Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts(13 years, 5 months ago)
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Baroness Golding
On ballot boxes, in my area, there will be a full parish council election, a local government election and this referendum. In previous elections, some areas have not had elections, and we have borrowed ballot boxes from those not involved. There could be a shortage of ballot boxes of whatever kind. Has this been looked at because everywhere will have a ballot?
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
I come back to a point that I raised on a previous amendment in relation to the fact that there are two different franchises in the election and the referendum. The Scottish parliamentary election is on the local government franchise and the referendum is on the UK parliamentary franchise, plus Peers. The Minister is right that we are the only ones having that special treatment. The schedule makes provision for either a combined register or two separate registers. Can the Minister explain how that will work, how the registers will be combined, and what the procedure will be?
As I understand it, if there are two separate registers, one for the Scottish parliamentary election, which includes European nationals, and one for the referendum, which does not include European nationals, it will be quite a cumbersome operation. When people come in, there will be three categories: people entitled to vote in the referendum and the Scottish parliamentary election; people entitled to vote in the referendum only; and people entitled to vote in the Scottish parliamentary election only. It will be much more confusing. The noble Lord, Lord Tyler, raised the confusion in the Scottish local elections in 2007. I think it will be even more confusing than that because of the two franchises.
There is also the question of overseas voters. They will be entitled to a vote in the referendum, and it would be useful to know what arrangements are going to be made for them to be given the votes that they are entitled to, to be made aware of their entitlement and to get postal votes. Even in relation to postal votes, there will be three categories to be dealt with: those entitled to both, those entitled to the referendum and those entitled to the Scottish parliamentary election.
Keeping the registers, marking them, marking ballot papers and handing them out will be a very complicated exercise. With respect, I think the Government have underestimated some of the difficulties that they are creating for counting officers and returning officers by having the referendum on the same day. Since I raised this matter some weeks ago—I think the noble Lord, Lord McNally, was dealing with it on that occasion—I hope that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, will now be able to explain how these processes are going to be carried out, particularly the ones at the polling station.
Lord Grocott
My Lords, it often happens that you can see something in a schedule that raises quite an important more general point. I am referring to the cost of the combined polls, which is on page 137 in Schedule 5. It says quite simply, and I am sure that voters would regard this as common sense, that when two or three elections are taking place in the same area at the same time you divvy up the cost of delivering that election between them. I ask myself whether that is the building block that has resulted in the calculation that the Government have made, a very important calculation, about the cost of the referendum and, more importantly, the saving to national funds from holding the referendum, with all the difficulties that entails, which we acknowledge to be not insurmountable, on the same day as a number of elections in a number of different places.
Unfortunately, I have not brought my precise note, but I am sure that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, has these details engraved on his mind. The Government and the Deputy Prime Minister have repeatedly told us a precise figure—from memory I think that it is £35 million but I stand to be corrected—which will be saved by holding the referendum on the same day as a number of local elections. I have always thought that using the word “saved” there makes about as much sense as saying that you buy a fridge for £150 in a sale, as opposed to paying £200, and that therefore you have saved money. You would save a lot more if you did not buy the fridge and we would certainly save a lot more if we did not hold a referendum. Sadly, that argument has now passed.
Clause 7 sets out the complexity of the way in which the referendum will be counted and the voting areas. I will not list them all, but they range from,
“a district in England … a county in England in which there are no districts with councils … a London borough … the City of London”,
et cetera. I want to ask a straight, factual question. How have the Government calculated what the saving will be to the Exchequer from holding the referendum on the same day as these other elections? As to the “cost of combined polls” under Schedule 5, page 137, the Government have obviously attributed to the referendum the whole cost of those areas where there are no local elections, which I suppose is intelligible enough, and I assume that they have divvied up—I may be making huge assumptions here—the proportionate cost of the referendum in those districts where other elections are taking place.
Most of all, I have always been wary about the glib statistic of how much is being saved by holding the referendum on the same day. If that is the building block of this calculation, which presumably somewhere along the line it must be—that is, the cost of combined polls—I would ask the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, to give us a note on whether the calculation is built on these individual bricks. I rather fear that it might be a construction built on sand. But at least I should like to know the calculations that have led to this alleged saving.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts(13 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Campbell-Savours
My Lords, in his contribution the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, took the view that the Electoral Commission should exercise discretion. There was a meeting here two months ago in Committee Room 4, and Members from across the House attended that meeting with representatives from the Electoral Commission. During the course of the meeting it became very clear that they will do everything possible to avoid being involved in the actual debate that takes place. With that in mind, some of us are very worried about whether at some stage the public are going to be given factual information as to what the referendum is all about. That is a genuine worry. I am in favour of the referendum and I am in favour of electoral reform, but I am concerned because the debate will become very heated and, to put it bluntly, lots of lies will be told. Millions of leaflets will be sent out that, on both sides, will not reveal the truth. Someone, somewhere, has to set out the basis on which the referendum is taking place, the truth about the question, and its implications.
There is an additional problem, and that is that not every household in the country will receive yes and no leaflets. There will be large tracts of the United Kingdom where no leaflets at all will be dropped because the organisers of the campaigns will simply not have the resources to do that. In those circumstances—I understand that the Electoral Commission has already agreed that a leaflet will be going out—a leaflet has to be sent. My question is this: what will be in that leaflet?
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
I thank my noble friend for giving way. Does he not accept that it will not be just one leaflet because there need to be leaflets to explain this in Punjabi, Gujarati, Urdu, Mandarin Chinese and a whole range of languages, and particularly that there will need to be one in Welsh? He will remember that the noble Lord, Elystan-Morgan, said that the translation of the question came out as something like, “Do you believe in God or would you prefer a daffodil?”. Somebody has got to explain it.
Lord Campbell-Savours
I understand that my noble friend will be part of the no campaign and I am sure that he will be impressing on his friends the need to send out leaflets in all those languages. But I would not wish to impose that responsibility on the Electoral Commission. However, I am sure that my noble friend and I can debate these matters on Report.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
I made a joke at the end of my remarks, but there is a serious point to be made about the leaflet being available in other languages. I was talking the other day to the Member of Parliament for Dewsbury about the large number of people in the constituency he represents who do not speak a word of English but who will have a vote in this referendum. How are they going to understand what they should be doing?
Lord Campbell-Savours
If my noble friend feels that strongly about the matter, he can table an amendment, put the proposition to the House and we can vote on it, if that is the way he wishes to go.
I go further than most Members who have intervened in the debate in terms of the information that I believe should be included in the leaflet. First, it should be set out by the Electoral Commission where it is used. My noble friend Lord Grocott intervened to pose the important question of where AV is used, and the public need to know. Secondly, the public need to be informed that it is not a proportional representation system. There will be a great deal of misrepresentation during the course of the campaign about whether or not this is PR. It is not proportional representation and the Electoral Commission should make that clear. Thirdly, there will be a great deal of misrepresentation over the proportion of the electorate that a candidate is required to have to secure election—in other words, the argument about 50 per cent. Leaflets which refer to the 50 per cent are already being distributed and politicians are going on television stating that there is a 50 per cent requirement. Indeed, Jane Kennedy, a former Member of the other House, has recently written to a number of people in the no campaign drawing attention to inaccurate information which has been put out by the yes campaign. This is only the start; how much more difficult will it get?
There is a need to draw a distinction between the different AV systems because, with the media targeting the debate during the course of the campaign—as they inevitably will—they will draw on the distinctions between the three systems of AV, to which I have referred in previous debates. The Electoral Commission should make it clear exactly which one is being adopted but refer to the other two—one of which is the system used for the election of mayors in the United Kingdom.
The Electoral Commission should also point in its leaflet to the relevance of the need to use all preferences during the course of the ballot that takes place under AV—again I refer to the distinction between the Australian Queensland system and the conventional system used in Australia in federal elections—and that can be done in fairly simple language.
It also needs to be pointed out—this is far more argumentative—that AV does not necessarily lead to coalitions. Factually, it does not necessarily lead to coalitions, and yet the no campaign is arguing that coalitions are the inevitable consequence of the introduction of the alternative vote. That is not the case. It does lead to coalitions in certain circumstances but not in others. There are many issues which my noble friend Lord Davies would argue indicate an element of bias but which I believe should be factually placed before the electorate to enable them to take a proper decision.
Finally, I return to the timing of the referendum, an issue we debated last night. One of my fears is what will happen to the leaflets during the course of the referendum. If the referendum was held on a separate date, referendum leaflets would go through letter boxes all over the country. As it is, because the referendum is to take place on the same day as elections in various parts of the United Kingdom, referendum leaflets will be mixed with election leaflets and many will go in the bin. I am very sorry, but that is the case. Again I say to the Liberal Democrats that they have chosen the wrong date and, even at this late stage, they should revisit the decisions they have taken on these matters and which they have forced upon the coalition.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
Can the Minister confirm whether the booklets will available in languages other than English?
Lord Strathclyde
I do not know, but I know that in Wales it will be available in Welsh and English.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
The answer to that, as the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, pointed out, is that it takes a bit longer and more pages to describe the alternative vote than it does to describe the first-past-the-post system. Although that is an innovative and ingenious way to try to overcome the problem, I think that a practical issue is associated with it.
As my noble friend the Leader of the House said, the Electoral Commission has already published the proposed content of its information leaflets on its website. It is keen to have comments on the draft. If noble Lords wish to make representations about that information, they can of course send their comments to the Electoral Commission before the leaflets are published.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
Can the Minister help me on one issue? He knows as well as I do that before elections, party election broadcasts replace party political broadcasts. Will there be referendum broadcasts for the yes and no campaigns? Will that be part of the arrangements for the referendum?
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
Off the top of my head—I think I know the answer but I cannot be certain—I think that the answer is yes. I know that parties cannot use their election broadcasts for the referendum campaign. I think that that was decided in a case prior to the Scottish referendum in 1979. I think that there will be broadcasts, but perhaps I can confirm that in the course of my remarks.
I am mindful that all public bodies need to be held properly accountable for what they do, but we need to strike a sensible balance. It seems to me that there are dangers in introducing a role for a parliamentary committee in approving the operational work of the commission, as is envisaged under the amendment, rather than monitoring and commenting on its performance, as is the case established under the PPERA. It must also be remembered that the Speaker's Committee, however august, comprises politicians. Irrespective of how carefully we might think that the committee would use its power—I have no reason to think that it would do other than that—perception can be important in these matters. There might be concern if the Electoral Commission—which, I think, everyone agrees, has a reputation for its impartiality—had in this crucial area to have its work vetted or approved by a body comprising politicians.
Furthermore, building in an extra procedural hurdle before the commission could issue the clarifying information to help voters could be difficult if confusion about the systems was allowed to take root and hares were allowed to run which could not be corrected promptly because of the need to refer. We must also bear in mind that the commission already issues a lot of useful guidance to voters, parties, candidates and electoral administrators about the working of our system. That has worked well. I am not aware of any significant concerns about it.
I confirm that my instinctive answer was right: there will be referendum broadcasts for the designated campaigns.
It is the commission's responsibility to decide how, and whether, to provide that information. As I said, I think it is widely accepted across the Committee that the commission is well established as a neutral, independent body. I am confident that it does not need the extra provision which the amendment would impose. There is a further opportunity for noble Lords to comment on the draft. I therefore ask the noble Lord to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Maxton
My Lords, as someone who takes an interest in the field of IT and new technologies, I have to say that the idea that we still vote by putting a cross on a piece of paper, having had to travel somewhere to actually put that paper into a box, appals me. I would not dream of booking a holiday or anything else in any way other than online through my computer and paying with a bank card. There is some security risk, maybe, but not very much, yet we still have this absurd system for voting. But, of course, almost the first thing this Government did was to abolish the one way we could have had electronic voting by getting rid of the rather small system of ID cards that we were introducing. If we had ID cards, we would not have any of this bother.
This real point is this. My noble friend is right at one level to say that in Scotland we are going to have two ballot papers presented to us—but we are not because we are going to have three of them. There will be one using the first past the post system to elect the Member for the constituency, and a second paper giving a list of parties to elect. That, by the way, raises the point made earlier by my noble friend Lord Rooker about where you stand on the ballot paper. In my view, it is almost certain that Alex Salmond is the First Minister of Scotland because he made sure, when using the list system, that he was listed as “Alex Salmond for First Minister” rather than “SNP”. He was at the top of the list and probably got just about enough votes to make sure he won the election.
We are now to have the AV paper to contend with as well, and some people will find it difficult. The referendum is very important, but a problem that may arise is that some people in Scotland will decide that the Scottish elections are considerably more important than the referendum for AV. After all, the Scottish Parliament deals with the education system, housing and all the social issues that affect people’s lives. They may say, “I can’t be bothered with the referendum paper. I will deal with the Scottish Parliament ones”. If the turnout for the AV referendum is smaller than it is for the Scottish Parliament, that will begin to cast doubts on the referendum itself.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
Does my noble friend recognise that the position is even more complicated, as I explained in a debate we had before Christmas? There are also two franchises, so although the vast majority of people will get three ballot papers, some will be entitled to only one and others to two. The returning officer has to keep two registers, so it is going to be very complicated, and the likelihood of queues to vote is even greater.
Lord Maxton
My noble friend makes a good point because the chance of a reduced turnout is even further increased by that. Moreover, if we have to have this sort of electoral system and way of voting, maybe there is a case for switching the polling day from a Thursday to a Sunday because at least that would give people the whole day to cast their vote, whereas those who are at work on a Thursday have to do it after they get home.
I turn to the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Phillips. He is quite right to say that there should be somebody to do this. But whoever is in charge of the election, what he will have to decide—certainly in Scotland—is the order for counting the different sets of votes. I assume that the same people will count both the referendum and the Scottish parliamentary votes. There is already criticism in Scotland that, because the referendum for AV is being held on the same day, the announcement of the results of the Scottish parliamentary election may be put off for several days because they will want to announce both results at the same time. Whoever is in charge of the election will have to make the decision about what to count first. The various ballot papers will have to be sorted out, as my noble friend said, or will it be decided that the Scottish parliamentary election votes will be counted and those results announced first?
“( ) with the addition at the end of paragraph (b) of—“(c) the petitioner’s interest alone shall be sufficient to enable a petition to be lodged””
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
My Lords, I am pleased to move this amendment. It was suggested to me last year by the Law Society of Scotland and I tabled it last November—it seems like quite a long time ago. The amendment clarifies the basis on which a judicial review of the certification by the chief or regional counting officers of the ballot papers counted or votes cast in the referendum may be taken. As the Minister will know better than anyone present, now that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, has left the Chamber, judicial review is different in Scotland from other parts of the United Kingdom. In Scotland, a petitioner must have both title and interest to sue. In England, only interest is required. We submitted as inequitable in the context of a referendum on United Kingdom voting that the challenges to the count are based on separate legal rights north and south of the border. In order to have title to sue, a person,
“must be a party…to some legal relationship which gives him some right which the person against whom he raises the action either infringes or denies”.
