform. It has been a fascinating experience and the advocacy from the other side for every possible system of voting has been heard in this Committee. I feel almost sympathy and sorrow for the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer—not a sentiment that I often feel—because he is supposed to be representing Labour Party Front-Bench opinion. I do not know what threads he is going to draw out of what he has heard this evening. Do I see a conversion to first past the post for a Front-Bench speaker? That is not consistent with what his leader is saying. The leader of the Labour Party is totally opposed to most of the views that have been expressed on the Benches opposite. I do not want to intrude any further into private grief.

[Lord Snape]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. Has he taken a look at his own Front Bench lately?

[Lord Baker of Dorking]

My Front Bench are wonderfully consistent. Their consistency consists of retaining power for as long as possible, and I look upon that as an essential political talent. Over the past hour and three-quarters we have seen the Labour Party approach constitutional reform with a spirit of confusion, illogicality, incoherence and low cunning. That is entirely consistent with the attitude that they showed in government, and it indicates why they should never be trusted with reform of the constitution of our country.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Baker of Dorking Excerpts

Monday 15th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Baker of Dorking]

My Lords, I hope that it will not come as a shock and surprise to my noble friend the Leader of the House that I intend to support this Bill.

[Noble Lords]

Hear, hear.

[Lord Baker of Dorking]

Any port in a storm. I say to my noble friend that I am supporting it because I am very much in favour of the second half of the Bill, which deals with the reduction in numbers in the House of Commons and the equalisation of votes in constituencies. I do not care for the first half of the Bill, but that is the price for having the Bill; it is the coalition price. I think that it is a price worth paying, because I do not think that the referendum will succeed. I am sure that there will be a majority of no votes.

I am opposed to the alternative vote system. I shall speak against it at rallies and all the rest of it. I am rather surprised that my new friends the Liberals are quite so keen on the alternative vote. After all, Roy Jenkins’s commission savaged it and said how unsatisfactory it was. However, my surprise is even greater that large parts of the Labour Party have embraced the alternative vote. I would have thought that they had had enough of the alternative vote. They have just gone through the process of having an alternative vote in electing their leader. It wreaked havoc on their party and did not produce the best man as the winner. The result of every alternative vote is that you have to try to persuade yourself that the person who won was the best man, when everyone knows that he is not the best man; he is the lowest common denominator rather than the highest common factor. If the Labour Party continues to embrace the alternative vote system, all I can say is that the position was well described by Kipling, who said:

“the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,

And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wobbling back to the Fire”.

[Lord Snape]

I am sure that the House is grateful for that bit of doggerel, but will the noble Lord accept from me that not all of the Labour Party is in favour of the AV system? I will find myself campaigning alongside him against that prospect later, but will he come to the nitty-gritty of the Bill and his support for it? Is it not about political advantage for his party rather than anything else?

[Lord Baker of Dorking]

I say to my new ally in the campaign—Snape and Baker ranging the country—that we will draw great crowds. I will come on to political advantage later, if I may.

I favour the second half of the Bill because three years ago I took a Bill through your Lordships’ House that did very nearly the same thing. The Bill was to reduce the House of Commons by 10 per cent, which was then Conservative Party policy, so there would have been not 50 but 65 fewer Members. It was also designed to equalise votes. I was interrupted by my new noble friend Lord Rennard—yes, he is in his place—who knows a thing or two about constituencies and electorates. He reminded me that the policy of the Liberals was to reduce the number in the House of Commons to 500. The Liberal policy was to reduce the number by 150; the Conservative policy was to reduce it by 65. Well, in the sweet compromise that figures the coalition’s proposal, the figure 50 was settled on and I am happy to settle for 50 now. That will be a considerable improvement.

