Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011

Debate between Lord Foulkes of Cumnock and Lord Tyler

Tuesday 27th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tyler]

My Lords—

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab)]

My Lords—

Recall of MPs Bill

Debate between Lord Foulkes of Cumnock and Lord Tyler

Monday 19th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

There have been terrible things over the past five years but we lost that general election. I do not think that we necessarily are committed to manifestos for elections that we lost. Even if we had brought forward a recall Bill, I can guarantee noble Lords one thing: it would not have been as daft, stupid, unworkable, unreconstructed and difficult-to-operate as the recall Bill we have today. This is the recall Bill of the right honourable gentleman the Deputy Prime Minister.

[Lord Tyler]

This is getting somewhat absurd, even for the noble Lord. The Bill is in the hands of Mr Greg Clark. He is the Minister responsible and he has had broad support from the Labour Front Bench in the other place. Perhaps the noble Lord might like to talk about the merits of this part of the Bill, rather than go off on his ludicrous tangents.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

I used to be a junior Minister as well. I know that the Secretary of State, or in this case the Deputy Prime Minister, and the Cabinet work these things out. As a junior Minister I was a foot-soldier. I know exactly what it is like. Sometimes even I had to argue things that were not all that easy to argue on the Front Bench. I may have gone a little over the top.

Recall of MPs Bill

Debate between Lord Foulkes of Cumnock and Lord Tyler

Wednesday 14th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

My noble friend has put his finger on it precisely. That shows exactly the problems arising and why these provisions are not only cumbersome and expensive but complicated and very difficult to deal with. They also provide let-out mechanisms, as my noble friend has described.

I would like the Minister to address two further points which are not specifically included in the amendment but which arise. I was a magistrate for a few years in Edinburgh and I sent people to prison. I had the option of fining them or giving them a custodial sentence. I always made the judgment on the recommendations of the clerk or the social worker or on whatever advice I got on the basis of the circumstances and the facts presented before the court. I made that judgment because I knew that to look at it in a completely impartial way was the right thing to do. If, in addition, I had been dealing with, for example, a Member of Parliament appearing before me, and I had known that, if I had imposed a custodial sentence, this recall procedure would have happened, it would have affected the way in which I decided. Supposing I was doing it, and it was a Conservative Member of Parliament, there might have been some feeling that I should show how reasonable and sensible I was and give them a fine rather than a custodial sentence. It does seem strange that these kind of judgments might be affected because of this.

[Lord Tyler]

Does the noble Lord acknowledge the point he has just made is also material to members of the Standards Committee deciding how long or how short a suspension should be? This is precisely, if I might just point it out gently to him, why I raised the concerns I did in the previous debate.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

Indeed, and the noble Lord will realise it is coming up in subsequent amendments that I have tabled along with my noble friends Lord Campbell-Savours, Lady Taylor and Lord Hughes. Like the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, I am deeply sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, will not be here to move those amendments. One of us is going to have to move them on his behalf. He made these points at Second Reading, and he would have made them again, and we will make them on his behalf later. It is exactly the same point. It introduces a different factor, a complicating factor, to the decisions that are being made.

Electoral Registration and Administration Bill

Debate between Lord Foulkes of Cumnock and Lord Tyler

Monday 29th October 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tyler]

My Lords, I hope the noble Lord, Lord Maxton, will forgive me if I briefly return to this group of amendments.

I was looking forward today to a tour d’horizon by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, with historical analogies, assessments and context, because, as it happens, I am celebrating my birthday today and I thought this would be highlight of the day. I am sorry that the noble Baroness, Lady Gould, is not in her place because she shares my birthday but is not sharing the wonderful experience that we usually have.

The history is important because the discussion on this group of amendments is all about monitoring success and measuring progress rather than the principle of IER. There is unanimous support and—dare I use the word?—consensus in this House that we have to move. The previous Government said so and this Government say so. It is a question of timing and getting it right, a point made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer. I am therefore disappointed that he did not refer to the past history and how we got to where we are. It was in 2003 that the Electoral Commission advised Parliament that it was necessary to move in this direction to improve the accuracy and completeness of the register and it took five years, as the noble Lord, Lord Wills, will know only too well, for the previous Government to take this issue seriously. We would not be having the suggested problems if it was not for the fact that that delay took place under the previous Administration. It is disappointing that the Labour Benches have not been able to recognise that that delay has made it more difficult to achieve success.

