Business of the House
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts(13 years, 7 months ago)
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Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble friend the government Chief Whip, who tells me that there is a debate planned on the eurozone on 1 December.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
My Lords, returning to the Queen’s Speech, in all seriousness, is this uncertainty not causing tremendous problems for people planning ahead—not just Members of the House of Commons but Members of the House of Lords, all those involved in the State Opening and, not least, Her Majesty the Queen? Is it not incumbent upon the Government to say now when the State Opening is going to be held so we know exactly how to plan ahead for next year?
Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, does a good job of righteous indignation on this subject. I assure him that in past years it has been entirely normal to announce the date of the Queen’s Speech about four or five weeks in advance, and we aim to do precisely the same this year.
Procedure of the House
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts(13 years, 9 months ago)
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The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Strathclyde)
My Lords, the second Motion in my name on the Order Paper is largely self-explanatory but perhaps I may give some background to it. We are conscious that, if there should be a Division in the House while the Grand Committee is meeting in Committee Room 4A, and many Members with restricted mobility are taking part in that Grand Committee, it could be challenging for them all to make their way to the Chamber in order to vote within the eight minutes allowed. The Motion therefore seeks to address that concern by allowing Members of the House with restricted mobility to vote in their place in Committee Room 4A during sittings of the Grand Committee on the Welfare Reform Bill, subject to certain conditions, and only if they so wish.
A paper in my name setting out the proposal embodied in this Motion was circulated to the Procedure Committee during the Recess and received the unanimous support of the members of that committee.
I should emphasise that this entitlement would be a one-off, limited to the Grand Committee on this particular Bill, and deviating from the normal practice of the House in the conduct of Divisions only on account of the potential concentration of Members with mobility restrictions participating in the proceedings.
A Grand Committee on the Welfare Reform Bill presents a unique set of circumstances, in the light of which I believe that we should make what adjustments we can to allow all noble Lords, including those with mobility restrictions, to play a full part not only in the work of the Grand Committee but also in any Divisions that take place in the Chamber. That is what the Motion is about and I hope that the House will support it today. I beg to move.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
I hesitate to try the patience of the House, having had such a useful discussion earlier in relation to Scotland. I welcome this Motion from the Leader of the House, as it will be of great help to people of reduced mobility in the Grand Committee to enable them to vote in the House. However, it is unfortunate that we have had to go this way. It has happened only because the Government, and the government Chief Whip in particular, saw fit to force on this House that all sittings of the Welfare Reform Bill Committee should be held upstairs in Committee Room 4A. That has resulted in what I understand to be substantial expenditure of many thousands of pounds on that Committee, when a number of the sittings could have been held here in the Chamber of the House. That would have been much more convenient for all of us, much better for the public, much better for people of reduced mobility and much better in every way.
I was in the Grand Committee the other day and the possibility was raised, as it has been raised elsewhere, that if the Grand Committee itself were to ask that certain parts of the Bill be held on the Floor of the House, particularly those that relate to people with disabilities, the House might reconsider the question and have at least one or two sessions dealing with these particular items on the Floor of the House. There appears to be some time. On Monday, the House rose before six o’clock; on Tuesday, it rose before eight o’clock; and there are in the forthcoming programme days on which there are no matters of any great substance to debate compared with the Welfare Reform Bill. Therefore, it would be really helpful to all of us if issues of particular contention could be taken on the Floor of the House and if the House could be given an opportunity to reconsider this matter.
Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, I am very grateful for the noble Lord’s support of this Motion. I am glad to have that, but I cannot agree with him on most of the rest of what he said, mainly because the House has already decided that the Committee stage of the Bill should be in a Grand Committee. Earlier today we had a Question from the noble Lord, Lord Soley, about the amount of legislation that we have. It was decided a long time ago that, if we are to try to close at 10 o’clock at night, we need to put Bills into Grand Committee. There are many important Bills before us and the principle of Grand Committee has been well established.
I understand that there is also an advantage in going to Committee Room 4A. More Members can participate overall compared with the Moses Room; more members of the public who wish to view the proceedings can get in compared with the Moses Room; and, indeed, there are more places for wheelchair-using members of the public to view proceedings than in either the Moses Room or the Chamber. Moreover, there are more places for Peers in wheelchairs to listen to the proceedings in Committee Room 4A than there are in the Moses Room or, indeed, in the Chamber of this House. Therefore, at every level there is an advantage to being in Committee Room 4A and this added Motion will be of extra benefit to those who have mobility issues.
Summer Recess: Ministerial Cover
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts(13 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, I am not entirely sure of the point that my noble friend is trying to make, but the Cabinet makes decisions collectively. Of course, individual Ministers make decisions that tie the entire Cabinet and, if there were any difficulty or issue, a Cabinet Minister could no doubt bring it back to the attention of the Prime Minister.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
My Lords, when the Prime Minister is on one of his many holidays abroad and the Deputy Prime Minister is here is London, who is in charge of the Government?
Lord Strathclyde
The Prime Minister is always in charge, of course, but when he is abroad the Deputy Prime Minister, if he is in the United Kingdom, holds all the regular, routine meetings in and around No. 10. When he, too, is on holiday, another senior Minister, usually the Foreign Secretary, chairs all those regular meetings.
European Council
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts(14 years ago)
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Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, that really is not an issue for the British Government; it must be an issue for the Greeks, for the European Central Bank and for anybody else who is involved. We want to see a successful and stable eurozone. The European currency union is very substantial and, as I said a few moments ago, it is very important to the British economy, given the amount of our exports that go into the eurozone. While it is in our interest for the eurozone to be a successful monetary union, it is not necessarily in the interest of the British taxpayer to be seen as a lender of last resort. That is the difference that we have made in this Council, which is why we are very glad that Article 122 will no longer be used if there is a bailout.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon
My Lords, I am pleased that the Prime Minister has said that Article 122 will no longer be used in future for bailing out other countries. Is it not true, however, that Article 122 was used illegally? Indeed, Article 125 of the Lisbon treaty precludes Article 122 or any other article from being used to bail out other countries within the European Union. In that case, the Commission broke the law. Should not the Government in fact be referring that breach of the law to the European Court of Justice to see exactly what went wrong?
Lord Strathclyde
We have independent regulatory regimes that look into these matters. The exposure of British banks to Greek sovereign bonds is substantial, but it is considerably smaller than the exposure to other European countries.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
My Lords, it is always my deepest pleasure to defer to the kindness and remarkable wisdom of the independent UKIP former Labour Member who sits so graciously on our Benches. It is even more of a pleasure to defer to one of my own colleagues. In repeating the Statement, the Leader of the House mentioned the Arab spring. I welcome the statements by the Foreign Secretary and others about the need to follow the revolutions taking place in the Middle East and north Africa with support for development of the democratic processes in those countries, but is the Leader aware that at the same time the Foreign and Commonwealth Office is putting the squeeze on the finances of the Westminster Foundation for Democracy and bodies that exist specifically to ensure that that kind of work is extended and developed? How does he reconcile this? Will he have a word with his noble friend sitting next to him, and with the Foreign Secretary, and say that it is vital that the work of the Westminster Foundation for Democracy and other bodies promoting democracy is increasingly supported as we see the developments taking place in the Middle East and north Africa?
Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, the Westminster Foundation for Democracy is obviously a much valued organisation with a tremendous reputation and a long lineage over the past 20 years of explaining democracy to many countries that have come to it in a new way. It is also true about the Arab spring. My noble friend Lord Howell of Guildford has kindly reminded me that it is his view that the Westminster Foundation for Democracy got an increase in its budget this year. The noble Lord, Lord Foulkes of Cumnock, is vigorously shaking his head, which means that there is a disagreement between them. I admire them both greatly in their respective ways, so I shall make it my business to find out the answer. Whatever the truth, we all know that bodies of this kind have had a bit of a squeeze put on them as an inevitable consequence of the economic considerations that we have. The Westminster Foundation for Democracy is a highly valued body and I shall write to the noble Lord about its funding.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts(14 years, 5 months ago)
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“( ) The Boundary Commission for Scotland may take into account the boundaries of constituencies of the Scottish Parliament.”
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
My Lords, we now return to Scotland. We have heard a few mentions of the Clyde—the River Clyde in particular—from my noble friends Lord Harris and Lord Bach. Of course, the arguments that we had in relation to the Tyne, the Thames and the Mersey rivers apply equally to the Clyde and to the River Forth. I think it is inconceivable that we would have a constituency in Scotland that would straddle the River Forth. It would create so many problems, and it has never been considered by the Boundary Commission for Scotland. This brings me to my second preliminary point. During the previous debate—and I have no quarrel with it because we were talking about rivers in England—there was constant reference to the Boundary Commission, singular; but, of course, there is more than one Boundary Commission. There are a number of Boundary Commissions; and, of course, my particular concern is the Boundary Commission for Scotland. This amendment would insert in the Bill, on page 10, at the end of line 21, the following sentence:
“The Boundary Commission for Scotland may”—
and I use the same word, “may”, as is used in the Bill for other factors—
“take into account the boundaries of constituencies of the Scottish Parliament”.