Why do I think so? The noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, talked about the numbers in other countries. We have a population of 60 million and we have 600 MPs. Compared to other countries, we could be described as well represented. Japan has twice our population and 470 MP equivalents. Russia has two and a half times our population and 450 MP equivalents. America has five times our population but just 430 Congressmen and 100 Senators. Six hundred is quite a good number for the electorate’s representation. In Scotland and Wales, there are also the local Members of Parliament, who deal with most of the complaints of their constituents, as powers have been considerably devolved. There is plenty of representation at all levels where people can go and seek support from their elected representatives.

Under the Bill, the new constituencies will have an average electorate of 76,000, give or take 5 per cent either way. The former Lord Chancellor wanted 10 per cent, which would largely negate some of the Bill’s effects, but he is used to putting forward such amendments. At the moment, the size of an electorate in England is 72,000, in Scotland it is 65,000, in Northern Ireland it is 63,000 and in Wales it is 56,000. I remember when the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, and I were both in the House of Commons. It was a long time ago.

[Lord Elystan-Morgan]

A very long time.

[Lord Baker of Dorking]

Time runs not to the memory of man. The noble Lord had quite a small constituency compared to an English constituency. I think that his electorate was about 50,000. That meant that English seats had 14,300 more electors than Welsh seats. There is substantial overrepresentation. You cannot deny it. If democracy means anything, it should be that one vote is equal wherever it is, but it is not. The Welsh voters who put the noble Lord into power as an MP were much more powerful than the voters who put me into power in England; they had a greater say on our nation’s affairs. The noble Lord cannot shake his head; it is a fact. It is true and realistic. There is massive overrepresentation.

That can be seen not just in Wales. Islington in London has an electorate of 67,000, whereas just a little way away in Brent—these are Labour seats—the electorate is 87,000. There is no logic to this and it is indefensible.

[Lord Snape]

My Lords—

[Lord Baker of Dorking]

Can we have our campaign meeting later, please?

[Lord Snape]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. I remind the House that he did at one time represent Marylebone, which was one of the smallest constituencies in the country.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Baker of Dorking]

Yes, and I enjoyed that enormously. I do not see where that comes into it. The constituency eventually disappeared altogether, it was so small. But if you think generally of all the other, great constituencies in the country—I would not want to make a personal matter of it—that is the plain fact. There has to be a greater equality.

Labour’s attitude, from what the noble and learned Lord the former Lord Chancellor was saying tonight, is that this Bill should not proceed because a large number of people are unregistered in our inner cities. The general comment was that it was not fair to do it until registration had gone up. I find that rather an astonishing argument. Some electoral scholars call the people who do not register non-people, although they are not non-people but actual people. It is quite possible for people to register if they are interested in politics; if they are interested in affecting society, they can register. It is their duty and responsibility if they wish to have it. If the Labour Party wishes to pursue that argument very far, it should ask itself what it did in office about registration of the electorate.

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

We introduced individual registration and it drove up registration to more than 90 per cent. It is completely wrong to say that people do not want to register because they are not interested in politics. If you have a registration drive, registration goes up. The noble Lord is talking rubbish.

[Lord Baker of Dorking]

With great respect, I ask the noble and learned Lord to address the figures. That is a total exaggeration, which is not unknown from the former Lord Chancellor. In fact, very little was done, and I have read apologies from those on the former government Front Bench in the other House saying that they did not do enough. I ask the noble and learned Lord to read Hansard occasionally.

Among the other things I favour in this Bill is the proposal that the Boundary Commission should do five-yearly reviews. We have been accused of just looking after the Conservative interests in this Bill, but I have seen situations when Labour in office has deliberately delayed boundary reviews. Let me give an example. Before the 1970 election I had won a by-election in Acton, which was a Labour seat. We were coming up to the 1970 election and a boundary review was published, which was going to make my seat a safe seat, so I had a vested interest in it. Alas, the Home Secretary of the day, Jim Callaghan, did not share that interest and did everything that he possibly could to manoeuvre to prevent the Boundary Commission proposals coming before Parliament. It was a shameful process; he tried to jiggle a few seats here and a few seats there, and it had to be withdrawn. So for electoral advantage the Labour Party rigged the system in the 1970 election, and it has done it before.