That is not least, of course, because during the nine years since 2003, the existing register based on household head registration has dropped dramatically. It is less complete and less accurate than it was when the Electoral Commission first made its recommendation. Until a matter of months ago we had all assumed that the existing register was something like 90% accurate; it is somewhere around 80% accurate. As I pointed out during the Second Reading debate and as the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, has said, in some areas it is much lower than that for the reasons she so eloquently expressed. The delay has made the situation more difficult, and in assessing the progress we must now make, your Lordships have to take that into account.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

Do the experiments in Glasgow and elsewhere not show that if the local authority is given the necessary resources to go around and canvass to make sure that there are returns, the percentage is much higher? Is it not because of the cuts in local authorities’ expenditure that they are not able to do that as effectively as they used to?

[Lord Tyler]

That is for a later part of the Committee stage, but I have sympathy with the point made by the noble Lord. Indeed, I pointed out at Second Reading that the London Borough of Hounslow has done incredibly well over recent years, despite the difficulties that most local authorities have been facing. Hounslow has used a whole number of positive and negative ways to encourage people to register. It is not just where these things happen; it is the degree of attention that the local authority is able and willing to give to these matters.

As my noble friend Lord Rennard has indicated, we have a later amendment which we think would bring back to Parliament the last word in pressing the go button, particularly for 2016. I think that that is more appropriate than asking the Electoral Commission to be, as it were, judge and jury in its own case.

House of Lords: Reform

Debate between Lord Foulkes of Cumnock and Lord Tyler

Wednesday 22nd June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tyler]

My Lords, I promise most sincerely that I will not follow the noble Lord, Lord Gilbert, in any respect. The last two days of debates have been laced with the most delicious, rich irony, which is somehow so traditional in any debate in this place when we are talking to ourselves about ourselves. I counted the number of former Members of Parliament on the list of speakers. There are 68, two-thirds of the total. The first irony is that rather too many of them seem to think that appointed politicians are somehow more reputable and reliable than elected ones, which I think reflects on their previous experience.

Meanwhile, I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Richard, has set the scene best in his book on this subject, Unfinished Business. He wrote:

“Executive control over the House of Commons is stronger in Britain than in any comparable country. Though it frequently masquerades as a defence of the rights of the Commons, in reality many of the arguments against comprehensive reform”—

that is, of this House—

“are a defence of that executive power”.

He hits the nail on the head. The endless defence of the supremacy of the other place amounts to an assertion that we really should have that “elective dictatorship” of which Lord Hailsham spoke in 1976. Indeed, some Members seem so anxious to avoid a House that will assert itself against the Executive, strengthening Parliament as a whole, that they would prefer to have this House abolished altogether, and not be bicameral at all, rather than see it gain the legitimacy that it so richly needs but at present so woefully lacks.

Surely the White Paper and draft Bill, and the central intention to ensure that this place contains an elected element by 2015, should not come as a surprise to any Member of your Lordships’ House. Of the 105 speakers in this debate, 65 have been appointed since 1997, when a Government came to power determined to introduce a democratically elected element to this House. All noble Lords who have come to this House after that date must be absolutely clear that our appointment was not for life but would be temporary. That, too, is an irony.

Much has been made, especially on the opposition Benches, of the need to clarify the future relationship between the Houses if and when these reforms are fully implemented. The best analysis that I have seen concluded:

“There is no reason why any further increase in the authority and effectiveness of the second chamber following elections should undermine the primacy of the House of Commons”.

I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, will recognise that quotation because he wrote it. It is a direct quotation from the Jack Straw/Philip Hunt—the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath—White Paper of 2008. Members on the other side of the House should read their own White Paper before they come to the House and pretend that all these matters are completely new.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

Can the noble Lord answer the question which his colleague the noble Lord, Lord Ashdown, failed to answer yesterday as to why he thinks that a House elected by first past the post should have primacy over a House elected by single transferable vote?

[Lord Tyler]

If the noble Lord had read his own White Paper, let alone the Government’s White Paper, he would know that three tranches of elections to this House—whether it is 80 per cent or 100 per cent—mean that at no time would the membership of this House have a more up-to-date mandate than that held by Members of the other House. That is absolutely clear—and Jack Straw and the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, were clear about it, too.

I am very respectful and appreciative of the wise heads in this House, but they cannot go on asserting the primacy of the other House and yet build up the impression in this House and beyond that they intend to threaten a veto on any reform Bill that the other House sends us. That is yet another irony.

