Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
Lord Howarth of Newport Excerpts(13 years, 8 months ago)
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Lord Howarth of Newport
Can my noble friend clarify his thinking in two regards? His amendment provides that the Boundary Commission should be able to give priority to the very important factors set out in rule 4 over the requirements of rules 1, 2 and 3.
The Lord Speaker (Baroness Hayman)
Because the point that the noble Lord is making is quite complicated, it would be simpler if I put the question first and then we had contributions after that.
Lord Howarth of Newport
I apologise to the Lord Speaker and to the House. Will my noble friend clarify his thinking, so that we really understand what he is inviting the House to agree to? He is saying that the Boundary Commission should have the power to give priority to the very important considerations set out in rule 5 and give those priority over the requirements of rules 1 to 4. Rule 1 is the one that says:
“The number of constituencies in the United Kingdom shall be 600”.
It is my view that the Boundary Commission might frequently conclude that an exception should be made if it had discretion to exercise its judgment and to attach significant importance to various factors in rule 5 such as geography, local government, local ties and so forth, within existing constituencies’ boundaries. The consequence could be that the number of constituencies in the United Kingdom would rise significantly above 600. I would favour that for a whole variety of reasons, but would my noble friend draw out the implications of his amendment in that regard—or what he thinks the implications could be for the eventual number of constituencies in the United Kingdom?
Lord Bach
My Lords, my noble friend’s Amendment 75 alters the extent to which the Boundary Commission is able to take account of possible factors extraneous to the size of parliamentary constituencies when conducting boundary reviews. It alters the weight that it can place on these additional factors. It would permit the Boundary Commission to give priority to special geographical considerations, including the shape and accessibility of a constituency, to local government boundaries, and any local ties when defining the new boundaries. It would subordinate the size of a constituency, its fit within the electoral quota, to these other factors if, but only if, the relevant boundary commission were to deem the other factors to be of exceptional importance.
The various boundary commissions are acknowledged experts in this field. They have been doing their job for a long time. It is their job to come to an informed and reasoned definition of a constituency boundary. I judge that it is they who are in the most suitable position to make an assessment on whether geographical or local factors are of exceptional importance to a particular constituency.
My noble friend’s amendment strikes us as reasonable, but I put it to the Committee that, if the Government had been amenable to accepting the Front Bench’s Amendment 75A that we debated last night, during the long debate that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, answered in the wee small hours, the amendment before us would not be necessary. As the rules currently stand, without this Bill being passed—I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Davies, for reminding the Committee of the 1986 rules, which stand today—boundary commissions are permitted to use their judgment in cases where geographical or local factors may need to override the size of constituencies. We think that this should remain the case. A concerted effort to achieve more equally sized constituencies can be consistent with allowing the Boundary Commission this discretion.
Lord Howarth of Newport
How does my noble friend consider that the Boundary Commission could be in a position to make a well informed judgment as to whether factors in rule 5 should be considered to be of exceptional importance if it is not to have the opportunity to hear representations from members of the public in the process of inquiries?
Lord Bach
Obviously, I do not believe that it can. That is why I think that public inquiries, which we will come to later, are of such fundamental importance to the position.
Of course, the Boundary Commission draws up conclusions at present and then, in many cases, particularly where there is controversy, there will be public inquiries in order to see whether the original suggestion by the Boundary Commission should stand or be altered. Of course, arguments as to whether these are exceptional cases or not would be argued out both early on, I suspect among the commissioners themselves, and then also at the boundary review—that is, the public inquiry. That has proved to be incredibly successful over the past number of years and I think that the boundary commissioners, if they were standing here, would agree that this has prevented some Boundary Commission suggestions that were not very sensible coming into effect. Therefore, I agree with my noble friend’s point.
My noble friend Lord Lipsey emphasised in his amendment that he is thinking about exceptional factors. He is not advocating—nor are we, for that matter—that the factors mentioned in rule 5 should dominate in all cases, just that they should be given their due weight and that, in some areas, this weight is pretty significant. Existing rule 6, by which I mean rule 6 in the 1986 rules, says:
“A Boundary Commission may depart from the strict application of rules 4 and 5 if special geographical considerations, including in particular the size, shape and accessibility of a constituency, appear to them to render a departure desirable”.
