Care: Costs Cap

Debate between Lord Foulkes of Cumnock and Lord Campbell-Savours

Monday 14th September 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab)]

My Lords,—

Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament

Debate between Lord Foulkes of Cumnock and Lord Campbell-Savours

Monday 14th September 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)]

My Lords, I should like to clarify the position a little more. I understand that the Government intended that the costs should be shared between the two Houses but, because the Government could not find accommodation in the Commons or the Lords for the ISC to sit, it was decided not to go ahead with that arrangement, and now the Government themselves fund the committee’s expenditure. Following upon the original recommendation, though, we were told that serious discussions were going on about the need to increase the Lords representation, perhaps to four members but at least to three. What has happened to those discussions? If they have been derailed, could they now be put back on the agenda?

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab)]

My Lords, we have had very little notice of this Motion. We should take some time to discuss it because, particularly now, this is a matter of great importance. Until 2010 the House of Lords had only one representative on the Intelligence and Security Committee, and in the four years until 2010 I was that Member. Some of us felt that that one Member was not enough. We lobbied hard to ensure that the number of Members from the Lords should be increased, at least to two, to ensure that there was an opposition Member as well as a government Member on the committee, and that was agreed. That is why we were very surprised in 2010 when the then Leader of the House moved that the representatives should be the noble Marquess, Lord Lothian, and the noble Lord, Lord Butler—with no disrespect to either of them. We accepted that and did not create a fuss on that occasion because we expected that account would be taken of the need to have an opposition representative the next time this matter was considered.

That is why I am very surprised that the noble Baroness the Leader of the House, on behalf of the Government, has come forward again not with an opposition Member but with another Cross-Bencher. With no disrespect to either the noble Marquess, whom I have known for many years, or the noble Lord, Lord Janvrin, who served with distinction as secretary to Her Majesty the Queen for a number of years, neither of them could be said to be the most radical, probing person on this issue. Given recent events, the Intelligence and Security Committee is now under intense public, political and media scrutiny, and that is not going to decrease. That is why I think—with no disrespect, as I say, to either the noble Lord or the noble Marquess—that this matter should be taken away and considered again.

As I understand it, there has been no proper consideration with either of the opposition parties— the Liberal Democrats or ourselves—and now the Government have come forward with two names. With respect to the noble Baroness the Leader of the House, she—and indeed the Government, the Chief Whip, whom I know very well, and the whole Conservative Party—would gain a great deal if they accepted that this was a genuine and sincere matter and had another look at it. I hope she will agree to take it away and look at it again.

Ukraine

Debate between Lord Foulkes of Cumnock and Lord Campbell-Savours

Monday 23rd February 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what discussions are taking place with the governments of other European Union member states regarding the handling of conflict in Ukraine.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab)]

My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours, and at his request, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in his name on the Order Paper.

Taxation: Evasion and Avoidance

Debate between Lord Foulkes of Cumnock and Lord Campbell-Savours

Thursday 6th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

My Lords, I am particularly pleased to have obtained this debate on this subject, which is not just tax evasion and tax avoidance but the social and economic consequences of that tax evasion and avoidance. I must say I am disappointed that no Conservative Members have sought to participate in the debate; it might have added an interesting angle—some spice—to it, although I understand that some of the things that they might try to defend are not easy to defend. Tax is a question of a real moral imperative as well as having profound practical consequences. Those who dodge their legitimate tax obligation commit a severe moral breach, but they also deprive our schools and hospitals of much needed investment and create problems for responsible businesses that pay their full share of taxation.

Tax evasion and avoidance is not new. Plato—I see that the Convenor of the Cross-Benches is looking astonished that I am quoting Plato—said that when there is income tax, the just man will pay more and the unjust less on the same amount of income. How true that is. However, what is new about the current crisis in tax is the scale of the issue and how far out of control we have let it go. The amount that we lose in the United Kingdom in uncollected taxes is a third of the deficit. It dwarfs the personal tax allowance, and it is more than twice the size of the bill for housing benefit—and how often do we hear about all those? That is nearly £40 billion. It is a cash sum the size of the budgets of some government departments, which are being asked to make cuts that are causing tremendous problems. We have heard of them recently in debates on legal aid and defence, and of all the difficulties that are being created for our departments. It is money that could be used to cut the deficit, to build 2,500 new schools or to employ more than 1 million new nurses, teachers and policemen. On its own, tax evasion is costing the average household £530 every year.