This is from the case of Nicol (D & J) v Trustees of the Harbour of Dundee 1915.
In his Report of the Scottish Civil Courts Review, Lord Gill, the Lord Justice Clerk, has recommended in paragraph 25 that the current Scots law on standing is too restrictive and that the separate tests of title and interest should be replaced by a single test: whether the petitioner has demonstrated a sufficient interest in the subject matter of the proceedings. This would make the position the same in Scotland as it is in England for anyone who wanted to challenge the result of the referendum, as recommended by Lord Gill. The amendment seeks to give effect to that recommendation.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, for bringing this amendment forward. He and I well know that the matter has been raised by the Law Society of Scotland. Indeed, I tabled a similar amendment in the previous Parliament.
The amendment would amend the provisions so that a challenge brought through judicial review in Scotland can be launched if its purposes are on the same basis as proceedings elsewhere. In Scotland, there are two separate tests for bringing judicial review, in that a petitioner has to demonstrate both title and interest, whereas in England, Wales and Northern Ireland there is a single test of interest alone.
The noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, also mentioned the recommendation made by Lord Gill, the Lord Justice Clerk, in his Report of the Scottish Civil Courts Review. However, I am concerned that because of the way in which this amendment is drafted, it will not have the desired effect. By stating that,
“the petitioner’s interest alone shall be sufficient to enable a petition to be lodged”,
it has almost gone too far and would effectively disapply the need to establish all other matters when considering a case for judicial review—including, indeed, whether there is sufficient legal grounds for a challenge.
The other, perhaps more practical, point is that it is difficult to see what the practical effect would be, as we think it is likely that the Scottish courts would entertain a judicial review from any elector entitled to vote at the referendum or at parliamentary elections and any permitted participant. By their very nature, they have an interest—they were taking part in the election.
We should be mindful of the fact that this issue goes wider than the referendum alone. It raises important issues about the nature of judicial review in Scotland, not least those flowing from Lord Gill’s report, and the circumstances in which they should be permitted to raise petitions for judicial review. That is an important issue. It is one that undoubtedly is receiving detailed consideration, not least by the Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament. It would not be helpful if this Bill somehow tried to pre-empt it on an ad hoc basis, particularly, as I have indicated, we believe that an elector in Scotland would be able to raise a petition.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
On the key point, is the Minister saying that because of the recommendation of Lord Gill, he believes that a petitioner in Scotland could raise it on interest alone, without any title, so it would in effect be the same as in England? I am not quite clear.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
My Lords, if the noble Lord will bear with me, the Lord Justice Clerk, Lord Gill, recommends in his report that the separate test of title and interest be replaced by a single test, that test being where the petitioner has demonstrated a sufficient interest in the subject matter of the proceedings. That is not specific to this referendum. We have a quite important change in the law of judicial review in Scotland anyway and it goes along with numerous other recommendations on civil procedure in the Scottish courts. These matters are, I am aware, under consideration, but it would not be appropriate in this Bill to do it on a one-off basis, particularly in circumstances where we believe that being a participant in the referendum, one would qualify to challenge, if indeed that situation should ever arise.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
I am certainly more than happy to write to the noble Lord on that point. I do not think that I need to elaborate on what I said to him before. I want to indicate briefly that Schedule 1 makes provision about the key aspects of the conduct of the referendum and the regulation of the referendum campaign. The approach of the Government in doing this has really been to replicate the provisions that are made for parliamentary elections, where they are appropriate. However, there are some areas where we need to make specific provision to tailor-make the provisions for this referendum. On the campaign spending and funding framework already in place for referendums, what there is under the PPERA will generally apply. I commend this schedule to the Committee inasmuch as it tries to replicate, wherever appropriate, the rules which are now well tried and tested.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
I am grateful to the Minister and, particularly, to my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer for their exchange, which helped to clarify the situation. I was surprised because this amendment was in fact drafted by our mutual friend Michael Clancy, who has done a lot of these before and understands parliamentary drafting very well. However, I was particularly grateful for the intervention from the noble Lord, Lord Neill, on the Cross Benches, and for the Minister’s response: that he will look at this again to see whether there is a way to achieve it so that Scots and English people will have the same rights guaranteed on both sides of the border, without any court having to make a decision and without creating a precedent which might cause any difficulties for other aspects of judicial review. On the basis that the Minister has been very helpful in giving me that assurance, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
My Lords, I am grateful to be able to move Amendment 112A, which is grouped with Amendments 112B and 112C. Amendments 112A and 112B are to some extent probing amendments, while Amendment 112C goes a bit further than that. The first two refer to the publication of the notice of the referendum and the notice of poll. They would change the publication of the notice of the referendum from not later than the 25th day before the day of the referendum to not later than the 30th day and the notice of poll from not later than the 15th day to not later than the 20th day. The idea of this is that in a number of elections recently the elbow room between the publication of the notice and the notice of call and the actual referendum itself has not given enough time for the issue of postal ballots or the return of postal ballots and all the other procedures in between that need to take place.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
I find that a very helpful reply. The Minister has explained and answered the points raised very well. We could have altered the hours for all the elections as well as the referendum if we had had more time but we are rushed in this and must do everything by 5 May. That is part of the problem. However, given that we cannot change the time for elections, it would be right—
Lord McAvoy
I accept what my noble friend says about the Minister’s reply, but is there some way, through the amendment, the schedule or elsewhere, to initiate a pilot project somewhere, or at some point in another election? That would test those hours. I am particularly interested in Amendment 112C. Could we look at the possibility of some kind of pilot in an election in a selected area to see if it made any difference?
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
That is a very interesting suggestion. Although we are rushed in this, I hope that, for future elections, the Electoral Commission could look at longer hours and, perhaps, different days. I think the Minister said towards the end of his reply that he wanted this. Pilots have been done. As my noble friend Lord Collins would remind me, we had an all-postal-vote pilot in the north of England, which had a very interesting result. I should perhaps have declared my interest as a postal voter. I accept what the Minister has said but I hope we will look at ways in which we can make it easier for people to vote, such as voting at weekends and longer voting hours. If it can be done with one or two pilots, as my noble friend Lord McAvoy said, that would be very useful. In view of the Minister’s very helpful reply, I will withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
I support the amendment. This election has the potential for some interest among a new group of voters, which is a particular interest of mine, as I have said before. I know this probably was not the rationale behind this situation, and that it was about the accuracy of and confidence in the vote, but there could be a certain jostling for position to be the first elector, which could be quite exciting on an issue like this.
I have, I promise, a very short anecdote to tell. At one time, the Labour Party was doing extremely badly in the polls and in November 1983 a friend of mine took his young son with him to the polling station. I will not name my friend as I am not sure this is legal, but his young son actually made the cross on the ballot paper and put it in the big black box. Thinking of the ballot as a lottery, the lovely little boy, who is now very grown-up, said, “Which one wins, Dad? Is it the first one out?”. In 1983, many Labour Party members would have said, “If only”.
What is interesting about that story, which has kept with me, is the excitement of a young person going to vote and the idea that the first elector would have a role in the endorsement of the process. I am sure that any of us who are involved politically would make sure that it was one of ours who was there, a young person or someone who had just got the voting right because they had become a British citizen. We would make something of that to give the citizen a particular tick to that process. I hope that that may be given serious consideration.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
In the unavoidable absence of the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, I will be nitpicking. Surely, if this changes the regulations for the referendum, it will create problems if the old system will be continued for the local government and Scottish Parliament elections. The noble Lord, Lord Rennard, raised that point several times in previous debates. It is a valid point and something that my noble friend Lord Bach should address. I am not against that in principle but if we have a different system for checking the ballot box for the referendum from that in the Scottish, Welsh and local government elections, that might create problems.
Lord Maxton
My noble friend raises an interesting point. If in the Scottish election on 5 May, the first person in decides that they do not want to vote in the referendum at all and they only want to vote in the Scottish election, my noble friend’s point would be very apposite.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
It would be even stronger. It is not just a question of whether they do not want to; they may not be eligible because, as I pointed out on a number of occasions, some may be eligible to vote in the Scottish Parliament elections; others will be able to vote in the referendum only; most of us—including, at last, Peers—will be able to vote in all three. That creates some confusion as to who the first elector will be.
Lord Campbell-Savours
Is not the answer to the Rennard question, on which my noble friend commented, to find out when we can expect further legislation in these areas? We know that a Bill is coming in on the funding of political parties. If the Long Title of that Bill was sufficiently wide, we might introduce a whole series of amendments governing elections and political parties. That might well be the peg, and we should be prevailing on the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, to push his luck with Ministers to secure an early introduction of legislation.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
My noble friend is right in principle, but because we have this artificial deadline of having to agree everything before the referendum on 5 May, I do not think that there would be the time to do that. Now I know why the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, enjoys being such a nitpicker. It is quite fun challenging the amendments put forward by Labour Peers.
However, I think that the intention behind what my noble friend suggests is absolutely right. In a number of elections overseas, ballot boxes have been stuffed in advance by supporters of one candidate or another and elections have been challenged. That could happen in a referendum. The principle is very important, notwithstanding the technical problem that I have raised in the unavoidable absence of the noble Lord, Lord Rennard.
Lord Strathclyde
The noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, is right: it would be far better to deal with and debate these issues in another forum or on another Bill. We resist the amendment, which, apart from anything else, we believe to be defective. The amendment requires the presiding officer immediately before the commencement of a poll to show the first elector, rather than anyone present in the polling station, that the ballot box is empty.
However, as the noble Lord, Lord Maxton, pointed out, no elector would be allowed into the polling station prior to the poll commencing at 7 am, which means that the presiding officer would be unable to show the first elector that the ballot box was empty before the start of the poll. In addition to the timing difficulties associated with the amendment, it can be argued that it is not necessary, as referendum agents will be able to appoint polling agents who may observe the presiding officer showing the empty ballot boxes before they are sealed prior to the start of the poll. Therefore, the question does not arise.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
My Lords, I am completely mystified because last week the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, admonished us for the number of amendments that we tabled. This week he chides us because we have not tabled any amendments. It seems rather strange.
I want to raise one or two points on Schedule 2. I had better raise this point rather than have a long discussion on an amendment. I strongly agree with what my noble friend Lady Liddell said. I think it would be useful, and I hope the Minister will consider this, to get together a group of MPs and Peers from all parties to look at some of these schedules in more detail to identify whether there are any problems that might arise and make some suggestions to the Government. That seems a very good idea.
There is one theme running through the whole series of schedules as far as I am concerned: full account has not been taken of the problems arising from the combination of polls. We can deal with this under later schedules. However, there are specific points that I want to raise in relation to Schedule 2. I agree with what my noble friends have said about minimising the use of schools and trying to find community centres and other public buildings—or, indeed, private buildings if we can find them—that can be used so that we do not disrupt the education of children.
I find paragraph 9(3) of the schedule strange. It refers to “schools within this paragraph” but goes on to exclude private schools. Why are private schools not going to be used? Why does it apply only to local authority schools? Some noble Lords opposite might say, “Local authority schools are paid for with public money”, but private schools also, because of their charitable status, get substantial support from public funds. They all have charitable status. I see the looks on the faces of some lovely ladies opposite. I do not know whether I am allowed to say that. Perhaps it is sexist and I will be thrown out of Sky Sports for saying it. However, if you think that this is envy on my part, or some kind of horrible class snobbery, have a wee look at my curriculum vitae and you will find something of interest about which you can come back to me.
My second point concerns paragraph 14(1). I certainly agree with what is suggested by,
“the officer may not employ a person who has been employed by or on behalf of a permitted participant in or about the referendum”.
People who have been active—there will be a lot of them—in the “Yes to AV” and “No to AV” campaigns should not be appointed as counting officers and should not be at polling stations. Could the Minister tell us how the counting officer will know whether people have been involved in such campaigns? Will there be a form for them to fill in? Will there be an oath to take? Will they have to sign a document saying that they have not been involved? It would be useful to know that.
The last point that I want to raise—there are many more that I could raise but I do not want to take up too much time—concerns agents. We heard earlier about agents from the two campaigns. In Scotland, the local election areas, Wales and Northern Ireland, there will also be election agents for the parties. There will party agents and agents for the “Yes to AV” and “No to AV” campaigns. Presumably the party agents dealing with the election will have no authority to ask questions, or to look at the ballot papers or anything to do with the referendum, and vice versa. Could that be confirmed? People will come in with red, blue, yellow and perhaps tartan—or whatever the SNP decides to use this time—rosettes, as well as ones saying “Yes to AV” and “No to AV”. Presumably polling agents will have responsibility, powers and authority to deal with that and to ask questions, as I have done countless times as a polling agent. I am not as old as my noble friend Lord Maxton, but I have been a polling agent on several occasions. You have some rights to go in and check things, such as the number of voters and so on. How is this dealt with?
Lord Maxton
My noble friend raises a very interesting point. However, in a sense the problem is even greater than he perhaps realises. I cannot see that most of the people who will be campaigning for the yes vote or the no vote will not be political activists anyway.
There are not large numbers of us around, so it may very well be that, at the school, some people will be asked to take on a dual role, both as an agent for a party and an agent for one of the campaigns. The problem with that, of course, is that at one school the Conservative agent may be against AV and at another school the Conservative agent may be acting as agent for the yes vote. It is all going to get very complicated.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
My noble friend has made the point. What I was trying to say and I have been trying to say it in a number of contributions earlier, is that these polls will be far more complicated than we are led to believe by the Government and will cause lots of problems. I have no wish to exacerbate the problems; that is why I strongly support the suggestion of my noble friend Lady Liddell of Coatdyke that an all-party group should be set up to look at these schedules and identify any problems that might arise. That, surely, is us on this side being a wee bit helpful.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
My Lords, Schedule 2 is important. The noble Lord, Lord Tyler, is right that it reflects experience from other elections. Looking at the 15th Marshalled List, Amendments 112A to 122A are specific amendments to Schedule 2, so I am not sure whether the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, was right when he said that there were no amendments to Schedule 2. I am interested in a number of specific issues that relate to the interaction between the referendum and other polls. First, in paragraph 13 (3), it is said that in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland,
“the polling station allotted to electors from any parliamentary polling district wholly or partly within a particular voting area must … be in the parliamentary polling place for that district unless the parliamentary polling place is outside the voting area”.
Why is the parliamentary polling area being chosen for a referendum and for the other votes when Parliament is not the district for the count, nor the place for which people are voting? I am surprised that that has been chosen.
Secondly, paragraph 22—this is for the referendum—places upon the presiding officer the,
“duty to keep order at the officer’s polling station”.
