Scotland Act 1998 (Modification of Schedule 5) Order 2013

Debate between Lord Foulkes of Cumnock and Lord Steel of Aikwood

Wednesday 16th January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

I think that that has reinforced the point.

I also want to raise the question of 16 and 17 year-olds, as I have done on a number of occasions. I do not think that people have realised—and certainly the Scottish Government have not realised—the practical problems of identifying and putting these 16 and 17 year-olds on the register. It has been estimated that there may only be a few thousand who are ultimately eligible to vote. We should ask the Scottish Government to tell us how they are going to do this. It has already been made clear that they will have to undertake and fund it; we should ask them how they are going to carry it out.

Finally, one particular problem is that there is so much preoccupation with the referendum by the Scottish Government, the First Minister and Deputy First Minister, by members of the Scottish Cabinet and SNP Members of the Scottish Parliament—they are so preoccupied with the run-up to it and winning it—that other areas that we have devolved to them are being ignored. The health service is not being properly supervised and problems have already been raised. Some of our Labour colleagues in the Scottish Parliament have brought up these concerns. In education, housing, and social work, problems have been raised that are not being properly addressed. We should say to Members of the Scottish Parliament, and particularly to the Scottish Government, that a whole series of very important matters has been devolved to them and they should not let their preoccupation with the referendum and with trying to win it take their attention away from doing a good job in the areas already devolved.

[Lord Steel of Aikwood]

My Lords, when my noble friend Lord Forsyth began his speech he said to my noble friend the Minister that if he were on a charge of murder he would happily employ my noble friend as his defence counsel. I hope my noble friend is honing his skills because they may be needed. I get the impression that my noble friend Lord Forsyth has a completely unhealthy obsession with the First Minister of Scotland, and it is not one that I share. It may go back to the fact that they were at university together, but I thought that his otherwise powerful speech was spoilt by too many references to one individual of whom we should not be afraid.

Scotland Bill

Debate between Lord Foulkes of Cumnock and Lord Steel of Aikwood

Thursday 15th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

My Lords, the noble Duke has raised a very important issue. I had indicated my intention to oppose Clause 30 stand part, and this is grouped with the noble Duke’s amendments.

The noble Duke has raised one or two of the anomalies. My noble friend Lord Maxton intervened with another. I hope that the Minister will listen carefully to this because this whole issue is bristling with anomalies. There are all sorts of difficulties that could happen. When we got an informal briefing from the Minister and some of his staff, I raised the question of students—postgraduate and undergraduate students, researchers. There are all sorts of people who would be difficult to identify as Scottish taxpayers or not. There are diplomats and civil servants who move up and down regularly who might be difficult to identify. We have heard about people on the ferries and the sleepers. There are fishermen who could be classified in this way. There are all sorts of difficulties that arise.

There are some people in Scotland who may have a residence in England, Wales or Northern Ireland, but also a third residence overseas. How do the days resident overseas come into the calculation? This question was raised when we used to have residence qualifications for Peers’ allowances and I recall that it created tremendous problems, which was one of the many reasons why we moved to the arrangement we now have. This is an absolute minefield of anomalies.

If the theory of the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, is right—he has been arguing it very carefully—that Scotland is inevitably going to be a much more highly taxed area than England, imagine the situation that could arise on the border. The noble Lord, Lord Steel, might look at this; it might be a way of regenerating the borders. More and more people could live just over the border, living in England to pay English tax but coming into Scotland to take advantage of the better services in Scotland. There are all sorts of difficulties that could arise.

We were most grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, and the noble Lord, Lord Sassoon, for organising the seminar. I do not know about other people who went to it, but I came away with more questions at the end than I had at the beginning. Again, the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, raised a lot of the questions in that seminar. In his reply, perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Sassoon, can tell us whether, following that seminar and the genuine points of concern that were raised, some further consideration has been given to trying to make a simpler system for identifying who Scottish taxpayers are. The arrangement in the Bill is far too complicated to implement effectively.

[Lord Steel of Aikwood]

The noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, may not know that there are already people living just south of the border who take advantage of the services in the borders. I refer particularly to people from the Berwick-upon-Tweed area who make good use of the Borders General Hospital because it is a very good facility. I have a simple question for the Minister. How does Section 80F operate? It is about the number of days that people spend in Scotland or the rest of the UK. If we do not have any border controls we do not know who is coming in and out. I am assuming that we are not having that even under Mr Salmond’s proposals. Therefore, I simply do not see how it will work. Perhaps the Minister will enlighten us.