These are the real and significant costs of tax evasion and tax avoidance. In responding to them, as well as in talking about the moral principles at stake, I will of course address some of the solutions to the problems, but first we must say that not paying your full and legitimate share of tax is immoral. By making use of our roads or our highly trained workforce, or by breathing our clean air, or even by casting a vote, you are bound by the obligations of society—and one of those key obligations, agreed through our democratic process, is to pay your legitimate share of taxation.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

If my noble friend will allow me to intervene, I wonder whether he might be able to tempt the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, out of his corner on the question of a flat tax in his whole argument.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

I have never been able to tempt the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, on anything up till now, but I am sure that if he feels constrained, he will come in.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Lord Foulkes of Cumnock and Lord Campbell-Savours

Monday 7th February 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

My noble friend might ask, “What’s wrong?”, and there may well be people in the Labour Party all over the country repeating, “Yes, what’s wrong?”. I will tell you what is wrong: we know it is wrong. We know if we were being reasonable, we could never have cut back the Conservative Party to 110 seats in 1997. It would have been a ludicrous result, producing, as the paper states,

“less than 19 per cent of seats in Britain compared with their vote share of 31.4 per cent”.

So here we have it. This system, we are told, is about fair votes; it is about somehow matching the number of seats with the votes cast in a general election, turning out in 1997, in the Labour landslide victory, 19 per cent of seats in Britain compared with their vote share of 31.4 per cent. That is a huge difference, and it is wrong that we should be introducing a system that potentially can lead to results on that scale.

“Such an outcome would be the most severe under-representation of the Tories in British history. The biggest reduction in Conservative seats would occur in the south west”.

It might well be there would be those who would argue, “Well, they are only Conservative seats that are being lost”, but it works both ways because AV exaggerates results and swings. You can get huge swings against a party which could just as well be the Labour Party and we, too, could be reduced to a rump. The Conservatives have simply failed to understand the dangers inherent in the system they want to introduce.

The paper goes on to point out:

“Under SV the Liberal Democrats would have won another 38 seats on top of their existing 46”.

We now know why they want to introduce the system. It clearly distorts. Then what does it say?

“Under SV Labour would also have gained 17 more seats, buoyed up by extra transfers from supports of eliminated Liberal Democrats, further boosting their already disproportionate majority, giving them over 68 per cent of British seats in Parliament on the basis of 44 per cent of the vote”.

This is this super system that we are introducing. This is the system we are told is fair votes. On the basis of the 1997 general election, the landslide victory for Labour, we would have won over 440 seats. What a ludicrous system. What a ludicrous proposition has been put before Parliament.

I go back to the amendment and the question posed by the noble Lord, Lord Newton of Braintree. People have not done their homework, and something needs to be done about that. We need a referendum question that invites people to say no to first past the post. Then let us get the inquiries established because the homework has not been done.

On the classic Queensland AV, the authors go on to say,

“We assessed AV’s impacts by examining whether the tiny differences in second preferences from the SV ballot would have changed any of the SV simulation outcomes in any constituency but we could not identify any such cases”.

The proposition before the House is that we do something we should not be doing. The Tory Government should stop this, and stop it now. We are on Report. They should go away and come back at Third Reading having fully considered the implications of the Dunleavy work from 1997. I know that the Minister will get up and say, “It doesn’t matter. It’s all gone through. It was approved by the House of Commons”, but they did not know what they were doing. They did not understand the implications of this system. We are dealing now with a major change in the constitutional arrangements of the United Kingdom. If we produce exaggerated results that would have given Labour 444 in 1997 and a massive majority much larger than we actually had, we are making a major error, and I appeal to the Government to think again before it is too late.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

That was a very powerful speech by my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours. He certainly does his homework very effectively. Like him, I wish that some Members of Parliament had done it. In the past few weeks, I have listened to a number of Conservative Members of Parliament and to some Labour Members of Parliament, and I am not sure that they know exactly what they voted for and its implications not just in terms of the voting system, as my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours said, but of the reduction in the number of Members from 650 to 600. That is something we will come to later. The purpose of a revising House is to try to draw attention to this, so I am really grateful to my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours, as I am sure the House is.

