Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Lord Campbell-Savours and Lord Kinnock

Monday 24th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

I am sorry. I got the numbers wrong, but the point that I am making is very simple. It was not a cap; it was a target. That is what is wrong with this legislation. We are talking about caps and not targets. When you have targets, the Boundary Commission then has flexibility. It knows what Parliament wants, it knows what people are moving towards, but it can take into account all the additional pressures and considerations that normally arise during the course of public inquiries about decisions that it has to take.

I turn now to the actual wording of the rule. The amendments that we are dealing with are essentially about rule 5(1) on page 10 of the Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Rennard, quite rightly refers specifically to this question of, “If they think fit”. Those words are very important, because they are part of the first sentence in the rule:

“A Boundary Commission may take into account, if and to such an extent as they think fit”,

when considering these matters. That leaves it with two options. It can either take them into account or it can ignore them. If it goes on to ignore,

“(a) special geographical considerations, including in particular the size, shape and accessibility of a constituency;

(b) local government boundaries as they exist on the most recent ordinary council-election day before the review date;

(c) any local ties that would be broken by changes in constituencies;

(d) the inconveniences attendant on such changes”.

in my view it would not be carrying out its function.

The Boundary Commission’s function is to consider those matters, but if it cannot carry out its proper consideration of those matters because of the cap, its whole raison d’être is defeated and it may as well not even bother to carry out any function at all. The Government might just as well draw up the map and not even have a Boundary Commission.

[Lord Kinnock]

In the context of an earlier debate that we had on the constituency of Brecon and Radnor, much was made of the fact that because Brecon and Radnor is about a third or a quarter of the size of the very large Scottish constituencies, the whole process would be altered radically if that amendment had been adopted. The noble Lord, Lord Tyler, made the point, and he made it very trenchantly. Because there is a cap—not a target, as my noble friend has said, but a cap—every one of those considerations on rule 5(1)(a) to (d) would be in play so far as the Boundary Commission is concerned in Brecon and Radnor, but it will have to ignore most of (a) to (d) because any rational consideration of this most rural of English and Welsh constituencies means that in order for the number 600 to be reached, there will have to be an extension, either northwards into Montgomeryshire, Sir Drefaldwyn, or further to the west into Ceredigion or into the south Wales valleys. None of those considerations could be brought to bear by the Boundary Commission simply because it could not afford to deviate from the number 600 by one, let alone by the 13 that would have been possible under the 1986 legislation or other numbers that have been targets under predecessor legislation.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

I would like to have heard in the debate more references to the distinction between targets and caps, because that is essentially what we are debating. I agree with my noble friend. I was listening to the intervention of my noble friend who moved the amendment, and the intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, who referred to the new constituency that would be created being the maximum. It would be a huge constituency that would be utterly unmanageable, where the issue of accessibility would simply have gone out of the window, which is why I asked the noble Lord, Lord McNally, how he understands the relevance of accessibility. That constituency would have no proper representation. It would not be possible in the context of the size of the constituency that would be created. It could not, by any stretch of the imagination, have proper representation.

However, I wish to use paragraph 5(b) to the proposed new schedule, referring to,

“local government boundaries as they exist on the most recent ordinary council-election day before the review date”,

as a peg to draw attention to the conversation that took place at one of my dinner engagements last week. Someone raised an issue, and I suddenly thought, “That is particularly relevant to what we are discussing in this House”. The whole process in which we are involved is, we are told, essentially about equalisation. The noble Lord, Lord McNally, keeps referring to votes of equal value. That is a very interesting principle. The question is: where, when and in what circumstances do you apply that principle? I want to draw attention to other circumstances where that should equally apply, if you take the word that everyone is using, “localism”, into account. I want to see whether this localism—a sort of bottom-up principle—applies to this area.

