Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Hamilton of Epsom Excerpts

Wednesday 8th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tyler]

As was pointed out only a few minutes ago, the noble Lord was very selective in the ones that he quoted, and 25 per cent is not a bad turnout in a local election. I would argue that AV is not perfect and I have never said it is perfect, but I believe it has real advantages in terms of the relationship between the elected Member and his or her constituency. In that respect, in many ways it has advantages over a pure proportional representation system. Incidentally, my noble friend Lord Hamilton was utterly wrong in describing anything in the Bill now as a proportional system. It is not. Some of us might think that in due course there may be a proportional system, but this is not a proportional system and I would never claim that it is. If his opposition to AV is based on that, I am afraid he is deluded.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom]

Does my noble friend accept that if we move to an AV system, we are more likely to have coalition governments and, if we have coalition governments, we have coalition agreements, such as we had at the beginning of this Parliament, and we end up with a government who are governing with a new manifesto that is only vaguely related to the two manifestos of the parties in the coalition?

[Lord Tyler]

All the evidence from Professor John Curtice, who was mentioned earlier, is that AV is less likely to result in a balanced Parliament, as we have now, than first past the post. The noble Lord may be able to look to the future and have a better idea, but the academic evidence is that AV is less likely to do that because there is a sort of bonus towards the larger party as a result of the election.

I find it incredible that so many Members opposite are ignoring what has been said by their party leader—and in the Guardian today—by saying in absolutely firm terms that they believe that AV is the right way forward. Of course, they are being consistent with what they said previously in Parliament and in the election, but I find it quite extraordinary that so many Members opposite feel that it is necessary to rebel against their own party at this juncture and to weaken the position of their new leader.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

My Lords, I will speak only very briefly on this. Being one of the newest Members of this House, I have yet to have a general election where I have not been able to vote. I have to say that I am very grateful to the new coalition Government for having announced some more Peers because, shortly, I will not be one of the newest Members of the House, which I look forward to greatly.

The question that I pose is slightly less about voting in general elections than about giving Peers the vote in the referendum. Two groups cannot vote in general elections: Members of this House and European Union citizens from other member states, who can vote in our local and European elections. I am particularly interested to know why one group of people who are excluded from parliamentary votes have been given the right to vote in the referendum, whereas another group—those European citizens who appear on our electoral register—have not been given the right to vote in the referendum.

Obviously there are some Members of this House who are great experts on AV and other systems. I am not. I am an anorak on other things but, your Lordships will be pleased to know, not on this one. The people who really understand different electoral systems, however, are European citizens living in our country and voting in our European and local government elections, who have enormous experience of systems from their own countries. If ever there was a well informed group to vote on what system would work here, it would be them. The question that I hope may be answered is why one group of excluded voters was singled out to vote in the referendum but not the other group.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom]

My Lords, I am a bit troubled by the proposals of the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, because I am a passionate believer in an appointed House. The passion with which I believe in an appointed House will become more apparent as the Lords reform Bill finds its way through this Chamber. One thing that worries me about the proposals of the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, is that Members of the other place have a vote in general elections but also stand for election in those general elections. If Members of this House were to press to have the vote in general elections, we would make it more likely that others would suggest that we should therefore stand for election here as well. There is a correlation between standing for election and having the vote. It is a dangerous business to play with the idea of Peers in this House having the vote, when many of us will be trying to resist the whole idea that this should become an elected Chamber. That is one of the reasons why I totally oppose the proposals of the noble Lord, Lord Dubs.

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

How much I admire the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, for his courage at every stage of this Bill. This is obviously not an appropriate Bill to make a change in relation to whether Members of this House should vote, which I think the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, accepts. The noble Lord, Lord Dubs is right, however, to put the amendment down. Under this Bill, Peers will have the right to vote in the referendum on what the voting system should be and yet, once they have played their part in deciding what the voting system should be, they have no right to vote using that voting system. This is an opportunity for a short debate as to what the right course in relation to Lords voting is.

It is obvious, historically, why the Lords cannot vote in Commons elections. The nature of Parliament was that the Commons were elected because they were representative. We were not representative. The whole lot of us turned up in the upper House. Therefore, there was no need for any elections. The whole lot of us still turn up in the House, except for the hereditary Peers, who vote for hereditary representatives. Does that mean, therefore, that we do not need to have a vote in relation to the Commons? The answer is no, because the Lords no longer select the Government. The Government are selected exclusively by the Commons. We have influence in relation to Bills. We have a say in what happens in relation to policy. However, it is only a say. We do not vote in relation to the body that selects the Government.

Therefore, once the prisoner issue is dealt with, we, and we alone, are the only group in the country that has no say in selecting the Government of the day. The fact that we do not have the vote is an historical anomaly. There are 700 or 800 of us; no doubt the figure would go up to about 2,000 if the coalition had its way. Therefore, the number suffering the effects of this anomaly will increase, but it is an anomaly that no longer has constitutional justification. In those circumstances, one is obviously looking not for agreement from the Government that this matter should be dealt with in this Bill, but simply for the Government’s view on the matter. I do not expect any time to be allocated to this matter in any legislative programme, but if the Government were to express the view that it needed to be dealt with at an appropriate time, that would have a very significant effect on the processing of the issue.

I do not agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, that if we have the vote people will want us to be elected. The public will not think that because we can vote we should be elected. The question of whether we should be elected depends very much on the quality of what we do and the extent to which we persuade the public either that we should go on as we are or that there is a need for change. It is an important issue and one that will not get an airing in this House except on Bills such as this.

I return to the point that I started with. We are rightly accepted as participants in the decision-making process of whether there should be a change in the system. We are accepted as participants in that process because there is no basis on which it could be said that we should be excluded from that. That is the view that the Government have taken. We are included in Clause 2 as people entitled to vote in the referendum. The Government think that it is wrong that we should be excluded from that. There must be a basis on which the Government have come to that conclusion. I support that conclusion, because the obvious reason for saying that we should be included in the process by which a voting system change should be effected—if it is to be effected—is that there is no democratic reason why we should not be allowed to be included. It is wrong to say that this is a matter for other people; everybody accepts that it is a matter for us. It is an important issue. It is like a whole range of anomalies that you can say do not really cause any problems. However, how you put the constitution together and the extent to which there are consistencies in the constitution are very important. A justification for Peers not being entitled to vote is now required in a constitutional sense. If there is not one, the right course for a Government who are prepared to follow the logic of their constitutional position is to say—

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

I disagree with what my noble friend Lord Grocott says for two reasons. First, there are other people who have very important roles in relation to what happens to policy legislation. Even in the period of my noble friend’s pomp, I suspect that the Cabinet Secretary was more important than he was, but nobody ever suggested that he should be deprived of his vote. The Chief Justice is more important than almost everybody in the country in determining what legislation means, but nobody suggests—

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom]

Does the noble and learned Lord accept that the Cabinet Secretary would not have had any vote on legislation?