Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Grocott Excerpts

Monday 7th February 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grocott]

My Lords, this amendment is one of a group. Now that the amendment has been moved, I assume that we can speak to the amendments in the group, of which two stand in my name. I have no intention of saying anything about Amendment 12A, which would require a 50 per cent turnout in order for the referendum to be carried. Technically, I could probably push it a little further but I accept that my noble friend’s amendment is an improvement on that and that it is probably more acceptable to the House, so I do not intend to say any more on that amendment.

However, I do intend to say a couple of words about Amendment 12B, which is not as printed on the Marshalled List. The gremlins got into that somehow. The way in which it is written in the Marshalled List makes no sense whatever. It basically states that the referendum will not be carried if 25 per cent of those who have voted in the referendum have voted yes. Obviously, by definition, if only 25 per cent of the people who have voted in the referendum have voted yes, the referendum would not be carried. The amendment as it stands is nonsensical, which is why there is a manuscript amendment that contains what I intended to say—that the referendum would not be carried unless one in four of the electorate voted yes.

I try to take a common-sense approach to legislation in a debate about a major change to our constitution. We have already decided that the electorate are not the real electorate but the people who are on the electoral roll; they do not include the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, who are not on the electoral roll. However, leaving that aside, I simply suggest that 25 per cent—one in four—of the total electorate should vote yes in order for the change in our constitution to take place.

I have done this at the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, in Committee. He is looking startled and I am not surprised. He put forward an objection to my amendment that required a 50 per cent threshold on turnout. He asked what would happen, given the 50 per cent threshold, if 49 per cent voted yes in the referendum and no one or less than 1 per cent voted no. He is looking puzzled. The point that he made is that, in those circumstances, according to my amendment, the referendum would not be carried. I hope that I am carrying the House with me at this stage. I am not even carrying the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, with me, which is particularly worrying.

I shall try again. His objection was to my 50 per cent turnout threshold—in other words, the referendum would be dead if half the electorate did not vote. He asked what would happen if 49 per cent of the electorate —which was wildly optimistic from his perspective—voted yes and no one, or one or two, voted no. He said that in those circumstances my amendment would be grossly unfair to the yes campaign because, despite getting 49 per cent of the electorate’s vote, it would not carry. That was his point. Has the penny dropped?

[Lord Tyler]

The penny dropped a long time ago—many hours ago. The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, is wrong about the arithmetic. I was talking about the circumstances in which 45 per cent voted yes and 4 per cent voted no, so there would be no qualification. However, if 44 per cent voted yes and 6 per cent voted no, then it would carry.

Once you get into this game, the noble Lord’s colleague in the other place, Mr Christopher Bryant, was absolutely right to say:

“I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman about thresholds in referendums because, broadly, they are not a good idea”.—[Official Report, Commons, 2/11/10; col. 846.]

In fact, with one exception—the Scottish case—thresholds in referendums are a new development in our constitution and I honestly think that we should give them very careful consideration. Mr Bryant was right: this is just as much a change to our constitution as the big changes that we keep being told that this referendum is introducing.

[Lord Grocott]

I am quite hurt. I have brought forward an amendment that precisely meets the noble Lord’s objection, which was—I repeat—that a huge number of people could vote for the yes campaign and it would still not carry if it was less than 50 per cent of the total turnout. So—having established that point, I hope—I have therefore brought forward this amendment which meets his objection. It states that it would require 25 per cent of the electorate for the yes vote to carry, which obviously completely removes the problem he identified in relation to my 50 per cent turnout threshold.

After my long preamble, far longer than I had intended, perhaps I may point out that all the amendment suggests is a change in our electoral system—which the Liberal Democrats, throughout my adult life and probably before then, have been saying is what the electorate is desperate for. I say simply that it would be a good idea if you could get one in four of the electorate to vote in favour because that would validate the referendum. Apparently, they are resisting that commonsense proposal as well.

We are in a silly position, unless someone wants to intervene from the Liberal Democrat Benches. I cannot believe that even Liberal Democrats would argue that if only three people voted in the referendum—two in favour and one against—that would be a valid basis on which we could change our country's constitution. If any of them thinks that that would be fair, right and sensible, will they please intervene? I am not filibustering; I want to get this over with as much as anyone else does. If they cannot tell me, the only difference between us is the level at which the threshold should be. In the absence of any intervention, I must assume that they are in what is, frankly, a silly position.

That would not matter to me too much, were it not for the fact that this referendum will not necessarily be the last one of this Parliament, because I have to take Nick Clegg at his word, confusing as that seems at times. He has described this as just part of the greatest reform package since 1832—greater than women's suffrage, universal adult suffrage, or anything of that sort. We have two more Bills coming down the line: one to establish fixed-term Parliaments and the other to abolish the House of Lords in its present form and replace it with a fully elected House.

It seems that, under the Bill, if three people in the United Kingdom vote in the referendum—two in favour and one against—we change the constitution. I ask those noble Lords who say that this is not as important a constitutional issue as abolishing the House of Lords in its present form the following question. Would any of them be happy with a referendum, should it come—and my word it ought to; it would surely be indefensible to have a referendum on a change in the voting system but not on one which effectively abolishes one of the two Houses of Parliament—on a two, one vote in the country? Or do they think, as I and other noble Lords do, that there should be a rather more convincing demonstration of the public will on abolishing one of the two Houses of Parliament? The danger of the present situation is that we have no threshold, which means that the precedent will have been set that future referenda on changing the constitution, however big that change may be, could be done on a very small turnout and a very small yes vote.

It is late, I do not intend to press this to a Division, but I am intrigued to discover that there is no one, apart from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Tankerness, who is highly skilful and whom I assume will respond to the amendment, can explain that. I assume that the noble and learned Lord has a graphic explanation as to why he would be comfortable with a very low turnout and a very low yes vote changing our country's constitution.

[Lord Lipsey]

I understand why those on the Lib Dem Benches do not rise to their feet to dispute the amendments. But, as one who, on the AV referendum, agrees with them, I shall do and speak for a minute or two. I think that thresholds are a bad idea in referendums. I supported the amendment proposed earlier by the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, because it seems to me that, generally, a pre-legislative vote is a good thing, but I do not support a threshold.

If there is a vote on this, if the threshold proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Davies, is to be reached, it will require 264 Peers to vote in the Content Lobby for it to be carried. If that of the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, is to be reached, we will need a total turnout of 316 Peers. And if that of the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, is to be reached—50 per cent, and 25 per cent yes— we need 395 peers to vote with 198 saying yes. I do not see why we should have a different test for the legitimacy of the vote in the country than we have for the legitimacy of the vote in our own House. Thresholds are arbitrary, they introduce bias, they distort debate and they have absurd consequences. I deal very briefly with each of these. As regards them being arbitrary, look at the range of numbers before us. They could be nice round numbers. As Sir Patrick Nairne, chairman of the independent Commission on the Conduct of Referendums, said, the main difficulty in specifying a threshold lies in determining what figure is sufficient to confer legitimacy. There is no answer to that. On the bias aspect, one side has to achieve only one thing—