I want to give as an example what is going on in Westminster, where we now sit. We are within the area of the Westminster local authority. I have here a list of all the wards within that authority. I was wondering how far this principle of equal votes of equal value applied in Westminster. I simply draw the attention of the House to what is going here. If we are prepared to have flexibility here in Westminster, why can we not apply the same flexibility throughout the whole of the United Kingdom? In every ward in Westminster there are three councillors. There are 20 wards. I want to draw attention to the variation in electorates within the council area where the Houses of Parliament stand. Knightsbridge and Belgravia has an electorate of 6,400, Tatchbrook has 6,400, Churchill 6,500, West End 6,600, Marylebone High Street 6,700, Little Venice 7,100, Maida Vale 7,200, Warwick 7,200, Vincent Square 7,300, Abbey Road 7,300, Bayswater 7,400, Church Street 7,500, Regent’s Park 7,600, Hyde Park 7,700, Bryanston and Dorset Square 7,800, St James’s 7,900, Harrow Road 7,900, Queen’s Park 8,100, Lancaster Gate 8,200 and Westbourne 8,300.

It seems that in Westbourne, the 8,300 electors voted in three councillors; but if you live in Knightsbridge or Belgravia, the 6,400 electors vote for three councillors. Where are votes for equal value there? We are dealing with the budget of one the largest local authorities in the country. I understand that Westminster’s budget is greater than those of some government departments. What about votes of equal value? Councillors elected to those wards are taking decisions on the use of these vast resources. I find it incredible that—guess what?—the largest electorates to elect the three councillors are in the Labour wards. So, built in to the arrangements for this votes-of-equal-value principle is an arrangement in Westminster whereby Labour voters are penalised and the individual voter has less influence on the expenditure of Westminster City Council. So much for votes of equal value.

Someone else told me that this is going on all over the country.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Kinnock]

In deference to noble Lords who have asked for specific references to the amendments that we are supporting, I am supporting Amendments 73 and 74. That is because the debate on these amendments seems to have been a focus of the real difference between those who uphold the Government’s position implacably, and more reasonable counsel who really do understand what the implications of this part of the Bill so far as democratic representation in the House of Commons really amounts to.

By way of preamble, I say to the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, and to an extent to the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, that yes, of course it is true that, in countries with written constitutions, the back-up of constitutional courts, and all the systems of appeal and representation attached to that, Parliaments do fix the number of seats in their democratic, legislative assemblies. But we do not have a written constitution; there is no prospect of one emanating from this Bill or any other Bill that I can see in the coalition agreement, and therefore I am sure they will accept this pragmatic point. We are not discussing these proposals in the context of a written constitution or anything resembling one, and if the legislation proves to be wrong in application, there is no process of appeal that can be used by the citizens of this country, noble or not ennobled, to try to rectify the problems that might result.

My second point is attached to that. It is true that parliamentary bodies or congressional bodies under the terms of written constitutions set the number of seats in their houses of representatives, and we are all familiar with the case of the United States Congress and the fact that there are very small states with exactly the same number of senators as very large, heavily populated states. There are complaints about that, but everybody is familiar with it, and it would take a constitutional volcano to dislodge that hallowed reality.

The same thing applies to the overall numbers of the lower House of Congress, the House of Representatives, but the term “gerrymandering” was effectively given meaning by the way in which, over decades, that House has been used to sort and re-sort, mix and mangle, constituency boundaries for representatives who are elected to the lower House of Congress. Some cases, in some states, in some congressional constituencies, are a mockery of democracy widely acknowledged in the United States. So even there, where there is a written constitution and Congress sets the number of seats, there is an openness to abuse that my democratic friends—with a small “d” democratic because they come from both parties—deeply regret and would like to see changed.

