Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Lord Davies of Oldham and Lord Wills

Tuesday 16th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Oldham]

Has the noble Lord not noticed that the tolerance level around the figure of 76,000 is a mere 5 per cent? If the noble Lord cannot see the straitjacket within which the Boundary Commissioners will be operating across the country, he is not showing that degree of insight into local politics and boundary-drawing which I would have expected from him.

[Lord Wills]

I am very grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. I wonder if he has noticed that this is the second intervention in which the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, has only quoted part of the Bill. The part of the Bill that he has quoted goes on to say that that provision, that rule, will be subject to Rules 2 and 4, on the electoral quota. In other words, all those considerations are still subject to that electoral quota rule, which only goes to prove the point that my noble friend was making.

[Lord Davies of Oldham]

I am so grateful to my noble friend, although he will recognise that I said that I would speak briefly and he is already extending my time. I want to get on to my third point on the size of the Commons. We all remember the histrionic gesture in this debate yesterday that suggested that the number did not emerge from anything more than thin air, as indicated by my noble friend Lord Dubs. I think we all know the motivation behind the reduction in numbers. The motivation, of course, is a £12 million cost saving and fairly obvious gerrymandering on the part of the party opposite.

It might be thought that I have dropped into a fairly severe partisan contribution at this stage and I want to avoid that. After all, we are talking about constitutional change and should, if we possibly can, avoid partisanship. I want to offer my congratulations to a Conservative Member of Parliament in the other place. He happens to be my Member of Parliament, because he represents the constituency in which I live. He is Charles Walker, the Member for Broxbourne. His concern, in the Chamber in the other place, was straightforward. He wanted to ensure that the House of Commons maintained, or perhaps increased, the capacity to hold the Executive to account when, as we all know, that capacity has been reducing over time.

There is no doubt that the Bill significantly reduces that capacity. It reduces the number of Members of Parliament and says absolutely nothing about the number of Ministers. The payroll position increases in proportion to the Commons and, crucially, affects its capacity to hold the Executive to account. I am pleased to agree with a Conservative Member of Parliament who tabled an amendment at the other end that got short shrift. What did not get short shrift were the guillotines on a constitutional Bill at the other end and the Government using their whipped majority to ram it through.

We are a revising Chamber: no more than that. We ought not to appropriate to ourselves any greater responsibility, particularly with regard to how the other place is elected and how it organises itself. Therefore I suggest that in the course of the Bill’s proceedings we merely give the other place the chance to think again, that we look at the size of the Executive—unchanged, of course, under the proposals that the noble Lord, Lord McNally, is about to defend—and that we provide opportunity for further consideration. I have no doubt that the principle on our side will be quite clear. I have hopes that we will get support elsewhere in the House, and I do not have the slightest doubt that there are enthusiastic advocates at the other end for that change to the Bill, including my own Member of Parliament. Lest it be thought that in my fulsome praise to him I automatically pledge him my vote at the next election, I will remind him that I do not vote in general elections.