Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Graham of Edmonton Excerpts

Tuesday 1st February 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Pannick]

I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Stamford, and that is why I am perfectly content with the existing wording which gives a free discretion to the Electoral Commission to take such steps as it thinks appropriate in all the circumstances as they transpire. We are making heavy weather of this.

[Lord Graham of Edmonton]

The Leader of the House, who is replying on this debate, has a very important task before him. Whatever he is going to do with the various amendments, it is plain that, in the light of the time constraints under which he and the Committee are having to work, he has a herculean task in guiding the Committee and in guiding the Bill into an acceptable form. Even in this House, where perhaps we are better informed than any other forum, there is uncertainty about the interpretation of the Bill.

The Leader of the House will remember, as I do, the 1975 referendum, when I was the Member of Parliament for Edmonton. I did what I had to do. I wrote articles for the local press, and had various meetings, but finally my dilemma on how my constituency wanted me to vote was resolved. My constituents in Edmonton quite clearly said to me, by two to one, that they were in favour of staying in the Common Market. After all the work that had been done in the campaigns and by the political parties, I received three letters—two of them were in favour and one of them was against.

Those who are seeking to alter the system have a great responsibility. I do not doubt for a moment their sincerity in believing that there is a better system, but it is clear from what has been said that changing from first past the post means that there is a herculean task ahead for all of us to persuade people that there is a better system. In three months’ time we will have the referendum, if the Bill in fact passes, so there is a great responsibility on everyone in this House.

Sometimes I think that we take too much for granted and that matters that move us in this place are a common expression of the views of the people in the constituencies and in the country. I do not think that that is necessarily so. I hope very much that the Leader of the House, in replying to the debate, recognises that he now has an opportunity not only to guide the Bill, but to assuage the passions that will be unleashed upon him when a decision is taken. We will face many problems on Report and at later stages of this Bill, so I would welcome a lead from the Minister to indicate that this is a matter upon which he and his colleagues will reflect in a timely way in order to guide the House.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Graham of Edmonton Excerpts

Monday 24th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Graham of Edmonton]

I am tempted to enter this debate because the premise that the constituency is important has a slight flaw. Every constituency has a number of wards. I first became a councillor 50 years ago this year, and my experience is that the best discussions that I have taken part in have been with 10, 12 or 15 people in someone’s house. We did not masquerade; we were proud to say that we were a ward and we dealt with the issue. Every issue in a locality—a constituency—has a resonance in a part of the constituency, whether it is a road pattern, a development, a school or the closure or opening of something. The ward level is very important.

Having taken part in this debate and listened to colleagues, I congratulate them on bringing their experience here and on not being put off by the shaming fact that, as I detect, that experience is seen in some places as irrelevant. We have the opportunity here to remind the Minister—rub it into him, if you like, without being offensive—that there are people out in the field who will be affected by this.

The Minister and his colleagues have made great play of the big society and localism. However, in this Bill they are not paying attention at all; democracy grows and is stimulated by events and individuals. We could all in this Chamber look back on where we made a big move on to a council, into its leadership, into Parliament and so on, but it all stems back to a handful of people who represented the Labour Party, the Tory Party or the Liberal Democrat party, not in a big way but in a small way—and that is the way they want it. Those of us who have an ambition to serve at a higher level have the opportunity to do so, and everyone is here only because they have given service to their party in one way or another. Thousands of people serve the democratic principle from a very low base.

I say simply to Members opposite—I cannot say that I am replying to what they have said because I have not heard what they have said, except the Minister—that they ought to pay serious attention to the impact of the Bill at the local level if it is carried out, because it will damage our democracy.

We all struggle, not just within the Labour Party but in all parties, to maintain democracy. Issues come up that affect the constituency, and then you get local headlines and so on. So far as I am concerned, though, the Edmonton Labour Party that I served, and still have great connections with, has gone through a series of changes in its organisation. From having eight wards it is now down to four because of the change in the demographic profile of the constituency. It is that level, around someone’s table in someone’s house or in a back room, that I am talking about. Last Saturday I went along to the annual meeting of the Edmonton Co-operative Party, an organisation that is affiliated with the Labour Party. There were 20 people there, serious players in the political game. They might not pull many strings or be able to affect a lot, but there were 20 of them on a Saturday morning, from 11 o’clock to past 1 o’clock, who came along and were moved to discuss the issues that affected them.

