Referendums
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts(11 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, we have debated this before and I do not want to go too far down this road. The Scots have decided that for this one referendum they would like to extend the vote to 16 and 17 year- olds. No doubt we will discuss time and again how much further that should be extended.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
My Lords, has the Minister read the article by our friend, the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, in the Tablet? In it he reveals that the Cabinet has taken two decisions: first, a wise decision not to have any pre-negotiations with the Scottish Government in advance of the referendum; and secondly, what is in my view an unwise decision not to have any contingency plans to deal with the situation in all our areas of concern if the referendum gives a yes vote. Will he ask his colleagues in the Cabinet to reconsider this? We will all be fighting to ensure that there is a no vote, but in the unlikely but unfortunate event of a yes vote, we have to be ready to deal with the consequences.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord on the catholicity of his tastes in reading. I had indeed read that article because the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, was kind enough to give it to me.
Ministerial Code
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts(11 years, 10 months ago)
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Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean
My Lords, the coalition agreement does indeed make the point about collective responsibility, where the two parties agreed that on certain issues they might not be able to vote together. I have two points. First, does the noble Lord not acknowledge that the coalition agreement has had no endorsement from the British public and that it is very odd for the current Government just to set aside what the Ministerial Code says, of their own volition? More specifically, can he tell the House where in that agreement there was a specific set-aside on the issue of the vote that took place a couple of weeks ago when his own party—and he as a Minister—did not support the Government?
Ministerial Code
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts(11 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, the Ministerial Code now makes it clear that Ministers should report their meetings with all interested parties—which clearly includes those covered in this part of the Leveson report concerning media proprietors, newspaper editors and senior executives—so such meetings should be covered by the Ministerial Code.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
My Lords, is the Minister aware that the Ministerial Code in Scotland is so narrow and lax that the First Minister gets away regularly with lying to Parliament—and other transgressions?
Noble Lords
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
I will tell noble Lords about the transgressions later. Seriously, do we have any reserved powers to look at the Ministerial Code in Scotland and tighten it?
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, I am not sighted on that supplementary question, but I look forward to the enjoyable evening on which the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, tells me about the transgressions that he feels have happened in the Scottish Executive.
EU: Scottish Independence
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts(12 years ago)
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Lord Wallace of Saltaire
It opens up all sorts of questions about the future of Gretna Green. There would also be a number of questions about Scotland having to negotiate for fishery quotas and for the financial contributions that Scotland would wish to make. Those who argue that it is Scotland’s oil would recognise, perhaps, that it would also be Scotland’s financial contribution.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
My Lords, will the Minister confirm that the corollary of his first answer—that the rest of the United Kingdom would inherit the current UK membership of the European Union and that Scotland would have to apply separately for new membership—is that Scotland would then go to the back of the queue behind Croatia, Turkey and all the other countries that are seeking membership? It would have to satisfy, in its own right, all the acquis and conditions of membership. It could take many, many years and that is yet one more really good reason why Scotland is better off as part of the United Kingdom.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, there is not an orderly queue for EU membership. There is a list of criteria for EU membership which applicant countries have to fulfil. Turkey applied during the 1980s, rather ahead of some of those countries that have since joined. Of course, Scotland would have to meet a whole range of criteria and there would be, no doubt, some careful and detailed negotiations. Whether or not Scotland would be allowed—as the noble Lord, Lord Steel, has already posed—to opt out of Schengen or to opt out of the euro and keep the pound is something we would have to consider.
European Union Committee Report
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts(12 years ago)
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Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, and indeed to precede the noble Lord, Lord Roper, the present and past chairs of the committee. As a member of the committee, I have seen how much work it does. It is a Trojan amount of work. As noble Lords have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, it sees and sifts hundreds of documents before we see them on the sub-committees. I pay tribute to each of the members, because they have done—and are doing—a fantastic job. Well deserved praise should be showered on them.
I also agree with the noble Lord, Lord Boswell. I find it strange that on a subject that is so important and so central, particularly to politics in the United Kingdom at the moment, we are discussing this report in Grand Committee and not on the Floor of the House. It is even more ridiculous when we have a Statement on the European Council on the Floor of the House that no doubt all of us would like to be in on. It is really quite astonishing.
I am proud and pleased to serve on the committee. I find it fascinating to be a member of the European Union Committee of this House. I have been on committees elsewhere and I find this one of the most interesting jobs that I have undertaken—particularly Sub-Committee C, which the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, chairs with great skill. We are carrying out a huge volume of work.