I think the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, will be the Minister who will reply to the debate, and I welcome him back to our discussions. As I said on a previous occasion, he is an old friend and he used to be a constituent of mine. We have worked together—not always on the same side—for a long time. He knows Scotland well, and I think that he will understand some of the arguments that I am going to make.
In starting to think about how the Scottish constituencies would be allocated and distributed by the Boundary Commission for Scotland, I came up against a particular problem. It is one of these things that keep coming back to hit one as one sits through more and more of these debates—namely, that in this Bill there are many more problems, difficulties, traps and obstacles than seems to be the case initially when one reads it and thinks about it. The particular obstacle that I came across in thinking about the allocation of constituencies for Scotland is how many constituencies there will be for Scotland in the new arrangement if this Bill is enacted. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, will give us some indication of that when he first replies, as it would be useful.
I looked at page 11, line 12 onwards, relating to the allocation method. I have tried very hard to work out from this how many constituencies there will be. If we have 600 for the whole of the United Kingdom, if we have the two preserved constituencies, how many will there be for Scotland? The allocation method—which we will discuss in greater detail later on amendments laid down to change it—is referred to in rule 8(2) as follows:
“The first constituency shall be allocated to the part of the United Kingdom with the greatest electorate”.
I am not sure whether this means that England—because England has the greatest electorate—or the constituencies that have the greatest electorate would be the first to be agreed. If the latter, I assume that if the Isle of Wight remained one constituency it would be the Isle of Wight, and if it does not, it would be Daventry on the present arrangement.
Lord Trimble
If the noble Lord will give way, I think I can help him. Rule 3 at page 9 refers to the four parts of the United Kingdom, which are named there. In that case, “part” in the rule must refer to one of those four parts.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
I am really grateful to the noble Lord opposite—I never thought that I would be saying that. That is really helpful. That was my initial understanding, that the part of the United Kingdom would be England. Therefore the first constituency is allocated in England. The rule goes on to say:
“The second and subsequent constituencies shall be allocated in the same way, except that the electorate of a part of the United Kingdom to which one or more constituencies have already been allocated is to be divided by … 2C+1 … where C is the number of constituencies already allocated to that part”.
By the way, when they say,
“the part of the United Kingdom”,
I do not understand why they do not say England, because it is so manifestly obvious that England has the greatest electorate, greater than any other part of the UK if we are talking about countries. Nevertheless, I accept that the noble Lord’s interpretation is right. It goes on to say:
“This rule does not apply to the constituencies mentioned in rule 6, and accordingly the electorate of Scotland shall be treated for the purposes of this rule as reduced by the electorate of those constituencies”.
We can understand that. Orkney and Shetland and the Western Isles are not included, so it is mainland Scotland. I have tried to work out how many constituencies this would give Scotland, and I have not been able to do so. The Minister has many more resources than I have. He has behind him all the departments—principally the Cabinet Office, as well as the Ministry of Justice. It would certainly help our discussions today and subsequently if we could get some indication of how many that would leave for mainland Scotland if the Bill were enacted as it stands and there were 600 constituencies for the United Kingdom, with the two preserved constituencies.
Then we come to a dilemma. As I said in an earlier debate—I do not blame the present coalition for all of this—in Scotland we have a plethora of constituencies and of voting systems. These include council wards and council areas which have been changed on a number of occasions. We have election by single transferable vote. We have the Scottish Parliament constituencies, the Westminster constituencies and the whole of Scotland—which is one constituency for Europe. We also have the eight European constituencies, which are used for the regional elections to the Scottish Parliament, which makes it particularly difficult. As a result, we have ended up with 73 Scottish Parliament constituencies, elected by first past the post, 70 of them on mainland Scotland; we have the Western Isles as a separate constituency, Orkney as a separate constituency and Shetland as a separate constituency. Therefore, we have 70 mainland constituencies electing Members to the Scottish Parliament by first past the post.
Furthermore, we have 59 Westminster constituencies electing Members of Parliament to the House of Commons by first past the post. However, because of the way that the Boundary Commission decisions have been made in the past, of course there is no correlation, there is no contiguity, there is no exact coterminosity between the Scottish Parliament constituencies and the UK Parliament constituencies. There could not be—59 and 70 are different numbers. As I said earlier, it was originally planned that, when the number of UK constituencies was reduced to 59, the number of Scottish Parliament first past the post constituencies would also be reduced to 59 on the same boundaries. However, this was not done by agreement across the parties of the Scottish Parliament and, I think, against the wishes of this Parliament. Nevertheless, the power had been devolved to the Scottish Parliament. Therefore, we end up with constituencies for the Scottish Parliament which are totally different from the constituencies for the UK Parliament. Very often, the overlap is not just that each Member of the UK Parliament has two MSPs to deal with. Sometimes it is three MSPs, sometimes four, because the overlap is so great and the system is so complicated.
When the Boundary Commission for Scotland looks at the new constituencies for the UK Parliament, it should take account of the Scottish constituencies and try to get a greater degree of contiguity. It will not achieve 100 per cent, of course—it cannot—but it might achieve some greater degree of coterminosity. I have thought about whether it would be worth suggesting that each Westminster constituency should consist of two Holyrood constituencies, but in fact the arithmetic does not work out because there will be more Westminster constituencies than half of the 72—there will be more than 36. I do not know what the number will be, but I certainly know that it will be more than 36.
It is still possible for the Boundary Commission to draw up boundaries for the UK Parliament that cover no more than two Scottish Parliament constituencies. To take a random example, there must be a new Rutherglen parliamentary constituency, outside Glasgow, for Westminster. It would include the Rutherglen constituency in the Scottish Parliament and part of just one other constituency. In this case it would be Hamilton. That would make things a lot easier and understandable, and I think that it could be achieved. It is a very simple suggestion. It would be helpful for the public and the Members of Parliament and it would produce a much simpler and more coherent system for the Scottish constituencies. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, on behalf of the Government, if he cannot accept the proposal in the form that I have put it, will say that it should be given sympathetic consideration.
Lord Tyler
I wonder whether I might offer a word of advice to the noble Lord. At 1.30 this morning, in one minute flat, I proposed a very simple and very straightforward amendment to the Bill, which was passed by the Committee. Rather than hearing from everybody who has ever had any constituency experience in Scotland—a repetition of the argument that the noble Lord gave us in 12 minutes of fascinating discussion—I wonder whether very simply we could now proceed to some conclusion.
I support in general what he says. I have two points to make. I think that his amendment may be in the wrong place. It should probably have come in under rule 5(1), where it says:
“A Boundary Commission may take into account, if and to such extent as they think fit”.
That is a very important qualification, and all four of the Boundary Commissions are advised by that.
In addition, this amendment may be too broad in its present terms. The intention is right and it may well be that my noble friend is prepared to accept it, but if the noble Lord would keep quiet now it would be more likely to be accepted.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
I accept the second two parts of the noble Lord’s three-part advice. As for the first part, I think he wants us to believe in fairy stories if he thinks that it was his eloquence that caused the Minister to accept his amendment.
Baroness Ramsay of Cartvale
I rise to support the amendment and, pace the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, I have never had anything to do in a representational capacity in a constituency in Scotland, since I am not an ex-Member of another place.
The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, will I know be very well aware of the crucial role that the Scottish Constitutional Convention played in the preparations for everything to do with the Scottish Parliament, although other noble Lords in this House are possibly much less aware of the convention and its very important role. The convention worked for some 10 years. It began in March 1989 and wound up very happily in a very celebratory meeting in 1999, when it wound itself up before the opening of the Scottish Parliament.
The convention hammered out a blueprint for the Scottish Parliament that was almost wholly incorporated into the White Paper and the Scotland Bill. The convention consisted of the Scottish Liberal Democrat Party and the Scottish Labour Party, as well as nearly all local authorities, trade unions and churches in Scotland—in fact, almost the whole of civil society in Scotland except the Scottish Conservative Party, unfortunately, and the Scottish National Party. I declare an interest here, of which I am very proud. I shared with the noble Lord, Lord Steel of Aikwood, the honour to be one of the final two co-chairs of the Scottish Constitutional Convention. In 1995, the convention launched a document entitled, Scotland's Parliament, Scotland's Right, in which it laid out its blueprint for how a Scottish Parliament should be set up and should from then on proceed once the legislation passed through the Westminster Parliament.