I support the amendment. I hope the Minister is able to say something that will be helpful to the mover of the amendment, because unless there is a change to the policy of the parties opposite—in general, but particularly on the Bill—we are going to be worse off in the future than we have been in the past.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

My Lords, every noble Lord who has so far spoken in this debate, and indeed in the debate on the previous group of amendments, has put forward the view that it is highly desirable that parliamentary constituencies are aligned as far as possible with local authority boundaries.

The only noble Lord who has demurred from that to any extent is the Minister, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace. He did not deny that, all other things being equal, it would be desirable, but unfortunately he makes the factor of numerical equality between constituencies paramount. He therefore spoke of there being a conflict of factors with which the Boundary Commission is obliged to wrestle. I would not put it in those terms; I would say that there is a tension between a variety of legitimate factors—numerical equality, community, history, geography, and of course alignment with local authority boundaries. The Boundary Commission’s task is to do its best to reconcile those factors to arrive at a judgment that holds them in an appropriate balance, as my noble friend Lord Grocott stressed, in consultation with local people. The present system is a good one, and it seems reckless to upset it in this way.

Local authority areas, like constituencies, ought to contribute to defining and expressing people’s sense of their local community. That is a point that we have been arguing and no doubt will continue to argue in proceedings on the Bill. Unfortunately, they are too much discounted in the Bill. If members of the Government consider that questions of identity—people’s sense of who they are and where they belong—are negligible considerations in politics, I respectfully suggest that they are seriously mistaken. Indeed, any system of parliamentary representation that systematically discounts those emotions within our national life will not last. Supposing that the Government are successful in legislating to bring this into effect, the system of frequent boundary reviews, within the straitjacket of numerical equality that the Government are designing, might work once or even a second time, but I fancy that after the 2018 boundary review the people of this country will say, “This won’t do”. I very much doubt that the system will survive, should it be legislated, and we will do our best to persuade the Government that it is not, after all, a very good idea.

The Government ought to understand that themselves. As my noble friend Lord Graham of Edmonton just mentioned, the Government make much play of localism and the big society, but how can you seriously advocate the virtues of those things if at the same time you design your political structures to inhibit and distort localism and disregard people’s own sense of where they take their place within society?

If the Government think that these considerations are too sentimental or imprecise, I appeal to them at least to consider the practicalities of the working relationships between MPs and elected members of local authorities. My noble friend Lady Farrington wisely advised the Government to look at this from the point of view of local authorities. The reality is that local authorities take decisions overwhelmingly within a context of policy made by central government—of legislation and policy emanating from Whitehall and Westminster. Unfortunately, we have a highly centralised system of government in this country. Indeed, until we have radical decentralisation and greater autonomy for local government in this country, we will continue to need more MPs.

That is partly because so much policy-making and legislation comes from the two Houses of this Parliament; therefore you need an adequate number of Members of the other place to do justice to the policy-making and legislation. It is also partly because local authorities, rather than being free, as they ought to be, to get on and do their work on behalf of their local communities, must endlessly look to the centre for authorisation and make representations to the centre to see whether they can persuade officials and Ministers to modify their policies so that they make more sense for their local concerns. Key intermediaries in that process of frequent negotiation between local and central government are local Members of Parliament. It is therefore very important, in practical working terms, that Members of Parliament have a satisfactory operational relationship with their colleagues and counterparts in local authorities.

Equally, it is very important that elected members and officers of local authorities know to which Member of Parliament they should turn. It is better, therefore, if the constituency boundaries can be drawn so that whole local authorities are contained within them. Local authorities then know exactly which individual Member of Parliament they need to work with. The more MPs they have to deal with, the more confusing, expensive and time-wasting it is for people in local government. Equally, the more confusing and difficult it is for Members of Parliament to maintain the kind of working relationship that they need. Neither the local authority nor the Member of Parliament should need to duplicate, triplicate or otherwise multiply representations, meetings or the dialogue that they have with their colleagues at the other level of government.

