Housing and Planning Act 2016

Lord Campbell-Savours Excerpts

Thursday 24th November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister will recall that during Committee and Report on the Bill, we argued at length on the issue that is the subject of the Question. What has led to this U-turn? Was it the strength of our formidable arguments?

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, what resulted in the change was considering how people, particularly in London, would be penalised on the levels we are looking at. The Government should not be criticised for examining the situation in front of them and reconsidering a policy, which is what we have done. As I say, the provision will remain on a voluntary basis because there are people on very high incomes who should pay more for the housing they occupy.

Home Ownership

Lord Campbell-Savours Excerpts

Thursday 15th September 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, I know that my noble friend is a great supporter of allotments. As I have indicated before, allotments are protected in relation to brownfield sites. We have committed that 90% of brownfield sites will have planning permission by 2020, but I am sure that she will be very pleased that allotments are protected in relation to that policy.

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)]

My Lords, is not the problem the price of land for housing? How can we justify a hectare of land being sold outside London, in the provinces, for £12,000 or £15,000 an acre which when it receives planning permission can be worth £2 million, £3 million, £4 million, £5 million or, in some parts of England, £6 million a hectare? Is that not the real blockage in housing development in the United Kingdom?

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, the noble Lord is right that one of the issues is supply. That is why we are focusing very much on housebuilding, whether for purchase or for rent. He is also right that one considerable challenge we have is in relation to the price. That is why we have committed £20 billion, as I indicated, and doubled the budget for housing over the length of this Parliament.

Sellafield

Lord Campbell-Savours Excerpts

Wednesday 8th July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

I think the noble Baroness is slightly wrong on that. I said that these things are kept under close scrutiny but there was no specific review in prospect. No Government would say that these things would not lead to either budget increases or budget reductions.

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)]

Did the Minister say that we do not import waste? Is not the policy of substitution still in place?

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

I apologise but I did not hear that question. The next Question has been called.

Energy: Onshore Wind

Lord Campbell-Savours Excerpts

Monday 22nd June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that contribution. It is right to say, as he has done, that opinion in Scotland certainly is not all one way and there are split views on the usefulness and so on of onshore wind.

In relation to his more general comment about renewables, the Government are committed to making sure that we have a balance of interests between affordability, security and clean energy. That remains the case. Renewables are very important going forward to ensure that we meet those three aims, as a department and a government.

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)]

My Lords, there is something that I cannot quite understand. The Minister said that he was going to consult the Scottish Government. What is he consulting on if the decisions have already been taken?

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, the Secretary of State in another place made it very clear that discussions have been going on with the devolved Administrations about the rollout of the policy, and that will remain the case. On Wednesday, she is meeting Fergus Ewing, the Minister for Energy in the Scottish Parliament, to further those discussions. In relation to one or two comments that have been made about consultation, I should also say that there is a dialogue with industry and interested parties—not consultation but a dialogue—about the rollout in relation to the grace period.

Justice and Security Bill [HL]

Lord Campbell-Savours Excerpts

Wednesday 11th July 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rosser]

My Lords, we support the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Brockwell. Frankly, I cannot add anything to the points that have been made in support of them. The wording in the Bill does not do a great deal to show a degree of independence for the Intelligence and Security Committee from the Executive. That independence would be enhanced if the Government accepted the amendments.

Amendment 36 is basically a probing amendment. Its purpose is to seek to change the definition of the basis on which the Prime Minister may redact information from an ISC report. The Bill states that the Prime Minister may do so if the information is,

“prejudicial to the continued discharge of the functions of the Security Service”

and the other organisations mentioned. The amendment would provide that information should not be disclosed in the interests of national security or on the basis that the ISC report contained sensitive information as defined in Schedule 1(4). The reference in Schedule 1(4) to “sensitive information” refers to the basis on which a Minister of the Crown may decide under paragraph (1)(b) or (2)(b) that information should not be disclosed if the Minister considers that it is sensitive information, which is then as defined in Schedule 1(4), or information that, in the interests of national security, should not be disclosed to the Intelligence and Security Committee.

The criterion proposed in the Bill is either the same or basically the same as in the Intelligence Services Act 1994. The reason why this is a probing amendment is to try to find out why it is felt necessary to have what appears to be a fairly wide definition and not in fact to have a definition that would bring it in line with the criteria permitting the Government to veto the disclosure of certain information to the Intelligence and Security Committee, as set out in Schedule 1(4), which defines sensitive information that is referred to in Schedule 1(3)(a) and relates to the circumstances under which a Minister of the Crown may decide that information should not be disclosed.

Why does the definition need to be broader for the reports to Parliament from the Intelligence and Security Committee than it does for the disclosure of information to the Intelligence and Security Committee? It is not clear why there is that difference or indeed what its significance is. What, for example, would my amendment not include that would be included in the wording in the Bill? As I say, that appears to be a wider definition, and I am hopeful that the Minister will be able to explain why there is that difference in definitions and whether, in the Government’s view, what they are proposing in Clause 3(4) is wider than the definition of sensitive information that appears in Schedule 1(4) and relates to the definition that would be applied and that a Minister of the Crown would have to take into consideration if he was going to decline to agree that information should be released to the Intelligence and Security Committee.

In the amendment there is a further addition beyond the sensitive information; namely, that information should not be disclosed in the interests of national security.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

My Lords, this amendment should be of great interest to present and former members of the committee because there is a problem in the legislation which they should be well aware of. As I read it, Clause 3(4) is a catch-all, whereby if one cannot block the provision of information to the committee under paragraph 3(4) of Schedule 1, one can block the information under the catch-all provision of it being,

“prejudicial to the continued discharge of the functions”,

of the services. This is a catch-all provision whereby the Prime Minister might want to block certain information which does not necessarily meet the criterion set down under sensitive information in paragraph 4 of Schedule 1. To my mind, the only defence for the committee under such arbitrary arrangements is the extent to which the committee is consulted. Clause 3(4) states:

“The ISC must exclude any matter from any report to Parliament if the Prime Minister, after consultation with the ISC”.

What form would that consultation take in the event that he wished to exercise a veto on the provision of that information under what I call this catch-all provision? I suppose that, in theory, it could be looked at the other way. The Prime Minister might, in certain circumstances, not wish to be tied down to the detailed criterion in the sensitive information provisions of Schedule 1. He might want to release information that was sensitive but would not be prejudicial to the services carrying out their functions. It will be interesting to see what the Minister says in response.

[The Marquess of Lothian]

Before the noble Lord sits down, I would like to raise a question with him. He has been a member of this committee and I have been on it since 2006. My understanding is that once the report is complete there are matters, such as the amounts of money spent on various parts of the services, which have to be in the report, but which should not be in the published version and therefore are redacted. That is the difference between those two types of information and it is quite right that they are redacted.