The work of committees is central to this House and this part of the legislature, and sometimes it is undervalued. I was dismayed when the House agreed to cut the number of sub-committees and make the work of this committee and its sub-committees much more difficult. I am even more dismayed to have read in the Guardian on Saturday that we will have to put up with 80, or maybe 100, more Peers at a time when we are cash-limited. I do not know where the money is going to come from; we are going to be squeezed again, and no doubt the committees will be squeezed again. What committees will they serve on? It really is quite outrageous that this should be forced upon us. There seems to be an unlimited amount of money for ceremonial purposes or new security measures, but not for the central work of the legislature—the committee work that we are undertaking. Well, noble Lords did not expect me to be non-controversial!
I move on to the very valuable reports. As the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, said, they are very well thought of. I have heard some really great comments about them. However, there are two things to express some regret about, one being that they do not get enough coverage in the media, as the noble Lord said. We need the resources and skills to enable that to be done, and we need opportunities to get more coverage. Thankfully, the situation has improved in the past 12 months but more needs to be done. We also need to push the Commission to get more responses from it more quickly. The Commission says that it likes our reports, but it is not responding to them as quickly as I and the committee would like.
I shall mention some of the reports that are worth further publicity and further noting. One is the report on Operation Atalanta, which was fantastically interesting work. We went up to Northwood and heard some very valuable evidence about what is being done to combat piracy in the Indian Ocean. That is absolutely vital work and it is life-saving—it is a life or death operation that is being undertaken. Much more attention should have been paid to that. Then there was the very important report on the multiannual financial framework. What is central and what is happening in the Chamber is the Statement on the European Council. This is central to the discussions that the Prime Minister has in Brussels—and we have been working on that.
Two other reports have been particularly valuable. One is on the equivalence of medical professional qualifications, on which the former Sub-Committee G, under the excellent chairmanship of the noble Baroness, Lady Young, produced a report—and then they abolished her committee to save money, in the strange way that they have here. This was a vital report. We know that there was one example where someone purported to be a medical doctor and a death resulted because he was not qualified. In the report we suggested putting the safety of patients before the free movement of labour. The ability of people to move from one jurisdiction to the other with qualifications being automatically accepted is a vital matter.
The last of the reports that I want to mention—I am conscious that a lot of noble Lords want to speak—is the one on credit rating agencies. That was a prescient report. To be honest, it did not go as far as I would have liked because I see them as a problem as far as the economy of the world is concerned. Nevertheless, we were ahead of the game in relation to that.
As the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, said, there are two fascinating reports under way: one by the committee itself on enlargement—again, a central issue—and one by Sub-Committee C, on which I serve, on the External Action Service. We have already started work on that with a seminar that the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, mentioned and with the evidence that we have had. Each report will prove very useful.
Finally—I am watching my time—I come to a wider issue. It is really quite depressing that for short-term, party-political gain, some people, not just in the government parties but in my own party, are starting to think or even talk about a further referendum on being in or out of Europe. It is about time that those of us who believe in Europe stood up and said so, and said that we think Europe is important not just for trade in the United Kingdom and a free trade area but for the security and prosperity of the United Kingdom. Therefore, we want to make sure that that is spoken of loudly. Of course we can be sceptical about Europe. We can challenge it, rightly, but we should be right in the centre of Europe to do that challenging and questioning. I hope that Members of this Committee, who know the work of the European Union better than anyone, will join me during this debate in echoing the fact that our membership of the European Union is absolutely vital for the future prosperity of this United Kingdom.
Baroness Young of Hornsey
My Lords, I will focus on the work of the sub-committee formerly known as G on social policies and consumer protection, which I chaired before it was wound up. I take the opportunity to thank the sub-committee’s clerk, admin assistant and analyst, and all the sub-committee members, for their contributions to the work outlined in the report. Many noble Lords this afternoon acknowledged the effectiveness of the noble Lords, Lord Roper and Lord Boswell, as chairmen of the EU Select Committee, and I, too, express my admiration for their hard work.
