Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Lord Foulkes of Cumnock and Lord Jenkin of Roding

Wednesday 19th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

After that eloquent speech, I can be extremely brief. I very much appreciate what the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, has said on this subject. She obviously knows a great deal about it. I had Epping Forest in my constituency, and the Conservatives represented the City as the body that ran Epping Forest. I add one thing. The noble Baroness made the point that this should be a completely non-party issue. I have a long quotation, but at this hour of the night I shall keep it very short. I shall quote what Mr Herbert Morrison said at the time of the 1944 Act, when there was some suggestion that perhaps the City organisations should disappear. He said:

“the City of London occupies an extraordinary and unique place in British history and in the history of British local government”.

He went on:

“it is such a special place that, if we can possibly help it, we will not destroy its Parliamentary identity”.—[Official Report, Commons, 12/10/44; col. 1993-94.].

The noble Baroness has adumbrated what might happen if the City were redistributed among its neighbouring authorities. That could cause great difficulty for those who seek to represent those areas and the City in the other place. It could make for considerable complications when determining priorities and matters of that sort.

Of course, this does not affect the City's government of its own. It is a bicameral legislature. It is sometimes argued by historians that our Parliament was based originally on the bicameral legislature of the City, which is why my noble friend who moved this amendment said that the City does not owe itself to this House; we owe ourselves to the City.

I hope that noble Lords on all sides of the House will recognise that this is a strong case. As my noble friend pointed out, this is a body that is less than the size of a normal ward in London. With its tremendous historic and constitutional position, it really should not be split up but should be added as a single entity to another constituency—whether Westminster or one of the others. So be it. That is for the Boundary Commissioners. We seek to argue—I say this with some force to my noble friend—that it would be an act of constitutional outrage if the City were split up between a number of local authorities. I strongly support the amendment spoken to by my noble friend and by the noble Baroness.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

Amendment 80 is in this group so it would be appropriate for me to say a few words in relation to that now. With no disrespect to the previous three speakers, who talked about the City of London and the capital city, I am not a nationalist, as everyone here knows, but I must point out that London is only one of the capital cities in the United Kingdom. Edinburgh is the second capital city of the United Kingdom.

I will be accused of special-case pleading, but a lot of the arguments put forward in relation to the Isle of Wight, which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, dealt with in his usual careful way, apply to other areas as well. I do not have the Hansard yet, but I could quote from the eloquent arguments put forward by the noble Lords, Lord Fowler and Lord Forsyth, about the Isle of Wight and relate them to other parts of the United Kingdom. However, I want to argue a wider range in relation to the capital city of Edinburgh.

Amendment 80 would have five preserved constituencies in the city of Edinburgh council area. When I stood in West Edinburgh in 1970 and in Pentlands in 1974 we had seven constituencies in the city of Edinburgh. I never won Pentlands or West Edinburgh on those occasions and had to move down to Ayrshire ultimately to get elected. I gave a graphic description of the constituency that I used to represent at about six in the morning on Monday or Tuesday; I think it was Tuesday for normal human beings outside but Monday for parliamentarians. Then, prior to 2005 Edinburgh was reduced to having six constituencies. My noble friend Lady Liddell of Coatdyke was responsible. I do not blame her in any way, but she was the Secretary of State who had the duty and the responsibility to reduce the number to six on that occasion. Subsequently, from 2005, the number of constituencies has now been reduced to five. Yet, during all this time, the population of Edinburgh has been rising substantially while that of Glasgow has been going down.

In Edinburgh East, represented brilliantly now by Sheila Gilmore, there are 74,505 electors; in Edinburgh North and Leith, represented—brilliantly, I had better say also—by Mark Lazarowicz there are 74,762 electors; in Edinburgh South, which Ian Murray now represents, again brilliantly, there are 68,884 electors; and, in Edinburgh South West, which is represented by the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, even more brilliantly—or had I better say, equally brilliantly?