Breaking a habit of a lifetime, I will concentrate for the few minutes that I have on the one area where I think there may well be a consensus in your Lordships’ House. Several Members have questioned the suggestion that 300 is a sensible number for a reformed House. This matter requires very careful analysis by the Joint Committee. The commission headed by the noble Lord, Lord Wakeham—who was here just now—recommended 550; the 2001 government White Paper 600; the House of Commons Public Administration Select Committee 350; the Bill which was sponsored by Messrs Clarke, Wright, Cook, Young and Tyler, 413; and the Jack Straw/Philip Hunt White Paper 435. At no stage has anyone suggested that the workload of this House could be undertaken by 300. We all thought that it was preferable to have a second House of Parliament where it was not necessary to have full-time parliamentarians. I regret that the White Paper has gone on that route when it has never been recommended.

There are five reasons why 300 Members is too small a number. First, as I have hinted, Parliament as a whole benefits from having a proportion of Members who retain an active involvement in other walks of life, which would be very difficult to have with only 300. Secondly, given the relatively long but one-term limited service, it would be difficult to recruit candidates who were prepared to be full-time parliamentarians while they were not able to take part in other activities and go back to another career. Thirdly, your Lordships should note that 80 of the 800 Members of your Lordships’ House are already involved in European scrutiny. It is already a very considerable commitment and I do not think that 300 could do the job.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Lord Foulkes of Cumnock and Lord Tyler

Tuesday 25th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tyler]

I wonder whether I might offer a word of advice to the noble Lord. At 1.30 this morning, in one minute flat, I proposed a very simple and very straightforward amendment to the Bill, which was passed by the Committee. Rather than hearing from everybody who has ever had any constituency experience in Scotland—a repetition of the argument that the noble Lord gave us in 12 minutes of fascinating discussion—I wonder whether very simply we could now proceed to some conclusion.

I support in general what he says. I have two points to make. I think that his amendment may be in the wrong place. It should probably have come in under rule 5(1), where it says:

“A Boundary Commission may take into account, if and to such extent as they think fit”.

That is a very important qualification, and all four of the Boundary Commissions are advised by that.

In addition, this amendment may be too broad in its present terms. The intention is right and it may well be that my noble friend is prepared to accept it, but if the noble Lord would keep quiet now it would be more likely to be accepted.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

I accept the second two parts of the noble Lord’s three-part advice. As for the first part, I think he wants us to believe in fairy stories if he thinks that it was his eloquence that caused the Minister to accept his amendment.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Lord Foulkes of Cumnock and Lord Tyler

Thursday 20th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[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.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Lord Foulkes of Cumnock and Lord Tyler

Monday 13th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tyler]

It is all very well for the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, to change the whole basis on which others on his side of the House have been arguing. The case was made a few minutes ago that those who are going to vote in May 2015 will be 15 or 16 next year. They could also be 14. That is the simple point that I am making—no more than that.

There is another practical problem. It is almost inevitable, I believe, that the referendum will take place on the same day as some other elections—others may take a different view on which other elections. It would be ridiculous to have a completely different electorate for two different purposes, with the referendum in one ballot box—

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

What an opportunity I have been given. Is the noble Lord not aware that there are already two completely different franchises for this election, as some people on this side have been arguing? How hard is he going to struggle to find ways of explaining why he is not prepared to stand up for something that he spoke about from this side of the House again and again? Is that duplicity?

[Lord Tyler]

No, it is not. That is an absurd point. I am simply talking about putting in place a major change in the electorate, changing the whole qualification for voting in parliamentary elections between now and 5 May. I agree entirely with the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, that that is a reform that I supported and that I hope that the Government will get around to. Incidentally, her own Government, I am sad to say, did nothing to move in this direction. I hope that our Government will make progress on it before the general election in 2015 but it would be totally irrational to attempt to do it before 5 May, and that is my last word on the subject.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Lord Foulkes of Cumnock and Lord Tyler

Wednesday 8th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tyler]

The empirical evidence, of course, is the way in which so many other elections, outwith elections to Parliament, operate. I think I am right in saying that all the parties now select their candidates through a form of AV and it is seen to be very effective. Many other professional organisations and trade unions use it and, as was pointed out earlier, the Lord Speaker was elected under that system. There are plenty of examples where people understand that by making a number of choices or preferences they can make a difference.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

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