Successive Governments have always been rather slow to introduce Boundary Commission reports. As a result, you had the electorate of 2000 for the 2010 election, while the 2005 election was on the electorate of 1991. Successive Governments have delayed. So I welcome the fact that this will be done on a five-yearly basis.

I am also glad that public inquiries are going to be scrapped. I do not know how many Members of this House have attended a public inquiry of the commission, but they will all agree that it is a misnomer to call it a public inquiry. At the ones I attended, no ordinary citizens turned up at all. The only people who turned up were the ward councillors and their wives—I suppose they are ordinary citizens—the sitting Member of Parliament, the various candidates and their election agents. It was really a rehearsal of all the submissions they had made to the Boundary Commission. Those with the small interests of the locality were not there at all. Moreover, with regard to the findings of those inquiries, the greatest changes that they have ever instituted were to change the name of the new constituency. In the whole history of the Boundary Commission there have been three inquiries leading to significant changes in the boundaries.

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

The Boundary Commission report for England and Wales in 2007 said that 64 per cent of public inquiries affected a change in the initial proposal of the Boundary Commission.

[Lord Baker of Dorking]

Those changes are as modest as the change that the noble and learned Lord was speaking about earlier concerning the movement of Charlwood from Surrey to Sussex. That happened to be in my constituency. They are very minor changes on the edge.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. That brings to mind two public inquiries that I was involved in when the constituencies that I represented in Liverpool were abolished in two successive reviews. A quite significant change was made as a result of the first public inquiry. I regret that significant change was not made as a result of the second. But many ordinary people and communities did attend and participate in those inquiries and I very much regret the removal of the right of people to appear at those inquiries to contest decisions made by the Boundary Commission.

[Lord Baker of Dorking]

I appreciate that some will feel that, but in my experience no members of the public turned up at all and I think that that was more the pattern. Occasionally they do, but very rarely. Obviously, they did in the case brought up by the noble Lord, Lord Alton.

Finally, if you are going to have an equal and fair democratic system, where votes should have equal value, you have to address the problem of unequal boundaries. Other countries do this on a regular basis, such as Australia and New Zealand, and in America it goes on all the time. It is a sensible thing to do. I know that it upsets local communities. I remember listening to a speech by Michael Foot in the House of Commons when he represented Ebbw Vale, which was very reminiscent of the speech made by the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, when Ebbw Vale was to be very much changed and expanded. It was a most moving speech of the kind that Michael Foot could make, about the old hammered communities and how they had lived there over the centuries, how the pathways were defined and all the rest of it. But the arguments that he was using were exactly the arguments used to defend rotten boroughs in 1832. One has to reflect changes in population movement.

I come back to the point made by my new-found campaign colleague, the noble Lord, Lord Snape, about political advantage. Yes, I am glad that the Bill removes quite a large part of the advantage that the Labour Party has at all general elections. At the general election, we had to be eight to nine points ahead in the opinion polls before we got to a level playing field with the Labour Party. What fairness is there in that? That is partly due to the maldistribution of seats around the country. So I want a fairer and more equal playing field; I want the checker board of politics to be on an even table. That is what this Bill does.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Snape]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow my noble friend. I have only one quibble about what he said: it is not just one party attempting to rig our constitution in this Bill, it is two of them; it is the coalition. That is the purpose of it all and what is behind it. There is no magic figure of 76,000 as far as electors are concerned. Anyone who has read reports from the Boundary Commission—I do not say that they are exactly compulsive reading, although those of us who served in the other place will know that they are if they refer to your own constituency—will know that sheer numbers is not what they are about. I think that the figure was 66,000 in my time in the other place. That is a general aim, and an avowed intention when new constituencies are created and old ones are altered. But it is not a hard and fast rule. There are other considerations too.

