Parliamentary Constituencies Bill

Lord Blencathra Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 27th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blencathra (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I cannot agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick, but I too congratulate my noble friend the Minister on introducing this excellent Bill, which I support. Last December, the general election was run with constituencies ranging from 60,000 to 99,000. No one can argue that that is fair or democratic, so we must have equally sized constituencies with no more than a 5% variation.

The Opposition want much larger variations, on the basis that they would keep special and unique local identities together. Those of us who have been through boundary changes have always used that argument to try to bend boundaries to maximise our political advantage. I have been at public inquiries here in Cumbria with my Labour and Liberal opponents, and we all argued for the most tortuous-shaped constituencies imaginable based on them conforming to local travel-to-work areas, social habits, local boundaries, communities, cultural norms, mountains and lakes, motorways, shopping habits or ancient history—such as the route followed by King Edward III when he invaded Scotland in 1356. They were all bogus arguments, as my noble friend Lord Robathan said. We were all after a constituency boundary with sufficient wards to give us a safe majority, but to give away enough of our supporters so that we could take the neighbouring seat for our party. Let no former MP now in this House deny that that was the game, because we all played it for political advantage.

Council boundaries are not nearly as important now as in the past. My former constituency of 1,500 square miles stretched from the Irish Sea to over the Pennines. I had one county council and three district councils. While all of it was in England, we had some Scottish postal codes, as well as Cumbrian pupils going to school in Northumberland. One boundary was a little stream between Cumbria and Northumberland, which ran right through the middle of the village of Gilsland.

There was no great difficulty dealing with those different authorities. Council boundaries are not sacrosanct. Politicians must not be allowed to shelve Boundary Commission reports or amend them. The more I heard Labour Members today asking for the right of Parliament to interfere, the more I became highly likely to support my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham in imposing a time limit for implementation. In 2012, we saw the disgraceful ploy by the Lib Dems to kick into touch the 2011 review. They are responsible for our boundaries being another eight years out of date. That follows the precedent of Jim Callaghan, who ditched the Boundary Commission proposals in 1969.

Boundary Commission reports must be approved automatically, in a tight timescale. There is a track record of the Labour and Lib Dem parties sabotaging them for political advantage. Some also want the December 2020 registers to be used, rather than those which we had on 2 March this year. It is a bit rich for opposition parties to demand a register that would be just eight months newer, when they have voted to keep in place registers that are 20 years out of date. The Bill is a manifesto commitment and I trust that we will not see the games that occurred in 2012 played here.

Finance Bill

Lord Blencathra Excerpts

2nd reading & Committee negatived & 3rd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & 3rd reading (Hansard) & 3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & Committee negatived (Hansard) & Committee negatived (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 17th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I begin by saying how much I agree with the remarks of my noble friend Lord Empey. This is my first day back in the Chamber, and in London, since 18 March. I came down yesterday from Penrith on an 11-coach train. There were two people in my carriage, 30 on the whole train, and I am appalled at the empty streets and inactivity in London: that has to change.

I wish to comment on part 2 of the digital services tax. I approve of this tax, but not because these companies are indulging in so-called tax evasion—they are not, they are simply operating under all the existing rules agreed with the OECD. The trouble is that these rules are now way out of date, because we need the revenue from these companies to repair the damage they are doing to society.

I detest Twitter, Facebook and all other forms of anti-social media. Every week, feeble Governments around the world beg them to take down vile paedophile stuff, terrorist-supporting websites or fake news, and every week, these new masters of the universe tell us to clear off. How many millions of children around the world are now traumatised because of online Twitter abuse? If we cannot get them to stop their activities, which are damaging millions of people, then we have to tax them so that we have the resources to deal with the problems they have created, just as we tax tobacco to get more money for the NHS. In the last 20 years, Chancellors have taxed petrol or diesel more highly to deal with climate change—leaving aside the disastrous policy of Gordon Brown and the then chief scientist, David King, to replace petrol with diesel, which was going to be better for us. These digital companies should pay a digital tax so that we have the money to spend on children’s mental health, anti-terrorist activity and taking down paedophiles.