I want to raise one point. What can we do to stop this misapprehension that everyone elected under this system of AV has achieved the support of 50 per cent of the electorate? We discussed this in a previous debate, and I think it was my noble friend Lord Rooker, in his usual eloquent way, who pointed out the various systems. As I understand it—I am open to be corrected if I am wrong because I do not want to go on if I am—if the system used is that everyone is required to use all their votes, so that if there are 10 candidates, they vote from one to 10, that does apply. However, as I understand it, in the system that has been proposed and that we are being asked to approve, that is not required. You can vote one, two or one, two, three or one, two, three, four and so on—

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Lord Foulkes of Cumnock and Lord Campbell-Savours

Tuesday 1st February 2011 Lords Chamber

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Lord Foulkes of Cumnock and Lord Campbell-Savours

Monday 31st January 2011 Lords Chamber

[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.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Lord Foulkes of Cumnock and Lord Campbell-Savours

Monday 20th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

We provided a referendum on that and the public took a decision. What I am basically saying is that we need far more—

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

Is it not ironic that we joined the European Union without a referendum, but that the referendum was on whether we should stay in? The major change took place without a referendum, but the referendum actually backed the status quo.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Lord Foulkes of Cumnock and Lord Campbell-Savours

Monday 20th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

Behind my noble friend’s intervention is his support for my noble friend Lord Lipsey. That is what he is arguing when he argues about the word “allow”. My noble friend will want to put his case to the House in support of my noble friend Lord Lipsey. I hope the Government will not accept this amendment or anything resembling it.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

I support my noble friend Lord Lipsey. The elegant speech by the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, was a powerful argument in favour of the amendment. I was not convinced by the interventions of the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, and of some people who from a sedentary position said that the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, is unnecessary. At all the counts that I have been to, where an X was not used—perhaps a 1, a tick or a signature was used—the votes are counted as doubtful. The candidates and the agents gather round as the returning officer goes through the count of the doubtful votes saying, “Yes, that is accepted” or “No, that is rejected”, and so on. Does that sound familiar to those others who have been candidates? It was certainly my experience.

The noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, is making it absolutely clear that if in this election an X is put on the ballot paper, it should count. It is then beyond peradventure or doubt. It is a clear indication of preference. I might have suggested some other indications of preference, such as a tick or some other indication that the candidate who has the mark next to their name—it could be a cross, a tick or another positive mark, as well as a 1—is the person chosen. I have the greatest admiration for my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours. He and I have been friends since we were elected together all those years ago and we have worked closely together. I say to him that I do not think it would be the Liberal Democrats but the Tories and us who would go around saying, “Put an X next to our man”, or, as an old friend of mine used to say, “Just put a kiss next to the guy you like”. That is a little old fashioned, although I see the noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, likes the thought of it, which gives me some encouragement. I would certainly support it. This reminds me of the old story about people who would come in and sign an X when you said, “Would you sign here?”. I knew someone who put two Xs. I said, “Wait a minute. What’s the second X for?”. He said, “Oh, that’s my PhD”.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Lord Foulkes of Cumnock and Lord Campbell-Savours

Wednesday 8th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

However, we are measuring the efficacy of the system. We want the system to work. We want it to make a difference in results. If we are to change to a system in which people simply do not use their additional preferences, why change the system? The advantage of the supplementary vote is that people would use their second preferences. That is what has happened in the mayoral elections, as the noble Lord will know from having seen the data.