During the 2010-12 Session, EU Sub-Committee G undertook the varied work that is set out in the report. As many noble Lords will be aware, EU legislation and issues are such that they invariably take several years to sort out. In the 2009-10 Session, we undertook an inquiry into the European Social Fund, identifying the types of changes that might be helpful for the period, both in the short term and in the longer term for the 2013-20 period. The proposal for the new European Social Fund, published in October 2011, was an important item of scrutiny for the sub-committee. We decided to reconvene some of the witnesses to our original inquiry, along with other stakeholders, the Government, the European Commission and the devolved Administrations, at a public seminar in December 2011 to share views on the new European Social Fund. In addition to committee members and staff, around 50 stakeholders attended. Feedback on this seminar was very positive and it gave us helpful input into our scrutiny of the European Social Fund proposals. Notable issues we pursued were simplification, local flexibility and strategic alignment with other structural funds. The latter point is one that Sub-Committee A is still following in its continued scrutiny of the structural funds proposals.
It was most encouraging to see so many stakeholders coming together and debating key issues at the invitation of the EU committee and on the basis of an EU committee report. Building on this work, we organised a more general stakeholder engagement seminar, which has already been mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Roper. That was some months later. In fact, this was originally his brainchild. It was correctly identified that a great many stakeholders from across the range of subjects with which Sub-Committee G dealt simply do not understand the work of the EU Committee and its sub-committees. This is something that a number of noble Lords have raised this afternoon. How can they engage with what we do if they do not understand what we do? Why should they engage? What is it that we do that is important to them? Calling it a stakeholder engagement seminar makes it sound a bit more formal than it actually was. It was a very informal event. Part of its value was simply mingling with colleagues from across the range of subjects which we dealt with. We also had a very good discussion and some of those groups certainly have had more of a dialogue with the committee since then. It has also led to work improving the website to ensure that it is more accessible to those wanting to find out more about our work, although I appreciate that there is an awful lot more work to be done on that score.
During the 2010-12 Session, Sub-Committee G undertook three substantial inquiries. The first was a subject which at first glance does not sound like the kind of thing that we would be discussing in an EU committee. This was grass-roots sport and there were members of the sub-committee and elsewhere who took the view, at least initially, that it was not a suitable subject for us to look into. However, the Lisbon treaty had introduced sport as a policy area in which the European Commission could encourage member states to work more closely and we wanted to find out what this would mean for grass-roots sport in this country. This was pre-Olympics and before all of that euphoria. Above all we heard that grass-roots sport should be mainstreamed into other policy areas, such as health, education and social inclusion. We met with some previously excluded individuals who had developed core social and leadership skills through sport. One of our specific recommendations was that there should be a distinct budget to support grass-roots sport-related actions. We were therefore pleased to see the inclusion of such a budget within the new Erasmus for All programme. The budget will support actions which include exploitation of the potential of sport to foster social inclusion. An interesting benefit of pursuing this issue was that we were able to communicate with a wider range of individuals and organisations, both as witnesses and during visits, who would not normally consider themselves to have an interest in the work of the House of Lords in scrutinising EU issues.
Our second inquiry concerned the mobility of healthcare professionals in the context of the review of the professional qualifications directive published in October 2011. We considered that the current directive failed to command the confidence of patients and professionals, striking the wrong balance between encouraging mobility and ensuring patient safety, and therefore needed to be revised. We hoped that our recommended improvements to the directive would enhance rather than undermine free movement by rebuilding confidence among patients, employers and professionals.
The report was very well received among stakeholders, including the General Medical Council and the Nursing and Midwifery Council. The Government also credited it with influencing their response to the Commission’s Green Paper consultation on the revision of the directive. After the Commission’s proposal for a revised directive was published in December 2011, I met with senior representatives of all the UK professionals covered by it at the beginning of this year and their views helped to inform the sub-committee’s subsequent scrutiny of that proposal. I am glad that Sub-Committee F has continued to scrutinise this important matter, most recently in its oral evidence session with the Health Minister, the noble Earl, Lord Howe, on 21 November.
Sub-Committee G’s third and last inquiry was into the modernisation of higher education in Europe, which was published last March. We considered not only the EU’s role in this area but also the ongoing Bologna process, which has seen the creation of a European higher education area, including 47 European countries. We concluded that while the EU can continue to make a positive contribution to European higher education, it must nevertheless be pragmatic and concentrate only on the areas where it can add value. In addition, we considered that the Government should place higher education at the centre of their growth agenda, domestically and across Europe, by maximising the potential of both the EU and the Bologna process. The report also considered the Erasmus programme, which we considered to be an important activity in terms of increasing students’ employability. However, the UK’s participation has been historically low compared with other large member states, and we decided that making language learning compulsory in both primary and secondary school would be one way of increasing the UK’s participation, alongside taking steps to encourage a more diverse range of participants. In this vein, we also called on the Government to support the allocation of a greater proportion of the next multiannual financial framework budget to research, innovation and education.