I am sure the noble Lord remembers that the process of redaction is that the full report goes to the Prime Minister and comes back with suggestions for redactions. The committee then goes through them with a great deal of care and independence. Certainly, in my recollection, we have never had a redaction without the committee having consented to it.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

Yes, but the thrust of the amendment moved by my noble friend Lord Rosser is that for some reason, which I cannot understand and he clearly does not understand either, the Government have picked another set of criteria for refusing to provide information to the committee, instead of simply using the provisions set out under Schedule 1. Again, I shall be interested in the Minister’s response.

[Lord Lester of Herne Hill]

My Lords, the reason why I am sympathetic to Amendment 36 has already been explained. My difficulty with the Bill as it stands is that its wording is very subjective with regard to the Prime Minister. I like the way in which Amendment 36 seeks to spell out some criteria which are echoed in the Bill itself rather than leaving the matter entirely at large.

When I spoke last time in Committee, I briefly mentioned Humpty Dumpty to the Minister. I am not sure whether he got the import of what I was saying. I was referring to Liversidge v Anderson, the famous case in which the late Lord Atkin referred to Humpty Dumpty. The emergency legislation said, “If the Minister thinks”. The late Lord Atkin said, in dissenting in Liversidge, that that was similar to Lewis Carroll’s Humpty Dumpty. I, on the whole, prefer criteria to be spelt out in the Bill and I like the way in which that has been done in Amendment 36, unless there is some very good reason for the contrary.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

37: Clause 3, page 2, line 41, at end insert—
“( ) The ISC shall consider any request from a Select Committee of Parliament to the ISC to make a report on any particular issue related to national security and shall report to Parliament whether it has agreed to make such a report.
( ) The ISC shall consider any request from a Select Committee of Parliament for the transfer of information which that Select Committee of Parliament has stated it needs to carry out its functions as a select committee.”

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

Amendment 37 derives directly from conversations I had with the former MP Chris Mullin, a good pal of mine, while he was chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee in the House of Commons and also conversations with members of the Defence Select Committee in the Commons. They were denied access to the agencies for reasons that at that time I was able to accept. But there were occasions when they felt that we could secure on their behalf access to material which, following discussion with the agencies, could under certain conditions possibly be made available by the ISC to those parliamentary Select Committees. It was their way of trying to ensure that questions would be asked of agencies where they were unable to ask those same questions themselves. It was not that they always sought to have access to the material, but that they wanted to be assured that the ISC was prepared to ask the questions.

I recognise that in the past 11 years since I was a member of the committee the relationship between the Select Committees and the agencies has changed, although the noble Lord, Lord Lester of Herne Hill, in his two interesting interventions on Monday, raised difficulties that his committee had experienced with the Joint Committee on Human Rights—no doubt he will wish to speak during this debate.

My amendment is only a modest attempt to clarify the relationship. There are two parts to it. The first part would place a requirement on the ISC to consider a request from a Select Committee for it to make a report to Parliament. It would not require publication of that report or its transmission to the Select Committee which had made the original request. The only requirement would be for the ISC, if it had complied with the request, to report to Parliament that it had made such a report—in other words, that it had carried out an inquiry.

The second part of Amendment 37 would place a requirement on the ISC to consider a request from a Select Committee for information to be given to that committee where it could show that it needed the information to carry out its functions as a Select Committee. Both parts of the amendment have been carefully crafted—although I am an amateur in these matters—so as to avoid either intentional or inadvertent breaches of national security. I beg to move.

[Lord Lester of Herne Hill]

My Lords, I support the amendment for the reason indicated by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours; that is, it seems to be a very practical way of solving the problem that I raised when we last discussed the Bill. It treats the ISC quite properly as within the inner ring of confidence and the best judge at that stage of the relationship between Parliament through its committees and the Intelligence and Security Service. I find the amendment attractive because it would mean, for example, that if the Joint Committee on Human Rights wished to be helped by the Intelligence and Security Service it could go to the ISC with a request instead of the awkwardness of writing and seeking direct help. The ISC could then act as the intermediary, decide what was appropriate and then come back to that committee. That seems a practical way of dealing with what would otherwise be an awkward situation. I am glad that the Minister has indicated that he will anyhow reflect on the points that I raise before Report, but the amendment seems an ingenious way of producing a practical answer which should not damage the work of the ISC, the Security and Intelligence Service or the public interest.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I have served on one of the two committees that the noble Lord refers to—and felt considerably out of my depth—but not on the other. I note what he says about the memorandum of understanding between them. This might be something that the ISC and other committees could reflect upon between themselves and decide how they want to proceed. Again, however, I do not think that this is best set out in statute, although obviously we will reflect on these matters. That is the point of this House and why we are going through a Committee process. I have set out why I do not think that this is the best way of going about it, but I shall listen to the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, and trust that he will feel able to withdraw his amendment at this stage.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

In some ways, that may be a helpful response. Following the intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Lester, and his reference to the memorandum of understanding, and on the basis of what the Minister said the other day—that there would be an ongoing process over the next few months during which this memorandum of understanding was to be drawn up—

[Lord Henley]

It is one thing if we are talking about a memorandum of understanding between the Government and the ISC. I think my noble friend was referring to a memorandum of understanding between the ISC and other Select Committees. That, obviously, would not be a matter for the Government.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

It might not be a matter directly for the Government but it could well be incorporated into the document. The memorandum of understanding might deal with the whole question of the principle of the relationship that should or might exist between this halfway-house committee and Parliament.

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Lester, for his intervention. I listened to the three reasons that he gave and I am not altogether sure that, apart from the last one, the first two would really register with members of the ISC. There may be some argument for the last one. On the basis of further consideration of these matters, I beg leave to withdraw this amendment.

Amendment 37 withdrawn.

Justice and Security Bill [HL]

Lord Campbell-Savours Excerpts

Tuesday 19th June 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

My Lords, as my noble friend knows, these issues were canvassed in the course of the consultation. A considerable number of representations were received indicating that this would not be appropriate in the context of inquests and, of course, PII would apply and would be available. The Government listened to those representations and responded to them by not having inquests covered within the ambit and scope of the Bill.