That does not make the present rule 6 more important than size but makes it equally important. Both are considerations that the independent Boundary Commission can take into account. The difference with the way in which the Bill is drafted, of course, relates to the size of the constituency; unless the constituency is within 5 per cent, none of the considerations in the Bill’s rule 5 will come into effect.
I remind the Committee that if the flexibility in the variance in the size of constituencies were increased from the 5 per cent stated in the Bill as it stands, the problems that my noble friend set out when moving his amendment, and which his amendment seeks to avoid, would be far less likely to occur.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
My Lords, I start by indicating to the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, that in the days when I had to attend economics lectures from the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, I also had to read Richard Lipsey’s Positive Economics. I hope he will take it in the spirit that it is intended when I say that I find the noble Lord’s contributions much more engaging than what I recall of his textbook.
The amendment would allow the Boundary Commission to decide, in particular instances, that the factors in rule 5 are so important that it should override the preceding rules. It has been evident from the debates that we have had so far that the core principle of this part of the Bill is to ensure that votes cast across the country have an equal weight. The best way to achieve this is to ensure that there is broad equality in the number of registered voters in each constituency. The principle of parity must be paramount.
In introducing his amendment, the noble Lord said that there was consensus in the Committee on the principle of equity, although he indicated that there was no consensus on the 5 per cent or 10 per cent variation from the electoral quota figure. I pay tribute to the noble Lord’s ingenuity for coming forward with this amendment. He claims that it is a very narrow exemption but, while ostensibly reasonable, the amendment would undermine the principle of parity that we have said ought to be paramount by allowing other factors to take precedence over the equal weighting of votes. This could, and almost certainly would, perpetuate a situation in which constituencies can be of very different sizes, and votes cast in one part of the country can have a very different weight from those cast in another.
The amendment would override rule 2(1), so it would not just be a question of a debate about a 5 per cent or 10 per cent variation. Indeed, by that rule being overridden, the variation could be sizeable indeed. Existing differences in constituency size matter. There is a 41 per cent difference between Manchester Central, with 85,522 electors in 2009, and Glasgow North, with 50,588 electors in 2009. That means that 10 voters in Glasgow North have the same weight as 17 voters in Manchester Central. Frankly, that simply cannot be right.
Lord Howarth of Newport
One of the reasons why we are still here in this Committee on the 13th day is that the Government persist in the illusion that if they equalise the number of electors in every constituency, desirable of course though that is in principle, that will produce votes of equal value. The reality is that differential turnout and differential marginality mean that votes in different constituencies will continue to have different values. If the coalition really wanted to achieve votes of equal value, it would have put an alternative option on the referendum for people to vote for proportional representation. Why did the Government not do that?
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
Obviously the noble Lord is right to the extent that differential turnout has an effect on the value of votes, but the Bill at least gets everyone to the same starting point. The argument that seems to be coming from the noble Lord is that somehow or other you can have an equal starting point that would then be compounded by differential turnout, making the situation even worse. That is what I find unacceptable.
Lord Lipsey
I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this brief but informative debate—my noble friends Lord Howarth, Lord Soley, Lord Davies of Stamford and Lord Bach. They have all made substantial contributions to moving the argument forward. I thank the Minister for a comprehensive reply but I cannot apply the phrase “moved the argument forward” to his remarks. I know there is a feeling in many quarters of the House that this debate has gone on too long; I share it. However, one reason for that is that scrutiny is not just about making changes to the Bill; it is about listening to each other’s arguments and hearing what we are saying—not merely repeating one’s starting position. I was saddened to hear the Minister repeat what we debated last night when the noble Lord, Lord McNally—I join in wishing him a very quick recovery—repeated this stuff and nonsense about the equal weight of votes. Indeed, he did not seem fully to have wrestled with the concept because he thought we were talking about something to do with differential turnout.
