Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Lord Falconer of Thoroton and Lord Anderson of Swansea

Monday 17th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

My distress at the lack of interest in the substance of the Bill is a matter of some import.

Amendment 58A would replace the current proposal in Clause 11 to fix the House of Commons at 600 seats, with an alternative rule which would anchor the size of the other place at its current membership of 650.

As your Lordships’ House’s Constitution Committee made clear in its report on the Bill:

“We conclude that the Government have not calculated the proposed reduction in the size of the House of Commons on the basis of any considered assessment of the role and functions of MPs”.

That reality was exposed in the debate last Monday, when the Government again failed to provide any adequate explanation as to why 600 seats is the optimum size for the other place or, in particular, why a 600-seat Commons would serve the public more effectively than the current 650-seat Chamber.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, conceded from the Front Bench that:

“We have never suggested that there was anything magic or ideal about a House of Commons of 600 any more than the current size of 650 is ideal”.—[Official Report, 10/01/11; col. 1222.]

Is that, I ask, rhetorically, the best that the Government can do in a situation where they are using their political majority in the other place in order to push through a reduction in the number of Members of Parliament? It is obviously a dangerous precedent that is being adopted, because it involves using your political power to fix the size of the legislative chamber in circumstances where people will allege, as we do on this side, that it is being done for political advantage.

It is worth saying that that approach to the question of the size of the legislative chamber has not been adopted in this country since the Second World War, when a Speaker’s Conference agreed the arrangement that then became law in 1949 and, though there have been changes to the detail, it has never been disputed that the people who should decide the number of constituencies in the country should be the boundary commissions, which are believed—correctly, in my view—to be beyond party politics. We do not want to get into a position where, when you win an election, you then use your majority to fix the size of the House of Commons to suit your political advantage.

[Lord Anderson of Swansea]

Is there not, as a result of this affront to our constitution in the way that this is being done, the danger that what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander? There must be a considerable temptation for any incoming Government to do the same. I would hope that we would resist that temptation, but the pendulum will swing and the party or parties opposite will not be for ever in Government. The danger is that one hallowed principle of our constitution will be wilfully thrown away.

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

I agree with all of that. I very much hope that we would not succumb to that temptation, but once the door is open, it becomes harder and harder to resist.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

I accept that as well but I can see no process by which, when you are setting up a Parliament, you can do so except by the passage of a Bill in Parliament.

[Lord Anderson of Swansea]

May a voice from Wales seek to assist my noble friend in respect of what happened regarding the Welsh Assembly? There was a consensus; it was agreed that there should be 60 seats, 40 of which would be exactly the same as the Westminster constituencies, while the other 20 would be based on regional representation and on a form of proportional representation. It was done not in a partisan way at all but on the basis of consensus, which manifestly has not been done in this case.

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

I think that that is fair, and it applies to the putting together of the Welsh Assembly, the putting together of the Scottish Parliament and the reduction in the number of Scottish seats in the Westminster Parliament. As I say, I defer in every single respect to the noble Lord, Lord Trimble, in relation to what happened in Northern Ireland.

We believe that the case for a 650-seat Commons has not changed since the current Prime Minister spoke in its favour—indeed, in favour of a slightly larger elected Chamber—at the 2003 Oxfordshire boundary inquiry. Opposing proposals to alter his own constituency borders, he told that inquiry:

“Somebody might take the view that at 659 there are already too many Members of Parliament at Westminster. They may take the view, depending on what happens in the European constitution, that Westminster has less to do, with less MPs—I certainly hope that is not the case. This is all some way off”.

What has changed in the mean time to alter the view that there is no need for a reduction in the size of the House of Commons? The Government have failed to answer that question.

Our amendment stems from a conviction that the current Commons of 650, which is broadly the figure that it has been since 1983, is the appropriate basis on which to stabilise the size of that Chamber. Although the membership of the House has been pretty stable over the past number of years, both rising and falling, concerns have been expressed about the potential for a ratchet effect resulting from the interplay of some of the existing rules for drawing parliamentary boundaries.

Our amendment therefore follows the recommendation of the Home Affairs Select Committee, in its 1987 report on the rules for drawing constituency boundaries, which proposed that the UK electoral quota should be calculated using the “fixed divisor” method. The Committee recommended that the divisor should be fixed on the basis of a 650-seat House of Commons.

Put simply, under our proposed alternative rules, an initial UK electoral quota would be calculated by dividing the total UK electorate by the fixed number of 650—in other words, not altering the current size of the House of Commons. This mechanism, which should be read alongside our other amendments, would not necessarily fix the House at 650 seats for ever. It would stabilise the House at around that size but with the mathematical rounding up or down involved in the calculation of seats in the four parts of the UK, and once special allowance is made for seats like the Scottish islands, it could be possible to see very minor fluctuations in the size of the Commons—one or two seats either side of 650. We see that as a virtue of the fixed divisor method and an advantage that it holds over the Government’s proposal for a fixed number of seats.