As my noble friend Lord Touhig said earlier, there are geographical considerations to be looked at. He amplified the nonsense of seats in Wales where it is possible to cross two mountain ranges and three rivers, or whatever the figure was, in order to arrive at this magic figure of 76,000 electors. As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Blackburn said, it is community that is important—community is the vital aspect of any constituency. This is a cynical attempt at gerrymandering.

As my noble friend Lord Hart reminded us, this is part of a triple attack on our constitution by the coalition Government. It does not apply just in the other place; it applies here too. They want to reduce the other place by around 50 and to increase this place by, coincidentally, the same number. The problem is that they will not be the same people. The idea is to get rid of a majority of Labour Members from the other place and plant—it has been said in the newspapers—another 50 or so Liberals in your Lordships’ House. I am not sure, given the rate of attrition in the Liberal Party currently, that there will be 50 of them left to come in here before Christmas. But certainly that seems to be the avowed intention, which would make this House anything but a revising Chamber where traditionally it has been said that that is what we are about.

In opening the debate, the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, threw out a comment about the number of Labour Peers created by the Labour Government. I would remind him that it took more than a decade of Labour Governments, two of whom had majorities in three figures and one with a substantial majority, before Labour Members of your Lordships’ House outnumbered the Conservatives, let alone formed a majority on the Floor, which of course we never did. But that is the clear intention of the gerrymandering that is taking place in both Houses. It will ensure that a Conservative/Liberal alliance or something similar will continue up to and, they hope, including the next election in 2015. But I hope it is our job to see that such a philosophy does not go unchallenged, and when we come to the Committee stage, I hope that the battle for some of the things that have rightly been pointed out during the course of this Second Reading debate is waged loud and long. I say that because if we are still a revising Chamber, at least until the parties opposite have done their worst, then if ever a Bill needed revising, it is this one.

The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, was at his ebullient best earlier today, saying that the Bill is almost a tidying-up exercise that makes a few minor alterations, with nothing really to concern your Lordships. But that is not the view of his distinguished noble friend Lord Baker, who let the cat out of the bag in his speech. I have always envied his capacity for swallowing his words and inventing new ones. He talked about the small size of some constituencies, predominantly Labour ones, but I remember that he won a by-election in St Marylebone. His hair was darker and shorter in those days, if I may say so, but I am sure it was he who represented one of the smallest constituencies in the country. However, I do not think he made any protest at the time about the relatively low number of constituents. Indeed, like many of us who represented inner city areas, I bet he was grateful that his constituency was a bit smaller because your Lordships will recognise that social problems in the inner cities are enormous. I do not say that Conservative or Liberal Democrat Members in the other place have fewer problems so far as their constituents are concerned, but in my experience the number of social problems in inner city constituencies can considerably outweigh those in the more affluent parts of rural areas. So there is a good reason for the relative size of constituencies.

[Lord Baker of Dorking]

My Lords—

[Lord Snape]

Let me finish the point. I certainly have not finished with the noble Lord yet. However, I shall give way to him now, as he did for me.

[Lord Baker of Dorking]

I did represent a small borough which disappeared completely. But we should dwell on the rest of my political career, when I went on to represent a constituency in Surrey that was one of the biggest seats in the country.

[Lord Snape]

I shall reflect on his distinguished career, but I was surprised that he failed to point out to your Lordships that he has had some experience of a small constituency and made no protest at the time.

Let me turn to his article, a copy of which I have with me. I am not sure whether the Times is compulsive reading on either side of your Lordships’ House, but I can imagine the conversation that took place between a senior journalist on the Times and the noble Lord at the beginning of October: “Ken, what’s your view on the coalition?”. “Oh, I am broadly in favour of it”. “Good. Knock us out a thousand words for 4 October”. Being the sensible man he is, my computer says the article is only 985 words, so I hope the Times does not ask him for a rebate for the words he has missed out. The very readable article about this legislation appeared under the headline,

“Stop worrying and learn to love the coalition: A Tory government with a tiny majority could not achieve what we are able to do now”.

