Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Lord Davies of Stamford and Lord Campbell-Savours

Monday 24th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

I thank my noble friend for giving way. I was just looking at my notes because we had an earlier intervention on Maldon. The noble Lord, Lord Newton of Braintree, referred to Maldon. He is talking to the noble Lord, Lord Higgins, at the moment but he might wish to take note of this. Maldon has a very interesting history. It was referred to by Lewis Baston in his brief, which my noble friend will have received. However, the noble Lord, Lord Newton of Braintree, did not tell us that the boundaries were changed in 1955 to 1974, in 1974 to 1983, in 1983 to 1997, in 1997 to 2010 and in 2010 to 2015. The evidence from Maldon is that the people of Maldon are confused about what constituency they belong in because of all the changes over the past 40 years to the boundaries of the constituency in which they have been placed. It is rather strange that the noble Lord, Lord Newton, failed to refer to that when he commented on his own constituency.

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Newton, has heard and taken note of those remarks. I say to my noble friend with the greatest friendliness that I do not intend to try to turn myself into an expert on the electoral history of Maldon. I come back to the point that I was making, which is that I think the public in general rightly expect us in a Committee on a Bill of this kind to do two things. One is to explore to the full the details in the Bill to open up every possible angle of vision to ensure that we look through the consequences. It is very important in any Committee on any Bill to try to identify the possible unintended consequence or consequences of it.

On the whole, this House has done a job in that regard of which we can be proud. What disgraceful negligence it would have been on the part of this House if we had not discussed Wales at all, which my noble friend Lord Touhig has just mentioned, given that the other House has apparently failed to do so. Anyone who has read that wonderful classic of Welsh literature, How Green Was My Valley, knows that the mountains create a real cultural and social barrier between the different Welsh valleys. There has been no opportunity to explore Wales, or Manchester for that matter. I have heard more about the electoral districts and history of Scotland than I have ever done in my life. Of course, I am very tempted to talk about the beautiful town of Stamford and say what a tragedy and monstrosity it would be if it were divided up and part of it were taken away and put into Leicestershire or somewhere else, but I will not go down that route despite the blandishments of my noble friend Lord Graham, a man whom the whole House holds in the very greatest regard. I simply say that we are doing that part of our job properly, well and thoroughly, and it is quite right that we are doing so.

The second task which the public as a whole would expect of us is to make some progress, or at least to attempt to make some progress, towards consensus, because the public always think that we should try to get consensus on constitutional matters. The public are right about that, and I think that most of us, in our heart of hearts, all feel that we should try to get consensus. There has not been much of an effort to get consensus for a long time, but such an effort has been made this afternoon, and that is very important. The Bill does not deal with wards at all, but the Minister has said that he will take that on board and come back to the Committee with something on wards. That is a very positive statement. I take it in good faith, as we all do, and I do not think that we need say anything more about wards this afternoon, and I shall not do so.

Views have been expressed on both sides of the House, including by the noble Lords, Lord Rennard and Lord Newton, that counties are important. We can all argue about how important they are in particular contexts, but it is clear that they are important. Paragraph 5 to Schedule 2 says simply that the Boundary Commission “may” take account of counties. However, that is just permissive; it implies that you can do so if you really want to. It does not accommodate the counties. We debated earlier the preceding group of amendments, some of which would have forced the Boundary Commission to take account of counties. My noble and learned friend proposes a very reasonable middle road in Amendment 71A: namely, that the Boundary Commission “should, where practicable” do so. In other words, there is flexibility but no insistence. If the Boundary Commission feels that other more important considerations ought to override the sanctity of county boundaries, so be it. That is real progress and a sensible way forward. I hope that it may be the basis of consensus on this important matter of counties.

I think that there is also consensus on a third and very important point, which was made by the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, from the coalition Benches: namely, that you cannot achieve these things and give the Boundary Commission any flexibility in practice unless we look again at the 5 per cent limitation. Otherwise, anything that we tell the Boundary Commission will be completely negated by the 5 per cent rule. What you cannot and must not do—I do not think that any of us would want to do this—is to give the Boundary Commission a contradictory brief and put it in a situation whereby it cannot solve the problem that it is being set. That would be quite wrong. If there is to be flexibility to enable the Boundary Commission to take account of county boundaries or other local factors which it considers to be important, it is clearly necessary to look again at the 5 per cent rule. I think that consensus has emerged in the course of our proceedings on that very important matter.