The latter approach—the fixed number of seats adopted by the Government—was criticised by the head of the English Boundary Commission when he gave evidence to the Home Affairs Committee inquiry in 1987. He warned that stipulating an exact fixed number of seats for the Commons would require the boundary commissions to use a “Bed of Procrustes” for drawing constituencies, stretching the borders of those that were too small and lopping parts off others that were too big. He warned the committee away from that method and instead urged the use of a fixed divisor, which would result in a broadly stable Commons while allowing the boundary commissions a bit of practical leeway.

Now, of course, even if we could convince the Government of the practical benefits of our amendment, we would still need to persuade them on the issue of the most appropriate size of the Commons. Before we consider the relative merits and demerits of this amendment against the Government’s proposal for a 600-seat House of Commons, though, it is worth reminding ourselves of what the two parties opposite were saying on this subject before the election.

The Liberal Democrat general election manifesto contained a commitment to creating a 500-seat House of Commons elected on the basis of the single transferable vote. The Conservative Party manifesto contained a commitment to the continuation of the first past the post system for elections to the Commons but pledged to cut the number of MPs, saying that it envisaged a 585-seat House. So why did the coalition agreement settle upon 600 seats as the perfect number, as opposed to 500 or 585? I ask the Minister, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, who I assume will be answering, to explain the reasoning behind that specific decision.

In particular, why did the two coalition partners agree on a figure that was higher than both their original proposals? Compromises usually involve a meeting in the middle—what happened here? Could the proposal for a 600-seat House have had anything whatever to do with the Conservative Party’s fears that the mathematical reality of a reduction below 600 would require the loss of seats in shire counties? Or did that have no bearing on the decision?

Leaving aside the reasons why the Government are so fixated on a 600-seat House, there is a broader question about what is wrong with the size of the current Commons. The Government claim that it is, to use their words, a bloated Chamber and that the UK suffers from something that they describe as “overrepresentation”. The facts show they are wrong on both counts. The claim that Britain is overrepresented in comparison with similar-sized countries is based on simple international comparisons of numbers of elected national representatives per head of population. In fact, the extent to which the UK has more elected representatives in the national legislature per head of population can be exaggerated. As a briefing note from the House of Commons Library makes clear, the United Kingdom has roughly the same ratio as France and Italy. However, the central point is that these calculations take account only of national legislatures and do not include any reference to levels of representation beneath that tier.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Lord Falconer of Thoroton and Lord Anderson of Swansea

Monday 20th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

My Lords, I welcome the noble Lords, Lord St John, Lord Tebbit and Lord Roberts to this debate, which has, as ever, been a riveting discussion. I note two points in particular: first, that the noble Lords, Lord Tebbit and Lord McAvoy, appeared to agree on practically everything, excepting a marginal disagreement on the vote on joining the European Union; and, secondly, that the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, with a straight face described himself as a moderniser.

In Amendment 44, my noble friend Lady Hayter proposes that, in order for the referendum vote to effect a change in the voting system, there must be a yes vote in all four countries of the United Kingdom. As such, this is another debate on whether special barriers should need to be overcome before the voting system can be changed. In looking at the Bill, one of the roles of the House of Lords must be to ensure the correct constitutional proprieties. Whether one looks at the proposals in the Bill that was introduced before the general election or the proposals in this Bill, there is a constitutional piece of trickiness going on. Neither House of Parliament has said that it wants AV, so the proposal has not been endorsed by Parliament, in contradistinction to the proposal on membership of the European Union, which was endorsed by Parliament, and the devolution changes, which were endorsed by Parliament in 1999.

[Lord Anderson of Swansea]

Does my noble friend also accept that no party wants AV? Given that the Conservative Party does not want AV, the AV proposal of the then Labour Government was rejected in the general election and the Liberal party wants another form of representation, no party is in favour of AV either.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Lord Falconer of Thoroton and Lord Anderson of Swansea

Monday 15th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

I appreciate that. The reason why I refer to that figure is because that is the group of people that the MP has to deal with. If someone comes in and says, “I want some help”, I do not think that you say, “Can you prove to me that you are a voter?”.

MPs provide the pool from which Ministers are chosen. That pool would be reduced. The removal of 50 MPs would reduce at a stroke the number of MPs available to scrutinise legislation and to hold the Government to account. Professor King said:

“The House of Commons, compared with other national legislatures, is already a feeble affair. The present proposal would enfeeble it further”.

I hope that, in the five days that it cobbled together this agreement, the coalition thought about what effect this number—to quote the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, “a nice round number”—would have on our democracy.