Then I come to Amazon. I use it a lot and I hate doing so. I desperately try to use physical, local shops, just to keep them going, but it is a losing battle, because Amazon, with its giant warehouses, pays hardly any rates and can undercut everyone else. We all know that our high-street shops are being destroyed, and Amazon is a major destroyer, aided by a rating system that is no longer fit for purpose. These giant Amazon distribution centres are treated like a big farmer’s shed, at ridiculously low rateable values, whereas shops on the high street have excessive rateable values. The Amazon distribution centres are, in effect, giant retail shops and should be treated as such.

Last year, Amazon, which made £8 billion from its total sales in the UK, paid a derisory £63 million in rates. The Debenhams rates bill is £80 million per annum; House of Fraser’s is £18 million per annum. Is it any wonder that these shops are being pushed to the verge of extinction when up against Amazon? John Lewis has a rates bill of £170 million and a net revenue of £172 million, and it did employ 80,000 people: a great British company which looks after all its workers is now just one of many being crucified by Amazon. The owner of Amazon makes $9 million per hour; he could pay the annual UK business rates for Amazon in just nine hours’ trading. Therefore, while I support a digital services tax—but at a much higher rate than 2%—it is only part of the solution. We must have urgent business rates reform to save our high-street shops.

Public Services: Update

Lord Blencathra Excerpts

Wednesday 29th April 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord True]

My Lords, I cannot answer the detail on the last point; I will advise the noble Baroness on that point. Obviously she will know that the NHS visa scheme will be ongoing as an important part of the Government’s plans. On the other aspects of her question, I agree that the significance and importance of workers in the NHS who come from overseas is hugely recognised and valued; that has been made publicly clear several times by my right honourable friend the Minister for Health, and I endorse that. I will pass on to him all the remarks the noble Baroness made, and I am grateful for what she said.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for his comments, particularly on schools. Reopening schools as soon as possible must be a top priority. Since most pupils and teachers will have had a very long Easter break—unexpected and unwelcome—and since it will not be possible for anyone to go away on holiday this August, will the Government therefore consider and instruct all schools to stay open throughout the usual summer holiday period, apart from a couple of weeks’ break, in order for pupils to catch up?

[Lord True]

My Lords, obviously, education is of critical importance. As my noble friend will know, some schools have stayed open to provide support for the children of key workers—I express our gratitude to them. It is right that we should congratulate and commend the professionals who have done that in the circumstances. I understand the aspiration to return to school, whether it comes from children or from parents and grandparents. I remind the House of the five tests —so far I have not—which are vital if we are to sustain the fight against Covid. Those have not all been met, but obviously, as the Prime Minister said when he came out of hospital, consideration is being given to the future. The key task currently is to protect the NHS, save lives and protect lives, and, as the Prime Minister put it, this is a moment of maximum risk, as well as of maximum opportunity. I understand what my noble friend said and I assure him that the Government are well aware of many people’s aspirations. However, for the moment we must keep on with social distancing.

Economy: Update

Lord Blencathra Excerpts

Tuesday 28th April 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

I thank the noble Lord. Yes, I absolutely agree that the greening of the economy remains an absolute cornerstone of the future. It is worth remembering that we have done a lot more than most G20 countries in the last 10 years and it has become an increasing part of our strategy. I was delighted to discover only a few weeks ago that the contracts for difference prices on electricity generated by offshore wind turbines had reduced the cost over two years by, from memory, something colossal like 15% to 20%. We are moving to a point where this green energy generation is becoming viable in its own right. I am very optimistic about that and confident that decarbonisation will remain at the heart of it.

In terms of the specific question about transferring UC loans to grants, that is not the Government’s position at the moment. In my answer to the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, I mentioned other areas of support available for vulnerable people such as the mortgage holiday and the hardship fund. We have already allocated £500 million of that fund to support 3 million people. We have moved to protect individuals from eviction and given a lot of support to rough sleepers. I do not want the noble Lord to feel that we are in any way dismissive of the question, but at this stage the policy is to retain the loans system.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I warmly welcome the new bounce-back loans scheme, but would my noble friend not agree that these schemes are necessary only because our banks, which were first with their noses in the trough in 2007 for taxpayer bailouts, are adopting the usual position of failing to support British businesses? Will the Chancellor consider a special tax on their profits when all this is over?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

The noble Lord is a little harsh on the banks. I accept that there was some bad practice in the lead-up to the crash 12 years ago, but there have been dramatic changes in governance and lending practices since then. There is also a levy on banking profits, which goes some way to deal with the issue that he just raised. I genuinely believe that any slowness in getting these loans processed at the moment is not through any intent on their part but that they have had to completely overhaul their lending systems to react at the speed at which we expect them to. However, I am always open to hear any examples of bad practice, and if my noble friend would like to write to me, I give my assurance that I will follow it up.