The day after the report was published, I also participated in an LSE workshop, chaired by the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, and attended by a range of academics which discussed some of the same themes as our report. Like other noble Lords, I think that we could be much more effective in obtaining press and media coverage. The noble Lord, Lord Giddens, points to the need for a media strategy and I would concur with that. We should also embrace more fully the opportunities afforded by social media. Chairs of sub-committees have appeared on YouTube—to great acclaim, I understand—and written blogs. But there is more we could do with Twitter, for example, in spreading the word to a wider public about the work we do.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
I know that it is very seldom that we intervene, but this is brilliant as I have just tweeted with regard to this Committee on the excellent contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Haskel. I am now about to tweet about the contribution of the noble Baroness, Lady Young.
Baroness Young of Hornsey
I have to tell the noble Lord that I tweeted before him. We should embrace all social media and spread the word about the work we do to a wider public. I concur absolutely with the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, and the noble Lord, Lord Haskel, on engaging much more widely, whether we call it outreach, engagement, stakeholder engagement, or whatever. There are structures such as those named by the noble Lord—the Peers in Schools programme, Parliament Week and so on—which all represent opportunities for us to do so.
I now have the privilege of sitting on Sub-Committee C on External Affairs—a very different set of challenges to those posed by social policies and consumer protection. I am pleased to state that there, too, our chairman, the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, is also keen on new ways of communicating with different sets of stakeholders. As has already been said by the noble Lords, Lord Boswell and Lord Roper, we held a seminar last week, attended by a wide range of stakeholders with an interest in our current inquiry on the European External Action Service. I look forward to further discussions on this matter on how to make more progress in outreach, engagement, et cetera. I know that that is something that both the present chairman and the previous chairman hold close to their hearts.
Electoral Registration and Administration Bill
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts(12 years, 1 month ago)
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Lord Tyler
My Lords, I hope the noble Lord, Lord Maxton, will forgive me if I briefly return to this group of amendments.
I was looking forward today to a tour d’horizon by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, with historical analogies, assessments and context, because, as it happens, I am celebrating my birthday today and I thought this would be highlight of the day. I am sorry that the noble Baroness, Lady Gould, is not in her place because she shares my birthday but is not sharing the wonderful experience that we usually have.
The history is important because the discussion on this group of amendments is all about monitoring success and measuring progress rather than the principle of IER. There is unanimous support and—dare I use the word?—consensus in this House that we have to move. The previous Government said so and this Government say so. It is a question of timing and getting it right, a point made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer. I am therefore disappointed that he did not refer to the past history and how we got to where we are. It was in 2003 that the Electoral Commission advised Parliament that it was necessary to move in this direction to improve the accuracy and completeness of the register and it took five years, as the noble Lord, Lord Wills, will know only too well, for the previous Government to take this issue seriously. We would not be having the suggested problems if it was not for the fact that that delay took place under the previous Administration. It is disappointing that the Labour Benches have not been able to recognise that that delay has made it more difficult to achieve success.
That is not least, of course, because during the nine years since 2003, the existing register based on household head registration has dropped dramatically. It is less complete and less accurate than it was when the Electoral Commission first made its recommendation. Until a matter of months ago we had all assumed that the existing register was something like 90% accurate; it is somewhere around 80% accurate. As I pointed out during the Second Reading debate and as the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, has said, in some areas it is much lower than that for the reasons she so eloquently expressed. The delay has made the situation more difficult, and in assessing the progress we must now make, your Lordships have to take that into account.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
Do the experiments in Glasgow and elsewhere not show that if the local authority is given the necessary resources to go around and canvass to make sure that there are returns, the percentage is much higher? Is it not because of the cuts in local authorities’ expenditure that they are not able to do that as effectively as they used to?
Lord Tyler
That is for a later part of the Committee stage, but I have sympathy with the point made by the noble Lord. Indeed, I pointed out at Second Reading that the London Borough of Hounslow has done incredibly well over recent years, despite the difficulties that most local authorities have been facing. Hounslow has used a whole number of positive and negative ways to encourage people to register. It is not just where these things happen; it is the degree of attention that the local authority is able and willing to give to these matters.