In the by-election for the Doon Valley ward of East Ayrshire Council, 52 per cent did not use their second preference vote, 68 per cent did not use their third preference vote, 77 per cent did not use their fourth preference vote and 81 per cent did not use their fifth.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

I hope that my noble friend is not casting any aspersions on the good people of Doon Valley, whom I represented for 26 years in the other place. They are the salt of the earth—good mining stock—and people whom he would be proud to know as friends. Indeed, many of them I know as friends. I am sure that he does not mean in any way to disparage them.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Lord Foulkes of Cumnock and Lord Campbell-Savours

Wednesday 8th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

On one of the noble Lord’s examples, trade unions, there was recently an election in the Unite trade union for the general secretary. There was a huge campaign around the country, which was very hotly contested between two very different front-running candidates. Does the noble Lord know what the turnout was? It was less than 20 per cent. Surely, that is one of many examples which fully undermines his case.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

Indeed, if the noble Lord looks at the Scottish results to which I referred, he will see that the average turnout was just over 25 per cent under the system he is advocating.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Lord Foulkes of Cumnock and Lord Campbell-Savours

Monday 6th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Liddle]

Is it the case that under that arrangement what you would have in practice would be more instability? What you would have is a Lords with full democratic legitimacy, elected on proportional representation, which would feel able to overturn the decisions of the House of Commons. Therefore, you would not get stability by that system.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

I remind the noble Lord of a speech he gave to the parliamentary Labour Party about four years ago, where he made precisely the point that is now being made. He said that in the event that we were elected here by proportional representation and they by first past the post we would claim legitimacy where they could not.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

I remember it well. On that occasion, I said that, if senators were elected for Scotland, for example, or for Wales, Northern Ireland or England, to a second Chamber, which was a Senate, they would certainly claim some legitimacy or might even claim a greater legitimacy. However, if the Lords continues as a revising Chamber, I would argue the case for proportional representation for that revising Chamber.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Lord Foulkes of Cumnock and Lord Campbell-Savours

Monday 6th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

I was sitting here confidently waiting for either the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, or the redoubtable noble Lord, Lord Rennard, the bravest of the Liberal Democrats, to get up and intervene, but since no one has, I shall say just a few words.

We are now down to the anoraks, the loyalists and the payroll vote. I am two out of three, by the way. I always hesitate to disagree with my noble friend Lord Rooker, because, just as he said that the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, fills him with awe, my noble friend fills many of us here with awe. He was one of the most effective Labour Ministers and he is an even more effective Back-Bencher and debater, so it is always with some hesitation that we get up to disagree. But I come from a fundamentally different point of view, in that I think that first past the post is, as I argued earlier, the best system, for a range of reasons.

I wonder, though, whether he is right in using the New Zealand example as a precedent for us, for two and maybe three reasons. First, New Zealand has a unicameral Parliament, so there is only one Chamber and only one election takes place. They do not have, as we do, two Chambers and—as I said in relation to the previous amendment—the possibility of having two different systems, one of which produces the Government and the other which produces the balancing force, or balancing Chamber. That is very important.

Also, as far as I remember—and I am sure that my noble friend Lord Rooker will get up and correct me if I am wrong—the example that he suggested was introduced by the Labour Government in New Zealand. They thought that it was right to change the electoral system. I visited New Zealand a few years later and spoke to a number of Labour Party members who were very strongly of the view that they had made a mistake in introducing it. I know that my noble friend Lady McDonagh was General Secretary of the Labour Party and has contacts with the New Zealand Labour Party. I was there on a CPA visit and met them and they were very regretful that they had moved in that direction. Despite his deep knowledge and the detail that my noble friend gave us from the Plant report and the system in New Zealand, he was not able to answer my noble friend’s question about the turnout, about how many people actually turned out to make these great changes in the two referenda that took place, and whether or not that could be justified.

That brings me to two final points. Someone suggested earlier that there was filibustering going on. There was actually a very good debate, which seems to me to be the purpose of these kinds of Chambers. I was pleased that quite a few Conservatives got involved in the debate.

The Liberal Democrats and some Labour people keep arguing that democracy is all about an arithmetical correlation between the number of votes and the number of seats, as exact a correlation as possible. That is democracy, they say—to get the nearest you can to the number of seats relating to the percentage of votes cast. I think there is another, perhaps even more important, aspect of democracy, which is accountability: that is the ability, first, of your party in the constituency and, secondly, of the electorate in the constituency to hold you to account. In my view, that can be done properly only by the first past the post system.