I was explaining the question on that particular case. An allegation was made that people transferred into Afghan custody were and continue to be at real risk of torture or serious mistreatment and that the practice of transfer was therefore unlawful. There was a CMP for part of the proceedings, with the consent of all parties. After examining all the relevant evidence, the judge concluded that transfers into Afghan custody at two sites could continue only provided that a number of additional safeguards were observed, and that a moratorium on transfers to another site should continue until there were clear improvements that would reduce the risks of mistreatment. In his judgment, Lord Justice Richards paid tribute to the way that the case had ultimately been conducted by all concerned and the Secretary of State’s conscientious approach to disclosure.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

Before the Minister moves on and following the question asked by the noble Marquess, Lord Lothian, why were inquests singled out? There must be some explanation.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

I have indicated that there was a consultation. There was strong representation that it would not be appropriate to have this kind of procedure in inquests. My main line of defence is that we listened to the consultation and responded to it. I believe that the right judgment was made.

Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Lord Campbell-Savours Excerpts

Tuesday 1st March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

I readily understand the point made by the noble Lord. He is right to point out that, although it would happen once every 20 years, the first time would be in May 2015. It has been recognised that there are issues. That is why, as I shall come to explain, efforts have been made to address the issue with the devolved Scottish Parliament and the devolved National Assembly for Wales.

The Government are committed, as I have indicated, to working co-operatively with all three of the devolved Administrations. We have been consulting the respective party leaders and the Presiding Officers in the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly. I can confirm that my colleague and honourable friend Mr Mark Harper wrote to the Presiding Officers of the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly on 17 February proposing that if the Scottish Parliament or Welsh Assembly passed a resolution, with the support of at least two-thirds of all Members, agreeing that the 2015 Scottish Parliament or Welsh Assembly general elections should be moved to another date no earlier than the first Thursday in May 2014 and no later than the first Thursday in May 2016, the Government would then be willing to table an amendment to this Bill that would, if accepted, make this change. Copies of these letters to the respective Presiding Officers have been placed in the Library.

A resolution with the support of at least two-thirds of all MSPs or Assembly Members would be a clear indication of cross-party support for such a move and would be consistent with the existing requirement in the Scotland Act and the Government of Wales Act for a two-thirds majority in a vote for early Dissolution. In any event, we will carry out—I think this also addresses the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Wigley—a detailed assessment of the implications of the two sets of elections coinciding at a later date. In the light of that, we would consider whether to conduct a public consultation in Scotland and Wales on whether the devolved institutions there should be permanently extended to five years.

The situation in Northern Ireland is different. Northern Ireland Office Ministers are conducting separate discussions with the parties in Northern Ireland on this issue and have concluded that it would be better to await the outcome of the combined polls scheduled for May this year before deciding whether special provision would be needed for Northern Ireland.

On Clause 2, it has been recognised that if we are to establish fixed-term Parliaments there must be a mechanism to deal with the situation in which a Government have lost the confidence of the House of Commons or where otherwise there is a consensus that there should be an early general election. Clause 2 therefore provides for the circumstances in which an early parliamentary general election can be held. There are two ways in which this can occur: through a traditional vote of no confidence in the Government, passed in the other place by a simple majority of those voting; or by a Motion, passed by a majority of two-thirds of the total number of seats in the other place, which states that there should be an early general election. As such, the Bill will provide the House of Commons with a new power to vote for Dissolution, which is not currently within its gift.

As many noble Lords will be aware, these votes have been the subject of some discussion and controversy. I wish, therefore, to explain to your Lordships exactly what the two votes are about, what they mean and why it is necessary to have two separate mechanisms for two separate circumstances where Dissolution might be required.

First, the defining principle of the Bill is that no Government should be able to dissolve Parliament for their own political advantage. That is why the threshold for passing a Dissolution Motion, as set out in Clause 2(1), that would trigger an early general election should be set at a majority of two-thirds of the number of seats in the other House. This is a majority that no post-war Government would have been able to achieve. In short, this means that we are the first Government to surrender to Parliament the power to call an early general election.

Some have questioned the rationale for giving the other place the power to vote for Dissolution. However, if there is a clear consensus that there should be an early general election, it would be nonsensical to force the other place to engineer a vote of no confidence. That is why Clause 2(1) provides the House of Commons with a new power to vote for Dissolution following a process that we believe is robust and transparent. The absence of such a power in other countries has meant that no-confidence Motions have sometimes had to be engineered to trigger an early general election in circumstances in which there is widespread consensus that there should be one.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

Will the Minister confirm that, if the 1997 general election had been held under AV, the Labour Government majority would have been far higher—more than the threshold set in this Bill?

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

I am not in a position to confirm that because it is highly speculative as to whether that would have happened or not. One does not know what kind of campaign there would have been if there had been an election on AV.

Clause 2(2) recognises the traditional right of the House of Commons to pass a Motion of no confidence in the Government on a simple majority of those voting. No-confidence votes have, until now, been a matter of convention—although it has been widely accepted that a no-confidence vote in the other place would require a Prime Minister to resign or call an early election. However, there has been nothing to date to enforce this. For the first time the Bill gives legal effect to a Motion of no confidence passed by the House of Commons. Such Motions will continue to require a simple majority.

Clause 2(2) provides that, following the passing of a no-confidence Motion in the other place, there will be a period of 14 days during which the Government may seek to gain the confidence of the other place. If, during the 14-day period, a Government emerge who can command the confidence of the House of Commons, it will be free to govern for the remainder of the five-year term since the previous general election, and the country would not have a general election. However, if no such Government emerge at the conclusion of the 14-day period, Parliament will be dissolved. As the Constitution Committee concluded, a period of 14 days strikes the right balance between allowing enough time for an alternative Government to be formed while ensuring that there is no prolonged period without an effective Government. We must bear in mind that a Government who are known to have lost the confidence of the House of Commons will continue to be the Government during the campaign period.

A Motion for an early election will be confirmed by issuing a certificate by the Speaker of the House of Commons. A similar provision is set out in the Parliament Act 1911, which provides for the Speaker of the House of Commons to issue a certificate confirming that a Bill has been certified as a money Bill. In the case of a no-confidence Motion, the Speaker’s certificate will confirm that the Motion has been passed, and that the 14-day period has ended without the House of Commons passing any Motion expressing confidence in any Government. Such a certificate will mean that there is no ambiguity about whether the other House has voted for Dissolution in the requisite majority or whether a vote of no confidence in the Government should trigger Dissolution.

Clause 2 sets out that the Speaker’s certificate, in these cases, shall be conclusive for all purposes and that the Speaker must, as far as is practicable, consult the Deputy Speakers before issuing the certificate. While it has been argued that the requirement for a two-thirds majority should not be set out in statute, I was pleased to note that the Constitution Committee shares the Government’s assessment of the Bill’s interaction with parliamentary privilege. It provides the House of Commons with a new power—one that is to be transferred from the Prime Minister to the House of Commons. We believe that such a fundamental constitutional change should be laid down in statute.