As my noble friend Lord Rennard has indicated, we have a later amendment which we think would bring back to Parliament the last word in pressing the go button, particularly for 2016. I think that that is more appropriate than asking the Electoral Commission to be, as it were, judge and jury in its own case.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
I said that registers are compiled and kept locally. We do not have a single, central national register—to the deep regret of the noble Lord, Lord Maxton. There is some room for at what stage one puts what we call the attainers—those 16 and 17 year-olds—on the register. There are some differences already between local registers. I am struck by the strength of the difference between the electoral registration forms that I have seen from different local authorities. We do not have in the United Kingdom a single centralised approach to electoral registration.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
I do not think the Minister quite understands what is happening in Scotland. It may be that, whereas the UK Government are consulting with the devolved Administrations, perhaps a devolved Administration are not consulting with the UK Government. As the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, said, our understanding from the media is that the Scottish Government are publishing a Bill that will allow people who are 16 years old on the date of the referendum—that is, some time in October 2014—to vote. That means an entirely new cohort of people on the register. It means going round to find out where people who are now 14 and 15 year-olds are, getting them on to a register, publishing the register—locally, as the Minister said. How is that to be done? Has he been consulted about that? Has he made any comments about it? Does he know what is going on in Scotland?
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, I do not follow the Scottish media as closely as the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, and it is very difficult for the Government to ask to be consulted on reports in the Scottish media. I will have to write to him on the detail of something which may or may not be what the Scottish Government are proposing if it has so far appeared only in the Scottish media.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, I recognise the importance of that issue, which has grown up, so to speak, since we began the parliamentary discussion of this Bill. I think it is fair to ask that I might take that back and check very completely, including the accuracy of these stories in the Scottish media, and that we should return to this issue later.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, is being rather unusually moderate in what he is saying. As the referendum is not until October 2014, it will be the current 14 and 15 year-olds whom they will be trying to get on the register. The significance of this is very substantial. I am grateful that the Minister has given an assurance that he will write to us about this. I hope that it will be after consultation with the Scottish Executive and that it will be a detailed response.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
Of course, and I hope that the noble Lord will apologise in due course to the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, for describing him as moderate.
Parliamentary Constituency Boundaries: Review
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts(12 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, we will be returning to the question of why people resist registering to vote during the Committee stage of the individual electoral registration Bill, and I commend to Members of the House the Electoral Commission study on it, which was published in June.
On how much has been spent, the previous boundaries review cost £13 million. This review was estimated to cost £11.5 million and it is now expected to cost £9 million. Much of the remaining £3.8 million has already been committed, so even if we said “stop” now, the possibility of saving very much money would be small.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
My Lords, the Deputy Prime Minister has said that Liberal MPs and Liberal Peers are going to vote against the boundary changes. Is it not crazy to continue with it? Surely, we are going to waste nearly £4 million which could be better used. Why are we going ahead with it? I understood that the new chairman of the Conservative Party said that the plan is to withdraw these proposals. Can the Minister make it clear? Are they really pressing ahead with these proposals, given that the Deputy Prime Minister has said that they are effectively dead in the water?
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
I am glad to see that the noble Lord reads the Daily Mail which, I think, was where the report came from. Primary legislation requires the commissions to report to Parliament before October 2013, and it would require primary legislation to stop that. It would then be for Parliament to consider the recommendations. There is precedent for Parliament voting against the acceptance of a Boundary Commission review; it was done by the Labour Government in 1969.
Parliamentary Boundary Commission: Electoral Administration
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts(12 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow my noble friend Lady Corston who served for some years, with great distinction, as chairman of our parliamentary Labour Party and is now doing sterling work in this Chamber. As she knows only too well, I have not—unlike our noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours—eschewed party political discussions and debate since I came in here. In fact I quite enjoy them: relish them even, perhaps. I hope that my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours and others will forgive me if I stray a little into party politics.
I say to the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, and to anyone else from the other side, that I am getting a little fed up with people on the other side lecturing us and saying that we need boundary reviews to try and get an equal number of electors in each constituency. Of course we do. That has happened again and again under Labour Governments and Tory Governments. There have been little problems at the edges and arguments at Boundary Commissions where, incidentally, we were properly heard, with appeals procedures which have now gone. The problems were relatively mild compared with what is being proposed now because then the number of seats stayed roughly the same at about 650. The Boundary Commissions were also given flexibility. They were not given the straitjacket of being obliged to have exactly 600 seats. If they wanted 655 or 652 or more or less, they could use that degree of flexibility to try to take account of geographical communities and natural boundaries and so on.
