Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Debate between Lord Falconer of Thoroton and Baroness Hayman

Tuesday 10th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

I cannot commit a future Labour Government, but people should form their own view about whether fifth years have been good years. We should look at this in a non-partisan way. Do Mr Major or other Labour Prime Ministers in the past who have gone a fifth year fit the rubric of Professor Hazell; namely, people hanging on to the last moment and ending up in a situation where there is a pretty awful year? Four years is good, because it means that you are accountable to the electorate much more regularly. It would probably have meant three or four more general elections since 1945. Let us remember what the much revered Deputy Prime Minister told the Select Committees. He said that the reason for which these provisions were being introduced was to make politicians more accountable to the electorate. It is quite hard to see how you make politicians more accountable to the electorate by reducing the number of general elections. In those circumstances, we will vote for four years for this Parliament, for four years for the future and for the Boothroyd/Butler/Armstrong/Pannick amendment. I beg to move.

[The Lord Speaker (Baroness Hayman)]

I have to inform the House that if Amendment 1 is agreed to, I cannot call Amendment 2 by reason of pre-emption.

[Lord Lloyd of Berwick]

My Lords, I support four years rather than five years for the reasons which I spelt out in Committee and to which I had intended to return when we reached Amendment 3, but maybe I should address that a little earlier in view of certain observations made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, with which I agree.

I put my name to Amendment 3 last week because it followed very largely the amendment which was debated at length in Committee. I was therefore surprised to receive an e-mail over the weekend informing me that the noble and learned Lord was seeking to withdraw Amendment 3 and to substitute Amendments 1 and 2, which we now have, and asking me whether I would support them instead. I say at once that I cannot support Amendment 1.

At Second Reading, the noble and learned Lord accepted that it is open to any Government at any stage to indicate the date of the next election. That can be done within existing constitutional arrangements, as I believe everybody accepts. It did not require an Act of Parliament to establish May 2015 as the date for the next general election, but that is the course that the Government have chosen to take. There is nothing as such that is wrong with that course; it is the date that they have chosen and have put in the Bill.

If, therefore, May 2015 was to be challenged by the Opposition, surely it should have been challenged in Committee and not left to the 59th minute of the 11th hour before Report. Far from challenging that date, the amendment in Committee built on Clause 1(2). It assumed May 2015 and then substituted in Clause 1(3) “fourth” for “fifth”, and that is the amendment which I supported and still support.

It is true that, in response to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, on 21 March at col. 508, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, said that it had always been the Opposition’s intention to challenge the date in Clause 1(2), but that was not what they did. It is true also that at the end of the debate in Committee, it was argued that if four years was to be the norm for future Governments, it should be the norm for this Government. I do not agree. The Select Committee pointed out in paragraph 17 of its report the crucial,

“distinction between ‘the immediate concern of the Government’”—

this Government—

“‘that it should continue for five years’ and ‘the long-term issue’”,

of what should be the norm for future Governments. Those are distinct issues and it is the long-term issue to which all the evidence given in the Select Committee was directed.

It is the same as the distinction that was drawn very clearly by the noble Lord, Lord Cormack. He accepted May 2015 as the date for this Government because that is the date that any Government could have fixed. He thought that it was unnecessary to include it in an Act of Parliament, but there it is. Nevertheless, he favoured four years thereafter.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

My Lords, I do not think that the House has any appetite for long debates on any of these next votes, but they are alternatives to the vote that we have just had. This next vote, which is on Amendment 2, involves the following: instead of this first Parliament being fixed for five years, the position should be left as it is. In effect, if the Government want to go on for five years, they can do so and the arrangements should be left as they are, and a fixed-term Parliament can be introduced for the future. I detect some support for the view that, this first time around, the Government should be able to last for five years if they want. If that is the Government’s position, they do not need to amend the law to do that; they can just do it by agreement and all that is required is trust.

I do not intend to go through the arguments about four years or five because the basis of this proposition is that we end up in a situation where we do not change the law for this Parliament but leave it as it is, which would allow the Government to go for five years if they wanted to, but then I will be arguing that it should be four years for the future when we come to those votes. I therefore invite the House to reach a compromise position of no change for the first Parliament and four years for the subsequent ones.

[The Lord Speaker]

I have to inform the House that, if this amendment is agreed to, I cannot call Amendments 3 to 7 inclusive by reason of pre-emption.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

My Lords, in the spirit in which the amendment was moved, I do not wish to detain the House. We have had a full debate about the arguments about four years and five, but I shall simply talk about how the Government would prefer the position to be determined with regard to this Parliament. I think that I indicated in my reply to the previous debate that if we are going to have fixed-term Parliaments, it makes sense if we oblige this Parliament to move into the same rules as those governing what will happen in future Parliaments. I understood the noble and learned Lord to say that he thought there was some merit in that consistency.