However, in doing so, the Government do not believe that the provisions in this Bill will undermine the other House’s exclusive cognisance. I have made available in the Library a copy of a memorandum that the Government placed in the House of Commons Library on 13 September setting out their view that the Bill does not affect the relationship between Parliament and the courts.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Campbell-Savours Excerpts

Monday 14th February 2011 Lords Chamber

[The Advocate-General for Scotland (Lord Wallace of Tankerness)]

My Lords, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, has indicated, this matter has been debated in Committee and on Report, and it is clear that the Government have taken a different view from him. However, I accept that it is helpful for us to be able to have a further exchange on the issue.

The Government believe that the framework that is set out in this Bill and indeed in other legislation is sufficient for this referendum. Perhaps I can establish some common ground. We agree with the principle that party election broadcasts should not be used as referendum campaign broadcasts. However, Section 127 of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 prevents the main purpose of any broadcast other than a referendum campaign broadcast being to procure or promote an outcome in a referendum, which we believe is sufficient reassurance. In other words, it ensures that a party election broadcast does not become a referendum campaign broadcast. I think there is common ground here and that the mischief which the noble and learned Lord identified—although I would not necessarily accept it—is an incidental part of an election broadcast in which one side or the other is endorsed.

Our view is that there is clear merit in maintaining some flexibility in this area while acknowledging the clear limits already imposed by Section 127. Such flexibility might enable, for example, the inclusion of a brief statement during a party election broadcast that referred to the referendum and to whether the party supported a particular outcome. Although the noble and learned Lord did not say it, I understand from him that he would find nothing wrong with the existence of the referendum being referred to or indeed with an encouragement to vote; it is the endorsement of a particular yes or no position that he seeks to address.

If such a reference was an expression of a party’s wider policy on matters—for example, on political reform—that were of relevance to the elections on 5 May, one might say that precluding mention of that position in a related election broadcast could have an adverse impact on campaigning for a particular party in those elections. To pick up on the point made by my noble friend Lord Phillips of Sudbury, I can confirm that six weeks would be within the relevant campaign period for the referendum. I understood the noble and learned Lord to agree with the proposition that if in that broadcast a party was to support, let us say, constitutional reform—I do not think that my noble friend even specified a particular outcome of the referendum—that would fall foul of the law if his amendment were passed.

I ask the House to consider that to legislate to forbid a party to articulate its legitimate policy position is an important step to take.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

I have an important question for the Minister as to what happens during the broadcast. He referred to flexibility. He is a Liberal Democrat Minister in the coalition. Will he assure us that the flexibility to which he referred will preclude in a Liberal Democrat broadcast any reference to the fact that more than 50 per cent of the electorate would be required to secure the election of a Member of Parliament? In other words, if there is flexibility, I seek to be assured that it in no way leads to misleading statements being made on the 50 per cent requirement.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

I have two points in response. Speaking as a member of the Administration, I am in no position to offer detailed assurances on the content of a party political broadcast when that party is only one part of the coalition. However, I shall indicate what the dynamic might be in how the broadcasting authorities treat this issue and, indeed, are doing so—it is not hypothetical.

We believe that it is ultimately a matter for the broadcasters to see that the rules in Section 127 on the content of party election broadcasts, together with relevant guidance issued under the Communications Act 2003, are adhered to. That is the Government’s position. I accept that the noble and learned Lord might disagree with it, but we have not yet heard any compelling reason to convince us that that stance is wrong. The proposed approach would in any case still require broadcasters to take a view on whether the proposed content in a broadcast complied with the new rule. Broadcasters would have to make some sort of judgment as to whether the content of a party election broadcast indicated a preference for a particular referendum outcome. Such a judgment might well be in the field of whether a general endorsement of constitutional reform fell within that or whether the content had to be much more specific, endorsing a yes/no position.

As I indicated on Report, the chair of the Broadcasters’ Liaison Group has already written to the political parties, drawn their attention to Section 127 of the PPERA and asked them to contact him if they intend to include any reference to the referendum in a party election broadcast in order to ascertain whether any reference crosses the line into Section 127 territory and could in the group’s view be unlawful. We believe that these lines of communication will clarify how the legislative framework will apply in the context of the combination of the referendum with other polls on 5 May. The framework for regulating party election broadcasts sits under the Communications Act 2003 and within the broadcasters’ guidance. We believe that that, combined with the Section 127 provisions in PPERA 2000, provides the necessary clarity.

That said, the Government acknowledge the important issue that has been raised by the noble and learned Lord in tabling this and other amendments at earlier stages. The PPERA framework for referendum regulation was introduced by the previous Government and, despite the confidence that I have expressed in the legislation, aspects of the framework might need a longer-term refresh. I reassure the noble and learned Lord that the Government will reflect further on these points in the light of the referendum and the experience of the poll on 5 May. In the mean time, I urge the noble and learned Lord to withdraw the amendment.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Campbell-Savours Excerpts

Tuesday 8th February 2011 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Speaker (Baroness Hayman)]

I have to inform the House that if either Amendment 16J or Amendment 16K is agreed to, I cannot call Amendments 16L to 17 inclusive by reason of pre-emption.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

My Lords, I will not speak to Amendment 26. However, I have a question to ask the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde. The boundaries are being set on the basis of the December 2010 register. Why cannot the date be January, February or March 2011, particularly since local authorities are right now registering people all over the country? Why cannot those additional signatories—registered persons—be taken into account?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Strathclyde]

I recognise the importance of the subject raised in this group of amendments and I will speak to them all. I am grateful to noble Lords for raising their queries in the way that they have done.

Amendment 16J prohibits the first boundary review from taking place until all local authorities in the country have been certified as having taken all reasonable steps to ensure that the electoral register is as complete and as accurate as possible. The amendment also leaves it to the Boundary Commission to decide when the first review should be completed. The Government’s position has not changed on this issue since we debated it in Committee, because if we delay the implementation of new boundaries whereby they do not take effect before the general election in 2015, we end up with the absurd situation of electors in England coming on to the register in 2018 who were not born when the electoral data that are used to determine the pattern of representation across the UK was compiled. This should not be allowed.

As the Government made clear, action is being taken to accelerate progress towards individual registration. We are introducing measures such as data-matching schemes to help local authorities gain as complete a picture as possible of the eligible voters in their area. However, we cannot allow boundary reviews to be delayed, potentially indefinitely, which the amendment may do. It states that a boundary review could not take place until all—I stress, all—local authorities in the country had been certified as having completed all reasonable steps to ensure that the register was as complete and accurate as possible. This does not seem to be either reasonable or proportionate, given that the electoral register has been used as the basis for boundary reviews for decades. It is important that steps are taken to support registration, but we do not see this as an either/or situation; we should not tolerate out-of-date boundaries while the registration work is ongoing.

The noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, asked a perfectly fair question as to why the register from January or February 2011 could not be used. The answer is that 1 December is the date by which the electoral register is published, following the annual census. The research that has been undertaken independently by the Electoral Commission shows that the register becomes less accurate throughout the year from that point. Therefore, by using the register that was due to be published on 1 December, we are addressing the concerns expressed about the accuracy of the register.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

That is not the information that we are being given by Members of the other House. They are saying that the register now carries more registered people than at any other stage. Perhaps the noble Lord can ask departmental officials to check, prior to the debates tomorrow.

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, I am very happy to do so; more than that, I will try to get a letter sent to the noble Lord overnight for him to study before we reach his further amendment.

Amendment 26, in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Campbell-Savours and Lord Foulkes, also seeks to require the Boundary Commission to estimate the number of people entitled to vote, based on data from the 2011 census and any other data available, and to use this as the basis for the electoral quota, or simply to estimate the number of the eligible electorate. There are practical difficulties in estimating the number of people who are eligible to register but have not chosen to do so. Again, the Electoral Commission has called estimating the completeness and accuracy of the electoral registers an imprecise science, and acknowledges that all current approaches to estimating the data are imperfect. That is not a solid basis on which to draw up constituency boundaries. Even if it were possible to make estimates of the total electorate who are unregistered to vote, this amendment proposes the use of data from the 2011 census. The census is being carried out, as the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, pointed out, on 27 March. Data will not be available until at least the end of the year. Data at local authority ward level, which would be necessary to make estimates that would be of any use in a boundary review, will not be available until well into the following year. It will be well into 2012 before the data set for the review can even begin to be compiled.

The Boundary Commission for England will not be able to conduct a review that allows for proper consultation and allows enough time for parties, candidates and administrators to prepare for an election on new boundaries in 2015 if they have barely begun the task at the start of 2013. Furthermore, any such estimates will doubtless be the subject of considerable critique and challenge by those with a vested interest, which might risk further delay and undermine confidence in the commissions. It is far better to base the review on the electoral register, because whatever the debate about the number of electors who should be on the registers, the number who actually are on them is a simple matter of fact.

If it is not possible to wait for the census and have new boundaries in place for 2015, then it seems to me—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

Indeed. The figure is 613 for Great Britain, which, with Northern Ireland, takes it to 630. We are agreed on that. That, in many respects, just underlines the problem. Even with that wording, if you subtract the 18 Northern Ireland seats from the current 650, you get 632, so we are already some 19 seats up. Noble Lords might recall that when the 1986 legislation was passed, it also had the provision that there had to be at least 71 or 72 seats in Scotland, which is now down to 59, so we can perhaps add another 12 to that. Not only are we 19 up, we have a further 12, so we would have drifted upwards by some 31 from the target figure.

The noble Lord, Lord Bach, quoted the fifth report. I do not dispute that no one else has, but I do think that somewhere along the line there have been some quotations from it before, although that is neither here nor there. While he indicated that in the view of the Boundary Commission it was not right for it to set a fixed target or adhere to a fixed number, I rather think that, given the rules under which it operates in the 1986 legislation, that is probably a proper way for it to go about its business. The whole point is that Parliament is setting a figure of 600. It is not the Boundary Commission but Parliament that will set a fixed number.

The Government’s position has been made clear; there needs to be a legislative cap on the number of seats to control the ratchet effect of the current legislation, under which the number of seats has increased at every review—with the exception of the post-devolution review—since 1950. It is likely that the target would be missed under the noble Baroness’s amendment even at the first review, since the 2009 electorate divided into constituencies at an average of 72,000 would fill 631 constituencies. Indeed, she said that we would be invited to address the issue of constituencies of around 100,000, but that is wildly out of kilter with anything that is being proposed here. That is not what Parliament is being asked to address. We are looking at a quota of approximately 76,000, with a variation of 5 per cent on either side—a band of 7,600.

Setting out the size of the electoral quota in the Bill poses some problems for the way in which the noble Baroness’s amendment is framed. However, the way in which the Bill is written allows for changes in the number of registered voters while maintaining a smaller House of Commons. A specified quota, such as that proposed in this amendment, would mean that the number of seats will rise as the number of registered electors rises, making it yet more unlikely that the commissions will ever meet the target of 600 seats.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

What happens if the population rises by 2.5 million and, when it is spread out as a ripple effect across the whole population, each constituency then meets the limit of 76,000 plus 5 per cent? Do we then increase the number of seats or simply increase the number of voters in each constituency?

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

My Lords, as the Bill is set out, at each relevant date the quota for the Boundary Commission—the number of registered voters—will take that into account. Given that the Bill provides for five-yearly boundary reviews, the population is unlikely to increase by 2.5 million in one boundary review, although it could happen over time. We are still talking about 600 seats. Therefore, the quota would increase, still allowing for a variation of 5 per cent either way. My point about the noble Baroness’s amendment is that with the quota being set in the Bill—if her amendment were to be carried—an increase of 2.5 million in the population would significantly increase the number of seats and move further away from her other objective, stated in her amendment, of not being substantially in excess of 600.

The next issue is that of the 7.5 per cent tolerance from the parity quota. Your Lordships’ House has discussed increasing the tolerance from the quota set out in the Bill on several occasions. I merely confirm that the Government are committed to the principle of equity and of equally weighted votes. Five per cent is the minimum variance necessary to ensure that the Boundary Commissions are able to take into consideration the important practical factors set out in rule 5 without undermining the principle of fairness for voters that is at the core of these reforms. A greater tolerance in these circumstances would be unfair to electors. The discretion given to the Boundary Commission by a tolerance of 7.5 per cent allows for the possibility that different Boundary Commissions could adopt different practices and, therefore, that there could be an imbalance in the number of seats in each part of the United Kingdom.

The amendment also sets up a potential for internal conflict. The provisions in the Bill have been praised as a substantial improvement on those currently implemented by the Boundary Commissions because they have a clear hierarchy and are not contradictory. However, the provisions in the amendment do not have such a hierarchy and there is no guarantee that the commissions will be able to draw constituencies of 76,000 people without crossing historic county boundaries—a term that remains undefined.