On the electoral system—and this is where it is very relevant to this amendment—the convention said that there should be a new method of electing Members of the Parliament. It said that the Scottish Parliament should have 129 Members, 73 elected by the first past the post system in the existing Westminster boundary areas and 56 additional Members elected from a larger geographical area through lists prepared by political parties and other organisations. The additional Members would be elected to reflect a degree of proportional representation depending on the votes cast for each list. Those additional 56 Members were to include seven Members for each of the eight European regional constituencies.
I hope that, in paying attention to what that establishes as the system for choosing the Scottish MSPs and allying it to what my noble friend Lord Foulkes of Cumnock said about the complexity of the whole system in Scotland, noble Lords will agree that because of this system—which is unique in the United Kingdom—it is crucially important that the Boundary Commission for Scotland may take into account the constituency boundaries of the Scottish Parliament. In a way, it makes the situation quite different from the rest of the United Kingdom. I support the amendment.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
There are 70 in relation to the Scottish Parliament, so while they cannot be coterminous it must be sensible, as far as possible, not to try rigidly to make them coterminous but to have regard to them. I hope that the prescient words of the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, who said, “Shut up and listen and you might make some progress”, might mean that the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, will say that he will accept this amendment, because it seems sensible to me. Then we will regret not having followed the advice of the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, because it may be that talking too much has cost us the warm opinion and the change of the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde.
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Strathclyde)
My Lords, that was interesting and, by the standards of this Committee, a relatively short debate, so I will try to be as accommodating to the noble and learned Lord as the Government were to my noble friend Lord Tyler. I thought that the point which my noble friend was making, which was very sensible, was that we did not necessarily need to listen to everybody who had once represented a Scottish constituency to get the point being put forward—although it was useful to hear from other noble Lords. The noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, was right. He was indeed the MP for my part of the world for some years. We worked together but it was, on the whole, on opposite sides. He was rather more successful at it than I was, unfortunately.
The noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, asked a specific question about how the formula will work and how many seats there will be in each nation. It obviously depends on the estimates that will take place in each nation but if the calculation were to be run on the basis of the register as of 1 December 2009, Scotland would have 52 MPs, England would have 503, Wales would have 30, and Northern Ireland 15. However, I want to emphasise that these allocations may change, depending on the electorates in each nation. That is clearly understood.
What the noble Lord is after here is to add a fifth factor into the existing four in the Bill that the Boundary Commission may take into account. The Boundary Commission has indicated already that it takes into account issues which are brought to its attention as part of the public consultation process, if it believes them to be significant—that is the key. For example, the Boundary Commission for England said in its fifth general review, published in 2007, that, where practicable, it took into account district boundaries. The report noted:
“The Commission have previously recommended constituencies which recognise both metropolitan and non-metropolitan district boundaries, where it is practicable to do so, but often it is necessary to cross district boundaries in order to avoid excessive disparities. It is expected that this will be the situation during this general review but, of course, each review area will be treated on its merits”.
That was the Boundary Commission for England in 2007.
What this means, if I may translate, is that anyone could make a representation to the Scottish Boundary Commission arguing that an element of Scottish parliamentary constituency boundaries constituted a significant factor to take into account when settling Westminster constituency boundaries. There would be nothing to prevent the Scottish Boundary Commission taking that into account. In this sense—I am trying to be helpful to the noble Lord—the intention that underlies his amendment would be achieved by the way in which the Boundary Commission has always worked, without the need to amend the Bill. The significant change which the Bill makes, as the Committee now knows, is the requirement to prioritise the “5 per cent above or below electoral parity” rule over other factors. There is nothing in the Bill that we think would cause the Boundary Commission to change the way in which it considers any factors brought to its attention in representations from local authorities or members of the public, including precisely the kind of things raised in the noble Lord’s amendment.
I expect that I have disappointed the noble Lord in not accepting his amendment, but I hope that I have said enough for him to feel satisfied that it would not make very much difference if we did not accept it. I hope that he will withdraw it.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
My Lords, that was a very full reply. I am learning that, if I speak briefly, listen to the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, and do not listen to my noble friend Lord McAvoy, I make progress. In light of that, I will not say any more, but, if I bring the amendment back again, I will bring it back in the form suggested most helpfully by the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, in his contribution.
Lord McAvoy
Is this more intimidation? Will my noble friend take the advice of the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, and ask the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, to act as his diary secretary?
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
I am grateful to my noble friend, but on the basis of previous advice, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Lord Strathclyde
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Myners. That is precisely what I mean.
Noble Lords opposite say that equality of the size of constituencies is not important; they say that something else is important. The Bill, of course, provides for some of the other things that are important. They talked about community links and they talked about counties, as if counties were the same thing as constituencies. I totally dispute that. I live in Ayrshire. Ayrshire is, in fact, not a county. Everybody recognises it as a county, but it is not, as it has been divided in two. The noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, used to represent part of it. However, I do not say, and nobody says, “I come from Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley”, or whatever the constituency is called. I say, “I come from Ayrshire”. I have no emotional link with the constituency at all.
Lord Strathclyde
I want the noble Lord to respond to this—I am looking forward to it. Not only do I live in a Westminster constituency, but I live in a Scottish parliamentary constituency, which is called something else that I cannot remember. It simply does not matter what constituency I live in. It is of no interest to me at all.
Lord Strathclyde
I will give way to the noble Lord in a moment. I know that some noble Lords opposite have represented part of the country for years and feel a strong emotional bond to that area. I understand that. What I do not understand is the belief that most of the people of this country identify the area that they live in by the constituencies in which they live. They do not.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
May I gently correct the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde? There are in fact three parts of Ayrshire—East Ayrshire, South Ayrshire and North Ayrshire—but there was a vigorous campaign to keep Ayrshire whole, as one county. The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, will remember it well, because it was his Government, bringing in local government reform, who insisted that Ayrshire should be divided in three, against all the wishes of local people. They were gerrymandering Ayrshire to keep South Ayrshire as one unit, because they thought that the Tories would take control of South Ayrshire. That was the purpose behind it and that is the kind of gerrymandering that, unfortunately, we are seeing again in the Bill.
Lord Strathclyde
That exactly proves my point. The people of Ayrshire did not really care very much which constituency they were living in. To them, it is Ayrshire, whether or not there are different boundaries for different parts of it.
Noble Lords opposite will remember that in 2008 there was a by-election in a place called Crewe and Nantwich. I spent quite a lot of time in Crewe—the Conservative Party thought that I would be better in Crewe than in Nantwich, although I never quite understood why. They were two very different parts of the constituency. The Member of Parliament had no trouble representing both parts, even though they were very different. The noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, wants to jump up again.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
I thank the noble Lord. I have been sitting quietly through the whole debate. At the most recent reorganisation of Westminster parliamentary constituencies in Scotland, there was an initial suggestion, supported by my noble friend Lord Reid when he was a Lanarkshire MP, to put part of Ayrshire into a constituency with Lanarkshire. All the Ayrshire constituencies, including the Ayrshire Conservatives, fought to keep Ayrshire with five constituencies. We won. Where did we win? At the hearing that was held to hear the views of local people from Ayrshire, including the Ayrshire Conservatives, of which the noble Lord is one.
Lord Strathclyde
Again, this rather proves my point. It is politicians who want to fix all these constituencies in a particular way, not people. They do not mind. That is my fundamental point: people do not identify themselves by the constituencies in which they live.
I was born in the constituency of Hillhead in Glasgow, which was represented by my father. People from Hillhead do not say that they come from Hillhead; they say that they come from Glasgow. That makes sense, as there is no such identity. People do not say that they come from Westminster North; they say that they come from London, or from central London. That is the point.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts(14 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Lipsey
My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 60, which is a companion amendment to that moved by the noble Lord, Lord Soley. Before I go into the substance of the argument, perhaps I could make an offer—I must say that this is without any permission from my Front Bench—to the party opposite. We will happily stop accusing you of gerrymandering if you stop accusing us of filibustering. I heard the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Soley. It was all material and to the point. If I was filibustering, I would have been extraordinarily grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Garel-Jones, who unfortunately is not still in his place—I expect he thinks that he has made his point—for prolonging the debate. Yet I was not grateful for it because it seemed to do what we all want to avoid doing: to turn this into a party political argy-bargy instead of being, as it should be, a proper scrutiny of the Bill before this House of Parliament.
In the interests of proceeding reasonably rapidly, I shall not go over again the arguments that my noble friend Lord Soley put so well for an independent look at this. My remarks are devoted more to the case for that being done by a Speaker’s Conference. A range of views have been expressed on the substantive issues of whether we should stick with 650—my conservative noble and learned friend Lord Falconer has strongly argued that case; or whether we should reduce the number—the reductionists include the noble Lord, Lord Maples, and my noble friend Lord Rooker; or should, like me, sit on the fence but say that there are arguments against a reduction. I am bound to say that I did not find the Minister’s response to the earlier debate terribly convincing on why the number should be 650. He did not say the figure was plucked out of the air because he is too shrewd an operator to do so, but it did not sound very different from being plucked out of the air to me. I am therefore taking as made the case for independent inquiry, and I will detain the House only to make the case that that should be by a Speaker’s Conference and not, for example, by a royal commission, an independent inquiry headed by a judge or whatever.