House of Lords: Membership

Lord Blencathra Excerpts

Tuesday 21st April 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate all those in IT, the usual channels and the Procedure Committee for their tremendous achievement in making this possible in just two weeks. It is extraordinary; I thank them all. While I entirely support the two-out, one-in plan, if it fails to deliver for whatever reason, will my noble friend the Minister not rule out other measures to reduce numbers? These could include creating non-legislative Peers who would not sit in this place, looking at an age retirement point, or simply ejecting those who failed to participate in our proceedings above a threshold of, say, 25% or 30% of sittings in any Parliament.

[Lord True]

My Lords, my noble friend makes some concrete suggestions, some of which would require legislation. The Government’s view is that any reform of your Lordships’ House would need careful consideration and should not be brought forward in a piecemeal fashion. On a minimum participation threshold, I think many noble Lords feel that it is not the quantity of participation that matters in this House but its quality.

Preparing Legislation for Parliament (Constitution Committee Report)

Lord Blencathra Excerpts

Wednesday 12th June 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I have the privilege of being the chairman of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, and in this capacity, I will focus my remarks on the second of the Constitution Committee’s two excellent reports, on the delegation of powers. It is an impressive piece of work, and not just because it praises my committee on numerous occasions.

I thank my noble friend Lord Norton of Louth for his excellent presentation of the reports today, and the chairman of the Constitution Committee, the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Bolton, and all the members of that committee, not only for their generous recognition of the work of the Delegated Powers Committee in their report and elsewhere but for the collaborative working relationship which the two committees, and their officials, have developed over the years, to the benefit of the House and the greater good of rigorous scrutiny of legislation.

The Delegated Powers Committee’s role is to examine the appropriateness of every delegation in a Bill, and the level of scrutiny applied to it, while the Constitution Committee adopts a constitutional perspective. There is a complementarity in our relationship which serves the House well. I thank my noble friend Lord Hunt of Wirral for his exceptionally kind remarks about my committee and me, but I assure him that the Delegated Powers Committee was doing a fantastic job long before I became chairman, and it will continue to do a fantastic job long after I have gone. The reason for that is that we have some superb colleagues serving on it, one of whom will be speaking in the wind-up tonight, and we are served by an excellent clerk and four superb counsel with more than 100 years’ experience as barristers between them. They all know what they are talking about, and I would not survive without their expertise.

We share the view of the Constitution Committee that the proper balance between primary and secondary legislation is “not always respected”. It is because of this that the Delegated Powers Committee is needed, and more often than not, our reports include important recommendations on the delegation of powers or the level of scrutiny applied to them. Policing that boundary is our raison d’être and, as we said in our report on the Strathclyde review, events giving rise to the review,

“provided a stark reminder of the importance of our work”.

Since Strathclyde we have had the referendum and the decision to leave the EU. Brexit-related Bills have been introduced which have included the delegation of powers to Ministers that have been nothing short of breath-taking in some instances.

On the withdrawal Bill, the Delegated Powers Committee described,

“the distribution of power between Parliament and Government”,

as being at the very heart of the Bill—a distribution weighted in favour of the Government by significant Henry VIII powers ranging over, as we said, “an unprecedented number” of policy areas. I think we all accept that some Henry VIII powers were necessary in the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill, but where they were needed there should have been explicit sunset clauses to limit their duration. I am in no doubt now that government departments, including Ministers, civil servants in charge of policy and parliamentary draftsmen, saw the incredible potential advantages of Henry VIII clauses in that they could change any law they liked without having to bring primary legislation before Parliament. Thus we now get Henry VIII clauses routinely tacked on to Bills where they are not necessary.