What we have now is a totally arbitrary figure. What is magical about 600? If they want to save money—although I am not sure that the Liberal Democrats necessarily do—and if money is everything, why not 500, 400 or 300 or any other figure? Why 600 and why no flexibility as we had in the past?
I see the noble Viscount, Lord Younger, on the Benches opposite. He will know that, for many years, I represented a constituency in Ayrshire. I had a very good, co-operative relationship with the neighbouring Member of Parliament, George Younger, for whom I had the greatest respect. We had Boundary Commission reviews and we put our views to them. During the reviews I got a little bit of Ayr sometimes and Annbank and Mossblown moved backwards and forwards. There were two boundary reviews while I was Member of Parliament from 1979 to 2005 and I survived them. In fact, my majority went up from just over 1,000 to just over 22,000, so perhaps more than survived, although not as a result of the boundary changes.
I say to people opposite—although there are not many Tories here—that there is now no such thing as a safe Tory seat in Scotland. There used to be many of them—or at least they thought they were safe—but Labour took a large number of them and the SNP took others. That is a lesson to our colleagues in England. Do not assume that every Tory seat is safe. We can win it by fighting the right kind of fight. Do not assume that if there was, for example, a devolved English Parliament, it would always be dominated by the Conservatives, because that is not necessarily the case.
Returning to the boundary issues, why were those reviews less acrimonious? It was because we always knew that there were about 72 seats in Scotland. The number went up or down, but it was about 72. There was not the reduction that has created the problems here. However, in 2005, the number of seats in Scotland was reduced from 72 to 59. That created the problems. In Ayrshire, the number of seats was reduced from five to four. That is when I took the opportunity of retiring. It seemed right to do so because I was the longest-serving and oldest Member of Parliament in the county, and the other four MPs were younger and elected more recently. That process was therefore relatively painless, but in other parts of Scotland, as the Chairman of Committees and others know, there were acrimonious fights and divisions because of the reduction.
Now the number of seats in Scotland is being reduced to 52 and we will have even more acrimony and concern. That is nothing when compared with Wales, which is being really hard done by because there are effectively two reductions in the number of seats—first to take account of devolution, and now to take account of the arbitrary reduction to 600 in the number of seats at Westminster. Wales will suffer and it will be very difficult for Members of Parliament in Wales. I endorse what has been said by others on that.
I want to use Scotland to illustrate why the whole situation is a mess. The development of the electoral and boundary structure has created problems for us. Let us take our electoral systems, where there has been a piecemeal approach. Our Government, I am afraid, was to some extent responsible for a number of the problems. A piecemeal reorganisation and reconsideration of our constitution have taken place.
We have four completely different electoral systems. We have the list system for elections to the European Parliament. Earlier, we heard about lack of participation. When we had Members of the European Parliament representing constituencies, we had a relatively high turnout. Now that they are on a list, people do not know who they are, there is not the same kind of enthusiasm and the turnout reflects that.
For elections to Westminster, we still have first past the post, thank goodness. A number of us here have been fighting to ensure that, because we believe that democracy is not just about—as the Liberal Democrats think—a simple arithmetic relationship between the number of votes cast and the number of seats. It is also about accountability, which is an essential part of democracy. The great thing about the first past the post system is that the Members of Parliament are accountable. I knew that when I went back to the electorate I was the one who had to convince them to vote for me again, which, thankfully, I was able to do.
In the Scottish Parliament, we also have the additional member system, which has become discredited. As I have said to the House before, I was elected to the Scottish Parliament by mistake. It was an astonishing situation. I did not spend a penny on the election campaign. I did not seek people’s votes, but because I was top of the list and was campaigning for the constituency candidates—sadly, some of them did not get elected, not necessarily because I was campaigning for them—I was elected automatically. This absolutely crazy system must be reviewed.
For local government in Scotland we also have the single transferable vote, which was the result of a deal made when we had a coalition between the Liberal Democrats and Labour. Sadly, the Labour Party conceded the single transferable vote for local government. As a result, we do not have councillors who are accountable to their wards and are well respected there. We have three or four councillors in much larger wards, which creates huge problems.