The main reason that I think it should be by a Speaker’s Conference is that this is essentially a matter for parliamentarians. I say “parliamentarians” because I should want this House to be represented on any such Speaker’s Conference. This is not because it is Members of another place who are going to be most adversely affected by what is being proposed. That is an issue—they have trade union rights, if you like—but that is not a good reason why they should be involved. The first reason that they should be involved is that they are the most knowledgeable about the issues involved. They may not all agree, but they have the experience of representing their constituents and existing in the House of Commons to weigh the arguments. There are arguments for a reduction; there is no doubt about it. It is difficult, for example, to get to speak in a debate in the Commons now. It is important that they should be weighing those arguments with the issue of which they have more knowledge than anybody else, which is whether the workload can be coped with by the average MP with the current level of staffing or even an increased level of staffing. They would bring that wisdom to bear, and we need it.
The second reason for thinking that a Speaker’s Conference is right is that however wise the verdict, if it does not attract political consensus, it will not be right and it will not necessarily stick. It is important that we achieve such a consensus, and it is important that all parties are agreed on it. A Speaker’s Conference could achieve this. The coalition should be very sympathetic to this line of argument because the figure we have came about not because either one of the two parties involved was committed to it but because they sat down together and this was the figure they came up with. Widening the consensus to embrace all parties would seem to be an argument that should appeal to the coalition. It seems to me that those are the two fundamental cases for a Speaker’s Conference.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
I wonder whether my noble friend heard me arguing earlier for some flexibility for the Boundary Commission. Would it not also be possible for the Speaker’s Conference to recommend a range so that it should be between figure x and figure y to give a little bit of flexibility to the Boundary Commission? Is that not another advantage of his proposal?
Lord Lipsey
That would be a possible outcome of a Speaker’s Conference. It might also decide that the way to deal with the particular problem that he is advancing is by increasing the tolerance allowed in the size of constituencies, and that is a matter to which this House will return.
In order to have a look at whether a Speaker’s Conference is the right way forward, I devoted a happy Sunday to examining the records of past Speaker’s Conferences. Funnily enough, that is not as easy a task as you might think, partly because there is no agreement on how many Speaker’s Conferences there are. I started off with British Political Facts, which is the bible on all these matters, and it said six, but I then found a speech made by Jack Straw in another place—Official Report, Commons, 12/3/98; col. 781—in which he listed two Speaker’s Conferences not listed by British Political Facts in 1908-10 and 1930. There is also the ambiguous case of the 1919 Speaker’s Conference on devolution, which was chaired by Mr Speaker Lowther, and nobody seems to be able decide whether it was a Speaker’s Conference. Let me confine myself to the six Speaker’s Conferences that everybody agrees on and the progress that they made.
There was the Speaker’s Conference on electoral reform of 1917, which is my favourite. It not only advocated extending votes to women but—prize of prizes for the Lib Dems—it recommended STV. This, alas, was subsequently voted down by seven votes in the House of Commons. There was a Speaker’s Conference on electoral reform in 1943-44, which dealt, for example, with Welsh representation. The 1944 Speaker’s Conference was notable, incidentally, for including three Peers of the realm. It set out lasting principles for redistribution and directions to the Boundary Commission, which endured well. Sixty of 71 quite controversial recommendations by the 1965-68 conference on electoral law and procedure, under Mr Speaker Hylton-Foster, were accepted.
The 1973-74 Speaker’s Conference was under Mr Speaker Selwyn Lloyd. I am sorry the noble Lord, Lord Maclennan, is not present because I believe he sat on that as an MP, as did the noble Lord, Lord Pendry. That brought about an increase in election expenses, which otherwise would not have come about, for the February 1974 election. There was the 1977-78 Speaker’s Conference, under Mr Speaker Thomas, on Northern Ireland representation. I see my noble friend Lord Radice is with us evening but the noble Lord, Lord Molyneaux, who also sat on that conference, is not present. That managed to solve the question of increased representation for Northern Ireland, although not everyone got everything they hoped for out of that. Then there was Gordon Brown’s Speaker’s Conference on electoral turnout and women and ethnic minorities in Parliament. It is not a flawless record but it is a considerable one, covering some of the most difficult problems that have faced this country’s constitution.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
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Lord Campbell-Savours
We provided a referendum on that and the public took a decision. What I am basically saying is that we need far more—
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
Is it not ironic that we joined the European Union without a referendum, but that the referendum was on whether we should stay in? The major change took place without a referendum, but the referendum actually backed the status quo.
Lord Rooker
Perhaps I may remind my noble friend that the then Government had the courage to hold a referendum on a separate day—on 5 June.
Lord Grocott
There are fruitful lines of discussion here for Report stage, and if they can lead to unanimity across the Chamber—which is what I sense we are moving towards—let us look forward to that day.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
My Lords, I struggled through the snow from Scotland on the encouragement —indeed, almost the insistence—of the noble Lord, Lord McNally. He is not here now, in fact, but he would not have managed to sit through much of this Committee without my presence, so I thought I had better be here. I thought I would just say a few words now, having made it. However, I hesitated to stand because so many Members opposite, particularly on the Conservative Benches, must have things to say on this. I shall sit down now if they want to get up, because I am sure that they are not the greatest enthusiasts for the system of voting that we are considering in this Bill and discussing, to some extent, in this amendment.
I am not sure which is the best description of the Bill. I think it was my noble friend Lord Rooker who described it as a Faustian pact. I thought at the time that he said that it was a Foulkesian pact, and I was going to deny that I had anything to do with it.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
Oh, it was my noble friend from Swansea who called it a Faustian pact. I do not know whether that is the best description of it, although it is certainly a true description. The noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, has a better description of it as a dog’s breakfast. The more one looks at the Bill and the more anomalies one finds in it, the more one thinks that the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, has the right description. It is a dog’s breakfast—and it is a very dangerous dog’s breakfast. I would not like to feed it to my dog. There are a lot of unexpected consequences to this Bill. The law of unexpected consequences is bad enough with a small Bill, but with this Bill of 301 pages there will be many unexpected consequences.
I have been listening to the debate on this important amendment, which was proposed by my noble friend Lady Hayter of Kentish Town. That is a lovely part of London, incidentally. When I was at school in London I used to wander around Kentish Town from time to time. The noble Lord, Lord Wills, made a very important point. The nature of the union has changed dramatically over the past 12 years. We certainly need to take account of it. Most of the referenda we were talking about related to devolution or preceded the changes that have taken place. We are now talking about a very important thing. I very seldom disagree with my noble friend Lord Grocott, but I ask him and others to consider the sensitivity of the particular parts of the union—of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Let us imagine that this referendum takes place. There could be a low turnout or there might be a bigger turnout if there is voting on other things and if it is on the same day. I hope fervently, like so many noble Lords, that it is not on the same day, but if it does take place on the same day, there might be a differential turnout—perhaps a substantially differential turnout. Imagine the situation where Scotland voted to keep first past the post, Wales voted to keep first past the post, Northern Ireland voted to keep first past the post, but AV—I was going to say this bastard of a system, but I must not say that—this awful system that we have been discussing at length, was imposed on the whole of the United Kingdom by a vote in England that would—
Lord St John of Fawsley
My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that in the West Country the word “bastard” is a term of endearment?
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
In the West Country, that may be rightly so, but where I come from the term is not thought of in quite that manner. I am very glad to see the noble Lord here. Having served with him in the House of Commons, I have great respect for him, especially as so many of the reforms in the House of Commons came from him. However, my recollection is that the reforms that he introduced in the House of Commons were brought in after careful thought, after much discussion and after cross-party deliberation—unlike those in the Bill. No doubt whoever is replying to the debate on the amendment will bear that point in mind.
My noble friend Lady Hayter of Kentish Town has raised a very important point. Incidentally, I thought that it was with great ingenuity that the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, brought in the whole question of thresholds, which we have previously debated. I hope that at some point—I do not know whether that will be now or later this evening or on Report—we will be permitted to vote on the matter in Amendment 44A, because it is important that we should consider the question of thresholds. However, on the more important issue today concerning the result in the four countries that comprise the United Kingdom, I think that my noble friend Lady Hayter has done this House a great service in moving Amendment 44.
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.
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“( ) In Scotland, a Gaelic version of the question is also to appear on the ballot papers.”
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
My Lords, I move Amendment 31, standing in my name and in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Liddell of Coatdyke. I understand that my noble friend Lord McAvoy has put his name to it as well. I am pleased to see so many noble Lords with Scottish titles in the Chamber today. I presume that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, will be replying to it. No? Well, another Scot will be replying to it—that is, the Leader of the House.