That makes the presiding officer the person responsible. Is it envisaged that the same presiding officer will be appointed for the local elections and the parliamentary elections? I assume that it is. If not, who is in charge of the polling station? Issues might arise in relation to the conduct of a polling station of the sort, for example, that arose at the end of the general election as to when to close the doors, or what to do about the queues. There needs to be some degree of certainty as to who is in charge. I assume that that will be achieved by the same person being appointed as the polling officer.
Thirdly, the schedule envisages a polling agent being appointed and a referendum agent being appointed. The purpose, as I understand it, of a referendum agent and a polling agent being appointed is that those two “agents” are responsible for seeking to prevent personation in the polling station. Is it envisaged that this would be two people, or is it envisaged that it would be one person for the same polling station? Do the same rules apply both in relation to electoral law on referendum voting and the polling voting? Can there be a conflict? Again, we would be looking for the same person to be appointed to deal with both.
The thing that I cannot find in the rules, though I am sure that it is here somewhere, is what prohibitions there are on material relating to the referendum within the polling station. For example, will it be permissible to have within the polling station the “neutral documentation” provided by the Electoral Commission describing the two sorts of system, or will that be prohibited? This relates to the question legitimately raised by my noble friend Lord Grocott regarding the extent to which help on the issues will be provided to individual voters. It is obvious that partisan material should not be provided but what, if any, material will be allowed in the polling station which is genuinely intended to assist voters? If the answer is nil, I would accept that and understand it, but equally I would not regard it as objectionable if neutral material prepared by a neutral body were allowed. It would be useful for the Committee to be given answers to those questions.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
Was the noble Lord happy that, although there was a majority in favour of a Parliament for Scotland, it did not meet the threshold required? Is that why he was happy about it?
Lord Strathclyde
That is an interesting point. I should be more specific. What was so good about it was that it brought in the vote of confidence and the end of that Labour Government. The noble Lord will remember that well.
The noble Lord, Lord Myners—
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts(13 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Falconer of Thoroton
My Lords, Clause 12 is headed “Boundary Commission proposals: publicity and consultation”. I am interested in a number of questions in relation to whether there will be a change in the notification process as a result of Clause 12. The new Section 5 that Clause 12 inserts into the 1986 Act provides:
“Where a Boundary Commission have provisionally determined to make recommendations affecting any constituency, they shall take such steps as they see fit to inform people in the constituency … (a) of the effect of the proposed recommendations and … (b) that representations with respect to the proposed recommendations may be made to the Commission during a specified period of 12 weeks”.
First, can the noble and learned Lord give us some indication of what timetable the Government envisage for the first boundary review under the Bill, which has to conclude by 1 October 2013? When do they envisage that those provisional reviews will be published? Do they envisage that there will be one review for each country or region, or will the review apply to the whole United Kingdom—perhaps excluding Northern Ireland—all at once? I am particularly keen to know how the resources of those who may have to respond to those issues will have to be deployed.
Secondly, how do the Government envisage that there will be notification to the public of their right to make representations? This might be apparent if I thought about it more, but what is the effect of subsection (3) of the new Section 5? Will its effect be that, where there are new proposals, new Sections 5(1)(a) and 5(1)(b) will apply again with exactly the same time limits? If the Boundary Commission makes a provisional proposal that is then changed for whatever reason, will it be necessary to advertise the proposal in precisely the same way and will the commission need to advertise again that representations can be made?
Separately, do the Government envisage that the boundary commissions will each issue guidance on what they will do to comply with the new Section 5? If the boundary commissions will issue guidance, will that be in draft form so that this House can see it before the conclusion of Report so that we get some idea about how the new Section 5 will operate?
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
My Lords, I am particularly pleased that we are making such great progress on the Bill. It is very encouraging to have had that earlier response from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, to the amendment moved by the Cross-Benchers. It was particularly encouraging that the noble and learned Lord responded and took the initiative, because earlier today I was reading a blog—strangely enough—belonging to the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, in which there appears a comment by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, who wrote:
“There has been a potential (and sensible) deal available on this Bill for at least the past two weeks and the failure to clinch it is (in my view) mainly on the government side. The irony is that the deal has substantial Liberal Democrat support”.
I am glad that the deal has been clinched, and I am glad that it was the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, who came here to do the clinching, as it were.
On Clause 12, although almost everyone in this debate has talked about “the Boundary Commission”, I remind the House—the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, does not need reminding—that there is more than one such commission in the United Kingdom. Although England and Wales might have a combined boundary commission—I am advised that they have separate commissions, but that means that my argument applies a fortiori—there is otherwise a different boundary commission in each of the four countries of the United Kingdom.
On this matter, and on other matters, how are the Government going to achieve a measure of consistency in the work carried out in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and England in relation to, for example, appeals? Following the passage of this Bill, will guidance be issued to the boundary commissions that says, “This is what we expect you to do”, so that the Government take the lead, or will the Government perhaps say to the chairs of the four commissions, “You should get together and work out a modus operandi for your areas”?
Obviously, local hearings are the important issue that we have been dealing with recently, but there are a number of other issues on which it would be invidious if one decision was made in Scotland and different action was taken in England. It could be that in entirely similar circumstances, an oral hearing was held in Scotland but not in England, or vice versa. It would be helpful if the Minister in his reply could put this into a United Kingdom context and talk about the collaboration and co-operation that he envisages among the boundary commissions.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
I support what my noble friend Lord Howarth has said. Following on from what the Minister said on the briefing about the Boundary Commissions working together, as he knows only too well I am strongly in favour of devolution—as he is—and, where appropriate, different solutions north and south of the border. I am also not too keen on Governments giving directives—particularly this Government, but that is another story.
However, given that we are talking about elections in the United Kingdom, some degree of consistency and guidance is important. Earlier today I read the words of Bruce Millan, one of the greatest Secretaries of State for Scotland, who many noble Lords will recall with great affection. When he was shadow Secretary of State in a debate in the other place—this may seem a long time ago but it is still relevant today—he said:
“On Tuesday I drew attention to the fact that there were differences in approach between the English, Scottish and Welsh Boundary Commissions—for example, with regard to overall numbers. The Scottish commission uniquely among the three started with a pre-determined total and worked from that. Subsequently that total had to be adjusted. I thought that it was wrong in principle that the commission should start with a predetermined total. That approach is not compatible with what happened in England and Wales. It is worrying that there are different approaches to the interpretation of the same rules in the three countries. This is another argument for looking again at the rules.
There were differences in approach by the three commissions to rule 6—the geographical consideration rule. There were also differences in approach in practical terms as to what the commissions did about movements of population after the enumeration date. It is not clear that any commission is entitled to take into account any change in population beyond the enumeration date. The English commission believes that it is not empowered to take any movement of population into account. That has given rise to considerable dissatisfaction south of the border, because England’s enumeration date was 1976. There have been tremendous movements in population since then. The Scottish commission took a more relaxed view. Whether it was entitled to do so is a matter of considerable argument. That should be looked at”.—[Official Report, Commons, 3/3/83; col. 428.]
That points to some of the problems that can arise if there is not close co-operation between the four Boundary Commissions under what I think is the general benevolent guidance of the Government. I know that the Minister cannot give an instant answer, but I hope that he will take this away and look at it to see whether some more guidance should be given, particularly if the rigid figure of 600 is going to be adhered to. I imagine that that is going to make it very difficult for the Scottish, English, Welsh and Northern Irish Boundary Commissions to work in similar ways. They are working necessarily to different totals within different geographical areas, and some guidance from the Minister might be appropriate. I am not expecting an instant answer, but it is worth while having a look at it.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
My Lords, perhaps I may first respond to the noble Lord, Lord Howarth of Newport. I hope he would not expect the Government to give directions to the Boundary Commissions, and I indicate that the Bill provides that the Boundary Commissions,
“shall take such steps as they see fit to inform people in the constituency—
(a) of the effect of the proposed recommendations and”—
to ensure that—
“a copy of the recommendations is open to inspection at a specified place within the constituency”—
that is unless, of course, no change is recommended for the constituency—
“(b) that representations with respect to the proposed recommendations may be made to the Commission during a specified period of 12 weeks”.
The provisions of this Bill are a bit different from those of the past. The 1986 legislation made a stipulation with regard to newspaper advertisements, and that is not in this Bill. We are leaving that to the discretion of the Boundary Commission. When I was replying to an amendment moved on Wednesday by the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy of Southwark, who was talking about online advertising, I indicated that again it was a matter for the Boundary Commissions. However, as there had been use of online advertising for the purposes of the Boundary Commissions’ work during the last general review, I have every confidence that it will be done again. I am sure there is no way in which the Boundary Commission is going to have a perfunctory regard in ensuring that the proposals are widely publicised. All parts of the House—it should be a matter not just for Government but for Parliament—should be confident that the commissions will continue to adhere to the highest standards that they have shown in the past, irrespective of seeking representations that will strengthen their recommendations. There is a high level of expectation there, and I do not think there has ever been any suggestion that the Boundary Commissions have not lived up to that.
With regard to the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes—
Lord Rennard
I am sure the noble Baroness will respond to the debate, but I just wanted to raise a couple of questions. It seems to me that since the boundary review will depend on electorates as of 1 December 2010, the only effective change brought about by this amendment would be to change the electoral registration system in Northern Ireland. Did she consult any of the parties in Northern Ireland, or indeed the Northern Ireland Assembly, in suggesting that the basis of electoral registration in Northern Ireland be changed in this amendment? Would it generally be accepted that the only effect of making that change in registration processes in Northern Ireland would be to delay the entire boundary review beyond the date of the next general election in 2015?
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
At the risk of the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, giving his automatic counter another click so that he can update his blog tomorrow, I just want briefly to support the excellent amendment of my noble friend Lady McDonagh. As always, the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, finds the nit-picking objections and the noble Lord, Lord Tyler agrees. The noble Lord, Lord Tyler, of course, is the constitutional spokesman for the Liberal Democrats. I do not know what that makes the noble Lord, Lord McNally, or indeed Nick Clegg, but the Liberal Democrats obviously need lots and lots of constitutional spokespersons.
My noble friend Lady McDonagh is absolutely right; this is a mistake that the former Labour Government made. It is a pity that the noble Lord, Lord Wills, is not here today to hear this because he was the principal architect of it, but it worries me. My noble friend has great experience of running the Labour Party and understands these things intricately, and I give all credit to my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours. He opposed this individual registration on every opportunity in this House—again and again—vigorously and consistently, and no one paid any attention to him.
This kind of legislation reminds me that a lot of the thinking in some of our legislation comes from middle-class, middle-aged people sitting in drawing rooms in the south-east of England. I do not know whether they have sectarian discussions around their dinner table, but they have certainly come up with some of the craziest legislation.
No account is taken of the fact that some elderly people are confused and find it difficult to deal with that kind of form. Many years ago, I was the chairman of the Scottish adult literacy agency. A large number of people cannot read and write and are unable to fill in this form; they need someone to fill it in. I can go through category after category of people who would need help as they would be reluctant and unable to fill in that form. It is very difficult for students away from home and for people overseas. My son is working out in Bolivia at the moment, but he is still going to come back and will be entitled to vote. We can think of all sorts of examples of how this will make it difficult to vote.
My noble friend Lady McDonagh is absolutely right; it is about time that people in both Houses started to think of ordinary people and of the lives that they live. They do not all sit round the dinner table every night discussing these kinds of things. They lead a hard, difficult life. They might have difficulties with poverty or literacy, or they might be confused, in many cases, and need that kind of help. I hope that more people will come and support this.
Lord Campbell-Savours
My Lords, I will intervene only briefly and do not really want to go down all the roads that I went down some years ago during the Labour Government’s two attempts—the second was successful, in my view quite mistakenly—to reintroduce individual registration. I have never been able to understand why the Liberal Democrats supported that. I understand that the Electoral Commission, in its various reports, kept on promoting the principle. However, the Liberal Democrats must have been aware of the dangers that would arise, even in some of their own seats such as the one that includes Bermondsey. Bermondsey is in a seat that could be gravely damaged through the introduction of individual registration, and I simply cannot understand why they seemingly allowed it all to happen.
My own view was very simple; there was a problem to be resolved, and that was fraud within the electoral system. That, I suspect, was the driving force behind those who argued for it. They chose an extremely expensive way of resolving the problem, whereby the whole of the United Kingdom would be subject to individual registration, against the parts of it in which there was a particular problem. Without going into detail, most Members of the Committee will understand precisely what I mean. There is a problem in certain parts of the United Kingdom, which had to be dealt with.
On two occasions under two separate Bills, I came up with a recommendation that would have sorted out that problem by giving local authorities the right to opt for a particular status whereby they would be given additional resources to sort out the problems in their areas, but the Labour Government unfortunately turned it down. Indeed, I lobbied almost every member of the Labour Cabinet about it to try to get them to understand the importance of avoiding individual registration, which will do immeasurable harm to our party in the longer term. Now we have it in place at a time when local authorities’ budgets in this area are not ring-fenced and when local authorities will not place the money that is necessary to ensure a high level of individual registration.
I welcome my noble friend’s amendment, and I hope only that the Government will accept it. They will not, of course, because they too have been convinced by this rubbish recommendation from the Electoral Commission, which should have known better.
Lord McAvoy
That is absolutely right, but that is the difference between a party that aspires to power and a party that aspires to nothing but opposition.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
My Lords, I am pleased to follow my noble friend Lord McAvoy and to confirm what he said, namely that it is the custom for government Whips in the House of Commons not to speak. That has been the case with both Conservative and Labour Governments. I also add that what he did not say in the Chamber, he made up for outwith the Chamber, to keep his friends and colleagues on the straight and narrow very effectively.
I will raise a completely new matter. I make no apology for that, except to the Minister for not alerting him, because I did not know that there would be an opportunity today to raise this. I doubt if officials have cottoned on to this, unless they are really top-notch. The matter was raised yesterday in Scotland on Sunday. The Minister may have picked it up, because he lives in Scotland, as I do, and may have seen the paper. The matter was picked up today by the dailies and I alerted my Front Bench to it earlier. It is a new and genuine worry about having the election and the referendum on the same day. It was raised not by me but by the association of returning officers in Scotland, which said that it would be impossible to do the count for the Scottish Parliament elections on Thursday evening and make the announcement on Friday morning—as was the case in the past—because of the complications arising from having two elections together and the possibility of making mistakes in the middle of the night. We know the difficulties that arise when one has to work through the night.
It is a genuine worry of all parties in Scotland—certainly of the Labour Party and of the SNP Government, and I understand that at least some Conservatives and Liberal Democrats have expressed concern—that this will mean that on Friday morning there will be total confusion about the outcome of the election, because it will take some time to go through the count on Thursday night and Friday, and probably the result of the Scottish election will not be known until Saturday or Sunday. That will create tremendous problems—with the additional member system that we have, when constituencies are counted before additional members—for parties to know which of them will be in power, for there to be discussions between them about possible arrangements or for the largest party to decide to go ahead. It will create tremendous problems.