Departments are also drafting regulations, making clauses of such width that again Ministers would be able to change whole rafts of law with little say by Parliament and to make laws which went much wider than the stated purpose of the primary legislation. Let us take the Healthcare (International Arrangements) Bill. My committee said that,

“the scope of the regulations could hardly be wider”.

The Bill, as stated by the Government, was supposed to make reciprocal arrangements as we left the EU to take care of Brits in Europe and Europeans in this country—a simple, sensible provision. However, it went much further than EU and UK reciprocal arrangements. My committee pointed out in our report that there was no limit to the amount of the payments which could be made, no limit to who could be funded worldwide and no limit to the types of healthcare being funded. The regulations could confer functions, powers and duties, including discretions, on anyone worldwide; and the regulations could amend or repeal any Act of Parliament ever passed. That is far more extensive than the Government’s stated purpose.

Then we had the Haulage Permits and Trailer Registration Bill, which we said was,

“wholly skeletal, more of a mission statement than legislation”.

We said we were “dismayed” at the Government’s approach to delegated powers in the Agriculture Bill, which we described as,

“a major transfer of powers from the EU to Ministers”.

However, to be fair, the Fisheries Bill, which looked like it had been written by a completely different department or bunch of civil servants, we commended as one of the finest Bills we had come across. So sometimes the Government can get it absolutely right and I am pleased to commend them for that. In referring to a provision in the Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill, we commented that Parliament was,

“being asked to scrutinise a clause so lacking in any substance whatsoever that it cannot even be described as a skeleton”.

Then, in addition to inappropriate secondary legislation, we get tertiary legislation, and raising taxes by tertiary legislation, and we had that wonderfully unique lawmaking power in Schedule 5 to the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill, a power last used in 1539, making law by proclamation—or, in the words of the schedule, by “direction”. Paragraph 2 of Schedule 5 permitted a Minister of the Crown to change the law by giving a direction with no parliamentary procedure applying to it whatever. We stated that a direction is what Henry VIII would have called a proclamation— there is a no real difference—and that the Statute of Proclamations 1539, which gave proclamations the force of statute law and later gave rise to the term “Henry VIII power”, was repealed in 1547 after the King’s death. We found it extraordinary that the Government should try to bring it back in this small area of a Bill 470 years later.

The exigencies of Brexit may have led Parliament into accepting some extraordinary delegations but we need to maintain our vigilance on policing the boundary between primary and secondary legislation. It is essential that we apply the same high standards of scrutiny to all Bills introduced into Parliament. The Delegated Powers Committee operates under a fundamental principle that powers are judged not on how the Government say they will use them at the moment but on what the law allows them to do at any future time—what any future Government could do with the powers created.

There are Bills other than Brexit Bills where the appropriateness of the delegation of powers is called into question. One of our most recent reports, which has already been referred to today, was on the Rivers Authorities and Land Drainage Bill, a so-called Private Member’s Bill of immense complexity but supported by the Government. That Bill caused our committee serious concerns for a number of reasons, not least our view that the Bill was, in effect, in our words, a “ploy” to avoid having to pass a hybrid Bill.

The Government even admitted in the Commons that the Bill applied only to Somerset but that, if they made it a Somerset-only Bill, it would be a hybrid Bill and would take, in the Minister’s words, three to 10 years to get through Parliament—a nonsensical claim in itself. They came up with this ruse to ostensibly make the Bill one which applied nationally to get around the hybrid Bill procedure. I consider that to be a gross abuse of our parliamentary procedures. It deprives the people of Somerset the chance to have a proper say, which they would normally get with a hybrid Bill. Even if 99% of the people of Somerset think that the substance of the Bill is the best thing since sliced bread, the other—hypothetical—1% should still have the right to have their case considered. We welcome the Constitution Committee’s unreserved support for this criticism. I hope the whole House will support me in moving amendments so that this Bill is converted back to a proper hybrid Bill, which it is in reality.

I want to conclude on the point made by the Constitution Committee in its first conclusion in its summary of conclusions and recommendations, where it says:

“It is a responsibility for all, including Parliamentary Counsel, to uphold constitutional standards in relation to delegated powers”.