When I looked through the Bill and saw that the question was to be posed in Welsh for voting in Wales, I thought, what a very good idea. I immediately assumed that it would also be posed in Gaelic in Scotland. Going further through the Bill, I was disappointed to discover that that was not the case. I presume that the reason why it is being put in Welsh in Wales is that people who are native Welsh speakers will understand better the nuances of the question, the implications of voting one way or another will become clearer to them, when they read it in their native language, their first language. That is a very good argument and a very good reason for having the question in Welsh.
There is exactly the same reason for having the question in Gaelic in Scotland. There are a number of native Gaelic speakers in parts of Scotland, particularly in the Highlands and Islands, and most particularly in the Western Isles, whose first language is Gaelic. These people will understand the question better, understand the nuances and implications of it, in the same way that Welsh speakers will in Wales.
Then I thought that maybe the argument for having it in Welsh in Wales and not in Gaelic in Scotland was that in Wales there are people who speak only Welsh, whereas in Scotland there are no people who speak only Gaelic. In fact, the situation in Scotland is that in the last few years it has become the case that all native Gaelic speakers now speak English as their second language. However, the situation in Wales is almost exactly the same. I quote from Wikipedia—I am not sure if that is the best source, but it is correct on this occasion:
“monoglot Welsh speakers are now virtually non-existent … Almost without exception, Welsh speakers in Wales also speak English … Welsh speakers are more comfortable expressing themselves in Welsh than in English”—
but that is true also of Gaelic speakers. So the situation in both countries is effectively the same.
I also thought that there might be an argument that there were more Polish and German speakers and speakers of other European languages in Scotland. This would complicate things and mean that we ought to have the question in those languages as well. At present, though, citizens of the European Union resident in the United Kingdom will not be eligible to vote in the referendum. As it happens, I also tabled Amendment 36A, which, if accepted, would allow them to vote and to have the same franchise for both the referendum and the election, which would be helpful. At the moment, though, Polish, German, French and other European citizens will not have the right to vote. So that argument does not arise.
Like Welsh, Gaelic is increasingly being used alongside English in Scotland. I took a journey by rail recently from Edinburgh to Ayr—it is not always easy to make any journeys in Scotland at the moment—and Scotrail now has all the names of the railway stations in Gaelic as well as in English. That is happening throughout Scotland. That is just one example of many.
The argument might be put—perhaps by the Leader of the House, if he is replying—that Welsh is an official language. Since 2005, however, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, will attest to because he was Deputy First Minister of Scotland at the time, under the Gaelic Language (Scotland) Act 2005, Gaelic is now an official language in Scotland.
The argument might be that the question is being put in Welsh in Wales because there are more Welsh speakers—in fact, there are 611,000. In Scotland there are 58,652 Gaelic speakers. However, I would argue that the issue is not the number of speakers; rather, it is an issue of principle. Even if there were only a handful of Gaelic speakers, the argument would be the same. Still, there are 58,652 native Gaelic speakers.
There have been a number of considerations regarding this at the European level. In fact, it was pointed out recently, in relation not to Scottish Gaelic but to Northern Irish Gaelic, that the United Nations committee looking at the European Convention on Human Rights recommended that the Administration in Northern Ireland adopt an Irish language Act with a view to preserving and promoting minority languages and cultural heritage in the same way as the Welsh Language Act and the Gaelic Language (Scotland) Act. So there was a recognition there, and there is increasing recognition generally that Gaelic is an official language in Scotland.
Given the setting up of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, if we put the Bill through in its present form there would be a case for Gaelic speakers in Scotland to take a case to it on the basis that they were not being dealt with in the same way as native Welsh speakers. We are all in the same United Kingdom but they are not being dealt with in the same way.
This is a very serious matter. Some people thought that some of the comments I made on previous matters were debating points. This is not a debating point or issue. It has become known among some people who speak Gaelic that I had planned to move this amendment, for which I have had expressions of support. Gaelic speakers think that this amendment would be a great advantage to the Bill.
The Leader of the House—or I think the noble Lord, Lord McNally—has put down some amendments to the Bill. We passed a change to the Bill on Monday, so the Bill has to go back to the other place anyway. I hope that the Leader of the House will accept this amendment and that it will go back to the House with a clear instruction or expression of review from the House of Lords that the speakers of Scottish Gaelic should be treated in exactly the same way as Welsh speakers in Wales.
Lord Browne of Ladyton
My Lords, not for the first time I rise in Committee to support my noble friend Lord Foulkes of Cumnock. On this occasion my noble friend has identified a very important issue of support for minority language rights and identities. He has afforded your Lordships’ House an opportunity to make a statement about such support in supporting his amendment. As I have said before, I have made a point of reviewing everything that has been said in these Houses in relation to this Bill. I have to say that I was surprised, given the makeup of the other place, that this issue was not raised in Committee or in any other part of the debate that they had about this legislation. This fact and the issue that my noble friend identified have indicated how important it is that we look at this legislation as carefully as we have been doing in Committee because I am sure that we will find many other opportunities to improve it quite significantly and improve the appreciation that the electorate have of the body politic in this country—a point that I made earlier.
In researching my contribution to this short debate—and I am sure that it will be a short but valuable one—I came across the writings of a man, who I had previously not read, called Robert Dunbar, who was, at least in 2006, at the school of law in the University of Aberdeen. I will share his words with your Lordships’ House because they make the holistic case for my noble friend Lord Foulkes’s argument very well. In the Journal of Law and Society in 2006 in volume 33, number one, in an article entitled, “Is there a duty to legislate for linguistic minorities?”, he wrote:
“All three Celtic languages are … threatened minority languages. Gaelic particularly so, and Welsh and Gaelic are only spoken as community languages—and will therefore only survive—in the United Kingdom. These demographic and sociolinguistic facts are a product, to a very significant degree, of state language policy, which until fairly recently has been directed at promoting the acquisition of English, with little or no regard to the impact of this policy on minority languages”.
He goes on:
“Frequently, minority languages such as the Celtic languages have been viewed by the majority as not merely ‘less widely spoken’, but also as ‘inferior’, ‘backward’, ‘parochial’, and these value judgments have too often coloured attitudes to the speakers of such languages. When such attitudes guide the implementation of an integrationist policy, the effect changes from one of equipping the minority with skills in the majority languages to one of removing the minority language and identity altogether”.
I apologise to your Lordships’ House for reading that at length. However, in those few sentences, Mr Dunbar made the argument for respecting the minority language of Gaelic, the Scottish people and the identity of those who speak that language in a very good way. I could have adopted his argument and changed the words, which, as a consequence of my researches, I have to say I have done in the past. However, I thought that I should attribute those arguments to him.
Lord Bach
My Lords, I cannot remind the House because I do not know the answer. However, I think that there is someone who does: the noble Lord who will speak after me. Even if we did not, we were not always right. It is a terrible admission to make, and not one that the present Government are prepared to make at this stage. Perhaps later on they will.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
I think my noble friend will also remember that the question for the Welsh referendum was not put in Welsh.
Lord Bach
Again, I am afraid that I cannot remember, but no doubt the Leader of the House will be able to help us.
We have moved on since those times. Devolution is a much more significant factor now in British politics than it was. A number of noble Lords have made that clear. My noble friend Lord MacKenzie of Culkein, who comes from the relevant area of Scotland, expressed the view that the Gaelic language is more widely used and appreciated now than it was in times past. In October 2009, a new agreement was made that allows Scottish Gaelic to be used formally between Scottish Ministers and European Union officials. Of course, this does not give Scottish Gaelic official status in the European Union, but it does make it a means of formal communication with EU institutions, and politicians on different sides welcomed the step. This amendment does not ask for much. We ask the Government to be big and to accept it.
Lord Strathclyde
I am not saying that the idea that underlies this amendment is without merit: simply that it is the wrong amendment to the wrong Bill at the wrong time. In the long term, after due investigation, there may be those who believe that there should be that change in Scotland at all levels of elections.
There is a clear difference between Wales and Scotland, as the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, pointed out. Under the Welsh Language Act 1993, it is common for Ministers to prescribe by order Welsh versions of statements that appear on ballot papers, in postal voting documents and so on. In Scotland, Gaelic versions of electoral material have not previously been included in legislation, on ballot papers or on other official materials for elections, even when the elections have related only to Scotland. Therein lies the next issue; I am not aware that this has caused any administrative problems on the ground. That should be a test for whether in this referendum we depart from the parliamentary elections approach.