Earlier, the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, made a very strong argument about wasted votes. One aspect of that was dealt with by one of my noble friends. The argument was that there are safe seats that never change. Come up to Scotland and go to Edinburgh South, which was held by the Tories for generations and is now a Labour seat, or go to East Renfrewshire, which was held by the Tories for generations and is now a Labour seat. We used to think our votes were wasted, but we worked hard, we convinced people, we got people on to our side, they voted for us and we got a majority. Surely that is what democracy is about. It is about convincing people and changing people’s minds. It is Gilbertian to think that because someone was born a Tory, they will always be a Tory or because they were born a Labour person, they will always be a Labour person. You can change people, you can convince people. If you will excuse me saying so, I was talking to my noble friend Lord Maclennan—I still call him my noble friend—earlier on. He won the seat through his campaigning, his personality and the Labour Party in Caithness. We had never held it before. We can win these seats and can convince people to change their minds. Surely that is what democracy is about.

Although my noble friend Lord Rooker has very powerfully argued the case for his amendments, I do not find it totally convincing. I say to the Tories that I wish that more of them in this place would have the courage of what I know to be their convictions and would stand up as the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, did earlier today and say what they really believe: that first past the post is the best way of electing people to the House of Commons.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

My Lords, I join my noble friend in calling upon the Conservative Benches to take a view because I do not know whether they really understand the danger that would arise in the event that an AV referendum was successful. It has huge implications for the Conservative Party. They sit there and say very little, apart from the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, and it leaves me quite bewildered.

I can now answer the question that I asked my noble friend about what happened in New Zealand because it is in Review of Voting Systems: the experience of new voting systems in the United Kingdom since 1997. On page 136, it sets out precisely what happened and it is very interesting, so I shall put it on the record:

“New Zealand provides a particularly interesting example because it has changed its electoral system from FPTP to the MMP”—

mixed member proportional—

“system (similar to AMS in the UK) in recent times. The first election to be held under MMP was in 1996, following referendums”—

which my noble friend referred to—

“in 1992 and 1993 which first rejected FPTP and then selected MMP from four proportional options. The 1993 referendum, which was binding, took place at the same time as the 1993 election where 84.5 per cent of voters favoured replacing FPTP and 70.3 per cent chose MMP”.

That shows that, when you ask the electorate what have been deemed in these debates to be complicated questions over the detail of various proportional systems, they actually understand what they are being asked and they are prepared to go out and vote and state a preference. The evidence is there in English-speaking New Zealand. It did it, and it shows the way forward. It is interesting to note, in the following pages in this section, that the turnout in New Zealand elections following the change in the electoral system in 1990 has consistently remained around the 80 per cent mark. That is almost as high as in my former constituency in one election, but it is vastly higher than the average within the United Kingdom. Again, we may have something to learn from New Zealand.

It is also worth noting what the review says is the impact of the system that New Zealand chose in this well-supported referendum.

“Since 1996, New Zealand has been governed by coalitions, usually with a minority of the seats in Parliament. Obviously this makes it more difficult for the leading party to achieve all of its policy aims but, arguably, policy decisions reflect the views of a wider coalition of voters. Tina Day, a Director of the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust interviewed 21 MPs in the 2002-05 Parliament for her research. She argues in her 2005 paper Increasing the representativeness of parliament … that there has been a shift of power from the Executive to Parliament, with select committees (whose composition reflects the multi-party Parliament) assuming a very powerful role”.

That reservation, expressed during the course of that consultation, might well be the one to which my noble friend refers.

The review continues:

“There is also a greater representation of women (around 30 per cent of members), Maori and the Asian population in Parliament. She argues that this has increased the legitimacy and standing of Parliament (notwithstanding the early unpopularity of coalition government). It also means that divisions in opinion within the country are played out in Parliament to a greater extent”.

The point I am making is that if you trust the people and give them the information in a form that they can understand, and put realistic options on the paper, they may well surprise us and actually choose a system that—