That is an illustration of the problems of the electoral systems but there has also been piecemeal constitutional reform. I supported devolution but it has thrown up the West Lothian question, and we now have Sir William McKay—I call him Bill McKay and get told off—looking into the issue of Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland MPs voting on English-only matters. We still await the results of that. We still await the referendum on Scottish independence. In England, we now have elected mayors and police commissioners. We have had a fixed-term Parliament forced upon us. We of course have Lords reform—in inverted commas. All of those are outstanding issues that have to be dealt with. At the same time, we have what my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours has put on the agenda today causing further problems.
The Clock has been very helpful to me for some unknown reason. I did not realise that time was on my side. I think I am using my noble friend Lady Corston’s extra time. I wanted to make three final points. In relation to what the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, and others have said about the electoral register, I hope that the Minister and others will look at what was done in Glasgow about canvassing by sending people to knock on doors—“chap on doors”, as we say in Scotland—and getting the register filled in there and then on the doorstep. If people are not in, the canvassers go back to make sure that people are registering. There needs to be active participation by the Government to ensure that people register.
Returning to the mess that I was talking about, the minority report, or alternative report, that came out on Lords reform recommended setting up a constitutional convention. Day by day, issue by issue, it becomes more and more attractive, logical and sensible to look at our constitution in a coherent way that will pick up all these loose ends and do something about them.
Finally, I want to ask the Minister another question. I hope, by the way, he answers the questions he was asked today a bit better than he answered my Written Question, in which I asked what the ministerial responsibilities of the noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, were. Rather than answering the Question, the noble Lord sent me a document with a list of all ministerial responsibilities. However, I looked through the list and it is astonishing that she has no ministerial responsibilities. When I received a phone call the other day from Conservative Central Office inviting me to tea with the noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, I had to say, “I think you have got the wrong Peer. Will you try Lord Faulks? This is Lord Foulkes”. She is spending our money inviting Tory Peers to tea, and I know that only because I have a similar name.
I hope that the Minister will answer a question that was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, in his erudite and splendid contribution to the debate. The order for the boundary changes has to be approved by both Houses. Let us suppose that it was pushed through because of the coalition majority in the House of Commons but we were able here to persuade the Cross-Benchers and maybe some others of the unwisdom of the proposals in the order—that the boundary changes were wrong—and we voted it down. Will the Minister confirm that that will be the end of it? I hope that he will. That would show that even—I was going to say “in our dying days”, but I think we will be here a little longer than some people would like—in these next few months we have some power. Let us hope that we might seriously consider wielding it.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
I am deeply grateful to the noble Lord and all those on the other side for their sympathy for the position of the Liberal Democrats. We are a coalition Government and bargain every single day on a whole host of things. I have no knowledge whether what Mr Richard Reeves said as he left for the United States—very unwisely, and without any authorisation or standing, I thought—relates to anything that is being discussed between the two parties.
I hope that I have covered most of the points raised. The noble Lord, Lord Rennard, asked about the application form, which again we will return to when we discuss the Electoral Registration and Administration Bill. I understand that the application form that will be designed by the Electoral Commission must include a statement about the possibility of a fine and the size of that potential fine. We were discussing that in the debate in the Moses Room yesterday on the question of behaviour change and how one designs forms best so as to influence people to do the right thing.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
One question that the Minister has not addressed was raised first by my noble friend Lord Lipsey, and to which I have often referred, about the order when it comes to both Houses and that if it is approved by one House but not the other, it will fall. Will the Minister confirm that that is the position?
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
I am trying to answer all the questions. It is not the first time that the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, has jumped up to ask why I have not answered a question just as I am about to come to it. It is, of course, the rule that statutory orders have to go through both Houses. What would happen if one House said yes and the other said no is a matter that would have to be negotiated between the two Houses. I know that some Members on the Labour Benches sometimes want to suggest that we are not part of the legislature, but for these purposes we are, and we will take part in that decision.
The noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Bolton, talked about current changes threatening to undermine the very foundations of our democracy. I have to say that from many of the debates we have had in recent months, there are large questions about the future of our democracy and the characteristics of our representation. I was slightly shocked the other day to listen to the greatest parliamentarian among us, the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, promoting the idea of referendums, which are not entirely compatible with the idea of parliamentary democracy. The balance between representative, deliberative democracy and direct democracy, as we slide towards more calls for more referendums, is one of the fundamental issues that we need to address.