I suspect that the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, was raising a general point that has received some support from around the House. However, my noble and learned friend, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, pointed out a serious flaw in the amendment that I hope the noble Lord will consider. I also hope that, if he wishes to continue his campaign, he will do so not just in this House but in the Scottish Parliament, of which I believe he is still a distinguished Member.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
I am grateful to the Leader of the House, in particular for his closing remark. However, I intend to vacate my position in the Scottish Parliament in May next year to spend more time in this Chamber, because I find it so interesting. I have been grateful tonight for the overwhelming and powerful support for the amendment from my noble friend Lord Browne of Ladyton, who is a distinguished academic lawyer and a former member of the Cabinet, and for the Welsh support from the noble Lords, Lord Anderson and Lord Elystan-Morgan. When the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, referred to the Welsh precedent being powerful and pertinent, that was a strong argument as well as a wonderful alliteration.
I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord McAvoy, for his Jacobite version of the argument, which is all the more powerful for it, and to the noble Lord, Lord MacKenzie, with his background in Gaeldom, for his powerful support. The support has been overwhelming. I have one or two points of criticism. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, who referred to the Scottish referendum not having the question in Gaelic, that the major change since then is that the Scottish Parliament, with the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, and my noble and learned friend the former Lord Advocate as Members, passed the 2005 Act, which changed the whole position of Gaelic in Scotland. And I say to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, for whom I have great respect—he was a very distinguished Lord Chancellor and he and I have had lots of other dealings outside this Chamber—that I accept that it should say “Scottish Gaelic” and that the question should be specified. There could be an opportunity later to do that. If I could have written it myself in Gaelic, I would have done so, but this was the quickest way of expressing support for this and moving in this direction. With his help and with the help of Gaelic speakers, we can refine it so that we can get it right before this Bill finally goes through.
This is an issue of principle and I feel strongly about it. The noble Lord, Lord Browne of Ladyton, pointed out that the 2001 census showed that there are no monoglot speakers of either Welsh or Gaelic, so the position is exactly the same. I do not understand the Leader’s argument that this is the wrong Bill in which to have the amendment. This amendment relates precisely to this Bill because it deals with the referendum and because there is a Welsh version. I argue that there should also be a Gaelic version. I thank noble Members for their support. As the noble Lord, Lord Browne of Ladyton, pointed out, this is Scottish Liberal Democrat policy. I look forward to seeing my noble friends—I can still call some of them that—in the Lobby with us tonight because I intend to test the will of this House by pressing this amendment to a vote.
Lord Campbell-Savours
However, we are measuring the efficacy of the system. We want the system to work. We want it to make a difference in results. If we are to change to a system in which people simply do not use their additional preferences, why change the system? The advantage of the supplementary vote is that people would use their second preferences. That is what has happened in the mayoral elections, as the noble Lord will know from having seen the data.
In the by-election for the Doon Valley ward of East Ayrshire Council, 52 per cent did not use their second preference vote, 68 per cent did not use their third preference vote, 77 per cent did not use their fourth preference vote and 81 per cent did not use their fifth.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
I hope that my noble friend is not casting any aspersions on the good people of Doon Valley, whom I represented for 26 years in the other place. They are the salt of the earth—good mining stock—and people whom he would be proud to know as friends. Indeed, many of them I know as friends. I am sure that he does not mean in any way to disparage them.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
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Lord Tyler
The empirical evidence, of course, is the way in which so many other elections, outwith elections to Parliament, operate. I think I am right in saying that all the parties now select their candidates through a form of AV and it is seen to be very effective. Many other professional organisations and trade unions use it and, as was pointed out earlier, the Lord Speaker was elected under that system. There are plenty of examples where people understand that by making a number of choices or preferences they can make a difference.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
On one of the noble Lord’s examples, trade unions, there was recently an election in the Unite trade union for the general secretary. There was a huge campaign around the country, which was very hotly contested between two very different front-running candidates. Does the noble Lord know what the turnout was? It was less than 20 per cent. Surely, that is one of many examples which fully undermines his case.
Lord Campbell-Savours
Indeed, if the noble Lord looks at the Scottish results to which I referred, he will see that the average turnout was just over 25 per cent under the system he is advocating.
Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, I am assuming that they will still vote in the same polling booth, although there may be different registers. However, I have said that I will get a substantive answer for the noble Baroness, and I shall do so.
It is not unusual for different voters to be asked to vote on different issues at different levels on the same day. There has been a great deal of talk about this from noble Lords opposite, but it is not unusual and there is no reason why people should not be able to make up their minds. The question has been fully tested and cleared, not by the Government but by the Electoral Commission, and should enable the electorate to understand the choice they are being asked to make and to express their views. That is why there is no alternative; that is why we are saying, “Make it clear and easy for people to decide between one system and the other”, which will be duly explained.
Why this kind of AV? In no particular order, we chose it for the following good and legitimate reasons: this is the system for which the House of Commons voted; it voted on all the others and this is the one on which it could unite; it is the system on which the two parties of the coalition could unite and agree on; it maintains the constituency link; and it tends to return Members with more than half of the electors voting for them, although not on every occasion. These strike me as good reasons for why the coalition chose AV above all other systems.
However, the fundamental part of this clause is the referendum. We are removing choice from parliamentarians and we are giving it to the people of this country. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that; it is an extremely good thing to do. We do it very occasionally, but it is right that we should do so.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
The Leader has given a number of reasons why this AV system was chosen and has argued the case very powerfully. Why then did Nicholas Clegg call it a miserable little compromise?
Lord Strathclyde
My noble friend Lord McNally said, “Ask Nicholas Clegg”. I have no idea why he said that; I suppose it is what he thought at the time.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
Earlier in the debate—I have sat through most of it, listening carefully—the Leader of the House said on behalf of the noble Lord, Lord McNally, that there is collective responsibility, so surely he can explain what the Deputy Prime Minister meant.
Lord Strathclyde
I have not asked him; I have not got a line on it; and it is not a question that will trouble me much at all.
I have laid out the reasons why I believe the clause should stand part of the Bill.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
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Lord Skidelsky
My Lords, it will not have escaped the notice of the House that I am not the noble Lord, Lord Owen. My noble friend had a minor operation last week, and has had to return to hospital, from which he is being discharged today. He asked me to move this amendment in his name, which I am very pleased to do.
This amendment is not about the date of the referendum, but about its substance. In Clause 1 of the Bill, line 7 on page 1 gives the voter the choice between retaining the first past the post system to elect MPs, and the alternative vote system. This amendment is designed to give voters, in addition, an opportunity to express a preference for proportional representation. By allowing voters to rank their preferences, this amendment is sure to result in a majority expressing their preference for one or other of the three nominated options. It is a very simple demonstration of the power of the alternative vote under certain conditions.
Originally, those who tabled the amendment had intended to put all the varieties of proportional representation—AV plus, the additional member system, STV and maybe others—on the ballot paper, but, after consulting, it was decided to add just one general extra option: general proportional representation. This would leave the House of Commons to decide which version to adopt should PR get a majority. That seems sensible. The advantage of putting all the PR options to the electorate is quite compelling in terms of democracy, but, against that, it would overcomplicate the question being asked, and a referendum should be about broad principles and not about details. That is our main argument against the amendments moved by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, and the group of amendments put down by the noble Lord, Lord Rooker. I hope that on reflection they will feel willing to support the amendments in the name of my noble friend Lord Owen.
This amendment expresses our disappointment that the alternative vote is the only alternative to the status quo which the Government are willing to offer. Whereas party-political deals are an essential part of political life—we all know that—I doubt whether such a flagrant party-political deal should be the subject of a referendum. We know why it has happened—no one denies it: it was the price of the coalition. The Liberal Democrats wanted electoral reform without a referendum; the Conservatives, who favour retaining the first past the post system, would not concede that, and a referendum on AV was the compromise position.
We also know from many sources, but most recently from Anthony Seldon’s fascinating book, Brown at Ten, that, after the general election, Gordon Brown—who was still Prime Minister—offered the Liberal Democrats a multi-question referendum identical to the amendment I am now moving. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, will probably know more about this than I do, but anyway, that was the revelation. The former Prime Minister offered the Liberal Democrats a multi-question referendum identical to the amendment I am now moving.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
I wonder if the noble Lord could say whether he believes everything he reads in that book.
Lord Skidelsky
I believe everything I read that Anthony Seldon writes.
There was also an offer to make it a vote of confidence to guarantee its passage through Parliament. That was the offer. I am not questioning the judgment of the Liberal Democrat negotiators in turning down that offer in favour of a much inferior alternative, from their point of view. As they say, there were other considerations, but it might be helpful for noble Lords on the Labour and Liberal Democrat Benches to be reminded of this little history—and I think it is authentic—in making up their mind about the value of this amendment.