On reflection, that is an exceptionally good point, which needs emphasis. In my opinion, criminal defence lawyers will lie, cheat and connive to get their client off. That is what they are paid to do. We expect different and much higher standards of government policymakers and parliamentary draftsmen.

Who thought of the ploy of dehybridising the Somerset land drainage Bill? There cannot be more than dozen MPs in the other place who know about hybrid Bills—they are the unlucky ones who have been forced to serve on the hybrid Bill committee. I am therefore certain that Ministers did not come up with this scam, although they must take ultimate responsibility. It had to be lawyers who thought of this ploy to get around parliamentary procedures.

Of course, Ministers will want to build fairly wide powers into a primary Bill for secondary legislation, but did they dream up this power of making law by declaration or taking powers from the EU healthcare Bill that would have permitted the Government to pay for a Texan having a hip replacement in Dallas? I think not. I am giving notice to departmental policymakers and parliamentary draftsmen, as well as to Ministers, that we may summon them before our committee not simply to justify the extraordinary powers being sought but to find out who dreamed up these attempts to get around our procedures in the first place. I think it is a very valid question.

I was about to conclude there, but my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern has prompted me to tell a little story from about 1996, when I was a Minister of State in the Home Office and we were signing off yet another massive criminal justice Bill. I was invited to go to LEG committee and was briefed by civil servants. It was agreed around all the departments: “Minister, there’s nothing to worry about. Everyone’s content. It’s a routine matter”. I had in my beautiful red folder a one-page note to that effect and a draft copy of the Bill.

I got to LEG committee and the room said, “It’s all straightforward. It’s all agreed. Nothing to worry about. We’ll introduce the Bill tomorrow.” The then Scottish Secretary—my noble friend Lord Forsyth of Drumlean —piped up to say, “Could the Minister of State please answer this point? The age of criminal consent is different in Scotland. In Clause 56(5), could he explain why this is the case?”. I pretended to flick through my notes but knew I had nothing on it. I had to say, “Well, I think it is probably not a material point. It’s probably some misunderstanding”.

At that point, the then Lord Chancellor—my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern—piped up to say, “Well, it is a material point. The Bill could be fatally flawed. The Minister of State must be able to answer this point”, which the Minister of State could not. The then Lord Privy Seal, the late Tony Newton MP—the late Lord Newton—had a cigarette in both hands by this time, saying, “Oh my God, this is terrible. The Bill is fatally flawed. We cannot lay it tomorrow. The Minister must go back to the Home Office”. I was sent with my tail between my legs because the Bill was apparently not properly prepared. Within 30 minutes of getting back to the Home Office, after some strong words, it was all cleared by the department; it was a misunderstanding. But the point of this little story is to reinforce the point made by my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern that Bill—and ministerial—preparation is everything.

Whether it is Brexit legislation or no, vigilance in respecting the critical boundary between primary and secondary legislation must be at the forefront of this House’s concerns. The Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee has a vital role to play in that and we will be undaunted in discharging our responsibilities.

Civil Service Impartiality

Lord Blencathra Excerpts

Monday 5th February 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The noble Lord is absolutely right. I quoted a moment ago the Civil Service Code, which includes objectivity. Objectivity is defined as,

“basing your advice and decisions on rigorous analysis of the evidence”.

It is these standards for which our Civil Service is renowned.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, can I ask my noble friend’s honest opinion? He will be familiar with this document: the Treasury analysis of May 2016 forecasting a complete collapse of the British economy if we were to vote to leave. I have maintained that this document is propaganda from top to bottom, and it turns out to be utterly untrue in reality. My noble friend has praised the objectivity of those who produce government statistics. If I continue to criticise the mandarins and the Ministers who approved the statistics and this document, does that make me a snake-oil salesman or a 1930s German Nazi—or maybe a bit of both?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I think my noble friend should distinguish between criticisms of Ministers and criticisms of civil servants. The document that he has in his hand was publicly presented by the Chancellor of the Exchequer at the time. Any criticism should be directed at the politicians who presented it. I think it was also endorsed at the time by the noble Lord, Lord Darling. They are the ones who should be criticised, rather than the civil servants.