I will not blame the Minister if he has no immediate response to this, because the matter has just come up recently and I only became aware of it on Sunday. It would be helpful for all of us if he would look at that, take it away and ask officials—particularly officials in Scotland and in the Scotland Office, in discussion with the Scottish Executive—what the problems are and whether there is any way that they might be ameliorated.
Lord Rooker
I have not seen any of the reports that my noble friend quotes. However, it seems that this is a scam by the first past the posters to attack a PR fair voting system. It is inevitable with a PR system that one will not get an instant result. That has never been the case and no one has ever claimed that it was. So what if it takes 48 or 72 hours to count the votes because they have been cast in a fairer system than first past the post? Is my noble friend sure that he is not part of a conspiracy to undermine the successful operation of the PR fairer voting systems of the devolved Administrations of the UK?
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
I would love to think that I am part of a conspiracy to undermine the so-called fair voting systems that some people want. It is a genuine slur on the returning officers—I know my noble friend Lord Rooker does not mean it—to suggest that they are part of any kind of scam. They are raising genuine concerns as non-political civil servants who work for local authorities. However, I draw the attention of my noble friend to Belgium, which has this PR system. It is seven months since the Belgian election and the country still does not have a Government. That is probably a better example. In Scotland, we can manage it rather more quickly than that.
Aside from that diversion, I ask the Minister—who has been very helpful, as has the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace—to look into this and, if there is a problem, to see whether there is any way to resolve it.
Lord Bach
My Lords, my noble friend’s amendment is entirely sensible. Indeed, following on from the previous amendment, I suspect that the Leader of the House may secretly or quietly agree with it. He may not be able to say so, because, as he reminded us, he is now in government. However, the amendment is sensible and I ask the noble Lord at least to take it back and consider it carefully. Also, the point of my noble friend Lord Foulkes about what appeared in the Scottish press yesterday is well worth the Government considering, if not responding to tonight.
This amendment is not contrary to the will of this Committee, due to the second Rooker amendment that is now well known in political history—the one that this Committee passed on 30 November stating that the voting system referendum must be held at some point before 31 October next year, which is clearly within the three months that this amendment mentions. The amendment of my noble friend Lord Rooker was subtle but important. It was hastily dismissed by the Government at the time of its passing, but perhaps they now regret that. It would have eased the pressure under which the Government find themselves.
By recommending a gap of three months between Royal Assent and the holding of the referendum, this amendment facilitates a period of proper preparation, including, most importantly, a proper information and education campaign on the difficult issues that the public are being asked to vote on, which are not that simple. We were reminded about New Zealand, which, when it changed its voting system in the early 1990s, provided a year-long information campaign.
I remind the Committee that Amendment 6 to this Bill, moved a long time ago, advised that a gap of between six and 18 months be inserted into the timetable for the referendum to allow for preparation and an information campaign. This amendment falls far short of that, but is moved with the same motivation. It seeks to facilitate a state of affairs that is an improvement on the 10 weeks or less that the Government’s timetabling will provide the Electoral Commission with to disseminate information about the poll. It is less than 10 weeks in which to inform the public about an issue which Electoral Commission research informs us there is perilously little information or knowledge about.
This is not the proper context in which to be asking the public to make such an important decision, whether you are for this form of AV or for first past the post. Officials and interested participants should be given adequate time to provide this information.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
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Lord Falconer of Thoroton
I agree with the last point from my noble friend Lord Davies of Stamford. Increasing the figure to 10 per cent would make it much easier as a matter of practicality to do what the amendment would do, and the independent research that has been done by bodies such as Democratic Audit also suggests that that 10 per cent flexibility does not lead to unacceptable differences between constituencies that might be said to favour one party over another. We can achieve the purpose that the coalition sought to achieve and preserve communities in a way that most contributes to effective political activity.
I hope that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, who will be replying to this because he is completely alone on the Front Bench out of the team dealing with this, takes the amendment in the spirit in which it is offered and gives us a favourable response.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
My Lords, I want to make a brief intervention, encouraged by the very positive response from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, to the previous debate. We are talking about very much the same subject here. I make this intervention on one issue only: the question of political party organisation. This is, perhaps, a direct plea to the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, who I know is an expert on this. I think that he told us on one occasion that he became secretary of his local ward party at the age of seven. He has moved onwards and upwards ever since.
When we are talking about trying to get boundaries as coterminous as possible, we are not just talking about community cohesion—although that is important, as my noble and learned friend said—about trying to reduce the public’s confusion over who their elected representatives are or about keeping to a minimum the number of local authorities or health boards that MPs have to deal with. It is also vital in relation to political party organisations. Political parties are absolutely essential to democracy. When I go around in seminars organised by the Westminster Foundation for Democracy, I explain to new democracies in eastern Europe and north Africa—I have been to Macedonia and to Egypt to talk about this—the importance of having active political parties with good organisation.
The experience in Scotland has been that, because in both Ayrshire and Edinburgh, the two areas that I know best from a constituency point of view, we have ended up having different boundaries for the Scottish Parliament and the UK Parliament—the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, was lucky in this, because Orkney and Shetland have been given special treatment on so many occasions—great difficulties have been caused in terms of party organisation. It really has confused people and made things more difficult.
The kinds of things that are difficult are, for example, fundraising activities. As my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer said, political parties are run by volunteers. When you get them in, they are not paid in most cases, apart from national organisers, but they are the ones organising the coffee mornings. At this time of year, we should perhaps think as well of the Burns suppers that are taking place to raise money. There are Labour Party Burns suppers around the whole of Scotland at the moment. All those kinds of activities are much more difficult if you have different party structures. If you have to have a ward structure or a local liaison group for another party organisation, as we have in Scotland—we have a CLP and a regional party structure—it makes things very difficult. People can spend hour after hour organising just meetings and minutes for meetings. They are trying to get things organised within their party structures rather than doing the fundraising.
Parties should also be involved in political education. We should be having much more political education run by the parties, getting young people in and getting them to understand what democracy is about, as well as what our parties are doing. It is therefore vital that we should not strangle or snuff out this voluntary political activity by a complex overlapping of boundaries. That is why I hope that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, will be as sympathetic to the proposal in this amendment as he was to the previous one.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
Can my noble friend remind me about the boundaries of the Scottish Parliamentary constituency represented by James Kelly, and about the former boundaries of Rutherglen? My recollection is that the situation is similar to what happened in Ayrshire and Edinburgh, whereby the boundaries are now not the same, and there are a number of problems; MSPs have to deal with a number of MPs, and MPs have to deal with a number of MSPs.
Lord McAvoy
I thank my noble friend, because that is the next item on my little list. Again, Labour has given in too much to Liberal machinations and fascinations about systems. Last week, I mentioned that we kept on being told that the Scotland Act was supposed to be the settled will of the Scottish people. The Scotland Act stated that the number of Westminster constituencies should be reduced and that the number of Scottish parliamentary constituencies should be reduced in tandem. That did not happen, thanks mainly, but not entirely, to Liberal pressure. Now the Westminster constituency boundaries are not coterminous, and I notice the Minister expressing satisfaction at that for, I am sure, purely party interests. He is motivated to do that.
There has been a disjointed effort to try to cope with that in terms of party organisation. Rutherglen and Hamilton West now has the entire Rutherglen Scottish parliamentary constituency within it, although the people of west Hamilton feel that they are being just moved about as part of a block which seems to be favoured by the Minister. The people of west Hamilton have been shunted away from the Westminster constituency boundary, and into the boundary of Tom McCabe’s Scottish parliamentary constituency. James Kelly is getting down to work very well in what is to him a new place, High Blantyre.
I know this has been said before, and I apologise to anyone who thinks I am being repetitive. I am certainly not filibustering. I can assure colleagues of that. I am not thin-skinned and sensitive, but I would not get away with it. It is surely frustrating—annoying is too strong a word—to be told that you are filibustering when you are trying to get across the concerns of your constituency. At the end of the day, if any legislative Assembly does not take people into account or listen to them, we are all in a bad way. I make no apology for expressing my concerns about how this issue will affect my community, because I was born and brought up in Rutherglen, where I have lived all my life.
This continual five-year change in boundaries will be chaotic, if it goes ahead. In my experience in the other place, all political parties showed great faith in the link between the Member of Parliament and the constituency. There is a terrific bond. I do not say that to be elitist to colleagues on all sides of the House who have never been in the other place. Nevertheless, that bond will be broken. I return to the absolutely brilliant phrase of the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, who said there will be just blocks on a map.
Chaos will be caused to the political parties, and that will be reflected in issues such as how best to represent people. I used to have people come to me from the other side; and, vice versa, Jimmy Hood had people coming to him from my side in Hamilton. The situation was particularly bad in Hamilton, because it was a town split in two, just to make up numbers. That is an example of a town of which I have a fair knowledge being split down the middle just to fit the numbers—end of story. That is surely wrong, and I cannot believe that every noble Lord on the other side of the House, or our colleagues on the Cross Benches, thinks that it is good not to take account of communities—especially given that this will happen every five years. At the end of the day, this is not simply about party mechanics and organisation to suit the politicians. It is about whether the proposals make the political structures and organisations fit enough to represent the people, stop the confusion and be a useful part of a democratic process in this country.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
I listened to the noble Lord’s speech, and he gave the very clear impression that that was challenging in the extreme. As my noble friend said, there were three local authorities in the constituency that he represented. The constituency that I represented contained two local authorities. On the basis of the figures that I gave in a previous debate, by my calculation 187 Members of Parliament represent constituencies that have more than one metropolitan or non-metropolitan district boundary. I believe that it is more than possible to do an adequate job of representing one's constituents where there is more than one local authority in a constituency.
We do not believe that we should be tying the hands of the Boundary Commission in a way that prevents it from recommending the best solutions for electors simply for the convenience of Members of the other place. I take the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Hughes and Lady Farrington, about the importance of local constituency parties. They of course have an important role in oiling the wheels of our democracy, but I do not think that their interests should be elevated above those of individual constituents.
I do not want to follow down the path of anecdotage, but the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, mentioned the number of party fundraising events at this time in Scotland that are focused on Burns suppers. I had the great pleasure of attending a Liberal Democrat Burns supper in South Edinburgh, which has already reorganised itself to take account of the changes in the boundaries and the disjunction between Scottish parliamentary boundaries and Westminster boundaries. I do not really want to hear more of the Burns supper adventures of the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
I just wondered whether it was in the Edinburgh South UK parliamentary constituency or the Edinburgh Southern Scottish parliamentary constituency.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts(13 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
In between there is the island of Arran, which, on the basis of the arguments put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, ought to be a constituency of its own.
Lord Martin of Springburn
I will take the noble Lord’s word for that.
If the boundary commissioner was to look only at numbers and close proximity, there could be some strange notions because places such as Campbeltown are geographically closer to Ballycastle in Northern Ireland than to Glasgow and other parts of neighbouring constituencies.
I have been neutral for 10 years. When I took the great office of Speaker of the House of Commons, I gave up my membership of a political party, as other Speakers did. Being in a political party is an enjoyable experience. It is not only about political belief, but friendship and kindredship, going to conferences and meeting friends, who are like family. I have given that up, and I know that people would argue that I was in the Labour Party at one time—I do not deny that, and am proud of the membership that I had—but I am arguing for a constituency that, to my knowledge, has never been represented by a member of the Labour Party. In fact, one of the great offices of state—that of the Secretary of State for Scotland—was performed by Michael Noble, who was a Conservative Member of Parliament for Argyll. As a Peer, he then served this House so well after he left the House of Commons—he was a Chairman of Committees—as did the late John Mackay, who had also been the MP for Argyll.
A lovely lady whom we all got on with was Ray Michie, who served the House of Commons so well and also came to this House and served so well here. She used to regale us with the stories of how, when she had to go and see her constituents on some of these islands, she had to get on to an old trawler ship and share the accommodation with cattle.
Lord Tyler
I shall make a brief contribution and acknowledge that a number of very succinct and relevant points have been made in this debate, which contrast with the way in which the argument was taken forward earlier in the week. I do not in any way disrespect the cases that have been made on behalf of specific areas of the country, because I took great pride in the constituency which I had the pleasure of representing for a number of years.
I want to make two general points about this whole group of amendments. Incidentally, I understand that the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Teverson is now in a different group, so I will not address that. First, there have been a number of occasions when those who have direct experience of urban areas have suggested that somehow rural areas do not deserve the same amount of attention and that their Members of Parliament do not have as much work. Since I was the representative of a very big, scattered rural constituency during the period of both foot-and-mouth and BSE—and I know that there other Members who had this experience—I have to say that a Member of Parliament can be on 24-hour call in a rural constituency. I do not wish to pursue that. Indeed, I know of the long distances and the difficult topography in the particular case of Argyll and Bute, which I had the pleasure of visiting when I was responsible for rural policy for my party in the other House. It is important in this House that we do not create an artificial distinction between urban and rural constituencies.
I am trying to be brief.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
We welcome all contributors to this debate. Having sat through many hours of debate, I cannot remember anyone, certainly on my side of the Committee, saying that Members representing urban constituencies have a greater workload than those representing rural constituencies. We have said that they are different, but the workload is not necessarily greater. Since I represented a large rural constituency for 26 years, as I said at six o’clock in the morning the other day, I know the workload of rural constituencies. The noble Lord is falling into the trap of forgetting that many rural constituencies throughout the whole of Britain have been represented for years, and represented well, by Labour Members of Parliament.
Lord Tyler
I do not deny that for a moment. I think the noble Lord has been so busy making speeches that he has perhaps not had an opportunity of reading Hansard because that point has been made.
My second point again applies to this group of amendments.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
My Lords, I come now to address the series of amendments that have been spoken to or moved. I agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, about which amendments we are dealing with, except to say that the initial amendment, which was moved by my noble friend Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville, was Amendment 66C. Linked with that was the amendment that relates to the exceptions or the preserved constituencies, to which the noble and learned Lord devoted most of his remarks. However, we are on common ground as to which amendments we are discussing.
On numerous occasions during the Committee stage of this Bill, I have spoken about the principles behind the Government’s approach and our belief in equal votes—one vote, one value. As my noble friend Lord Tyler indicated, that is the principle and it is important that the exceptions to it are limited. I shall therefore deal with the exceptions first. They are the constituencies of Orkney and Shetland and what used to be referred to as the Western Isles—I am not a Gaelic speaker and I do not want to disgrace the Gaelic language by even attempting the Gaelic name.
The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, echoed by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, again raised the question of hybridity. Noble Lords who were present at the outset of these debates, before Second Reading, will recall that that matter was thoroughly debated in this House. The Clerks gave the advice that the Bill was not hybrid and the House had its say on the matter, rejecting the argument, however eloquently and persuasively put by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, that the Bill was hybrid.
