Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Lord Falconer of Thoroton and Lord Browne of Ladyton

Tuesday 18th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Elystan-Morgan]

My Lords, it is not as if I had any intention of wishing to be included in that distinguished company, but I have a small point which may be helpful. I greatly welcome the attitude of the noble and learned Lord. This is one of the sanest, fairest and most common-sense amendments that we have had in this context. No doubt the Minister believes that arithmetical consistency is extremely important. I totally accept his sincerity, but it is not the case that it can be achieved. It can be achieved only if there is a register that is perfect in content. But you do not have such a register. It is inaccurate, possibly to the tune of 3.5 million. You may be thinking that you are aiming at a target through telescopic sights, and you are, but there is a kink in the barrel. Arithmetical consistency and total correctitude are simply not achievable.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton]

My Lords, I crave the indulgence of the Committee for two minutes to make one simple point to the Minister. When he goes away to consider this, will he take with him the evidence from Scotland of the application of almost identical rules to those which he seeks to introduce? In 2007 an almost identical set of rules was applied to the revision of the Scottish Parliament boundaries. The Boundary Commission adopted a hierarchy that was almost exactly the same that the Bill imposes on the commission. As the noble and learned Lord knows, the result of those revisions was a set of provisional proposals that caused outrage across Scotland. There are at least 10 reports of local public inquiries signed off by sheriffs principal which criticise the effect on communities of that rigidity.

Finally, I shall repeat just three sentences from the West of Scotland regional inquiry. They are the words of Sheriff Principal Kerr when he rejected the provisional recommendations and opposed the degree of flexibility that the Boundary Commission had not. He said:

“I take the view that the Boundary Commission in formulating their proposals for the present review in the West of Scotland allowed Rule 2 to predominate unduly in their thinking”—

which is exactly what the Bill will do since rule 2 imposes parity in numerical terms on the electorate—

“with some consequences which I would describe as unnatural in their failure to have sufficient regard to the geography and social composition of the areas and populations with which they were dealing. The conclusions at which I have arrived in this report after seeing and hearing local reaction at the inquiry may go some way towards redressing the balance in favour of matching political constituencies to the realities of life in this part of Scotland”.

There are 10 of these decisions, and they are a formidable quarry for those in support of local public inquiries. They may be used later in the debate, but in the mean time I urge the Minister, for whom I have the most enormous regard, as he knows, to take them away and look at them when considering the proposal for more flexibility in this Bill.

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

My Lords, on the basis that the noble and learned Lord has signalled that he accepts the broad approach that I have suggested, I am more than happy to withdraw the amendment.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Lord Falconer of Thoroton and Lord Browne of Ladyton

Monday 13th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

If the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, had drafted these amendments, I anticipate that he would have drafted them differently as well. On the face of it, this drafting confronts you with subsections (2), (3) and (4) comprising a compelling combination. Amendment 39A says:

“If any of the elections … are not held on the same day”,

yet subsections (2), (3) and (4) compel them to be on the same day. I completely understand what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, is seeking to achieve and I do not seek to stand in his way. However, his obdurate refusal to consider doing it the obvious way—namely, inserting at the beginning of subsections (2), (3) and (4), “if they are on the same day, they will be have to be combined”—causes me confusion. I earnestly ask the noble and learned Lord to ask his officials politely and respectfully whether it would not be easier to use the same wording as that used in subsection (1) and get rid of the confusion.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton]

As a mere junior counsel in the face of two of the most eminent senior counsels this country has ever seen, I enter this debate with great trepidation. I am extraordinarily grateful to my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer because the penny has dropped for me. The amendment that the Government propose becomes effective only if the polls do not take place on the same day. As long as the Bill stands as it is drafted, they can take place only on the same day.

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

The noble Lord, Lord Browne of Ladyton, is right and I refer him to the comparison between subsections (1) and (2), (3) and (4). However, I have made my point and I earnestly ask the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, to consider taking the government amendment away and coming back with a measure on Report to achieve his aim, should Clause 4 still remain part of the Bill after the Committee stage.

I wish to address what the noble and learned Lord rightly describes as the political aspects of this. Clause 4 is included to allow for the combination of polls. It is intended to ensure that a variety of elections can take place together. As a matter of principle, we think that that is the wrong approach to that issue. There is no dispute in any part of the House regarding the importance of the referendum. I cannot recall a referendum over the past 150 years—it is more a case of reflecting on history than personal recollection—which concerned the voting system. I think most people in this House would agree that we should hold referenda only in relation to very important constitutional issues. The referenda held since the Second World War concerned: the partition of Ireland; staying in the European Union; the 1978 referendum on devolved Assemblies for Wales and Scotland; and the 1998 referendum on devolved Parliaments or Assemblies for Wales and Scotland—all very important issues. As far as I am aware, each of those referendums has taken place alone, without there being any other poll on the same day. That is a sensible course whereby this country’s approach to referenda is that you have them only when there is an important constitutional issue. We heard from my noble friend Lord Lipsey and the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, who both said how important the issue is.

We also have the report from your Lordships’ Select Committee on the Constitution, which is a cross-party organisation that spoke unanimously on the issue. The committee cited evidence that the effect of having elections on the same day as a referendum is that the referendum debate gets swamped by the election of individual people. If you look at America, where frequently referenda take place on the same day as elections—such as those in November this year—you find that no one pays much attention to the referenda and everyone pays attention to the election of individual people. If the Select Committee of this House is right, you are in danger of the referendum question being swamped by the election of people in the three—or even four, if there is also a mayoral election—other elections going on at the same time.

Why is this being done if it is such an important issue? Everyone in this House wants the constitution properly to be given effect to. I do not want there to be a sense of illegitimacy about the result. Whatever view one takes about this referendum, one wants it to be decisive—decisively in favour of either first past the post or the alternative vote system. The result could be close, but you would want a good turnout and the sense that the question had properly been addressed.

This is the second national referendum in 120 years. It is the first one to affect our electoral system—the one that will make people have a view about whether they trust their electoral system. This Government, as I understand it, justify bringing the referendum together on the same day as the other elections when there is formidable evidence that it leads to the question being swamped. The Government justify that on the basis that it will save some money. Money is important, but it may be that the legitimacy of our constitution is more important.

This is a fundamental point of principle, and it is not too late for the Government to change their position. I should have thought that everyone on the government side, whether they are for or against a change in the electoral system, would want the result of the referendum to be something that the country has confidence in. What we are doing on this side is, in effect, reflecting the arguments of experts who say that having the referendum on the same day as other elections is not a good idea. It deprives the result of legitimacy.