Community Pharmacy

Lord Blencathra Excerpts

Monday 17th October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

I absolutely agree with my noble friend. There is no reason why that should be the case. At the moment, as I am sure he is aware, there are sometimes up to three or four pharmacies on one high street. It is not necessary to say that with these proposals the pharmacies will close, because the majority of them are privately owned, but it is important to try to modernise the system as it is now. The integrated care fund is very much working towards joined-up thinking on this.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

Will my noble friend take a message back to my right honourable friend the Secretary of State to say that if the reports are true that we could end up losing 1,500 or 1,400 small, independent pharmacies, these plans are barking mad and should have no part of Conservative government policy? It is right to save money on drugs, but can we target the big pharmas which rip off the Department of Health and have been doing so for years, and call the dogs off the little, independent pharmacies, which are vital for rural areas and are important small businesses? I do not want to see only Lloyds, Boots and the supermarkets on the high street—we need the little independents as well.

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

There is no reason why this should stop that happening. As I mentioned, the pharmacy access scheme absolutely ensures that no area will be left without access to community pharmacy, and that targets the rural areas in particular.

Regulation of Political Opinion Polling Bill [HL]

Lord Blencathra Excerpts

Friday 19th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab)]

My Lords, many Members of the House will recall that I introduced this Bill in the last Session. It only got to First Reading, but when I introduced it in this Session it got a much more animated welcome, for reasons that I will go into.

First, I will go back a few years to when I was a student—well, that is many, many years. I did some work on polling then, and I learnt some of the techniques of polling, such as random sampling and the importance of finding the people who were chosen for the random sample and going back to them until you actually get their views; you do not take any substitutes. I learnt about quota sampling and the importance of getting class, sex and age in the right numbers and the right groupings to represent a cross-section of society: the make-up of the whole population.

I also learnt about the inexorable margin of error, however good your polling is. Most important of all, I was told about what makes a good poll and what does not. A poll should be run in a scientific, politically neutral manner, with no influence from those who have commissioned and indeed paid for it. That means, to take just one example, avoiding leading questions and ensuring that the wording of questions is fair and unbiased.

For some time now I have been concerned at the direction in which polling in this country has been moving. Rigour and accuracy seem to be subordinated to the demands of speed in getting the poll out and keeping the cost down: instant polling and cheaper polling. The media expect polls to be completed in an extraordinarily short time, often to be ready for publication the day after the sample has been taken. That means that there has been a preference for a predominance of internet and telephone polling, often using predetermined panels which stay the same throughout the whole of the polling period.

My concern about the dangers of this corner cutting were reinforced when I attended a seminar chaired by my noble friend Lord Lipsey, who I am glad to see is going to speak in the debate. Polling experts John Curtice and Peter Kellner were in attendance and they confirmed, in answer to a question I put, the paramountcy of speed over accuracy because of the incessant demands of the media. That is the background which gave rise to my strong determination to introduce this Bill.

What reinforced for me the point that accurate polling is an important issue for the future of our democracy was the one rogue YouGov poll held on 7 September 2014 that seemed to indicate for the first time in the referendum that the Yes campaign was ahead, by 51% to 49%. This caused a widespread panic among politicians in the Better Together campaign. It resulted in a vow set out on the front page of the Daily Record to go for even greater devolution of powers to Scotland and led to the creation of the Smith commission. In light of the actual result of the referendum, it is clear that the fears of a Yes victory were unfounded and that the nationalists had directly benefited from just one highly inaccurate poll. It is not right that the real issues of democratic politics should have been so materially affected by a statistical prediction that turned out to be so wrong. Indeed, the course of history was changed by that one inaccurate poll.

The general election gave further evidence of the direct and highly undesirable impact of polling on politics and on events. The constant polling—and it was constant—and the constant media coverage which resulted from that made it seem beyond doubt to the media and to all of us that the contest for the general election was going to be neck and neck. Some polls suggested that Labour would be the largest party. All of that polling shaped the nature of the debate. Members of this House will recall that throughout the election, the main topics of debate were not important policy issues such as defence, foreign affairs and the health service, it was the consequences of a Labour minority Government, with the SNP set to hold the balance of power.