The noble Lord then set out exactly what the coalition hoped to achieve. I have to say that the article is not entirely accurate, and again I hope that there will not be a demand for his fee to be returned. However, it is eminently readable, as one would expect given the talents of the noble Lord. He said:

“It begins to look as if the chances of one party having a significant overall majority will only come about if an incumbent government is greatly unpopular”.

We might test that theory over the next few years. He went on to say,

“as it was in 1979 to the benefit of Margaret Thatcher, and in 1997 to the benefit of Tony Blair”.

Again, that rather ignores the lessons of history. I seem to recall that Tony Blair, if I can call him that in your Lordships’ House—repeating the noble Lord’s words—was pretty successful in 2001 as an incumbent and did not do too badly in 2005, again as an incumbent. I am not sure about the accuracy of that part of the article but I am sure about the part I am about to read out because, despite the emollient words from the Leader of the House to which I have referred, the noble Lord, Lord Baker, went on to say:

“The greatest prize for the Tories is yet to come: constitutional change that will eliminate Labour’s 8 per cent advantage at every general election. This will be achieved by equalising the votes in each constituency to around 76,000 and by reducing the size of the House of Commons by 50 MPs”.

That brings it down to the 600 figure that my noble friend Lord Dubs was accused of mentioning and the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, was afraid to mention, or chose not to mention, during the course of his speech.

The noble Lord, Lord Baker, went on to say in his eminently readable article:

“MPs of all parties are coming to accept that there will not be an election in 2011 or 2012, when the British public will not want to be diverted from enjoying the Olympic Games”—

to get rid of this lot, some of them might be prepared to be diverted—

“and celebrating the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee”.

I was around for the silver jubilee, as was the noble Lord, but it did not stop us having by-elections and a continuance of the normal political toing and froing. The article continued:

“In 2013 the rewards of austerity are still likely to be meagre, so an election in 2015 looks odds-on. This coalition has staying power”.

For the sake of the noble Lord’s colleagues in another place, he had better hope that that is right because, in the short term, the coalition is going to be unpopular.

[Lord Baker of Dorking]

I thank the noble Lord for drawing to the attention of a wider audience the words that I wrote in this article in the Times. The point I wanted to make is that the Bill will be very significant in removing the basic unfairness in our democracy that at the last election we had to be eight points ahead in the opinion polls even to come level with Labour. That is manifestly unfair in any democratic system and cannot be justified. The Bill removes not all but about half the unfairness and means that the checkerboard of politics will for a long time be set out on a level table.

[Lord Snape]

There were a few clichés there which I would not care to follow too far. I do not agree that the present electoral system gives the Labour Party an 8 per cent advantage, nor do many independent commentators, for the reasons amply outlined by my noble friends during the course of the debate.

Before I leave the noble Lord’s article, I should say that I am pleased that he feels the two of us should embark on a crusade against AV because, like him, I am against it. Before we go round the country together, however, I have one request to make of him: that he lets me speak first because, given the quality of what he has said tonight, he could empty a hall even faster than me. However, it would be worth while to undertake such an exercise because on this issue he is right. During my 27 years in the other place I never heard a great clamour for AV. Indeed, I have yet to hear from any of my former constituents that they would be happy in West Bromwich only if they had AV at the next general election. AV is about transporting the party that traditionally comes last in the electoral system—that is, the Liberals—into permanent second place and, of course, into permanent coalition with whichever party happens to come first.

The Bill is a blatant attempt at gerrymandering. It arises not from a desire to do good in our thankfully unwritten constitution but from a desire to survive. The coalition Government hope that the voters will have short memories and that, with a rigged and gerrymandered system, they will sneak back into power in 2015. It will be up to us during the Committee stage and in the debates on the Bill to ensure that none of that comes about.