I strongly agree with the noble Lord, Lord Clark, when he calls for a wider debate on the crisis of British democracy, the role of the state and the balance between state, society and market. I would also add the balance between the central state and the local state where the coalition Government believe that we have slipped far too far towards overcentralisation. Our system of democracy is not working very well; our public are increasingly disengaged and disillusioned; and we need to think about a whole series of changes in how we behave towards and relate with the public and about the best way in which to engage them again in local and national politics. That goes far beyond the issues raised in discussing representation and democracy in this Motion.
House of Lords (Cessation of Membership) Bill [HL]
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts(12 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Bates
My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Lord on bringing forward this Bill, and I want to support it. It is in the nature of these things that the legislation is seeking to tidy up some anomalies. My only concern is to ensure that we are not laying down future anomalies that successive Parliaments will have to deal with. My noble friend Lord Fowler has highlighted one that relates to the definition of non-attendance. The notion that someone might attend once during a Session and therefore be deemed to have reached the threshold might need to be looked at a little more carefully, lest we find that the 72 Members who were quoted as not having attended during the last Session may have been substantially reduced in number because they came in once in order to keep their membership alive, as it were.
The proposal on retirement is long overdue: people ought not only to be able to leave the House through retirement but to seek election to another place. The Inter-Parliamentary Union database indicated that, as of 28 May 2012 in a survey of 190 countries, the UK is the only country where Members of the second Chamber are disqualified from voting in elections to the lower Chamber. As my noble friend Lord Norton has pointed out, since the 1999 Act there has been a break in the link so that hereditary Peers who no longer sit in this House are now able to vote and, one presumes, to stand for election to the other place as well.
There are other anomalies that relate to the role of the Lords Spiritual because they are not Peers of the Realm, a point already made by the right reverend Prelate in his contribution—
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
What the noble Lord said just a few moments ago has already happened. My good friend Viscount Thurso, who is still a hereditary Peer, is now the Member of Parliament for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross. I think he owns most of it as well.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
That understanding is entirely correct. The common understanding is that many of us here do a number of activities outside the House that might be considered constituency work. It is not constituency casework, although since becoming a Member of this House I have often received letters and e-mails that would be regarded as constituency casework, to which I have, by and large, said, “Not me”. However, in Bradford, York and Leeds, I frequently see Labour Members of this House, such as the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, at meetings to discuss regional issues. Many of us will rightly continue to discuss regional issues. I meet the noble Baroness, Lady Eaton, and others who come from my part of the world. I wish there were more Members of this House who, like the noble Baroness, come from outside the south-east of England and naturally spend their weekends going around areas other than the south-east of England, picking up what is going on and feeding back what they have learnt—as part of their relevant and continuing expertise—into the House. If that is regarded as constituency work, it is perhaps something that we will naturally continue to do. However, constituency casework does not seem to us to be a necessary part of this House.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
I wonder whether the Minister would take the opportunity of answering the point by the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, that whatever one’s view of reform, it is not helpful to the discussion for there to be disparagement of current Members of the House of Lords, not just by the Deputy Prime Minister but by Simon Hughes, Tim Farron and, I regret to say, also by a Member of this House, the noble Lord, Lord Ashdown. Can he give us an assurance that he will make his best effort to make sure that this kind of slurring of current Members of this House ceases forthwith?
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, I am tempted to say that I would like to give the House an absolute assurance that I will speak severely to the noble Lord, Lord Ashdown, immediately after the end of this debate. It would give me immense pleasure so to do. I will make sure that in his next speech he refers to the immense experience and expertise of the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes.
Businesses: Regulation
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts(12 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Wallace of Saltaire
I thank the noble Baroness for that question. Yes, that is exactly the sort of thing that the Better Regulation Delivery Office is concerned about. Eighty per cent of regulatory inspection and enforcement is carried out by local authorities, so that the experiment being conducted with these authorities is intended to feed very much into improving the quality of local regulation.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
My Lords, is the Minister aware that the lack of regulation of certain businesses in relation to cooling towers in Edinburgh has resulted in a fatal outbreak of legionella, in which two people have died and many others have been seriously injured? Surely the Health and Safety Executive should be doing more to find out the cause of this, and to make sure that it does not happen again. Will the Minister undertake to raise this with the prosecuting authorities in Scotland, to ask why there is no fatal accident inquiry or other kind of inquiry into something that has killed two people and caused so much injury, and why we do not yet know what the cause of it is?
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, I do not know how far that aspect of health and safety is devolved or not devolved. However, I will certainly feed that back and will write to the noble Lord if necessary.