Scotland Bill

Debate between Lord Foulkes of Cumnock and Lord Steel of Aikwood

Tuesday 28th February 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the Minister for a helpful reply. As he said, it has been a good debate, notwithstanding the manifest flaw in my drafting of the amendment, for which I take full responsibility. Now that the Minister has drawn our attention, or reminded those of us who have seen it and been involved with it previously, to the concordat on international relations, it might be useful to draw it again to the attention of the Scottish Government in the gentle, kindly way in which he is used to doing.

Perhaps I may say to my noble and learned friend Lord Boyd that even people of my age—even people at the age of my noble friend Lord Maxton and upwards—can come up with ideas occasionally. He was worried about sanctions. Let me underline that I am not suggesting this but, for example, if any expenditure incurred by a devolved Administration were ultra vires—in other words, they were doing things for which they had no responsibility whatever—sanctions could be available.

I should like to say how much I appreciated the intervention of my noble friend—perhaps I may call him that—Lord Wigley. Perhaps I can put it this way: we are not used to quite such sensible nationalists in our parts. I thought that his contribution was very diplomatic, sensible and helpful to the debate.

Now we come to the noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, who I suspect, from what I know of him and from his contribution, is not quite used to the hurly-burly of Scottish politics. He will know—if he does not, I will tell him—that all of us here involved in the hurly-burly of Scottish politics are willing to make our arguments in any ring that is made available. The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, suggested one the other week. The noble Lord, Lord Steel, and I have discussed it.

[Lord Steel of Aikwood]

The noble Lord is underestimating the noble Lord, Lord Kerr. When he was ambassador in America and I was on a visit to Washington, he invited me to stay. He added to his invitation, “You’ll have had your tea”.

Scotland Bill

Debate between Lord Foulkes of Cumnock and Lord Steel of Aikwood

Thursday 26th January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

There is scope for another amendment, I think. I have tabled enough already, so perhaps the noble Lord might think of tabling one. Everyone here from Scotland will know that list Members have a habit of choosing a seat they would like to stand for in the constituency and then concentrate on opening an office and taking up issues in that constituency. If the constituency Member cannot deal with a problem—elected Members will know that some problems are insoluble—the candidate will jump on the bandwagon and take it up.

Dual candidacy is a real problem. I have tabled a later amendment proposing a general review of the electoral system. I will discuss that in greater detail when we get to that amendment. It would be a better way of dealing with the issue in the longer term, but this would deal with it in the short term. Our electoral system was set up with the best of intentions, but even the noble Lord, Lord Steel, who was involved, now recognises that it is not fit for purpose. One of the problems is the question of dual candidacy. I hope that other Members who have experienced the problems of dual candidacy in Scotland will comment, and I certainly hope that the Minister will consider the potential change and, at the very least, explain why there should be a different system in Scotland from the one that I understand operates quite successfully in Wales.

[Lord Steel of Aikwood]

My Lords, the noble Lord has raised two very important, if minor points. We have to remember that when we were legislating on the then Scotland Bill, in which I was involved in this Chamber, the additional Member system, as it is known, was completely new to this country. There were one or two loose ends that were not quite right.

On Amendment 16, which is the noble Lord’s more substantial amendment, I entirely agree with him. As Presiding Officer I had to deal privately with complaints from constituency Members about the activities of regional Members. It is slightly worse than the noble Lord said because quite often regional Members had not just stood and been defeated, they were intending to stand again in the constituency. People were sitting in the Parliament—quite unlike this place—and had every intention of fighting a Member sitting on another Bench. That made for bad relations within the Parliament and some people—I shall name no names—exploited it disgracefully. In Wales—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

My history is wrong; I shall have to check with the noble Duke afterwards.

The amendment would set up a general review of the electoral system for the Scottish Parliament, and it is about time that we had such a review. As was said in one of our earlier debates, the additional member system was very new to Scotland—and to the United Kingdom. It is similar to the German system but was very new to us. It was devised through multiparty discussions—not all parties were involved—as to what might be a suitable proportional system to ensure that no party would have an overall majority, an issue to which we will come back; and to ensure that all parties were properly represented in the Scottish Parliament.