Fourthly, and finally, I sense there is a growing feeling that something needs to be done about my next point, not necessarily by continuing with the present status quo but not necessarily, either, by having what is in the Bill, which is nothing at all. We need to ensure that we do not just say, “Leave this matter in this House and never again is there to be any open discussion of the principles of our electoral boundaries”. That would be a very unnatural situation. Therefore, we need to preserve something like the public inquiry system. My noble friend Lady Hughes explained how that had made a big difference in Manchester in a recent case to which she drew our attention, and I know of other cases in which that has happened.

I think I mentioned that I, with some supporters, gave evidence to a Boundary Commission. We did not win our point but there was a general sense of satisfaction that we had been able to air it and that the arguments had been properly, duly, publicly and transparently weighed. We do not need the existing form of public inquiry. My noble friend Lord Rooker set out how he thinks that the whole process could be more rapidly conducted. I was very interested in his suggestion in that regard, which seems a promising avenue of discussion under the heading of future amendments on the Marshalled List. However, some sort of public and open appeals process is absolutely essential if we are not to put ourselves in a situation whereby the great and the good, if we can describe ourselves in that way—perhaps we are the great and the bad—take an irrevocable decision and then hand over to a bureaucracy the right for ever after to take decisions behind closed doors and subsequently announce to the grateful public what their electoral boundaries will be without it ever having to explain itself in public in any kind of open forum.

We have made considerable progress on those four principles this afternoon. The prospect may be emerging through the mist of a structure that could command the consensus that we all regard as very desirable for a Bill of this kind.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Lord Davies of Stamford and Lord Campbell-Savours

Tuesday 18th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

We are having a very constructive debate on this amendment. I appeal to all my colleagues to conduct themselves in a way whereby we might get some compromise on this amendment.

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

I entirely agree and have already said several things along the lines of what my noble friend has just said. To respond to my noble friend, I am naturally grateful for his comments. I agree with everything he said. Since we are talking about changing political parties, no doubt in the 1880s I would have been a Gladstonian Liberal and a home ruler. At least, I trust that I would have been.

There has been a change in the atmosphere this afternoon. There have been memorable contributions from the Cross Benches and the Conservative Party in favour, in principle, of the way in which this amendment has been framed. I repeat that we all now hope that we will be able to have a reasoned and calm dialogue with the Government on this. I hope they can accept this amendment, which would go a long way to solving all the problems before us. At the very least, we would expect, in the new circumstances, a very good explanation if they cannot accept it and, I hope, a proposal of their own that is better than either the original one in the Bill or the one that my noble and learned friend has just put forward.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Lord Davies of Stamford and Lord Campbell-Savours

Monday 17th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

I disagree with the noble Lord. I am quite surprised to hear him advance that position, because I know him well and believe him to be a man who believes not only that we should be guided by the political wisdom of the past, by history and by tradition but that we should not ignore that past and should be very cautious in doing violence to the traditions that have served us so well in British parliamentary democracy for so long. I know that there are many other contexts in which the noble Lord would be entirely with me.

We have heard figures given this evening—I do not remember them entirely—for the way in which numbers in the House of Commons have varied during the past 100 years. That has been a reflection of the Boundary Commission’s decisions, not of decisions taken by the House of Commons or this House to go for a specific number. Those variations have been a consequence of decisions made by the Boundary Commission when it has conducted its responsibilities, as it regularly does every decade or so, to look again parliamentary boundaries in this country.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

There is another example. The Liberal Democrats will remember it very well; we had arguments about it in the last Parliament. It is the Electoral Commission. There were many times when the Liberal Democrats objected to our objections to aspects of Electoral Commission reports and recommendations, so there is a tradition of accepting independent body judgments when it comes to issues of elections and boundaries.

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

I am grateful for my noble friend’s support. That, indeed, is the right answer to the noble Lord, Lord Renton. In practice we have accepted these decisions. Part of the consensus on which British politics has been based is that we do not interfere with the Boundary Commission. We let it get on with its job, and we respect its decisions and its independence. It is deeply conscious of its responsibility in the light of the trust placed in it by Parliament and the public. When it has concluded its work, we accept the umpire’s decision. That is in the best British tradition, if I may say so.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Lord Davies of Stamford and Lord Campbell-Savours

Wednesday 12th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

I rise to respond to the comments of the noble Lord, Lord King, and to say how pleased I was that, for the first time in the many hours of debates on this Bill, we had a contribution from the Conservative Back Benches. I totally agree with the noble Lord that the way in which this Bill has proceeded through this House is more than somewhat regrettable.