This is one of the reasons why they have admired our pragmatic, deliberative system of the Boundary Commission with the built-in appeals process which dislodges control of the number of seats from political hands, accepts the idea of a target number of seats in our democracy and then leaves the detail of deliberation and boundary setting, and consequentially the eventual number of Members of Parliament, to detached, independent persons who must rely not only on their own judgment but on the rational arguments and local considerations submitted to them from the localities for which they are setting the parliamentary boundaries and by that means substantially determining the quality of representation and government that is enjoyed by the people of this country.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

Is not the distinction between us and many of these other countries that we have a first past the post system? It is critical in this discussion because you can get away with a cap system where you have proportional representation and far larger seats that are more able to gather in fringe candidates. That is a very important distinction.

[Lord Kinnock]

It is not an area into which I want to stumble because I do not want to have a debate this evening about the benefits or disbenefits of proportional representation, save to say that my one reservation about having a much more proportionate system of representation in this country, which I favour in principle, is the implied departure from single Member constituencies. I believe that it is not beyond the wit of this House, the other House or the political community in general to discover ways of ensuring that there are single Member constituencies where the Members are elected by a much more proportionate system, but the reality remains the one spelt out by my noble friend: there are accompanying systems where the number of parliamentary seats is fixed by the Parliament buttressing considerations of vital importance, and even that does not safeguard those systems against distortion or abuse in the way that the Boundary Commission system intact has done in this country.

My final point specifically refers to the paragraph entitled “Factors” on page 10. My point is straightforward. Whether the legislation eventually provides that Boundary Commissions may, should or must “take into account” the considerations set out “as they think fit”, as my noble friend Lord Liddle said earlier, future Boundary Commissions will not be able to exercise a judgment “as they think fit” according to a group of sensible criteria laid down in this Bill.

Why not? It is because of the eunuch clauses in this Bill. Eunuch rule 2 is the 5 per cent rule. Eunuch rule 4 is the 13,000 square kilometres rule. Most of all, under eunuch rule 1 there will be 600 Members of the House of Commons. There is no possibility that the Boundary Commission should be given not a target but a cap, a fixed figure, regardless of all the surrounding realities, the requirements of constituents, the workload of Members of Parliament or any of the other considerations entered into this debate in this House or in the House of Commons. There is no possibility that the Boundary Commission will in any realistic sense be able to act “as they think fit” according to these listed factors. It will be circumscribed and supervised utterly by the figure of 600. Just in case that is not enough, it will not be able to make an adjustment of more than 5 per cent either way in the numbers. And just in case that is not enough, there are the two figures of 12,000 square kilometres and 13,000 square kilometres, which would make a constituency that is the size of many countries in the world, and would forbid consideration to be given from a very remote—indeed, the most rural—constituency in England and Wales, such as Brecon and Radnorshire. That would be regardless of consideration for the West Country, beloved of the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, the moors of northern England or any of the realities that relate to the Lake District. Decisions cannot be made on the pragmatic basis of the influence of size, the remoteness and scarcity of the population, the workload of Members of Parliament or any other objective consideration to a margin of, let us say, 10 or 12 seats or, for the sake of argument, 13 seats. That would give us the England, Wales and Scotland figure of the 1986 legislation.

Why legislate for cosmetic purposes when on the previous page of the Bill the discretion being awarded to the Boundary Commission is torn to shreds and thrown to the wind by the limitations imposed by the preordained figure of 600? I know that there are noble Lords opposite who are true servants of democracy and who have dedicated their lives to trying to improve the way in which the citizens of this country and other countries are represented and governed. I beg of them, when we give further consideration to these issues related to “Factors” and the real powers of discretion, the real powers of objective judgment and the real powers to act as it thinks fit that are awarded to the Boundary Commission, to record their reservations and insist that enough discretion is given to the Boundary Commission to permit it to do its job effectively in democratic terms and with the integrity which it has so richly earned during the past 60-odd years. If it is not given enough discretion to alter the total number of seats in the House of Commons from 600 to a few more, it is being made the object of ridicule, which is why I describe the rules that will effectively deprive it of the essential power of discretion as the eunuch rules.