In our view, narrowing the choice to only two alternatives represents an abuse of the referendum mechanism. Referenda are not part of our political tradition. We use them sparingly to decide on questions of great constitutional consequence. I do not agree with those noble Lords who said that AV represents a radical change in our constitutional system. It retains most of the features of the first past the post system. By providing for reallocation of votes according to preference rankings, it ensures that no constituency Member is returned with less than 50 per cent of the vote. That is a change—it is a majority rather than a plurality—but it does not ensure representation of the minority any more than the first past the post system.
Nor would the alternative vote make much difference in practice. It has been calculated, for example, that the 2010 general election held under the alternative vote system would have returned 281 Conservative, 262 Labour and 79 Liberal Democrat MPs, as opposed to 307 Conservative, 258 Labour and 57 Liberal Democrat MPs. With impending boundary changes, one would expect that gap to shrink even further as time went on.
Lord Howarth of Newport
This amendment is a helpful and important one. It certainly needs more work, and I do not think that it should be passed as it is at present drafted, but it points in the right direction. The political parties have been right to come to the view, and have somehow stumbled in the past 12 months or so into agreement on the notion, that it is now timely to offer the opportunity to the people of this country to revisit their electoral system and consider whether they want change.
It is too melodramatic to talk in terms of a crisis in our political culture, but it is realistic to acknowledge that there is a malaise and a widespread disaffection from our politics, and a widespread view that elections are determined by small numbers of voters in small numbers of constituencies, and therefore that large numbers of votes are wasted. That is wrong in principle and unsatisfactory in practice. It may be that the malaise would be dispelled were we to be blessed with good government. If we were to enjoy a period of government under which the people of this country came to the view that they were being wisely and benignly governed in the interests of all the people and that they could look forward to unlimited peace and prosperity, no doubt the demand for constitutional change, such as it is—it is not very well articulated, but I think that it is there—would abate.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
Would my noble friend care to come with me to Scotland, where we have had a change in the electoral system for the Scottish Parliament for the past 10 years, and where he will certainly find that that malaise has not been dispelled? He is living in a fool’s paradise.
Lord Howarth of Newport
I absolutely recognise the force of what my noble friend says and would be happy to visit Scotland with him at any time. However, I disagree with my noble friends Lord McAvoy and Lord Grocott, who contend that there is simply no public interest in this question. While I accept that it is something of a preoccupation of the chattering classes and the professional political class, those of us in politics who believe that there is significant dissatisfaction in our political culture and that it has something important to do with the electoral system simply seek to understand the public mood and to see what ways there might be to improve on it.
It is right that we have a referendum on the future electoral system to be used in this country for elections to the House of Commons, but if we are going to do it we should do it properly. It seems quite absurd to have a great national debate and to go through all this palaver, expense and effort to resolve a timid and incomplete choice between first past the post and the alternative vote. If we are to have a referendum on the future electoral system of this country, a rare and very important event, then let us allow the people to have the choice between the range of plausible and significant systems. I support my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours in his view that the supplementary vote should be among the choices offered at a referendum. That means, if we are going to do it properly, we would have to take time over it and the debate would have to be much more extended.
It makes no sense at all to try to rush a debate of this complexity and importance through in the brief period between whatever date this Bill gains Royal Assent and 5 May. Let us have a sustained exercise of political education and debate, following which a decision shall be made. How that decision should be arrived at—the technicalities of the choice to be offered in the referendum—certainly needs more careful examination. I am worried that offering a choice between four major options —but that choice to be determined by AV, which is among the choices to be offered—might somehow bias the outcome. I do not know; I think these things need careful thought. But we should not fluff this opportunity. We should enable all the important choices to be fully considered. That must surely be right. From a personal point of view, I suspect that I would end up voting for first past the post. But it is right that everybody should have the freedom to decide between the major serious options. This amendment is not the occasion to rehearse the virtues or defects of any particular electoral system. The question is whether the full choice should be offered to the people, or the limited choice that it has suited the political parties to offer so far. I hope that it will be the wider choice.
Lord Touhig
My Lords, I would not go into the Lobby and support the noble Lord if he were to push this to a vote tonight, but I welcome proposed new subsection (4) which states:
“In Wales, a Welsh version of the question is also to appear on the ballot papers”.
I remind noble Lords that Wales is the only part of the Union where a substantial number of people speak two languages. Indeed, 20 per cent of people in Wales speak English and Welsh, so it is important that any ballot paper should contain information in both languages. Indeed, there are five parliamentary constituencies in Wales—Ynys Mon, Arfon, Dwyfor Meirionnydd, Ceredigion, and Carmarthen East and Dinefor where the majority of people speak Welsh as their first language. We will come to that when we come to the part of the Bill on boundaries. I hope that we will have support around the House when we try to ensure that those Welsh-speaking areas will not have their representation in the House of Commons diminished.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
My noble friend may have overlooked an amendment that I have tabled suggesting that, if the referendum goes ahead, the question should be put in Gaelic in Scotland. We have constituencies in Scotland where Gaelic is the predominant language and I hope that that will be remembered.
Lord Touhig
The same argument applies to my noble friend’s point.
I have one point to leave with the Minister. As I said, there are five parliamentary constituencies in Wales where Welsh would be the first language. It is not spoken across Wales in any uniform pattern. In my former constituency, perhaps 2 to 4 per cent of people are bilingual. Therefore, it is important for the Government to consider that whatever goes on a ballot paper in a referendum, in those areas identified as being where a majority of people speak Welsh as their first language, the question should appear in Welsh first on the ballot paper. In areas where the majority of people do not speak Welsh as their first language, the question should be in English first. I am not suggesting in any way that people will be unable to understand all the ramifications of the vote, but having two languages on the ballot paper will be confusing for people who are not familiar with Welsh as their first language if the question is written first in Welsh. I ask the Minister to consider that when the Government decide what will be on the ballot paper.
The noble Lord, Lord Rennard, talked about compromise on this whole issue—compromise between his party and the Conservatives. I do not know whether he was in the Chamber last week when his noble friend Lord McNally said that he had switched over to see a rerun of the film on the battle of Waterloo. I saw it as well and saw that bit at the end when Napoleon sent a message to Paris saying, “The battle is won—no, no the war is won”. Then the Prussians appeared and we all know the outcome of the battle. I suggest to the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, that if the Conservatives are the Prussians they may not turn up on this occasion.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
My Lords, first, let me say a word about the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Rennard. It was powerful and he argued his case very well. He said that he had been arguing it since he was 15. I must say that I did rather more interesting things when I was 15.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
I will come to that later.
What the noble Lord supports and has been arguing for—and he argues so powerfully—is a system that is favourable to the Liberal Democrat Party. He is looking after his own party’s interests.
Lord Rennard
Will the noble Lord accept that perhaps his support of first past the post might be based on the fact that it helps the Labour Party?
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
I am coming to that in a moment. I am perfectly honest about it and I want the noble Lord to be honest about it. He is pushing that system because manifestly it helps his party. He accepts the alternative vote as a compromise but he really wants the single transferrable vote. He is moving towards that and sees this referendum and this system as the thin end of the wedge.
Lord Roberts of Llandudno
May I ask the noble Lord whether a party getting 23 per cent of the votes deserves 23 per cent of the representation?
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
I was coming to that in half an hour or so.
I say to the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, that in every case in Scotland—I shall argue a strong Scottish case—where he has won the argument and persuaded the Labour Party to move towards a system of PR, such as in the election for the Scottish Parliament and subsequently for the election to local government, it has been a manifest disaster—absolutely disastrous. I shall make that point at some length, I hope.
I shall start with a plea to noble Lords, in the way in which Robert Burns when he was in trouble used to make a sincere and urgent plea to the presbytery of Ayr. This is a plea on behalf of we Scots, the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde and myself—though probably more appropriately on behalf of Lady Strathclyde and my dear wife, as they are allowed to vote in the elections for the House for Commons, which the noble Lord and I currently cannot do, sadly. I hope that some change may happen there.
Those of you who live in English constituencies are lucky people. Apart from the awful system for the European elections, which we all suffer, and which was introduced by my own Government—
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
There you are. A confession—good for the soul. It is an awful system, but those of you who live in England have first past the post for elections to the House of Commons and first past the post for local government. You know where you are and you know the system. People understand it. It is tried, tested and trusted.
We in Scotland suffer a wild plethora of electoral systems. We have an electoral system, that we share, for the European elections—the list system where there is no choice whatever. It is a great pity that we accepted that. Try to name your MEP. We were talking about going down the streets of Stockport earlier when my noble friend Lord Snape was speaking. Go down the street and ask people who is their MEP. They do not know who they are as they do not relate to local people or have the same kind of contact, accountability or responsibility of other elected Members.
Let us turn to the Scottish Parliament. The noble Lord, Lord Lamont—I am pronouncing his name properly for a change—said that he liked the German system. The system for the Scottish Parliament elections is akin to the German electoral system. I warned him and others against the alternative member system. When he comes back up to Scotland, as I know he does from time to time, he will see a bastard of a system, if noble Lords will excuse the phrase.