I turn to the other leg of the noble Baroness’s amendment. To ensure that constituency boundaries do not cross various other boundaries, we have listened to the concerns of noble Lords and are bringing forward an amendment later this evening that will put into the Bill the local government boundaries that we know each Boundary Commission considers when drawing up constituencies. The 5 per cent variation will allow the Boundary Commission for England to use wards as building blocks in most if not all cases. We expect that it will do so. However, it is important to allow the Boundary Commission for England discretion as it carries out its independent duties. The amendment talks of historic county boundaries and specifically mentions Devon and Cornwall. I thought I heard the noble Baroness say that historic boundaries had never been crossed before. I am told that the Littleborough and Saddleworth constituency crossed the Yorkshire-Lancashire border. If there ever was an historic sensitive boundary, I suspect that it might be that one.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Campbell-Savours Excerpts

Monday 7th February 2011 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

1A: Clause 1, page 1, leave out lines 10 and 11 and insert—
“Should that system be changed and a different system of electing MPs be introduced at the next general election?”

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

This amendment would amend the referendum question to read, “At present, the UK uses the ‘first past the post’ system to elect MPs to the House of Commons. Should that system be changed and a different system of electing MPs be introduced at the next general election?”. This is a particularly important amendment because it goes to the heart of the question that I believe will be in the minds of the electorate.

I start from the position that we are entering a period of entrenched multiparty politics in the United Kingdom. We have at least three major parties and a number of other parties on the fringe. At this stage, we should all stand back and consider the work of Professor Patrick Dunleavy of the London School of Economics and Professor Helen Margetts of the Oxford Internet Institute, who have repeatedly pointed to the break-up of the two-party system. In their 2005 paper, they pointed to the fact that in 2005 the two-party share of the vote fell below 70 per cent for the first time. At a meeting held in the Jubilee Room some three months ago and attended by a number of Members of this House of all political and Cross-Bench persuasions, Patrick Dunleavy set out the basis on which he was arguing the splintering of party support within the United Kingdom. It seems to me that Maurice Duverger’s law that plurality rule systems induce smaller numbers of parties is now being turned on its head. The fact is that plurality systems are increasingly turning in chaotic results, and this is now drawing us into a period of proportional representation and alternative systems.

I also believe that we are now undergoing a period of prolonged transition with the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly, the European Parliament, the London Assembly, the Northern Ireland Assembly and the mayoral elections all introducing new systems to British electoral arrangements. I believe, too, that the whole process is unstoppable. Indeed, when the debate on Lords reform comes to this House, it will no doubt be dominated not only by the issue of powers but by the question of which electoral system will apply in our case.

The question is: how can we manage change in relation to the House of Commons? Against the background of a break-up in the way that the electorate cast their votes, the multioptional, preferential voting scheme now on offer in this Bill can only be described as a grubby little compromise, in the sense that it is the ill-considered product of a backroom deal which in my view electoral reformers will live to regret. The fact that the Labour Government, in their dying days, tried to introduce this system in the Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill is no justification for its introduction in this Bill. Indeed, I am convinced that it would have been similarly treated if they had tried to introduce it here in this House.

I have reflected objectively, as many others will have done, on why the Liberal Democrats did the deal that they did. They probably thought that they had no option, but I believe they were wrong and that they made an historic miscalculation. They were clearly desperate to secure a deal on electoral reform at any price. There was an alternative and I think that they completely underestimated their clout during the coalition talks.

What should the negotiators have done during those discussions? First, they should have recognised that the Conservatives needed them as part of the coalition; secondly, they should have sought assurances as to continuity of the coalition, as indeed they did with the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill; and, thirdly, they should have sought and secured a May referendum but with the much simpler question that my amendment provides. The advantage in asking my question in the referendum is that the public will not get hung up on AV. In my view, AV is a complicated system which the public will never understand.

Furthermore, by asking a simpler question, we will be able to avoid rubbishing the AV system as currently proposed. If in the referendum the answer to the question I ask in the amendment was no, that would end the debate. If the answer was yes, that would mean there would be another system at the next general election. A no answer would mean that the issue was dead; a yes answer would open up every possibility imaginable. If the answer was yes, all alternative systems would have to be evaluated by some kind of inquiry and Parliament would be required to approve a new system for the next election—but, crucially, not the first past the post system, which would have been ruled out by a yes answer to the question in my amendment. Parliament could not duck the decision as it would have been mandated by the electorate in the referendum. All we need to know is whether the electorate want to end first past the post.

So who would do the evaluating and what would they evaluate? A Speaker’s conference could evaluate the system or systems in the event that the referendum was to provide a yes vote. A similar form of committee inquiry—and, in certain circumstances, even the Electoral Commission if its remit was widened—could evaluate the various systems. What would they evaluate? They would evaluate AV and its variants—that is, SV and the Australian federal system—AV plus, SV plus, AMS and STV—and they would also evaluate first past the post plus, which has never as yet featured on our agenda and which, in reality, was the system that formed the background to the Jenkins commission’s inquiry.

As to the timetable, under the question in the amendment the referendum would be in May 2011; an inquiry would be established in July 2011; and the report to Parliament would be in November 2011. It would be a factual report based on the various systems and the arguments both for against; it would not necessarily make recommendations. The legislation could be introduced in the Session beginning April 2012, which would be three years before the end of the five-year fixed-term Parliament and two years before the end of a four-year fixed-term Parliament in the event that that was approved by Parliament. The Parliament Act would not apply because the people would have mandated the Government to introduce a system based on the inquiry, which would be approved by Parliament before the next general election.

The programme could be allowed to slip six months. The referendum could be held in October—which I would prefer and which was proposed in the Labour Government’s original legislation of early last year. Parliament would take the final decision, and even then there would be an opportunity for pre-legislative scrutiny.

From a Liberal Democrat point of view this has one huge advantage: once the people say yes to ending first past the post and introducing a new system by the next election, the least you will get is AV. That is the least you get, because the mandate from the people requires a change in the system prior to the next general election. Therefore, automatically, the minimum change would be to AV and, because all options are open, the real debate would then take place.

My amendment puts everything back on the table, but in a way whereby, in the event that there was a yes answer to the referendum question, all systems would be evaluated, so we might have the opportunity to introduce a system which, in my view, is more likely to deal with the problem that exists within the United Kingdom of disproportionality in representation.

This is the last chance saloon. I hope that, although we are late in proceedings on the Bill, Ministers will consider the issues that I have raised.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

The noble Lord invited me to look to the best interests of the Liberal Democrats. I would not tread anywhere on looking at what might be considered the best interests of the Conservative Party.

If the referendum was on the question proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, and if the answer was yes, what would then be the follow-on from that? Would the Government propose a system that would have to be debated by Parliament? My noble friend Lord Newton of Braintree made a good point that you can ask the public if they want a change and if, they say yes, you then leave it to politicians to foist upon them what that change might be. Even if it was a question of, “Vote yes and we will set up a committee”, that is not really an appealing slogan on which to have a referendum campaign. Voters could reasonably claim that they had been cut out of a significant decision.