While I have no doubt that this Government will carry on in our measured fashion up to an election in May 2015, if something is not fixed at that date it is inevitable, as one knows only too well, that speculation can start running rife, and the measure not being in place would perhaps give more grounds for speculation. That would actually hinder the productivity of this Parliament in its latter years when there might be more focus on opinion polls than on the legislative programme, something that the Bill is intended to avoid. We would be far better knowing definitely when the next election would be—namely, the first Thursday in May 2015. I therefore invite the noble and learned Lord to withdraw his amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

My Lords, the final amendment in this sequence is the only combination left, and although it proposes five years for this Parliament—I have been cruelly rebuffed in my two attempts to avoid that—it proposes four years for the future and will, I think, unite the House on my side, apart from a very few noble Lords who I regard as outliers. There is no point in debating the amendment again, because we have done so for the past two hours. I beg to move.

[The Lord Speaker]

If this amendment is agreed, I cannot call Amendments 4 to 7, by reason of pre-emption.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Lord Falconer of Thoroton and Baroness Hayman

Tuesday 8th February 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

My Lords, this amendment would change the Bill so that the date of the next boundary review would be set by the Boundary Commission, rather than the Government,

“once the Electoral Commission has certified that every local authority has taken all reasonable steps to ensure that the electoral register is as complete and accurate as possible”.

The amendment stems from a deep concern that has been expressed not just by Members on these Benches but by many noble Peers, and which is shared by the Government, about the incomplete nature of the current voter register. It makes it a flawed basis on which to redraw the electoral map in the way that the Bill proposes. The Bill states in rule 10(5) in Clause 11 that the basis of the next boundary review will be the electoral register as it stands two years and 10 months before the submission date of 2013. In plain English that means that the Boundary Commissions must use the 2010 electoral register in carrying out their redrawing.

We now know, and the Government have acknowledged during these debates, that this register is likely to be missing upwards of 3.5 million eligible voters. We also know, and the Government have also acknowledged, that the problem of under-registration is most acute among particular social groups in particular areas. As the Electoral Commission has reported,

“underregistration is concentrated among specific social groups, with registration rates being especially low among young people, private renters and those who have recently moved home … The highest concentrations of under-registration are most likely to be found in metropolitan areas, smaller towns and cities with large student populations, and coastal areas with significant population turnover and high levels of social deprivation”.

The Electoral Commission’s study was underpinned by Ipsos MORI research, which found that only 69 per cent of black and minority ethnic voters are registered, and only 44 per cent of 20 to 24 year-olds are registered, as opposed to 97 per cent of 60 to 64 year-olds. Therefore, the December 2010 register is clearly a flawed basis for the boundary review, but the Bill insists that this is the register that must be used.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, explained in Committee that it was,

“the wish of the Government that constituency sizes should be of an equal size”.—[Official Report, 10/1/11; col. 1278.]

That is a reasonable objective. We support the principle of more equal seats, but you cannot have equal seats on the basis of an unequal register. That goes against basic democratic principles. That is why our amendment stipulates that before the next boundary review—which will be very significant and widely disruptive—the electoral register should be brought to as complete a state as is reasonably possible. We suggest that this can be done by requiring the Electoral Commission to check that local authorities have taken all reasonable steps to ensure that this has happened. This does not seem an unreasonable or impossible demand. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, pointed out in Committee:

“electoral registration officers are under a statutory duty to compile and maintain comprehensive and accurate electoral registers. It is not as if it is a voluntary activity; there is an obligation on local authorities to compile as best they can comprehensive and accurate electoral registers”.—[Official Report, 10/1/11; col. 1280.]

If that is the legal obligation, what is wrong with holding those registration officers to account?

At the moment, there are self-reported performance standards, but they are not doing the trick. We know that because of the markedly different registration rates across different parts of the UK, which the Electoral Commission has itself uncovered. It seems perfectly possible and reasonable to ask the Electoral Commission to take a more proactive approach to the registration of electors. The central aim of the commission is to ensure,

“integrity and public confidence in the democratic process”.

That should be our aim, too. We will fail to achieve it if we do not place some safeguard in the Bill that takes into account the problem of under-registration among particular social groups in particular places. I beg to move.

[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.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Lord Falconer of Thoroton and Baroness Hayman

Tuesday 18th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

I do not think that it would. Perhaps I may write to the noble Lord with the figures in relation to that. I beg to move.

[The Lord Speaker (Baroness Hayman)]

I have to inform the Committee that if the amendment is agreed to, I cannot call Amendments 64 to 66C inclusive, by reason of pre-emption.