The noble and learned Lord asked why the Bill makes the exceptions of the two preserved constituencies. For anyone who has looked at a map, the reason is probably blindingly obvious. The constituencies are at the most extreme parts of our United Kingdom. If anyone has any doubt, let me say that Orkney and Shetland are at the very top and go far north; they are not in a box somewhere in the Moray Firth—my former constituents used to be very irritated when it looked as though the distance between Shetland and Aberdeen was very small. Indeed, the fact that they are so far away is a factor. We are talking not just about geography but about extreme geography, where the dispersed island groups cannot readily be combined with the mainland. It takes 12 hours by ferry from Lerwick in Shetland to Aberdeen on the Scottish mainland. By any stretch of the imagination, that situation is extreme.
We could contrast that with other islands that are already combined with mainland constituencies. Argyll and Bute is one example; it comprises a substantial mainland area together with islands. The constituency of St Ives, which is represented by my honourable friend Mr Andrew George, includes the Scilly Isles. The constituency of, I think, Cunninghame North, which includes Arran and, I suspect, the Cumbraes, is represented by—I am sorry, I cannot remember.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
I have no reason to doubt that. These are examples of island communities which are linked to and can readily be combined with the mainland.
We took extreme geographical circumstances into account. If the preserved constituencies were linked and combined with part of the mainland, their surface area would almost inevitably be larger than that of the largest current constituency. In the course of our debates in Committee, concerns have been expressed by many noble Lords about the distances which people have to travel. I recall in one debate—I cannot remember which of the many—someone talking about the possibility of having to drive for two-and-a-half hours to get to a place. In Orkney and Shetland, it can require two-and-a-half hours even to get to one part of Orkney, let alone travel from Orkney to Shetland—you can travel from Orkney to Shetland by plane, but you then have to go very much further again.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
I was not in the front line, but I have no recollection of these specific seats ever being mentioned in the coalition talks during the famous five days in May. If they were mentioned, they were not mentioned in my hearing in any of those negotiations. I have no reason to believe that they were mentioned. They are self-evidently at the extreme end of geographical considerations.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
Then to whom can we give the credit for making these suggestions? Who originally came up with these suggestions for preserved constituencies and when?
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
Obviously discussions took place in the preparation of this Bill. I honestly cannot think of who took the final decision, no more than anyone else here. Who was involved in which part of which Bill—
“( ) Each constituency shall be wholly in one of Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland or England together with the home and overseas dependent territories.”
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
It is a great privilege to speak to such a full House at such a time and to move this amendment—which would leave out lines 29 and 30 on page 9. It is in order to make the purpose of the amendment clear, and important to look at the lines that are deleted. Those lines say:
“Each constituency shall be wholly in one of the four parts of the United Kingdom”;
and they then describe the four parts:
“England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland”.
Under the present provisions, each constituency would have to be in one of the four countries that currently comprise the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
However, under the Crown there are more dependent territories than the four countries of the United Kingdom. I am talking not about independent countries but about Crown dependencies—home and overseas dependencies, and overseas and home territories. I am suggesting that each constituency should be wholly in one of Scotland, Wales, or Northern Ireland, so that they should each comprise a whole number of constituencies, while the fourth area that would comprise a whole number of constituencies would be,
“England together with the home and overseas dependent territories”.
This is a radical change from the current position, as noble Lords will immediately recognise, with three particular motivations or inspirations behind it.
The first inspiration is the former Member for Thurrock in the other place, Andrew Mackinlay. Noble Lords who knew Andrew, who served in the other place or who heard him speak will have heard him argue again and again that the home and overseas dependent territories should be considered and should be involved in the Parliament of the United Kingdom. He argued that very strongly and very forcefully. He raised it with the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association on a number of occasions. He went a little further and said that the whole of Ireland should be reincorporated into the United Kingdom, which was a step too far in many ways. However, he is the first inspiration.
The second inspiration behind it is the example of Gibraltar. Gibraltar is already included with part of the United Kingdom in a constituency for the European Parliament, so that the south-west of England and Gibraltar together form a constituency. Gibraltarians vote along with people of Devon and Cornwall and other parts of the south-west in one constituency to choose a Member for the European Parliament.
The third inspiration behind it is from France, a country that I am getting to know quite well. As the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Holbeach, will know—I see him regularly either on his way over there or on his way back—and as others will know, in particular the noble Lord, Lord Howell, who is a Minister for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, France has two types of overseas territories—TOMs and DOMs: territoires d'outre-mer en France and départements d’outre-mer. The territoires d’outre-mer are like our dependent territories, but départements d’outre-mer are integral parts of Metropolitan France. They vote in the parliamentary elections, they have representatives in the assembly in Paris and they have representatives in the senate in Paris as well.
We should look at the example of départements d’outre-mer and consider the possibility of incorporating, first of all, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man, giving them the opportunity to vote in our elections and incorporating them into some of the constituencies here. Let them come to Westminster, argue their case and put their arguments before Parliament. Against that proposal, the Minister and others might argue that these territories have had what they would describe as independence for many years. However, their constitutional situation is very similar now to the situation in Scotland, in particular, but also in Northern Ireland and, to a lesser extent, in Wales, in that they have control over their own domestic affairs. However, in foreign affairs, defence and international treaties, the United Kingdom still has responsibility for the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man.
The other territories that I am suggesting could be incorporated are the Cayman Islands, the Falkland Islands, the British Virgin Islands, the Turks and Caicos Islands, Anguilla, Montserrat and the others—I may have missed out one or two. The noble Lord, Lord Howell, will know only too well the problems that have currently arisen, for example, in the Turks and Caicos Islands, where we now have direct control through the Governor of the Turks and Caicos Islands because of difficulties that have occurred there. There is a strong argument that if they were involved in decisions and discussions here in Westminster, their home arrangements would be less likely to get into difficulties. They could get help from our legal system and financial structures and a number of other areas by incorporating them like, as I say, the DOMs are incorporated in the French state.
As I say, this is a radical proposal. I am not expecting the Minister to agree to it straight away; it needs discussion over a period of time.
Lord Dubs
I have been trying to follow my noble friend’s argument and I think that I understand what he is saying, but perhaps he could explain something to me. My geography may be fading at this time of night, but how could a constituency in Northern Ireland go outside the boundaries of Northern Ireland? My geography is not up to answering that question.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
I do not think that the question arises. I am not suggesting that a constituency in Northern Ireland should go outwith Northern Ireland. I am suggesting that the Isle of Man could be incorporated in a constituency either on its own or together with part of the mainland of England, and it would then have a representative in the United Kingdom Parliament. There is an argument for the Isle of Man to be a constituency on its own, as we have just discussed for the Isle of Wight, or for the Channel Islands to be a constituency on its own, or Orkney and Shetland. I am suggesting that they should be considered by the English Boundary Commission so that Scottish constituencies are dealt with by the Scottish Boundary Commission, and the Welsh and Northern Irish by their Boundary Commissions. The English Boundary Commission should look at the overseas and home dependent territories.
Lord Dubs
I understand what my noble friend is saying but I am reading his amendment and trying to understand what the argument is. The amendment says:
“Each constituency shall be wholly in one of”—
and includes Northern Ireland. I do not see how a constituency could be other than within Northern Ireland.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
I think that my noble friend is missing out on the commas. Each constituency has to be in Scotland wholly, Wales wholly, Northern Ireland wholly and either in England wholly or in England together with one or more of the home and overseas dependent territories. Those territories would be allied only to English constituencies, not to Scottish, Welsh or Northern Irish constituencies. I checked all the punctuation with the office to try to make it clear that that is how the amendment would be interpreted. My noble friend Lady Ramsay, who has long experience in the Foreign Office one way or another, has said from a sedentary position, although she might like to say it from a standing position—
Baroness Ramsay of Cartvale
It is very clear what the amendment is trying to do. It is trying to incorporate the idea, which the French have employed for a long time, that their overseas and dependent territories can be in some cases considered part of mainland France. My noble friend is trying to extend that principle to our similar dependent territories, but it should be extended only into England and not into the others. It is quite clear.
Lord O'Neill of Clackmannan
Before my noble friend leaves this point, is it not the case that it would not be impossible—unless this amendment was passed—for Argyll and Bute to be linked to a constituency in Northern Ireland? After all, until fairly recently there was a short ferry service between Argyll and the Mull of Kintyre and the north of Ireland. Therefore, this is not beyond the bounds of possibility. The draconian powers with which the Boundary Commission will be endowed would enable it to play ducks and drakes with all parts of these islands. While it might be mutually beneficial for Scotland and Northern Ireland and a number of areas to get closer, it is not necessary for them to enjoy the same parliamentary constituencies. Without this amendment, we might well have that.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
I am grateful to my noble friend. I know a lot about the Ballycastle to Campbeltown ferry, which my former honourable friend Brian Wilson tried to reinstate. When the noble Baroness, Lady Liddell of Coatdyke, was Secretary of State and I was Minister of State at the Scotland Office, we also tried to reinstate it, with some difficulty.
Lord Knight of Weymouth
The noble Lord will be aware that, within the European constituencies, Gibraltar is within the south-west of England. So there is, in a strange way, some sort of precedent for the radical, reforming idea that he wants the beginnings of a debate on. I remain sceptical, however. Has he spoken to the Gibraltarians, for example, about whether they want representation in this Parliament?
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
I have spoken extensively with people from the Channel Islands, the Isle of Man and most of the dependent territories about a number of issues, including this one, over a long period. I must say that I am not the most popular person in some of our dependent territories. I would not claim that I was, but I wanted this matter to be raised because it is important. There are precedents. However, I do not want to go on too long. I have argued the case—
Lord Howarth of Newport
I know that my noble friend always takes a very responsible view of the implications of any legislative proposals for the public purse, and he will be aware that, very virtuously, it is part of the Government’s intention to reduce the cost of politics. Has he conferred with the IPSA about the implications of his proposals, and can he give the House an estimate of what might happen to its budget?
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
Anything that causes problems for the IPSA seems like a good idea to me; my former honourable and right honourable friends down the Corridor are plagued by it at the moment. However, there are a lot of possibilities for revenue to come in, particularly from islands such as the Cayman Islands if we were to do this, which would far outweigh the IPSA costs.
Baroness Liddell of Coatdyke
I do not often disagree with my noble friend, but I am always sceptical when he advises me about football, and I am similarly sceptical about these matters. The point that my noble friend Lord Dubs makes about the possibility of part of Northern Ireland being included in a Scottish constituency would be quite apposite for Rathlin Island, which is physically closer to Scotland than it is to Northern Ireland. Is my noble friend aware that the Italian Senate has provision for expatriates? Indeed, there is an Italian Senator who actually comes from Melbourne and has to commute to Rome to sit in the Italian Senate. We might consider that when we look at the form of the House of Lords.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
That is a very interesting argument. Of course, in the European Union it is perfectly open for us to stand for constituencies in any country. In fact, the noble Lord, Lord Steel, stood for an Italian constituency. He did not do very well. I think the fact that he could not speak a word of Italian did not help.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
Well, I have parlayed with him about it.
I wanted to raise this matter, but it has taken a lot longer to move the amendment because of the interventions. I am deeply worried about the health of some Liberal Members, who get so agitated when I and others go on for too long. I do not want to be responsible for the death or even the grave illness of any of the Liberal Members, who clearly—
Lord McKenzie of Luton
I am not quite sure that I fully understand the proposition. Should representatives from the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man sit in the UK Parliament and vote on UK tax matters, for example? Does my noble friend seriously think that they would be inclined to do that? We might want some reciprocity.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
My noble friend is absolutely right. There would be reciprocity. They would come under part of our tax regime. That is part of the purpose of it.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
Yes, as my noble friend Lord Knight says, no representation without taxation—to turn something on its head.
Noble Lords have rightly pinpointed some of the practical difficulties. There is an argument in principle for it. Some people, particularly those in the Overseas Territories, find the present arrangements somewhat patronising. We send out middle-rank diplomats to be Governors and lord it over the elected representatives of the islands. Those Foreign Office officials are often insensitive to the concerns of the elected representatives. A number of them have said that they would perhaps prefer independence, or incorporation into the United Kingdom. The proposal has been suggested by some people in the many discussions that I have had, although others are not as enthusiastic about it.
Lord Howarth of Newport
My noble friend has shown generous sensitivity to the concerns of the residents of those islands and recognises that they may indeed resent the fact that in some ways we lord it over them, but if his proposal were to find favour with both Houses of this Parliament, does he not foresee a possibility that they might actually lord it over us? If we were to have a hung Parliament, I think the quite numerous representatives of those territories could in fact be in the position of being able to determine who should form the Government of this country. They would then probably negotiate a coalition agreement far more rigorously and effectively than the Liberal Democrats have.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
They would certainly do it more effectively. However, that situation exists at the moment. The SNP, for example, is committed to the total separation of Scotland from the rest of the United Kingdom. It has said that if it held the balance of power in a hung Parliament, it would push hard on the interests of Scotland in particular. We are already facing that kind of situation, but of course it would be exacerbated.
I have been trying to draw my remarks to a close for some time.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
I am most grateful to my noble friend for giving way. He has put a very interesting proposal to the House, but it is regrettable that we are discussing it at almost a quarter to three in the morning. If we had a Green Paper and White Paper that were properly subject to scrutiny, we would be able to explore it in a much more sensible way.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
I agree completely with my noble friend. He has just reminded me that not all that long ago, within my lifetime anyway, we appointed the Governor-General of Mauritius. He was a distinguished Governor-General who had previously been General Secretary of the Labour Party. If my noble friend had moved on in the Labour Party, he might have had that opportunity rather than coming here. The Governor did a very good job, but I am trying desperately to remember his name. My noble friend has reminded me that it was Len Williams. He proved to be an excellent Governor.
Lord Snape
Is it not a fact that we have present in the Chamber tonight two former high commissioners to Australia? I refer to my noble friend Lady Liddell in front of me and the noble Lord, Lord Goodlad, opposite. They represent another fine example of the Prime Minister of the day doing the right thing and appointing the right people.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
My noble friend Lady Liddell never thought it, but some people thought she had been appointed Governor-General of Australia. I know that she would have made a very good Governor-General, and indeed she and the noble Lord, Lord Goodlad, were excellent high commissioners in their time.
I had better bring my remarks to a close. I am deeply worried about the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford. He is someone for whom we have the greatest of concern and care for his future, his health and everything else. Earlier we saw him nearly have a paroxysm or a heart attack because I and others went on for too long, so I am anxious that he and the other Liberal Democrats are allowed—
Lord Desai
Let me remind my noble friend that the Labour Party should not get romantic about the Empire, of all things. Good as Governors-General are, it is when they are gone that a country feels better.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
That is a wonderful note for me to finish on. I agree with my noble friend Lord Desai.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
It is pretty clear what my noble friend Lord Foulkes of Cumnock is trying to do. It is pretty far reaching and I do not think, frankly, that it is sensible.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
I say that with the greatest respect. As I understand it, Amendment 67C proposes that every constituency shall be in either Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland or England. The words,
“together with the home and overseas dependent territories”,
mean either that a constituency also has to be completely within the home or overseas dependent territories, or that when you add the people to a constituency in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland or England from the home or overseas dependent territories, that constituency is wholly in one of Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland or England. It leaves open the question of how you identify the people from the dependent territories, whether by connection with a constituency in the UK or by reference to their dependent territory.