A Member of Parliament should champion the place he represents. He or she can champion a local authority area if he or she has a clear-cut relationship with that local authority area. How much more difficult it is for a Member of Parliament convincingly to champion a hotchpotch of different local authorities that happen to fall within different parts of his constituency.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Graham of Edmonton Excerpts

Monday 17th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Elystan-Morgan]

Two and a half hours. To the Speaker of the House of Commons, it may have seemed two and a half years. The Speaker got to his feet and said very politely to him, “Mr Healy, for quite some time now I have been trying to associate your argument with the matter before the House”. Healy said: “Mr Speaker, sir, I apologise profusely. In which case, I have no alternative but to repeat the whole of my remarks”. Nothing like that has happened in this place, and I certainly, apologia pro vita mea, et the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Swynnerton, plead that we did not come within a thousand miles of doing that.

[Lord Graham of Edmonton]

What we have listened to for the past hour and a half is a simple question: what is the evidence? Where are the facts? Quite frankly, I am as puzzled now as I was then, because we have heard only one contribution from the whole of the Benches opposite. Perhaps on this side of the Chamber there are more contributions because this House and the other House always relish people who speak from their own experience. What we are discussing is the impact upon not only Parliament but Members of Parliament, if the change takes place.

We can all speak from our own experience. I became a Member of the Commons in 1974. It is now more than 35 years since then. All I can say is that the workload for a Member of Parliament has grown from the days, for instance, when MPs could say to their friends: “I have to go down to the constituency this month. It is the quarterly meeting of the constituency party and they will expect to see me”. There are some constituencies—I will not mention the political party—which relished the fact that their MP did not live in the constituency. Not any more. The demands of the constituency party on the Member of Parliament are such that he not only lives there, but when they want him, they expect to see him there.

I once sat down to a meal in my first year, in 1974, when I happened to be an official on one of the all-party committees. Our guest was Sir Roy Strong, who lived in my constituency, Edmonton. He said, “Ted, I often see your name doing things in the constituency. That is marvellous. How often do you come there?”. I said, “I live there”. He said, “How often do you meet your constituents?”. I said, “I meet them every day, because I come up from Bush Hill Park station to Seven Sisters and change. I speak to my constituents”. He said, “Yes, but what happens about their problems?”. I said, “Every Friday morning, I go to Edmonton Green market and they stop to tell me their problems. If they are complicated, I say, ‘Come down to my surgery’”. He said, “How often do you meet your constituents in the surgery?”. I said, “Once every fortnight, without fail; but I deal also with big postbags and small”. I said I remembered that I once, from one fortnight to the next, dealt with 100 cases. I listened to them; it was not a case worker or researcher who did that for me. I did it for myself. He said, “That is impressive”. He turned to my other colleague and asked, “Do you have something like Ted’s record in this?”. The other parliamentarian said, “Perhaps I do not go down as often, but I meet my constituents about 15 times a year”. I asked, “How does that happen?”. He said, “I have five towns in my constituency. Three times a year, the Saturday before Parliament meets, I have a surgery. It is advertised. I am there at 9 o’clock, 10 o’clock and 11 o’clock. I have five places where I meet my constituents and I am there three times a year each. That is 15 times”. I said, “Do you mean that you give up three Saturday mornings?”. He said, “Yes, but it is not too far to come to Westminster by train. They can come and see me”.

I reflected upon the different ways in which a constituency MP looks upon his job. Some look upon it as literally being a shepherd—someone who is there to lead the flock, but is always to be there. I listened, as we all did, to the wise words of the noble Lord, Lord Maples, who obviously spoke on behalf of the whole Back Benches on the government side, because we have not heard another contribution to this debate from them. He made me think, because he said that among his ambitions would be to reduce the amount of money spent on staff for Members of Parliament, who do all sorts of things that other people could do. You cannot have it both ways. If a Member of Parliament needs the assistance that Members of all parties have enjoyed for the past 10 or 15 years and this cannot be sustained, that means that the Member of Parliament will take on a heavier workload. I wonder what the Government are intending to do here. Do they just want to save money? Are they reorganising matters so that they are less costly? What will be the impact and effect of that on the quality of democracy and service that we as parliamentarians give?