We have 73 constituencies elected by first past the post in Scotland. We used to have 72 constituencies. Why are there 73? It is because Orkney and Shetland have a constituency each—another concession to the Liberals that was a dreadful mistake. The good bit is that 73 are elected by first past the post. However, on the basis of the regional vote, 56 members—seven members in each of eight constituencies—are added members according to the vote of each party in each constituency, which produces the most unexpected results. In 2007, in Lothian, I was unexpectedly elected by that very strange system. It produces coalitions, the first of which we had with the Liberal Democrats, in which we conceded—I think foolishly—single transferrable votes.
Lord Rooker
I want to make it clear that my noble friend is speaking for Scotland. I am an English person, who, by the way, would like the Scottish system. The only reason why he was elected for Lothian in the top-up system is because there were tens of thousands of Labour voters in that region without a constituency representative. That is the point. That is why he was elected. That this system did not leave hundreds of square miles with Labour voters without any direct representation is a bonus. It is a plus that my noble friend was elected to the Scottish Parliament, not a minus.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
I am grateful for that endorsement and argument. My noble friend is a very powerful debater. He has made a good point. It is not all negative, but let me tell you some of the negative points. When we had a coalition with the Liberal Democrats, we were forced to concede STV for local government—I will come to that in a moment. Now we suffer from a minority SNP Government who have only one more seat than the Labour Party. They are so paralysed that they are unable to put any of their legislation through Parliament. That is why I said to my noble friend Lord Howarth that he should come up and see the stalemate that exists when we are not getting legislation properly dealt with.
I raised once before the system of Members retiring in the Scottish Parliament. If I were to retire tomorrow—and some people might like me to—the person who was second in the list would take over automatically without any election at all, with the people having no say whatever. Since my noble friend Lord McConnell represents a constituency—Motherwell and Wishaw—if he were to retire tomorrow, there would be a by-election and the people would have a say. However, if Margo MacDonald—who stood as an independent—were to retire tomorrow, there would be no filling of the vacancy whatever. I say to my noble friend Lord Rooker—a good friend—that this is just one of the many anomalies of the system that we have in the Scottish Parliament.
We ended up with STV. We had the European election system, the Scottish Parliament AMS system and the single transferrable vote in local government. Chaos has led to no overall control in so many authorities.
Lord McAvoy
I thank the noble Lord for giving way. Is it not the case that the noble Lord, Lord Steel of Aikwood, has expressed concern about this list member system as well?
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
My noble friend is absolutely right. The noble Lord, Lord Steel of Aikwood, who was one of the architects of the system, has said that, if he had his time again, he would not support the system. I think that a lot of people who were involved would feel the same. So we have those three systems.
We should recognise that, if the coalition policy gets pushed through this House, we will have elections for the second Chamber—with another system of elections and another structure—as well as a change for the Commons. That is why I argue the case against having this referendum—indeed, against any changes for first past the post. I was sorry to hear that the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, did not agree with what he wrote 40 years ago because I am sure that it was right then and I am sure that it is right now.
Lord Lamont of Lerwick
I did not say that I completely withdrew what I said. I said that not all the arguments had stood up so well. As regards the German system, I did not say that I preferred it; I said that I thought it was the best of the alternatives.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
I am grateful for that clarification and I apologise if I have misrepresented the noble Lord. I hope he will then agree with this practical argument. We should look towards first past the post continuing for the House of Commons. If we have elections to the House of Lords, that is where we should have some proportional system. If the Commons continues, as it will, to form the Government—in other words, once the Commons is elected that is where the Government come from—stability is important. Apart from the current aberration of the coalition, first past the post normally produces stability. It produces one party in power for a period of time—five, 10 or 15 years. That gives some stability, which, in government, is important.
Lord Liddle
Is it the case that under that arrangement what you would have in practice would be more instability? What you would have is a Lords with full democratic legitimacy, elected on proportional representation, which would feel able to overturn the decisions of the House of Commons. Therefore, you would not get stability by that system.
Lord Campbell-Savours
I remind the noble Lord of a speech he gave to the parliamentary Labour Party about four years ago, where he made precisely the point that is now being made. He said that in the event that we were elected here by proportional representation and they by first past the post we would claim legitimacy where they could not.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
I remember it well. On that occasion, I said that, if senators were elected for Scotland, for example, or for Wales, Northern Ireland or England, to a second Chamber, which was a Senate, they would certainly claim some legitimacy or might even claim a greater legitimacy. However, if the Lords continues as a revising Chamber, I would argue the case for proportional representation for that revising Chamber.
Lord Skidelsky
I thank the noble Lord for giving way. As mover of this amendment, I point out that we are not discussing reform of the House of Lords at this point, we are discussing the amendment that has been tabled.
Baroness McDonagh
Is it not the case that, when we are debating this referendum, we also need to think ahead of other changes that may happen and whether they may work with this system? That is the point that my noble friend is alluding to.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
I am grateful to my noble friend for rushing to my defence in a distinguished and helpful way—I was going to say gallant, but that is the wrong way round. What I was arguing, as my noble friend said, is that we need to take account of these things when we are looking at this amendment and any changes in the election to the House Commons, the first Chamber. If the Lords is the revising Chamber and is not forming the Government, there is an argument for it being elected by first past the post because then you have a different system balancing what the House of Commons and what the Government are putting to Parliament.
As the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky—or perhaps it was my noble friend—rightly said, this would mean that you would have to carefully define the powers of both the Commons and the Lords. That is why I believe that we are moving towards needing some kind of written constitution with devolved parliamentary assemblies and parliaments, with a separate Supreme Court and with the possibility and the proposal to elect the second Chamber. Everything needs to be much more clearly defined. That is why it would be madness—and this is where I come to the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, which was moved on behalf of the noble Lord, Lord Owen—to rush into this kind of referendum, or any kind of referendum, to change the system for the House of Commons. There are enough other changes taking place with the proposed reform of the House of Lords; we should learn from the changes that have taken place in Scotland, although it has not been a happy experience. We should not rush into something that has unexpected consequences just because the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, apparently puts a convincing case. Just because the noble Lord has spent 35 years arguing the case for proportional representation, we should not move in that direction. What is best for the Labour Party and the country is to stick to first past the post, which has provided election to the House of Commons with some degree of stability over a long period.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury
My Lords, I will make some practical points in saying why I am in favour of neither this amendment nor the one to be spoken to later by the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, which is not dissimilar. Frankly, if one were dealing in the theory of referenda and the reform of electoral systems at this time, I would find a great deal to favour particularly in the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Rooker. I will be frank—I have fought and lost five parliamentary elections. The first was for Labour in 1970. At that time, I confess, I did not think twice about electoral systems. I knew, as all Labour and Tory Members know, that the first past the post system was deeply in their favour. One of the problems of discussing reform here or in the other place is that we are all parti pris. We are all conflicted. Nobody can look at this complex but profound issue without party affiliation coming into play.
However, it is also fair to say—the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, expressed it very well—that, before and above that, we are concerned about Parliament: its respect in the country, its effectiveness and its health. I do not think anybody sitting here tonight believes that our Parliament, in 2010, is in good fettle. I do not for one second suggest that the lack of democratic adherence to it is, by any means, solely down to the electoral system. However, I maintain that it is one of the principal reasons why so many of our fellow countrymen do not even bother to vote—to use the precious vote that our forefathers fought so hard for. Four out of 10 do not vote and—I heard this statistic the other night—of those aged under 30, only around two out of six voted in the last election. One principal reason is that unless you are a Tory or Labour supporter your vote is apt to count for nothing. I think as much of the Greens and, indeed, UKIP as I do of the Liberal Democrat Party.
The other thing I know, which deeply affects my feeling about this amendment, is that we have been going round and round this mulberry bush my entire political life. There is always not just one but 10 reasons why we should not have reform now, and why we should wait until we have decided whether there is to be election to the House of Lords, and so on. There are always several reasons. My noble friend Lord Rennard gave, as the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, kindly admitted, an extremely clear and persuasive history of electoral reform—or rather the failure to have electoral reform—in this country. It is perfectly clear that many organisations and all the parties in this House use AV now. It has no deep defect. What is absolutely unavoidable is that the consequences of bringing in AV at this juncture will profoundly affect all parties in this country.
I come to my last point, which is to admit that the Liberal Democrats are plainly the party that is keenest on AV for electoral purposes. It is in our self-interest—of course it is. However, we also believe—I hope noble Lords will accept my sincerity—that it is also in the public interest, for the reasons I have briefly touched on, to give many more people a stake in government and a useful vote. Incidentally, if any non-Lib Dem was to go around with a Lib Dem on the doorsteps, my goodness, they would hear about electoral reform then. I am not surprised that you do not hear about it if you are a Conservative or Labour supporter.