The current position is that if you are from a home or overseas dependent territory and you are resident in the UK, and you have either leave to remain or do not require leave to remain, you can vote in a UK general election. What my noble friend is in effect suggesting is that we should by this Bill, without consultation and almost certainly against the wishes of the majority of most of the members of the home and overseas dependent territories, absorb them into the United Kingdom. The current position is that while many of them have allegiance to the Crown, they are not governed by our Executive or our Parliament. From my experience—I was the Minister responsible for the home dependent territories for a considerable period—they would be outraged by the suggestion of such a change being made in this way. I know that my noble friend wished only to raise a debate on this matter but from their point of view—they will read Hansard—it is absolutely critical that we make it clear what the effect of the amendment is, and I make it completely clear that we on this side of the House oppose it.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
I am grateful to the noble and learned Lords, Lord Falconer of Thoroton and Lord Wallace of Tankerness, for their replies. I was expecting the reply from the noble and learned Lord Falconer of Thoroton because I remember discussing this with him briefly and so I knew he was sceptical about it. In spite of the fact that both of us are avid supporters of Edinburgh’s greatest football team, the Heart of Midlothian, I could not find any way of bribing, cajoling or encouraging him to go along with the amendments.
However, given all the strange and daft things that Mr Nicholas Clegg, as my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer described him, has adopted over the past few months, I thought there might have been some encouragement from Members on the other side to pick this up and run with it; they might have seen it as a good idea.
It is certainly a probing amendment. Although there have been one or two light-hearted interventions, there are some serious issues to it. The Channel Islands and the Isle of Man are looked after by us and my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer was not absolutely correct when he said that this Parliament did not have responsibility for them because we do. When we sign treaties such as those on human rights, we do so on behalf of the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. This Parliament has some responsibilities. Ultimately, although it is not a power we would wish to exercise, the United Kingdom Parliament technically has the back-stop legislative responsibility for those territories. My noble friend Lord McKenzie will know that, although there is a lot of independence in terms of their financial regimes, we have made it absolutely clear—and the territories have accepted this—they have to get their acts tidied up in relation to offshore finance. They have not done it as much as I would like, but we have certainly had some influence on them.
There are also anomalies whereby, for example, all over the south of Spain there are people from the United Kingdom who have been there for 10 years or more and are still able to vote in UK elections. They live in Malaga or other parts of the south of Spain. I remember when Mrs Thatcher was Prime Minister, her husband, Denis Thatcher, went out there to recruit more and more people to the Tory party and encourage them to register to vote in the United Kingdom. It seems strange that these people now have no connection with the United Kingdom, but can vote in elections here. Yet the good people of Gibraltar are unable to do so, although a lot of the decisions made by the UK Parliament affect them. Some of my noble friends will remember the effect on Gibraltar’s port when we pulled out our Navy.
There are some serious arguments on this and there are many more examples I could give if I had the time. However, I keep worrying about the health and strength of noble Lords opposite. I listened very carefully to the Minister and he said that I might wish to return to this matter on an appropriate occasion. I was wondering whether that might be Report stage. I shall consult the Minister. In fact, I shall have a meeting with him. I know that he is keen on having meetings. He has already offered a number of meetings. Perhaps before I bring back the amendment, I should visit these islands and talk at greater length to the people of Cayman, Anguilla and Montserrat. I visited Montserrat just after the volcano erupted. Some noble Lords will remember that when my then Secretary of State, Clare Short—who did not have the sagacity, wisdom and intelligence of my other Secretary of State who is with us today, my noble friend Lady Liddell of Coatdyke—first met the Chief Minister of Montserrat, who was asking for help with the reconstruction after the eruption, she said in a fit of pique, “They’ll be asking for golden elephants next”.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
Do my noble friend’s ambitions extend to Belize? It seems to me that he could get advice closer to home without so much travelling?
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
I shall come to that in a moment. I was sent out, not by the Secretary of State but by the then Prime Minister, Tony Blair, to Montserrat to calm things down. The airport had of course closed and I arrived by helicopter—I am not an inconsiderable figure, as noble Lords will observe—clad in a very large, bright orange outfit. I disembarked from the helicopter and saw all the cameras.
Lord Taylor of Holbeach
My Lords, I think the noble Lord has the opportunity of moving his amendment and seeking to test the opinion of the House or of withdrawing his amendment. I think it would help the House if he gave an indication of what he would like to do so we can carry on with business.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
I am grateful to my noble friend. I call him that because I got a bit ratty with him the other day, and he is a good friend. He and I meet together—I cannot remember if he bought me a glass of wine or if I bought him one. I was just coming to the punchline and then I was going to sit down. David Brandt was standing there and I could see as I jumped out that he was furious about what was happening. I remembered what they are like in the Caribbean and how they are friendly, so I went straight up and gave him a big bear hug. He had to do the same and all the cameras were taking pictures. So it was that I solved the problems of the Caribbean by getting this warm welcome.
Baroness Falkner of Margravine
My Lords, I really wonder at this hour of the night whether the taxpayers of this country, who are paying for these facilities to be kept open, would wish to be entertained by the anecdotes of the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes. Does the House not believe that we need to get to the business of the House instead of being entertained in this manner because the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, has been carousing in the bars of this Palace?
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
We do welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, to the House, although she is a recent arrival.
Baroness Falkner of Margravine
May I suggest to the noble Lord that I have been here rather longer than him?
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
There is a very simple way that the noble Baroness could have stopped me telling these anecdotes. She could have a word with the noble Lord, Lord Shutt of Greetland. I think I have finished.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
It is about time and I was not going to go on any longer, but I keep getting interrupted. I have decided to withdraw my amendment.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
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Lord Howarth of Newport
I do not know whether I may be permitted to resume these brief remarks that I want to offer to the Chamber. It is difficult when noble Lords on the other side of the House digress into procedural matters and interrupt to waste time. Perhaps I might try to make progress. On the general consideration—
Lord Howarth of Newport
I deprecate another intervention, but as my noble friend always has something worth while to say—
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
I wanted to say how much I am enjoying my noble friend’s speech and I ask him to ignore the loutish behaviour of Members opposite in what could now be described as the Onslow tendency.
Lord Howarth of Newport
My noble friend is possibly entitled to enjoy my speech rather more than to enjoy a photograph of me making a speech. On the general considerations as to why the Bill should be amended—and the Government should be very willing to amend it—to ensure that it addresses itself to the question of improving the electoral register, I add one consideration. It is that, probably, the principal reason why the register is so inaccurate and incomplete, even 20 or so years later, is because we know that a great many people dropped off the register as a result of the introduction of the poll tax. I am not going to go on at length about this because we touched on it in an earlier debate but that political reality—that fact of history—implies a responsibility, at least on the Conservative wing of the coalition, to ensure that the problem for which it carries a large measure of responsibility is remedied.
I turn to two specific and more technical aspects of this amendment and its implications. The Minister was helpful to the House in what he had to say, both about the relevant date and the census, but I remain in some perplexity. Perhaps I have not sufficiently understood the purport of what he was saying or perhaps it is simply that it was not entirely convincing. It seems to me that it must be desirable that the relevant date should be set as late as possible. I heard the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, say that the earlier the relevant date is, the more likely the electoral register is to be complete and accurate. I found that a little counterintuitive and not entirely persuasive. The questions of the relevant date and of a census are bound up with each other, even though our constituencies are not based upon population.
The data that would be provided by the 2011 census are obviously enormously important. They will transform the appreciation that the Boundary Commissioners and everybody else will have about the distribution of population and of how, via electoral registration, the new constituencies should be drawn. It seems very odd, and the public will perceive it as very odd, that the relevant date should be set at 2010 when we have a new decennial census in 2011. While it takes some considerable time, understandably, for all the data emerging from the 2011 census to be established, none the less I would have thought that it would be possible, within a reasonable period, for the experts responsible for the process to begin to take account of that data. It would be very good if they could do so. For these reasons, I would have thought that if we could have a relevant date in 2012 there would be twin advantages: of being up to date, in any case, and particularly in that the information obtainable from the 2011 census could be fully considered and absorbed in the overall process.
The noble and learned Lord said that it all takes time, and of course it does. I do not say that the Boundary Commissioners should not start their work by reference to earlier data but I would have thought that it would be possible for them to update their work as they go along. Certainly, the objective should be—who can possibly disagree with this?—that the fullest account should be taken of the latest and most accurate and relevant data. It seems to me that these issues are worth further examination, for the major reason that it must be wrong and, indeed, unrealistic to attempt to draw equal constituencies without achieving the fullest possible registration and because we will have a rich source of additional data. It is not sensible to rush to conclude matters before those additional data can be properly absorbed.
Lord Soley
My Lords, I had not intended to speak on this matter. I shall be brief, subject to interventions, which I will take if I possibly can.
I am not a great expert in this area, which is why I do not intend to speak for very long, but we have had the advantage of listening to two very good speeches. One was by the Minister, who demonstrated as usual that he is in command of his brief and was willing to answer questions—that is where he scores over some of his colleagues, who are not so in command of their brief and do not answer in the detail that he has—and I learnt a lot from that.
I have learnt an enormous amount from the other very good speech, which was from my noble friend Lord Wills. We ought to listen to him with great care. He has vividly described what was happening under the previous Labour Government in order to increase registration and how to get local authorities to do that well. Anyone who was aware of that during that period, and I certainly was, will be aware of the efforts that he and others made in order to get this right.
My purpose in intervening now is to say that we need to listen and learn from my noble friend’s experience. I do not want to go into the detail of it, but he is right. I simply want to say that a deal on the Bill is possible if the Government would go the extra mile that they need to go to do it. It is crazy to drive through a constitutional Bill without getting the all-party agreement and involvement that we need. It is possible to reach agreement. This may be a late stage but the Government need to do it. They do not have to bring the House into a position whereby it becomes a carbon copy of the House of Commons, but on constitutional Bills they have to try to reach agreement on key issues. That is not impossible. My noble friend has convinced me on this point. I shall not go into great detail about my former constituency. I took an interest in registration, as every MP does. I was always worried about underrepresentation of certain groups in my constituency and above all about the fluidity of an inner-city area where the population turnover is very high.
I say again that the point my noble friend made about the estimates, and using figures from elsewhere, is profoundly important. It is important to note that underrepresentation in some areas is due not to the ignorance or lack of concern of the local population but stems from its socio-economic make-up and so on. I repeat that it is possible to reach agreement on this matter but you cannot do that with a Government who are not prepared to reach agreement. I say to the Government, please to try a little harder.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
My Lords, the Minister’s early intervention was very helpful because a lot of the things that he said answered questions that I had. I can therefore be relatively brief. I hear the sighs of relief. I wish to make two points. First, we have been discussing two issues. One is underregistration. Every party represented in this House and in the other House thinks that that is a bad thing. Every party wants to increase representation and encourage local authorities to get as many people on to the register as possible. That is in all our interests and is something we should all be doing. We should accept the good faith of other parties in wishing to do that. However—this is my second point—what we are talking about today, as my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours said, is not that issue at all. What we are talking about today is the best way for the Boundary Commission to make a judgment about the boundaries and the most accurate figures that it can use.
I have made my next point on a couple of previous occasions, much to the Minister’s annoyance. I have put down Amendment 67C, which says that we should use the number of people eligible to vote rather than those on the register. Questions have been asked about the accuracy of various figures. I and other Members have argued for a figure based on population. The Minister criticised that on the basis that it was an estimate. I have been talking to wiser colleagues than me about estimates. We pay taxes based on estimates. The Barnett formula gives money to Scotland and Wales based on estimates. As my noble friend Lord Desai said to me, the retail prices index, on which our pensions and other benefits are calculated, is based on an estimate. So there is nothing inherently wrong with estimates. As my noble friend Lord Desai also said to me, many things which cannot be measured scientifically are based on estimates. Despite the criticism that we have heard of the population estimate, it is relatively accurate. As has been said, it is fortuitous that the census is taking place in 2011. Therefore, we will get a very accurate measure—not an estimate—of the population, and those over 18, in 2011.
The Minister said that the register of electors is absolutely accurate but that is not the case. As I regularly used to find out when I went round canvassing, a lot of people on the register are dead. I understand that some of them used to vote in Northern Ireland, and not just in Northern Ireland. Of course, people move from one constituency to another and some of us are registered in more than one constituency for different reasons, so there are variations there. However, I argue that the biggest variation occurs—we know this as we have discussed percentages in previous debates—in the percentage of those eligible to vote who are actually registered in each constituency around the country. In some it is only 60 per cent, in others it is nearer 90 per cent, even towards 100 per cent. That is where the major imbalance occurs and that is why using the number of those eligible to vote is far fairer—“fairer” is the relevant word—when working out the boundaries than using the number of those who are actually registered to vote.
Having listened to this debate and having heard the arguments, will the Minister ask the Boundary Commission what its views are and whether it thinks that it would be feasible, better and constitute an advance to make its judgments based on population rather than on the electorate? I would welcome that. I know that the Minister will tell us that the Boundary Commission has given evidence, but will he put this to it de novo? Will he tell it that this submission has come from people who have been involved in elections and has arisen from a debate specifically on the issue which reflected our concentrated thinking on it? I would welcome a new response from the Boundary Commission as that would greatly help the debate and the discussion.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
My Lords, the secretaries of the Boundary Commission were asked about this by the Political and Constitutional Reform Select Committee in the other place and they indicated the significant difficulties that would arise from using a population base rather than an electorate base. I have made that clear. I am sure the noble Lord is not suggesting that they were not displaying their expertise when they answered that question put by the Select Committee in the other place.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
I accept that they were asked the question. But what is the purpose of having debates like this in the House of Lords?
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
I am grateful. What is the purpose of hearing from people who have genuinely been involved in elections and in the conduct and practice of elections—some people have sneered at that—as my noble friend has as a former Minister, if the Minister is not willing to go back and say to the Boundary Commission, “This issue has been raised. Can you have another look at it?”.
Lord Thomas of Gresford
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, referred to the winding-up speech of the Minister which took place more than an hour ago. Since that time we have had a further hour of debate. The abuse that started on Monday—organised by the party Whips, according to the documents that we have seen—is continuing. With great regret, I beg to move that the Question be now put.
