Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Lord Baker of Dorking and Lord Falconer of Thoroton

Monday 31st January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

If I might interrupt this momentary and rather fascinating debate about statutory drafting, my experience of Bills passed before 1997, and post-1997, is that legislators sometimes resorted to exhortatory language in Bills when they thought it was appropriate. I do not feel able to give the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, the comfort that he seeks because, for reasons that I cannot adequately explain to the Committee, that was often the way that deals were done on legislation, so one cannot be quite categoric about that.

My point, if I might revert to it, was: without in any way interfering with the discretion of the Boundary Commissions, if we were able to get some indication about how it would be done that would be helpful to show that it can be done and, just as importantly, it would help the other groups—in particular, the political parties—to prepare their resources for what everybody agrees to be a quite testing process. Secondly and separately, resources provided by the state for this are important to get the requisite high standards and to ensure that consultation will be proper. When we return to this on Report, it would also be of value if there were some indication of how the resources have been worked out and how we are to be satisfied that those resources are adequate. However, I will not stand in the way of Clause 12 standing part at this stage.

[Lord Baker of Dorking]

That last point is a very fair point. If there are to be public inquiries as well, I am sure that the resources of the Boundary Commissions will have to be increased because that would extend the timescale and, indeed, the work of the activities. On the general questions raised on the nature of the boundary inquiries by noble Lords opposite who had previously served in the House of Commons, very little advice needs to be given to the Boundary Commissions, quite frankly, because in the past—I have been involved in two boundary inquiries myself because my seats were affected—they worked completely honourably, openly and fairly.

The commissions first published a great deal of advice and ask for comments from everybody and then they considered those comments. Overwhelmingly, the comments made at that stage were made by the local political parties. It is quite rare for communities to form a view at that stage. I know that noble Lords opposite have made great play about this provision—that it is disrupting the natures of old communities. When it came to the actual inquiries which I went to there was, first, lots of advertising: it was on the radio and in the local newspapers. I suppose they could now use e-mail and all the rest of it. When the two inquiries which I attended actually took place, no representatives from the local communities turned up at all although there were substantial changes.

The people who turned up at those inquiries were the local Conservative representatives, the local Labour representatives and the local Liberal representatives. It became an absolute haggle: “We’ll move that ward out but have that village back, please”. In that haggling the Labour representatives usually won, in my experience. They are very good at haggling on that basis. However, do not believe for a moment that an outraged community is going to turn up in droves at these inquiries.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Lord Baker of Dorking and Lord Falconer of Thoroton

Monday 15th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[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.