The reason why it is regrettable is that everyone agrees that it is a constitutional Bill and that constitutional matters are, or ought to be, above party politics. Everybody would agree that it is very desirable that any constitutional change, if possible at least, should gain the widest degree of consensus between political parties before being pushed through and that reasonable attempts should be made to build up a consensus by the Government who take the initiative to change the constitution in one particular way or another.

There have been at least three very unfortunate aspects to the passage of this Bill. I am not privy to conversations that may have taken place through the usual channels or otherwise, but if they have taken place they have left no trace in the debates that we have had in the past few weeks on this subject. It appears that no attempt has been made even to investigate whether there might be scope for some sort of compromise or negotiation. Of course, everything is not perfect with our electoral system at the moment. Of course, there are enormous anomalies, some of which we have drawn attention to on these Benches, such as the very high levels of non-registration among certain categories of our population. Another anomaly and a problem to which the Government have rightly drawn attention is that our elections take place on the basis of electoral registers that are excessively out of date. That is a real problem.

There is a possibility here for an adult, sensible, open-minded discussion at least to see whether there could be a basis for agreement or consensus on some of these issues. It is deplorable to take a constitutional Bill through this House without any such attempt even being made. If it is made and the Opposition are unresponsive, it will be open to the Government to say, “We tried. We discussed the matter formally and informally but you guys were unwilling to have a serious discussion on the subject”. That is the first reason why I regret the way in which the Bill has gone through the House in this fashion.

Secondly, and why I was so pleased to hear the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord King, it seems to me to be extraordinarily anomalous, artificial and even a little sinister that, although we have all these intelligent men and women of the world on the Tory Benches who we know have strong views on political and constitutional subjects, they have all been completely silent. That is an extraordinary state of affairs. It seems to me that the legislature is not doing its job when half, or at least a large proportion, of it seems to be forced into silence. That seems an odd state of affairs, but it is a feature of our debate that will be very striking to any historian who looks at the record. I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord McNally, is nodding at me when I say that. He may be in a better position than I am to talk to some of his Tory colleagues to see what the inhibition on them is. The noble Lord’s party’s Back-Benchers have taken part. We have enjoyed their contributions. I have sometimes agreed with them.

The third big problem about the way in which the Bill has been taken through the House is the apparent complete lack of any margin of manoeuvre, flexibility or negotiating power on the part of Ministers. We know them; they are able men and women. I remember the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, being an extremely distinguished and able Member of the House of Commons when we both served there. I have to respect the noble Lord, Lord McNally, for the way in which he conducts business from the Front Bench, but even when a moment ago we came across the tiny matter about “may” or “must” in relation to the obligations of the Government to implement the Boundary Commission’s recommendations, it was quite clear that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, had the same difficulty that we had in understanding unambiguously what the text was meant to say.

Surely this is the job of a legislature. If the Government produce a text that is unclear, we improve it; we make a change and we write a simplified, better version in clear English. That is our job. Why do we not do that? Why are the Government so frightened to make the slightest change of one word in the text of the Bill as it goes through the House? What is the point of our having all these discussions for hours if the Government as represented in this House—Ministers in the Lords—have so little room for manoeuvre, so little delegated power, that they cannot make progress on some minor point in the course of our long debates? We will not do a good job on the Bill if those three problems remain.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

The answer to the question that my noble friend is putting is that there is a contractual agreement between two parties. That is what is silencing this debate. Members of one party cannot get up to object because they know that it is a negotiated position with the other party to the coalition. I am in favour of coalitions, but this coalition is in an experimental stage. It has not mastered a way to freely debate within the contractual agreement.

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

I hear my noble friend with great interest. He is postulating a possible cause of the triple malaise which I have just described. I am trying to limit myself to describing the facts as I see them; I am not going in for any normative judgments or hypotheses about why or how the situation has arisen. I just hope that if we all recognise that if there is a malaise or a problem and that the fault is not with one particular section of this House alone, we might make some further, better and more edifying progress on the Bill over the hours, days or weeks—I have no idea how long it may last—as we proceed in this piece of our legislative work.