Lord Hamilton of Epsom
No, I am not in favour of them either. I agree that they have breached the principle, but I suppose that there is a greater argument for an enormous land mass with a very small electorate in Scotland being represented by one person.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
Let me reinforce the noble Lord's argument. If we have a debate like this for 45 minutes on each of the 650 constituencies, it will take another 450 hours.
Lord Hamilton of Epsom
That is absolutely true. That is why I hope that the Government do not give way on this issue. That rules out any question of creating an exception for the Isle of Wight. It may be uncomfortable for the constituents of the Isle of Wight to be represented by two Members of Parliament, but it would not be the end of the world. I sincerely hope that my noble friend holds out on this.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
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Lord St John of Fawsley
My Lords, in this new atmosphere of sweetness and light created by the shade of Matthew Arnold, perhaps I may congratulate both the Leader of the House and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, on their contributions. Let no one accuse the noble and learned Lord of hypocrisy. Let us remember that a degree of humbug and hypocrisy is what has made us a great nation—a degree at any rate.
I ask the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes of Cumnock, to desist from paying me compliments, because they do me no good. If he continues, I shall apply to appear on “Strictly Come Dancing” and make Anne Widdecombe look like a ballerina—beware. I thank the noble Lord anyhow for his kindness.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
I assure the noble Lord, Lord St John of Fawsley, that my comments were not intended in any way to do him harm, but I will desist, as he requests.
Lord St John of Fawsley
I feel rather dismayed at the enthusiasm with which my suggestion has been achieved. Do not resist temptation all the time. If I am not offered the post at the Vatican, I guarantee that I will not take up any offer on “Strictly Come Dancing”.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
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Lord Maples
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, asks why it should fall to Parliament to make this decision. It seems to me that it must, and that ultimately the will of the House of Commons should prevail but that obviously our views should be sought too. The nature of the rules that the Boundary Commission operates at present involves an inevitable escalation of the number of Members of Parliament at every Boundary Commission review.
I completely agree with the noble and learned Lord that there is no magic number. Those of us who sat in the House of Commons probably would not be able to agree what the optimum number should be. However, there are now 650 Members. I think that there were 625 when I first got in in 1983—or perhaps that was the figure in 1979—and there were 659 in 1997. Therefore, there has been quite a variety in the number of MPs. In the 20th century, the number rose from 615 to 659, but of course that does not take account of the fact that the number of Scottish seats fell by, I think, 13 at the time of devolution. If those are added as well, we are still talking about a number around the 660 mark.
With 600 seats, the average number of voters would be 75,000 per Member of Parliament. I should like to speak—
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
Before the noble Lord moves on to that specific point, does he not agree that, on all those occasions, the figures arose from decisions made by the Boundary Commission and were never imposed by Parliament?
Lord Maples
That is not correct. The boundary commissions legislation states the number of seats in Scotland and Wales. In fact, the legislation says that there will be a minimum of 35 seats for Wales, whereas there are actually 40, and it also gives minimum numbers for Northern Ireland and Scotland. Therefore, I do not think that it is right to say that the matter has been left entirely to the boundary commissions.
I revert to my point that there has been an escalation in the Boundary Commission process. With 600 seats, there would be about 75,000 voters per Member of Parliament. I have tabled an amendment—Amendment 63ZA—that suggests that the House should be reduced in size progressively over the next three boundary reviews to 600 MPs at the next election, 550 at the one after that and 500 at the one after that. If the number got to 500, there would be 90,000 electors per Member of Parliament. I had very nearly 90,000 electors when I was a Member of Parliament and it was not an unmanageable constituency at all. For those with very small constituencies—mostly in Scotland and Wales—frankly I wonder how theirs can be a full-time job, because it was perfectly easy for me to handle an electorate of about 85,000. It is a matter of the number of staff—a point that I shall come to in a minute.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
Does my noble friend know that Lord Hailsham’s qualities were hereditary? His son became very similar. When he was a Minister in the House of Commons he refused to answer any questions during Department of Trade and Industry Questions. I was constrained to call him an “arrogant little shit”. The then Speaker, Bernard Weatherill, said that I should withdraw. I asked which word he wanted me to withdraw and he told me that I knew. That is the kind of behaviour that we do not want to get into in this House. Is that not a good point to make?
Lord Baker of Dorking
I wish that the noble Lord had considered my political career with more care. If he had, he would have known that I represented two inner city London seats, both of which were quite small. I represented Acton, which was very much a working class seat, and St Marylebone, which was not. Both constituencies were quite small, with populations of around 40,000. I then went to Mole Valley which at one time had over 75,000 constituents. I have therefore had experience of representing both an inner city seat with considerable problems, which was the case in Acton, and a large county seat in Surrey.
The noble Lord, Lord Graham, made the point that MPs are now much more stretched than they were in the past. Both the noble Lord, Lord Graham, and I were Members of the House of Commons in the late 1960s, as I believe was my noble friend Lord Howell. We had no secretarial assistance, no research assistance, no desk and no telephone. We had to sit on the green Benches in the galleries opposite to conduct our affairs, and the only free telephone call we had was to our town clerk. We were also given 800 free sheets of parliamentary paper. After that we had to buy them, as we had to pay for all our post.
I ask noble Lords on the Labour Benches to wait. Let me develop this agony column for a while before I am interrupted. I do not believe that, in those days, Members acted in any way less significantly to their constituents. The noble Lord is nodding—of course they did not. Indeed, when I had a larger constituency—Mole Valley, about which the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, reminded me—I had more than 75,000. I did not have a research assistant and I had only a part-time secretary. Were my constituents disappointed in what I gave them? Not at all; at every election, they returned me with a larger majority.
Lord Baker of Dorking
Wait a moment, please.
So I do not subscribe at all to the view that having an average seat in the United Kingdom—75,000 under the Bill; mine was slightly larger—would in any way impair the relationship between a Member of Parliament and his constituents. What it comes down to is that it depends upon the personal activity of the Member of Parliament. Is he prepared to put himself out and deal with the problems of his constituents? Of course he can and today he has infinitely greater technological means than I ever had when I was sitting there without a secretary, a research assistant, a typewriter or a telephone.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
The noble Lord has been talking for more than five minutes. Since I am not listening to him on computer, what can I do?
Lord Baker of Dorking
I am coming to more interesting points. I have only just started on my reminiscences of my time as a Member of Parliament. Let me move on to the argument of the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, who said that we in the United Kingdom are not overrepresented. May I remind the House of the extent of overrepresentation in our lower Houses? We have a population of about 60 million people and 650 or so Members of Parliament. Germany, with a population of 82 million has 600. Japan, with a population of 127 million, twice ours, has only 470. Russia, with a population of 144 million, roughly three times ours, has 450. Can those who are familiar with all the parliamentary activities in these countries say that constituents are any less well served because they have large constituencies? I do not believe that the argument holds up at all.
The noble Lord, Lord Howarth, said, “Ah, but they have länder in Germany.” He should recall that in three parts of our country we have virtually independent Parliaments. We have, in Scotland, an independent Parliament. In Wales, the Welsh Assembly is a Parliament in all but name and the situation is virtually the same in Northern Ireland, where, in fact, all local matters are dealt with by the representative Members of those Assemblies, in a very similar way to that in the länder. So, international arguments are significant. Therefore, I believe strongly that this is a good measure. I have never put it forward from the view of saving money; I simply believe that the House of Commons can operate very effectively with a smaller number of MPs. I will give way to the noble Lord, because I heard his speech earlier on the computer.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
My Lords, I am pleased to take the cue from the right reverend Prelate, because it is fair to say that, while not everyone has yet had the opportunity to speak—
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
When I rose earlier, there seemed to be a mood that I should perhaps give way to the right reverend Prelate, which I was happy to do—
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
The Minister, in his final sentence, dealt with the point that I wanted to make, which has not been made during the whole debate so far. I am not in favour at this stage of having a fixed figure at all, whether it be 600, 650 or even 500. We should give some flexibility to the Boundary Commission, particularly the Boundary Commission for England. With regard to Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, in the past figures have been allocated—a minimum figure for Northern Ireland, Wales or Scotland—but not for England. The Boundary Commission has sensibly taken account of natural boundaries and community interests and come up with relatively sensible proposals. Therefore, it is absolutely imperative—even more so, given some of the other provisions in the Bill—that we give the Boundary Commission some flexibility, so that when it goes through these provisions it looks at natural boundaries and listens to community interests, although sadly it will not be able to do so at hearings now, and take some account of them. Later there is an amendment that says that the Boundary Commission is looking at these constituency boundaries and should start with the largest. I put down an amendment saying that it should start with the smallest. If you give the commission a straitjacket, it will be even more difficult, whether it starts with the greatest or the smallest or starts in the north, south, east or west. That kind of provision gives the commission a straitjacket. If it is only numbers that matter, particularly if it is plus or minus 5 per cent and not plus or minus 10 per cent, we will get ridiculous boundaries, cutting through towns and across natural boundaries, taking no account of these important matters. My noble friends on the Front Bench may not like this—I am not saying that there should be 650 seats—but there should be a clear figure and one that is specified by Parliament. I raised this when the noble Lord, Lord Maples, was speaking. For England anyway—and England is the important country in this regard—I do not think that a figure has ever been specified by Parliament before. We should give some degree of flexibility, taking account of the present boundaries.
That brings me on to another reason to have flexibility. A large number of Members of Parliament were recently elected, because there was a huge turnover in the House of Commons in the last election. They are just settling into their constituencies and getting to know their constituencies and to understand the boundaries. That is why the Boundary Commission should in my view start from existing boundaries. That may add a little bit to it, but it would give flexibility. If we specify so rigidly a figure, it will not be able to start from that. There is already going to be clear destabilisation of existing Members of Parliament. I have heard not just from Labour Members but from Conservative and Liberal Democrat Members that they are already worried about the effects that these proposals will have on the selection and reselection arrangements. It will be doubly difficult if the Boundary Commission is unable to get some degree of flexibility. I hope that the Minister will have some opportunity to deal with that and to say whether some flexibility might be considered.
I endorse what my colleagues said earlier and want to add a couple of points, first on the workload of Members of Parliament. A number of Members have dealt with the matter of the change here very effectively. When I was elected first in South Ayrshire, there were no mobile phones and no e-mail, which have made a substantial difference. I raised the importance of direct access to the Member of Parliament when the noble Lord, Lord Maples, spoke on this subject, and said that MPs do not have to take a personal interest in individual cases that come to them. I can tell the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, that even when I had a majority of 21,000—which was bigger than his ever was—I communicated with and replied to everyone. When people sent petitions about schools closures, I also contacted them. As my noble friend Lady McDonagh, who is in front of me, said, that may be why I ended up with a majority of 21,000 and why her sister has a large majority. It is because we deal with them in that way.
However, I remember the late Donald Dewar, when he was Secretary of State for Scotland and when he was Chief Whip. When he was doing all those important jobs, he used to deal with every constituent person. I remember him on the train—when the rest of us may have been enjoying ourselves a little—dictating long, detailed letters in reply to constituents so that he could—
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
I am in the middle of a speech. Does the noble Lord want to ask a question?
Lord Taylor of Holbeach
The noble Lord has been addressing the House for quite some time. He has not come up with new arguments or new points. The Minister has already spoken and I believe that we should bring this debate to a conclusion.
Lord Bassam of Brighton
The noble Lord will know that the fact that the Minister has spoken does not mean that the debate finishes. Noble Lords are quite entitled to continue the debate after the Minister has spoken and other noble Lords have indicated their interest on this issue.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
I was in the middle of a speech. I have sat through the whole of this debate. Noble Lords will confirm that I have never been out at any stage. I have listened to it. Then a Whip comes in and interrupts me right in the middle of the speech. If there are any traditions or conventions in this House, I must say that I find that kind of rudeness detestable. I was talking about my late friend Donald Dewar and I want to make a couple more points. They also relate to the fact—I am sure that the Minister will confirm this—that we have spoken about the work in Parliament and in the constituency. Those of us who represented Scottish constituencies also had to spend a huge time of travelling to and from our constituencies. It takes a substantial amount of time to travel backwards and forwards between the constituency and Westminster.
I was hoping that the noble Lord, Lord St. John of Fawsley, would be here because he usually makes some very positive interventions in such debates. He made one recently in one of our debates about the setting up of Select Committees. He, of course, was the architect of the Select Committee. When I came into the other place in 1979, there were relatively few Select Committees. There were only a handful: the Public Accounts Committee and one or two others. Norman St. John-Stevas, as he was then, set up a whole range of new Select Committees, one for each department of state. It was a very positive advancement as far as the House of Commons was concerned but with extra work for Members of Parliament, as my noble friend Lord Martin will confirm. He came in with me at the same time and saw those Select Committees being set up.
I served on the Foreign Affairs Select Committee for some time, which was very interesting, but we had to travel overseas with all of the work that that involved. I know that it was a great burden. Then my noble friend Lord Kinnock—I am looking at my good friend—when he was leader of the party, with great wisdom and sagacity, put me on the Front Bench along with my now noble friends Lord Anderson and Lord Robertson. We provided a great team, first under the noble Lord, Lord Healey—Mr Healey, as he was then—and under Sir Gerald Kaufman, as he is now. The responsibility and workload of an opposition spokesperson must not be underestimated. We did not have the resources that Ministers have, with huge departments behind us, but we had a huge amount of work to do. You had all that responsibility of looking after a constituency, sitting on Select Committees, being Front-Bench spokesmen and dealing with standing committees. It is a huge responsibility that has not been fully appreciated.
I do not think that there is enough understanding down in the other place of the importance of this place. That is something which we have to do. We have to educate them about the role and the importance of the House of Lords. However it would be useful, particularly for those people who have not experienced the other place, to meet new Members and to find out exactly what the workload is. While I endorse everything that my colleagues have said in relation to the workload and on all the other arguments about the numbers, I have raised this new point. It is a new point, whatever the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, may say. I usually see him at the airport on the way to Bergerac but it is nice to see him here. Thereby hangs another story, which I will not go into too much; he and I look very different on those occasions. I have genuinely raised another point on the degree of flexibility that we need to give the Boundary Commission. Can the Minister tell us whether the Boundary Commission for England has been consulted about this? I am sure that, if given the opportunity and asked, it would welcome that additional degree of flexibility.
Lord Mackay of Clashfern
Can the noble Lord say succinctly whether he is for or against this amendment?
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
Succinctly, if my noble friend pushes this amendment I do not think that I am minded to support it. I would rather see some degree of flexibility but I am waiting to hear all the other arguments. As I have said, I have already sat through all three-and-a-half hours of the debate and am prepared to sit through the rest of it. I will make up my mind at the end as, no doubt, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, also will.