However, because the system was new, my recollection is that it was recommended that there should be a review after two Sessions of the Scottish Parliament. We are now into the fifth Session and there has been no review. It is about time that we had one and, as I understand it, it is our responsibility to suggest, if not actually to set up, a review. It was recommended by the Arbuthnott committee, and I shall come back to that in a moment. If I may mention him, even one of the architects of the additional member system or at least one of the people involved in the discussions that led up to it, the noble Lord, Lord Steel—I blame other people for the system—has been reported as saying he believes that it is no longer fit for purpose. I have spoken to a number of people who have come to the same conclusion.

Let me deal with one or two of the problems. First, we have two types of MSPs—list Members and constituency Members. When the system was set up, the division between them was much greater than now. There has been some attempt to bring them together and to reduce the differences. Nevertheless, it is clear that constituency Members have the primary constituency responsibility. Regional Members, who have responsibility for a whole region, in the past few Parliaments have been increasingly requested and required to take on responsibility for individual cases referred to them. What is of course happening is that members of the public go first to their constituency Member who takes the matter up with officials and resolves the problems, if possible. However, some problems do not have a resolution. Those of us who have been Members of Parliament will know that problems can be intractable. However, the individual constituent does not necessarily think that and then says he will go over the head of the constituency Member to the regional Member. Later on, if the regional Member cannot deal with the problem, it comes to the MP. No doubt, if a senate were to replace this place, and if the MP could not deal with the problem, the constituent would go to the senator. That is a debate for another day.

There is a division between the types of MSPs. They have different workloads; there is overlap, competition and confusion between them. We heard earlier that some regional MSPs target constituencies. They set up offices and work in constituencies with a view to fighting the sitting MSP at the next election. The system seems almost designed for them to do that. Having two types of Members creates a problem.

Secondly, there is confusion in voting. Members will understand that and will have seen it happening. When you explain to members of the public that they have two votes, they find it difficult to understand the purpose of those two votes. It is difficult to explain their purpose. We in the Labour Party—those in other parties do exactly the same—say, “First vote for the constituency member and then vote for the party”, but it is inevitable that someone will say, “Okay, I’ll give my first vote to this Labour constituency member, but I like the Greens”, or the Liberal Democrats, “as well, so I will give them my second preference”. Sometimes there is confusion that it is a preference vote, which of course it is not; it is a different voting system.

Arbuthnott stated in his report:

“The Commission found that there were problems with the public understanding of the electoral system”.

The report states that especially confusing was the regional vote, which the public believed was a second preference vote. Survey data indicated that a significant proportion of people did not understand how seats would be distributed within the Scottish Parliament.

I now want to tell you briefly about my experience. I was asked by the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, when he was First Minister, whether I would help to lead the Labour campaign in the Lothian region. I agreed to do that. He said: “George, let's put you on the list”. I put my name into the hat and we had a ballot among Labour members in Lothian and, lo and behold, I came top of the list, so I was number one, on the understanding that never before had any Labour member been elected for Lothian. I told my wife that there was no way I would be elected. I told the Chief Whip here, because I was a Member of this House, “Don't worry, I will be here every day because there is no way I will be elected”.

I campaigned for the constituency members of the marginal seats to ensure that I was not elected. Imagine that. You are a candidate and you campaign for the constituencies just to ensure that you do not get elected. I did all my campaign work in two marginal seats: Central Edinburgh and Linlithgow, which we held. Unfortunately, we lost two seats that we thought were safe. I thought, “That doesn’t matter, the Greens always get two in Edinburgh, there is still no way that I will be elected”. However, the Greens did not do so well in that election. I was at the count walking up and down. The husband of Sheila Gilmore, who is now Member of Parliament for East Edinburgh, Brian Gilmore, who is head of the statistics department at Edinburgh University, came up to me and said, “George you’re going to get elected”. I said, “No, no, I’ve told my wife. I’ve told the Chief Whip”. Brian is the best statistician I know. I phoned Liz and said “There is a chance that I may be elected”. She said, “What?” I said, “I’ll phone you back later”. An hour later, she had had the chance to adjust to all that, and I left Steve Bassam until the following week. I was elected because of the system. I had not campaigned for myself. I had spent not one penny on the election. I produced no election leaflets whatever. I held no meetings at all for that election. It was astonishing, but there I was, a Member of the Scottish Parliament.

[Lord Steel of Aikwood]

That was your mistake: if you had done, you might not have got elected.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

I treat the noble Lord, Lord Steel, as a friend of mine; in fact, he was at the party as well. He will not be coming to my 80th, that is for sure—no, that is a very good point.