In moving his amendment, the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, said two things: that Parliament would take the final decision and that, inevitably, the next general election in 2015 would be fought on a different system from first past the post. Yet nowhere can Parliament be mandated to pass a Bill to make it an Act. We all know that a change in the electoral system would require primary legislation for it to come into law. If the voters have voted yes to wanting a change, what guarantee will there be that both Houses of Parliament would then manage to coalesce around what that particular change might be? It could be the worst of all worlds, with people voting for change and then finding that politicians have frustrated the change that they seek.

As has been made clear on a number of occasions, the attraction of the approach taken in this Bill is its clarity. We set out how the alternative vote system would work, as comprehensively done in Clause 9 and Schedule 10. Any questions about how optional preferential AV works can be resolved by looking at the Bill. That would not be the case with the noble Lord’s amendment. I urge him to withdraw his amendment and, if he seeks to push it to a vote, I invite noble Lords to vote it down.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

Perhaps I can apologise for the somewhat staccato nature of presenting my amendment because I was caught short and could not work out finally which notes I had to refer to.

Let me answer the critically important question raised by the noble Lord, Lord Newton of Braintree. The facts are that no one, anywhere, has done any homework on how AV works. Maybe the Liberal Democrats have done some, to work out to what extent it will benefit them. In the event that the amendments had fallen in a different order today, I would have been able to produce earlier during our proceedings the evidence that I will produce under the next amendment—that is, figures which show that a complete miscalculation has been made by the Conservative element in the coalition as to how AV operates, drawing on the Dunleavy material from 1997. A lot of people have not done their homework and are presuming, because there is an item on the agenda that says “AV is presentable and works”, that somehow that is enough authority for Parliament to carry the legislation in the form that it has. No work has been done and, until it has been, it is highly irresponsible for any Government to present to the British electorate a question in the form in which this is currently being submitted. No work has been done.

All I was doing in my amendment was drawing attention to the fact that no work has been done and that all the electorate have to say is, “We do not want first past the post any more”. Then, Parliament could, by whatever means, with the aid of Government, establish inquiries to examine and evaluate all the systems and then come forward with recommendations. Let me be absolutely frank: once you have got rid of first past the post, due to the complexities of alternative electoral systems, it needs Parliament to decide on what system is selected. You cannot leave that very complicated question to the public. A complicated series of options—a whole of spectrum of systems—has to be placed in the event that you widen that offer to the electorate.

I stand by my amendment. Unfortunately, for whatever reason and the time factor, I will not have the opportunity of voting upon it today. After the next amendment, when I produce evidence of what happened in 1997, some Members of the Committee might well think, “I wonder what we are doing”. If I might put it bluntly, they know not what they doeth. I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 1A withdrawn.

Moved by

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

2: Clause 1, page 1, line 10, leave out ““alternative” and insert ““supplementary”

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

I had hoped to speak at some length on this amendment on Report but understand that agreements have been made on Part 1 so I do not intend to delay the debate. Perhaps I can start by explaining why I have been pushing SV during the course of this legislation.

The supplementary vote is a variant on the alternative vote. It is one of the three systems which we have discussed at length in Committee. We have the Australian system, the Queensland system, and the supplementary vote system. It is not my favourite system for electoral reform—my favourite is a PR list system or an AMS system—but is a compromise. If you have two options on the agenda—alternative vote, Queensland, or alternative vote, supplementary vote—then I will always pick the supplementary vote. The reason I want to present the preamble to my case today on that basis is that I intend to criticise some aspects of SV along with AV. I am criticising a family of systems which generally come under the alternative vote.

To get the preliminaries out of the way, the supplementary vote is already used in 13 cities in the United Kingdom. It is used in the mayoral elections, and it was used in the London election to elect Boris Johnson. Many people think when they walk into the polling booth in London and vote for a mayor for London they are voting under an AV system. They are not. They are voting under a particular system within the family of AV systems, the supplementary vote, which is not what is on offer in this legislation.

The key question we have to ask about those 13 mayoral elections is whether the supplementary vote changes election results as against a first past the post system. It has done on four occasions, where the second-placed candidate on the second count has won the seat and where the first-placed candidate on the first count has, therefore, lost. In that sense, therefore, it can influence election results.

Furthermore, the supplementary vote was the recommendation of the Plant commission, which was established by the Labour Party in 1990 to evaluate different electoral systems. In Committee I read on to the record a part of the Plant commission’s report and its recommendations.

The next debate that took place on the supplementary vote took place in 1998, when London mayoral elections were established in the system in legislation. Nick Raynsford, who was then the Minister, in conjunction with many outside bodies which lobbied him on behalf of the various systems, decided that the supplementary vote was the appropriate system. It is a used and tried system within the United Kingdom.

I now want to move the debate from pushing my system within the family of AV to another argument. Within the family of AV systems there is a problem which has never been debated in Parliament. To know what the problem is you have to look at a paper produced immediately after the landslide victory for the Labour Party in the 1997 election. It was called Remodelling the 1997 General Election: How Britain Would Have Voted Under Alternative Electoral Systems by Professor Patrick Dunleavy, Helen Margetts, Brendan O’Duffy and Stuart Weir. This is the only piece of good, clear evidence of what happens when you introduce alternative vote systems within the United Kingdom. Again, however, it is an extrapolation.

I could spend an hour quoting from the paper but I have taken out the salient paragraphs which should influence opinion. The writers simulated what would happen under AV under the landslide victory for Labour in 1997. They said:

“Our simulation approach developed over the two 1990s elections seeks to get as close as possible to how a new system might work via several innovations … asking survey respondents to complete alternative ballots for the rival systems, immediately after they have voted in a general election”.

In other words, after they voted in a general election they then asked them questions. The paper continued:

“In 1997 ICM Research interviewed a sample of nearly 8,447 people across 18 regions of Britain for the project, achieving a response rate of 82 per cent”.

That is a very substantial sample, asking questions about how people would have voted under AV in 1997. They combined,

“regional responses for each type of voter and information from the general election on first preferences to extrapolate how second and subsequent preferences would be structured under the alternative voting systems at the level of local constituencies”.

The authors then took Queensland AV and SV and found:

“To simulate an SV outcome” —

Remember we are talking about a sample of 8,500—

“we looked at all 301 constituencies where the winning MP in 1997 had only plurality support, identifying the top two candidates who would go to the second stage of the count, and also those candidates who would be eliminated … The outcomes were dramatic”.

Tory MPs should read this stuff because it then says:

“Across the country as a whole the Conservatives would have lost”—

a further—

“55 seats, cutting their representation in Parliament to just 110 MPs”.

[Lord Tomlinson]

What’s wrong?