Lord Rooker
I am not keeping to the strictures of the noble Lord, Lord Baker, as I do not want it thought that I can be intimidated by the Front Bench opposite. What I have to say will sound a lot better in the dog hours of 2 am to 4 am so I shall save most of it for later on. First, I support very much what the Minister said. He cannot answer for a political party at the Dispatch Box. I fully accept that but there cannot be a party manager anywhere in the country that is not working out the consequences of this. On my visit to the Conservative Party conference, I could not avoid seeing the glass-walled room where, hour after hour, the training sessions were going on for the boundary changes. I assume that it was happening at the other conferences as well, but you cannot answer for that at the Dispatch Box and no one would expect the Minister to do that.
I want to share something very brief. I went into the other place in 1974, when it had 635 members. Paradoxically, in 1983, when the boundary change took the other place up to 650, my constituency changed from 52,000 to 76,000. Not many had a 50 per cent increase in one go. It changed my working pattern enormously but it was absolutely manageable. There was no problem, once you got settled in and learnt which sides of the streets were odd and even and where the postcode boundaries were—that is the way I work; I got my hands on the detail—so it is manageable. To be honest, as I have already said, I take the view that there should be fewer than the 650. I would not put a figure on it. I would go much further.
The point from my noble friend Lord Soley was valuable. I was, in a way, responsible for doing the very thing that he said but you actually undermine local government. With my constituency at 76,000, I was once in Gloucester—with its inner-city, dockland and urban renewal problems—talking to councillors as a spokesman for the Opposition. I asked them, “How many councillors have you got?”. They said, “We’ve got 46”. I said, “Well, the size of your patch is about the same size as my constituency”. “Oh, well”, they said, “we’ve got 12 county councillors”. I said, “I’ve got 12 councillors”—and that was all there was for 76,000, because of the size of the wards in Birmingham being 18,000 to 20,000. I was not in a position of shoving on to my few councillors the council work that came my way, but in the end you have that ratchet effect of undermining local government because of that structure. That is the issue to be addressed. Frankly, there is an opportunity to address that.
Your Lordships can have a look at the numbers—it is not scientific and it would be preposterous to say so—and at what was said in our Select Committee report on the role and functions of Members of Parliament and then their numbers. It is the very thing that we should do in this place; the role and function, then the form of getting in here. It is not to say that MPs should be constrained in what they do. They have to be freely elected to speak freely but if they could concentrate on being the cockpit of the nation—the inquest, if you like—and turn their attention to more scrutiny of central government in a very targeted, forensic way, we would have a better democracy for it. That would come as a consequence, but it would be much better if we could take that along with the flow, by a degree of consensus, so that it is not seen to be—this is the perception—for party advantage and party-driven. The outcome may be something that we could all say is a big success. Why spoil it all in the method of getting there if, at the end of the day, we will get something that will be good for all of us? I have stuck to my five minutes.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
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Lord Lester of Herne Hill
I sympathise with the concern expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Boateng. I live in Herne Hill, which is between Brixton, Peckham and Dulwich, and have done so for almost 40 years. I was the area organiser with the SDP when it was founded, so I have practical experience of the problem, which is a real one in any area where there are ethnic and religious minorities.
I think that the amendment is misconceived because it would place a block on the work of the Boundary Commission until the Secretary of State can certify,
“that particular action has been taken to maximise the proportion of black and minority ethnic British residents who are on the electoral register”.
One of the proud achievements of the previous Government, in which the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, had a major role, was the enactment of the Equality Act 2010. That Act and the previous one empowered the Equality and Human Rights Commission to play a major public education role in promoting equality. The EHRC was given powerful, strategic roles in law enforcement and the power to deal with political parties that were too passive and which discriminated indirectly, as well as directly.
That body was set up and the Act gave power for positive action to be taken where there was underrepresentation—for example, of black voters—on the register. That should be the body—well funded and with those powers recently approved by Parliament—to deal with the matter. This should not clog up the work of the Boundary Commission. This work needs to go on right now; it needs to go on every year. If the Equality and Human Rights Commission does not do its job properly, it should be called to account by, among other people, Members of this House. It is not sensible to be holding up the work of the Boundary Commission for that to happen. That does not mean that I do not share the objectives; I simply disagree with the means.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
It is appropriate to welcome the noble Lord, Lord Lester, to this debate. He made an excellent contribution. Indeed, this is becoming a debate because I disagree with him. I believe that the more individuals and organisations that we have encouraging people from black and minority ethnic groups, the better.
Lord Lester of Herne Hill
I said that. I said, in intervening on the noble Lord, Lord Boateng—if the noble Lord heard me—that political parties and voluntary organisations have the major part to play.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
But now, in the contribution that the noble Lord just made, he implied, if not specifically suggested, that it should be left to the Equality and Human Rights Commission. That is not the right thing, unless he meant—perhaps I misconstrued him—that the co-ordinating role should be left to the Equality and Human Rights Commission, rather than the Boundary Commission.
Lord Lester of Herne Hill
I do not want to debate unnecessarily. I simply meant—and I think that it was obvious to everybody from what I said—that political parties have a major role. If they do not perform that role, they can be dealt with by the law and by the equality commission. As we said in the original White Papers in 1974 and 1975, the law itself cannot change attitudes; that requires voluntary action by all our citizens, including political parties, the churches and the statutory body. It should not be some clog on this excellent Bill.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
My noble friend Lord Boateng indicated that the exact wording of the amendment was not something that he would go to the stake on. He said that the purpose of the amendment was to raise the issue. The noble Lord, Lord Lester, has contributed helpfully to the debate.
I want to make just two brief comments. First, when the noble Lord was talking about the great leap forward, I got a bit worried, because it reminded me of George Osborne, who said, I think—I do not know—“We are now at a precipice. Now is the time for the great leap forward”. It always seems to be dangerous when you get your metaphors mixed up. I know that my noble friend was not getting his metaphors mixed up.
I start by mentioning a friend of mine—the noble Lord, Lord Steel, might know him—Professor Geoff Palmer. He is professor of brewing and distilling at Heriot-Watt University. I can see noble Lords wondering, “What on earth has that to do with the amendment?”. Professor Geoff Palmer is one of the world’s experts on brewing and is a renowned world expert on whisky. Noble Lords are still asking, “What on earth has it got to do with the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Boateng?”. Professor Geoff Palmer is a black Jamaican who has lived in Scotland for the past 50 or 60 years. He has made his home in Scotland. He has become a distinguished professor and he knows more about Scotland than I do—perhaps even more than my noble friend Lady Liddell, although I doubt that. He is not the kind of person about whom we are worried. I have no worry at all about Geoff. He is registered and will make sure that all his family are registered. We are talking about groups of people, some of whom do not speak English, some of whom live in difficult circumstances and some of whom have difficulty getting about. Those are the people whom we are talking about getting to and making sure that they are registered.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
I am beginning to wonder whether the noble Baroness understands what electoral registration is about. No one is being denied the opportunity to participate in our democracy by registering. The noble Baroness has suggested that, somehow or other, the Bill will disfranchise people. If people register to vote, they will have the opportunity to vote—although whether or not they in fact vote is a matter for them. I think that there is common ground on both sides of the Committee that we ought to encourage registration.
The proposal that has been made by the noble Baroness’s party is that we should use a relevant qualifying date of 2011, which would mean that the 2015 election boundaries would be fought on data dating back to 2000. I am indicating that we can go better than that. Rather than require that the 2020 election be based on data from December 2011, the Bill will mean that we will use data from December 2015. I very much hope that, during that period, we will have made the kinds of steps forward that have been called for from all sides.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
I am getting slightly confused. No one is suggesting doing away with rolling registration. Therefore, at any time a person can get on the register and it can be as up to date as the people coming in. We are saying that there should be a big effort to get people on to the rolling register, so all these things about 2011 for 2020 are a load of nonsense.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
That just confirms that the noble Lord does not actually understand what this is about. No one is disputing the importance of the rolling register and of getting people on the register to vote. The point of these amendments and of this part of the Bill is the relevant date by which the Boundary Commission has to have regard when determining what the size of constituencies will be. That does not detract in any way from trying to increase the amount of registration, so when it comes to—
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
No, I think I have been very patient. I have been remarkably patient.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
I have not suggested that. If that was the impression that the noble Lord got, I have to correct him. I have not suggested that anyone is standing in the way of having people registered for the 2015 election. With respect, I have not yet heard anything—
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
I am trying to be helpful. When I raised this on Monday, the Minister said that it was helpful. Would it not be much easier to separate registration from the decision of who we should take account of on the boundary? I suggest in Amendment 89C, which we are going to consider eventually, that we should take account of those people who are eligible to vote. We know the figures for that and if we take account of them, it separates it from the question of those who are registered to vote.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
We will come to Amendment 89C but there is a relevant point that the noble Lord, Lord Boateng, made in moving this amendment. He conceded that, for the reasons that I have already given, it was not likely to be accepted but he still made a pertinent point about addressing the underregistration of people from black and minority ethnic communities. That is a pertinent point which we wish to address; I give him that wholehearted assurance.
To take on board the question of the data matching, I found that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, dismissed that. We have not actually heard much that is constructive coming from the Opposition Benches about what they would do after they had 13 years in government to do something. If there is a deficit at the moment, it is not the responsibility of this Administration. I suspect that those who are protesting so much have much on their conscience to protest about, because they did precious little during that period to try to make sure that the deficit has been made up. What we have done, in a short period, is to try to identify some measures—practical measures.
I do not believe, as the noble Lord, Lord Lester, said, that putting it into statute is necessarily a panacea. I believe that there is practical action on data matching. What we will be doing, if I can make it clear in answering some of the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Maxton, is comparing the electoral register with other public databases—I think that I made it clear in the past that they were public databases not, as he was suggesting in his inquiry, private databases—to find people missing from the electoral register, to see how effective that is in boosting its completeness. Based on these trials, we will decide whether to roll that out more widely.
The noble Lord asked about GP records. We are looking into that, although it will be accepted that there are sensitivities around health records. On private records, I have indicated that that is a matter for the public sector although, as other noble Lords have mentioned in this debate, we want to engage the voluntary sector in trying to boost registration. It may well be that engaging the voluntary sector in that way will give us access to other records as well. We will be using match data to identify people and invite them to register. Ultimately, however, it is up to the individuals themselves whether they register but that is what we will be aiming to do. In addition to that, a series of events is planned over the next few months, as part of the introduction of individual registration, where we will consider with stakeholders what further steps can be taken to engage with underrepresented groups.
The noble Lord, Lord Boateng, asked specifically about Operation Black Vote. I am advised that we are talking to groups representing the black and minority ethnic communities as part of the move to individual registration, including Operation Black Vote. He asked if there would be an open door, and I can confirm that the Government will be happy to consider ideas regarding who we should talk to among the black and minority ethnic communities in order to improve registration. I am not suggesting that we have a monopoly of wisdom on this. We are certainly open to the idea. The noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, and my noble friend Lord Lester indicated that there was a role to be played here by the Equality and Human Rights Commission. It is not exclusive, as has been suggested by some who are misinterpreting what my noble friend had to say.
The noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, mentioned broadcasting. At the most recent election, the Electoral Commission used broadcasting to try to get across in different languages to different minority groups. I see no reason why that should not be pursued. There is a variety of ways in which we are trying to do this.
The noble Lord, Lord Boateng, said that determination was needed to do this. I assure him that we are determined to try to address this problem. I believe that it can be done with the sort of practical measures that I have outlined and by there being a willingness and an openness to hear from others who have positive suggestions—indeed, from young people, as the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, expressed earlier. That is more practical than anything that we have heard from noble Lords opposite, with the exception of national identity cards, which this Parliament has debated and rejected.
I say that we can always do more, and this Government intend to do more. That is not to say, though, that a boundary review, which will prevent constituencies being even more out of date than they are at present and votes being more unequal than they are now, should not take place. I therefore urge the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts(13 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Wallace of Tankerness
My Lords, as has been indicated, this amendment is very similar in its terms to the previous amendment, although it focuses on the need to maximise the proportion of private sector tenants on the electoral register. It will therefore not come as a surprise if I indicate that the arguments are substantially the same. I will answer the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer. The difference is that what we are being invited to do with these amendments is put off the boundary review to some indeterminate time. No date is fixed in these amendments, although the noble and learned Lord said that it could be 1 December 2011. But we have heard the whingeing complaints that to do it in 2010 is going to make it tight for a boundary review to report by 2013. Given that, I rather suspect that using a review date for the electoral register in December 2011 is going to make it impossible for the 2015 election to be fought on new boundaries. That is the crucial difference.
The party opposite appears to wish the boundaries for the 2015 election to be fought on electoral data, so far as England is concerned, that go back to the year 2000. We have quoted on many occasions in these debates the report from the Electoral Commission published in March last year, when of course the party opposite was in power. These underregistrations have not suddenly materialised since May last year. I have indicated what we intend to do with regard to younger people in terms of data matching, so I found it rather breathtaking to hear the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, say that we should get on with it. I think that we are probably proposing to do more in our first eight months in office than all that happened during the past 13 years. I give credit for initiatives that were taken, like rolling the register, but all that would come to naught because any benefit that came from that if we hold the 2015 election on electoral data from 2000 would be lost. Any positive steps taken by the previous Administration will not have any effect.
The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie of Luton, mentioned Glasgow, and in previous exchanges the noble Lord, Lord McAvoy, has indicated what has been done there, and it is a positive example. But of course none of that would be taken into account if we had to use electoral data from 2000. I welcome back the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes of Cumnock, because I wondered where he was earlier.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
I have been here or hereabouts for most of the evening. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, will remember as I do that Jack de Manio, when he presented the “Today” programme, had in front of him a message: “Remember, it’s different in Scotland”. Can the noble and learned Lord answer a question for me? All today and on previous days I have wondered what arrangements departments in England dealing with this are making for liaison with the Scottish Executive in implementing this and all other parts of the Bill, if it becomes an Act.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
I am glad the noble Lord mentioned that because I have indicated that using the year 2000 does relate to England, but of course the previous Labour Government introduced a boundary review following devolution. The numbers were reduced and used electoral data which I am sure, if you note the kind of figures quoted by the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie of Luton, must have been as deficient in terms of underregistration in certain categories as the ones they are now complaining about; however, they did not hold back from conducting a very necessary boundary review at that time.
I indicated earlier to the noble Lord, Lord Maxton, that in terms of school records, I certainly hope that the Scottish Government will be co-operative in these matters. I fully intended to write to the noble Lord to follow up on his comment last Monday. He then made a further comment on data protection that I will respond to in a further letter which I will circulate. I also take on the point about departments and the Scottish Government.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
The Minister says that he hopes the Scottish Government will be co-operative. As he knows, the Scottish Government have been urging the UK Government not to go ahead with the referendum on 5 May, and therefore they are not necessarily in an immediately co-operative frame of mind. If this Bill becomes an Act, can I urge him to consider arrangements for joint discussions in the form of a committee or other ministerial meeting to deal with some of the tricky problems that will arise?