Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Lord Harris of Haringey and Lord Lipsey

Wednesday 19th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Strathclyde]

This gives me an opportunity to read out the final couple of lines of my brief.

The noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, has worked hard on all this. He said that the amendment was probing. He has demonstrated great care in bringing this issue forward again. I am extremely happy, if it would be helpful, to facilitate a meeting with him and my officials to go through the matter with him.

[Lord Lipsey]

I am extremely grateful to the noble Lord for that offer, which I would happily take up for my education, if not for that of his officials. It enables me to make a point, because a lot more noble Lords are in the Chamber now than when they were enjoying pudding and I was moving the amendment. With the exception of the utterly disgraceful spat between north and south on my own Benches, anyone reading the debate, which has lasted for just over an hour, would agree that it was in the very best traditions of this House—as was the previous debate about the Isle of Wight. Without going into the past, I hope that I speak for the House in being glad that, on this amendment, we have returned to our great traditions in this Chamber.

Perhaps I may make one point to the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde. Perhaps, having just come into the Chamber, he missed the point that I made at the beginning, which goes to the heart of this matter. He rightly said that these estimates of notional electorates would be imprecise, which of course is true. However, a figure that is imprecise is not necessarily worse than a figure that is utterly precise and utterly bogus, and that is what the electoral registers are. By consent, the registers are only 91 to 92 per cent accurate overall. Also by consent, in many areas their accuracy is very well short of those figures. There would also be imprecision in the estimates—of course I accept that and it would be silly to do otherwise—but I think that that imprecision would be very much less than the precise falsity represented by the numbers on the electoral register.

[Lord Harris of Haringey]

Before the noble Lord concludes and decides whether he wishes to press the amendment to a vote, perhaps, like me, he was so bowled over by the very engaging offer of a meeting by the noble Lord the Leader of the House that he missed whether he accepts the principle that the unfairness of the underregistration is differentially spread around the country and that, if the Government’s objective of fairness is to be achieved, something must be done about that in this Bill.

[Lord Lipsey]

I wholly agree with what the noble Lord says, and I would have drawn attention to it if I had not been so excited by the prospect that, instead of a weekend off after tonight, I shall spend my time closeted with the Minister’s officials. I can offer them 3 am on Sunday morning or 7 pm on Sunday evening in between writing my speeches for Monday’s proceedings on this Bill, should there be any. I do not want to go on for too long, so I shall resume my seat and beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 66ZA withdrawn.

Amendment 66ZB