Noble Lords will remember the posters of Ed Miliband in Alex Salmond’s top pocket and of Nicola Sturgeon pulling the strings. All those resulted from the polls, which predicted that the election was going to be neck and neck. Consequently, major policy issues were absent from the campaign and the result of the election could well have been different if we had focused on those major policy issues. Inaccurate polls, as they turned out to be, again appear to have changed the course of history.

As a result of those manifest polling errors, I have found that when I talk to—I was going to say “comrades”—colleagues and others, there is now far greater support for the creation of some kind of regulatory body overseeing political opinion polling than ever before. That is why I have reintroduced this Bill in this Session. The political will is there to ensure that similarly damaging mistakes are not made in the future and that our democratic process is not undermined.

Even the British Polling Council realised that something went wrong and admitted it. It has set up an inquiry into why the polls in the run-up to the election were so consistently inaccurate. But the British Polling Council is a self-regulating body and will be so in carrying out the inquiry. It proposes merely a one-off investigation. Understandably, the council claims credit when the polls are correct but it needs to accept some blame now that its methods have been shown to be ineffective. To ensure that a more rigorous and accurate system is introduced, we need an independent and permanent regulator.

Contrary to what has been said in some media headlines and comment, the Bill does not legislate to ban polls but would allow the proposed regulatory authority to impose limits on their publication if it thought fit. That is already the case in Spain, France, India and Italy where, if it is thought that that could be helpful, the decision could be taken. The Bill would replace the self-regulation of the British Polling Council with an independent body which would have responsibility for issuing regulation and guidance on things such as sampling methods, the wording of questions and arrangements concerning publication, including how close to election day polls could be published.

I should answer some of the criticism made by Professor Ron Johnston of Bristol University in a letter to some noble Lords—interestingly, he did not send a copy to me—and by the Political Studies Association on Twitter. I wish that both had approached me directly. They have expressed concern that the Bill might infringe academic freedom to undertake polling on political attitudes and behaviour for the purposes of independent research. That certainly is not my intention. Clause 1(8) makes clear that the authority’s regulatory powers will be restricted specifically to polling concerning voting intentions in, first, local authority elections; secondly, in parliamentary elections, including the Welsh, Northern Irish and Scottish Parliaments; and, thirdly, referenda. Academic research on other political behaviour will therefore not be affected. If there is any worry that wording changes might be needed, I would be happy to consider any amendment necessary.

It is also important that all those with an interest in polling are represented on the board of the authority. The Bill proposes that we should have representatives nominated by the British Polling Council, which would represent the industry, as well as representatives from all the political parties and the media. Indeed, I am open to other suggestions as well. Transparency is also important, and this Bill provides that the authority would publish its rules within six months of its establishment and consider amendments at least annually.

I welcome the fact that the noble Lord, Lord Cooper of Windrush, will speak in the debate—in the absence, sadly, of the super-pollster Lord Ashcroft from our midst. Are we not less spectacular and exciting in his absence? Incidentally, he is not really a pollster. He contracted organisations to carry out his polling during the election. He decided where it would be, the questions and the publication—he is a multimillionaire, of course, so he can pay for it—but he would not tell us which organisations carried out his polling.

So we have the noble Lord, Lord Cooper, from Populus, who will no doubt give us a view from the industry. I will be interested to hear what he has to say. I feel that the industry has been unduly defensive about my Bill. Given that the BBC is regulated, that we have regulators such as Ofcom, and that other organisations and industries are regulated, it surely makes sense that the multimillion-pound political opinion polling industry is brought into line with the others. I look forward to the noble Lord’s comments.

In conclusion, polling has grown exponentially in recent years.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

I am very grateful to the noble Lord. I do not want to be mischievous—well, not too mischievous—but has he seen the report about the Glasgow pensioner who got odds of 7:1 on an outright Conservative victory, apparently put down £30,000 and cleared £240,000? Has the noble Lord considered recruiting him to head up his polling organisation?

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

That is a very interesting suggestion. As usual, the noble Lord is not being mischievous; he is being very helpful. It would be good to have an independent chair of the polling authority. I am not exactly sure whether it should be that pensioner. We must find out who he is and whether other predictions and suggestions he has made have been successful. We certainly should take that on board.