Why does the coalition propose the reduction? The Deputy Prime Minister, whom I mentioned earlier, said that it was because the legislation underpinning reviews had meant that the number of MPs had crept up. That is what he said in the House of Commons, but it is not so. The number of MPs is lower than it was a decade ago and no higher than it was 20 years ago. It is virtually impossible to discern any principle underlying the proposal to reduce the number of MPs. We will oppose the reduction and we will in any event make any reduction conditional on a proportionate reduction in the number of Ministers in the Commons.

Crucial in the Bill is the method for determining new constituency boundaries. With the exception of Orkney and Shetland and the Western Isles, a new system will apply to all constituencies. The crux of the new system is that the driving factor will be the number of constituents in a constituency. We agree with the need for substantially greater equalisation of constituency size and that there should be a small number of exceptions to the process, but we consider that the constituencies to be treated as exceptions to the system should be identified and chosen in a fair way. Why not choose the Isle of Wight? Why not recognise the importance of keeping Cornish and Devonian constituencies separate from each other? We support the inclusion of the two exceptions that are already there, but we think that there should be more and that their selection should be entrusted to someone other than a politician. Let there be a fair process. If the hybridity route has been rejected by this House, perhaps there should be an inquiry conducted by the boundary commissions, which have proved themselves over very many years to be above politics.

As regional, council and even ward boundaries are crossed in the onward march to perfectly sized constituencies, representation will become more strained and harder to navigate. For instance, the Government’s insistence on only 5 per cent leniency in constituency size would require 385 extra electors to be found for the Forest of Dean and 59 electors to be expelled from Warrington. The prospect is ridiculous.

[Lord Anderson of Swansea]

My noble and learned friend has mentioned the report of the Constitution Committee. Is he also aware of the recommendation of the Welsh Affairs Select Committee in the other place, which is a Conservative-dominated committee? It said:

“in terms of … geography, culture and history … We recommend that the Government brings forward amendments to the Bill to permit the Boundary Commission to give greater weight to these factors when drawing up new constituencies than it is currently allowed under the current proposals”.

Again, a committee of this Parliament rejects what the Government are doing.

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

My Lords, I was not aware of that. There seems to be a trend that any independent body within Parliament that looks at this matter criticises the way in which it has been done and criticises the conclusions. The only way in which we can give effect to that is by this House introducing amendments to the Bill.

The prospect of the sort of fiddling around with constituencies to which I have referred is ridiculous and unnecessary. It can be removed by increasing the leeway to 10 per cent either side of the standard constituency size, which would give considerable equalisation but at the same time give the ability to reflect local needs. Mathematical purity should not be allowed to carve up communities. We advise the Government that they should seek a balance between equalisation and recognition of tradition, culture, and local authority boundaries rather than aim for bland uniformity.

To add insult to injury, the Bill plans to remove public inquiries from the boundary process. The proposals in the Bill have been described by Dr Stuart Wilks-Heeg of Democratic Audit as,

“the most ambitious attempt to redraw the UK’s electoral geography in six decades”.

As acknowledged by the chairs of the boundary commissions, every constituency will have to change. If this is not an ideal moment to include the public, who will be most affected by these changes, in a meaningful way, I cannot think what is. The Government talk—just as the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, has talked—of the big society and of a new politics where power is handed to the people, but they stubbornly ignore the calls of the constituencies of the Isle of Wight or Argyll and Bute to special recognition of their communities. The Government may talk of the big society, but with the abolition of public inquiries they will remove the one meaningful mechanism that allows ordinary people to have their say. I hope that the coalition Government will realise their mistake, but I am not optimistic.

The Electoral Reform Society has described the coalition’s proposals as meaning that,

“most constituencies will pay less regard to what most voters think of as community and natural boundaries, and change more frequently, destabilising the link between MPs and constituents”.

The United States, notes the Electoral Reform Society,

“has rigorous requirements for arithmetical equality of population in congressional districts, but the worst gerrymandering in the developed world”.

We want to support proposals for greater equalisation and we would welcome discussions with the coalition to achieve it. This sort of Bill is a classic vehicle for seeking consensus rather than ramming things through in this way. We will not support operating in this overly hasty way, which places the power to influence constituency boundaries out of reach of local people and which in the short-term will disfranchise 3.5 million people in the country, the vast majority of whom are young, living in private rented accommodation, in poverty and from the BME communities.

This Bill will promote rapid and damaging changes to our constitution in order to have the new boundaries in place by the next election. It will do so at great cost to local communities and to the unregistered voter, and it will do long-term damage to faith in our politics. We can achieve the goal of equalisation without the damage that this Bill will cause. I hope that the fact that there is now a coalition embracing the Tories and the Liberal Democrats does not mean that this House loses its reputation for amending Bills when they need amending. I hope that the House will join together to make this Bill a much better Bill than the poor, partisan Bill that it is at the moment. It can be done, and I ask your Lordships’ House to help us to do that.