It illustrates the absurdity of it all. When I was a Member of Parliament for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley, which we considered a relatively safe seat, I had meetings all over the place. I produced literature and spent almost the limit to make sure that I got elected. In 1997, I ended up with the largest majority in Scotland as a result. We worked hard to get elected. It seems absurd, having worked hard year in, year out to get elected as a Member of Parliament in that constituency from 1979 to 2005, I just floated in easily to the Scottish Parliament. It is a strange system.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

That anticipates another point. Whoever was the architect—I think that it was Henry McLeish and others of his ilk who said, “This system will never produce an overall majority for any party. Be reassured. Don’t you worry”. Look what we have—less than 45 per cent of the people who voted in that election voted for the SNP, yet it has a relatively substantial majority in the Scottish Parliament. It does not work. When I asked one of the other people, who I will not name, and who I have just remembered was also one of the architects, why this came about, he said, “Because the system is weighted in favour of the rural areas”. That was deliberate—not to ensure that nobody got an overall majority but that Labour did not get an overall majority. It was not done for party political advantage.

Like my noble friend Lord Maxton, I argued for first past the post. I am still arguing for it and will fight to keep it for the House of Commons. I know that some Members opposite will join in that fight. Let us keep it there; I wanted to have it for the Scottish Parliament, but we did not get that. I would like to have a review to go to first past the post but, to use a phrase that was used earlier in another context, the genie is out of the bottle, and I do not think that we can go back. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Stephen, that if we are to have a proportional system and we have single transferable voting for local government, there is a logical case to have the same voting system for the Scottish Parliament and local government. It would simplify things. I am not advocating this but simply saying that there is a logical argument in favour of it that could be put to the commission that will be set up.

I would also argue that one dreadful thing that has happened is the way in which we now have completely different boundaries for Westminster, Holyrood and local government. It is confusing everyone. In Wales they hope that with the revision of Westminster boundaries they will get them to coincide again. I hope that something will be done in Scotland to get the boundaries to coincide again. Let us say that the commission was convinced by the arguments for the single transferable vote. We would then have a simplified electoral system, with two elected levels having the same system. If we could get the boundaries more contiguous, we would make things simpler for the electorate and do a great service.

I look to the Minister when I say that I hope that some consideration will be given to this. A lot of time has passed since the Scottish Parliament was set up. Many people have suggested a review. I had been led to believe in the corridors and the Lobbies that the Government were looking at this and moving in this direction. I hope that they will move relatively quickly, and I hope that the Minister will be as sympathetic as he was in his answers to my previous amendments. I beg to move.

[Lord Steel of Aikwood]

My Lords, unlike the noble Lord, Lord Browne, I will show some gratitude to the noble Lord for his very good party on Saturday night by supporting the amendment that he moved. My serious point is that he was right to say that we were promised, at the time that the Scotland Act passed into law, that there would be a review of the election system after a couple of Parliaments. This has not happened and I hope very much that, whether or not we agree the amendment, there will be such a review.

I would support a review for four brief reasons. First, there is the question that we discussed, and that I will not repeat, about the clashes between regional Members and constituency Members. Despite what my noble and learned friend said earlier in debate, I know for sure that it has been a problem in some areas. The second reason is the one the noble Lord referred to just now. Since the Scotland Act came into being, we have changed the electoral system for local government. People are now familiar with STV, which they were not at that time when my noble friend and others were pressing for it to be adopted in the Scottish Constitutional Convention.

I come to my third reason. I used to be a very strong supporter of first past the post. Partly because I was the only Member of the House of Commons who represented three counties, I felt very strongly about the relationship between a Member and his constituency. However, the way the Boundary Commission has operated in Scotland—not just in creating differences between Scotland and Westminster but within Scotland itself—is extraordinary. Constituencies no longer represent communities but arithmetic. For example, a chunk of Midlothian was thrown into the Borders at the last election, despite the fact that a public inquiry had stated that it should not happen. The old first past the post basis under which one represented a community has gone, because of the obsession with representational arithmetic rather than communities.

The fourth and final reason why I support an inquiry is that we now have in Scotland no fewer than four election systems that we invite the electorate to indulge in. We have first past the post for Westminster, a party list system for the European elections, STV for local elections and a regional list system for the Scottish Parliament. I cannot think of any democracy in the world where there are four different systems for different elections.