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

My noble friend might ask, “What’s wrong?”, and there may well be people in the Labour Party all over the country repeating, “Yes, what’s wrong?”. I will tell you what is wrong: we know it is wrong. We know if we were being reasonable, we could never have cut back the Conservative Party to 110 seats in 1997. It would have been a ludicrous result, producing, as the paper states,

“less than 19 per cent of seats in Britain compared with their vote share of 31.4 per cent”.

So here we have it. This system, we are told, is about fair votes; it is about somehow matching the number of seats with the votes cast in a general election, turning out in 1997, in the Labour landslide victory, 19 per cent of seats in Britain compared with their vote share of 31.4 per cent. That is a huge difference, and it is wrong that we should be introducing a system that potentially can lead to results on that scale.

“Such an outcome would be the most severe under-representation of the Tories in British history. The biggest reduction in Conservative seats would occur in the south west”.

It might well be there would be those who would argue, “Well, they are only Conservative seats that are being lost”, but it works both ways because AV exaggerates results and swings. You can get huge swings against a party which could just as well be the Labour Party and we, too, could be reduced to a rump. The Conservatives have simply failed to understand the dangers inherent in the system they want to introduce.

The paper goes on to point out:

“Under SV the Liberal Democrats would have won another 38 seats on top of their existing 46”.

We now know why they want to introduce the system. It clearly distorts. Then what does it say?

“Under SV Labour would also have gained 17 more seats, buoyed up by extra transfers from supports of eliminated Liberal Democrats, further boosting their already disproportionate majority, giving them over 68 per cent of British seats in Parliament on the basis of 44 per cent of the vote”.

This is this super system that we are introducing. This is the system we are told is fair votes. On the basis of the 1997 general election, the landslide victory for Labour, we would have won over 440 seats. What a ludicrous system. What a ludicrous proposition has been put before Parliament.

I go back to the amendment and the question posed by the noble Lord, Lord Newton of Braintree. People have not done their homework, and something needs to be done about that. We need a referendum question that invites people to say no to first past the post. Then let us get the inquiries established because the homework has not been done.

On the classic Queensland AV, the authors go on to say,

“We assessed AV’s impacts by examining whether the tiny differences in second preferences from the SV ballot would have changed any of the SV simulation outcomes in any constituency but we could not identify any such cases”.

The proposition before the House is that we do something we should not be doing. The Tory Government should stop this, and stop it now. We are on Report. They should go away and come back at Third Reading having fully considered the implications of the Dunleavy work from 1997. I know that the Minister will get up and say, “It doesn’t matter. It’s all gone through. It was approved by the House of Commons”, but they did not know what they were doing. They did not understand the implications of this system. We are dealing now with a major change in the constitutional arrangements of the United Kingdom. If we produce exaggerated results that would have given Labour 444 in 1997 and a massive majority much larger than we actually had, we are making a major error, and I appeal to the Government to think again before it is too late.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

That was a very powerful speech by my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours. He certainly does his homework very effectively. Like him, I wish that some Members of Parliament had done it. In the past few weeks, I have listened to a number of Conservative Members of Parliament and to some Labour Members of Parliament, and I am not sure that they know exactly what they voted for and its implications not just in terms of the voting system, as my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours said, but of the reduction in the number of Members from 650 to 600. That is something we will come to later. The purpose of a revising House is to try to draw attention to this, so I am really grateful to my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours, as I am sure the House is.

I want to raise one point. What can we do to stop this misapprehension that everyone elected under this system of AV has achieved the support of 50 per cent of the electorate? We discussed this in a previous debate, and I think it was my noble friend Lord Rooker, in his usual eloquent way, who pointed out the various systems. As I understand it—I am open to be corrected if I am wrong because I do not want to go on if I am—if the system used is that everyone is required to use all their votes, so that if there are 10 candidates, they vote from one to 10, that does apply. However, as I understand it, in the system that has been proposed and that we are being asked to approve, that is not required. You can vote one, two or one, two, three or one, two, three, four and so on—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

I think the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, helped to devise the system for mayoral elections that we have inherited. There are no proposals to change it. We are talking about elections to the other place. I have made it very clear that we see the merit of a system where preferences can be expressed as far or as little as individual voters wish. For the purposes of electing the House of Commons, we prefer it to the supplementary vote which by its very nature limits the extent of the preferences that the individual voter can indicate. On that basis, I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

My Lords, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, said that the Government believe that it is the best system. I dispute that. If he looks at his notes, he will see that that is what he read: the Government believe that it is the best system. Perhaps he would like to check his notes, but I wrote his words down. I will stand corrected if I misunderstood what he said.

All I am saying is that the Government may believe it, but Conservative Back-Benchers in the House of Commons have never been confronted with a real discussion. People do not know how this system works. I challenge any Conservative Back-Bencher here today to tell me, to assure the House, that Conservative MPs in the other place know how this system works. When these matters were debated in the other place, there were about five Conservatives in the Chamber. Everybody was whipped in to vote as part of a contractual agreement within the coalition. There has been no discussion. I cannot understand why Ministers are not listening to their own people. Why not carry out a consultation even in these last days of dealing with the Bill. Why do they not carry out a consultation on their own Back-Benches? They may even, if I might modestly suggest, send them a portion of the contribution that I have made to the debate, drawing on the statistics that have been produced following the sample poll of 8,500 people in 1998. Maybe it is then that they will realise what they are doing. Ah, finally we have tempted one out of the box.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

I can give the noble Lord a very honest answer. It is because I, like many people in the Labour Party, woke up one day—I think that it was in December 2008—and read in the Guardian newspaper that we were going to insert an amendment into the Bill to introduce the alternative vote. We had no notice whatever that that was the intention of the Labour Government. That is the answer to the noble Lord’s question. We did not know anything, and if we had known we would have set out to block it—as happened in 1998 when Nick Raynsford was faced with having to take the decision on whether we picked SV or AV.

I shall deal with one point that the Minister raised, when he talked about giving everyone the opportunity to use all their additional preferences. In the work by Dunleavy with the 8,500 samples, this was the conclusion that he drew on exactly that question—that AV would have produced the same results as SV in 1997, so far as could be determined. That conclusion raises an interesting question about whether the multiple ranking of candidates under AV is really a worthwhile feature, compared with the simpler and perhaps easier-to-explain ballot paper and counting methods used in SV. The noble Lord, Lord Tyler, shakes his head, but that is based on a sample of 8,500 people in 1998. Where is the evidence to the contrary? There is none, because the homework has not been done.

I have made my case. If I am still alive in 10 years’ time, and if this referendum question comes back in the affirmative on the AV system, I will have the pleasure of saying, “I said that it wouldn’t work and I was able to forecast that freak results would completely discredit the system and lead to a further review of it”. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 2 withdrawn