Differential turnout has nothing to do with it. In a majoritarian system only some votes affect the result of a general election. Those are votes cast in marginal seats. Everybody else’s vote has no weight whatever, except in so far as it is used to claim that the system is biased in some way after the election. Sadly, under our system most people might as well not bother going to the polls for all the chance they have of affecting the result. To talk of some cast principle of equal weight for equal votes when our system embodies a quite contrary principle seems wrong. Moreover, it is sad that it is still being repeated after 13 days of argument
Lord Howarth of Newport
My noble friend has been very generous and tolerant. Does he share my puzzlement that the Government are so obsessed by this question of exact numerical equality across electorates in different constituencies, given that the existing distribution of electors across constituencies in this country is not out of line with what is found in other countries, such as Canada, France, Australia and the USA? The Minister expressed his great concern that there was a 41 per cent difference between the size of the electorate in one constituency and another. However, is it not the case that in the United States of America, where it is generally held that the distribution of districts for the US Congress is pretty equal, there is an 88 per cent difference between the electorate of a single seat in Montana and the electorates of two seats in Rhode Island? There is nothing particularly out of line in our existing arrangements by international standards. Unless we are prepared to tolerate some numerical inequality, we will get the absurdity that all sorts of other valid and important factors will be too much discounted.
Lord Lipsey
My Lords, I come to another point that the Minister appeared not to have absorbed fully in our earlier discussions. He again said that there was constant upward movement in the number of seats in the House of Commons. This is simply incorrect. In 1918 there were 707 seats in the House of Commons— 57 more than there are today. In 1983 there was precisely the same number of seats in the House of Commons as there is today. The figure varies, and I agree that there is a flaw in the rules at the moment. It is like the Schleswig-Holstein question; I have forgotten exactly how it works but it has something to do with the use of the harmonic mean. There is a flaw in the rules that can tend, if not otherwise compensated for, to raise the number of seats. You just deal with the flaw; you do not need a Bill of this kind to deal with that. It simply is not true to say that the number of seats has increased.
Lord Harris of Haringey
I am particularly grateful for that intervention because I can see the value of such an analysis, though I must admit that I was not previously aware of that historical fact.
What is it that creates a community? Do we value community in terms of representation? I should have thought that for the quality of our democracy we want to value the quality of representation and the way in which there is a link between the community that elects a representative and that representative. It is interesting that if you look at constituencies and the history of where there has been division by a river, you see this problem. For example, my noble friend Lady Morgan of Huyton talked about the Mersey. I have a report from a Boundary Commission inquiry into that issue. The Boundary Commission clearly wished to cross the Mersey on that occasion but was overwhelmed by the nature of the representations. It stated that,
“local opposition is a factor to be weighed, but it cannot of itself be decisive”.
It went on to say that,
“the unusual factor in this case, is this: opposition to the proposed cross-Mersey constituency is voiced by all political interests as well as a number of individuals without any party political affiliation. The Commission will know whether such practically universal opposition to an aspect of their Provisional Recommendations is unique. However, if not unique, I suspect it is something which is rarely found”.
Another inquiry report looked at crossing the Clyde. The inspector concluded,
“that strong feeling exists on this issue on both sides of the Clyde and that none of it is supportive of the Boundary Commission’s proposal for a river-spanning constituency … It is I think significant that their opposition does not appear to have a connection with any party political advantage that might be derived from having or not having a cross-river constituency but it is based purely on a conviction from their local understanding that an attempt to span the Clyde is quite simply wrong for the area”.
The report went on to talk about the differences between the communities.
That is why we should recognise those considerations regarding the Bill. I particularly want to speak, but shall not speak at length, about Amendment 75ZB, which deals with constituencies not crossing the Thames. I appreciate that those who are not part of London may not realise that there are such strong feelings between the north and south of the city. I speak as someone who, although an unabashed north Londoner, has had the privilege of representing the whole of the city when I chaired the Association of London Government, now London Councils. I was very well aware of the strong feelings between the north and the south. It goes into every aspect of community life. A study published just a few weeks ago demonstrates—I think this is fascinating—that 54 per cent of Londoners living north of the River Thames never, not occasionally, but never, venture south for work or cultural pursuits. It is interesting that south Londoners are more likely to go north. I make no comments about the quality of life in south London or about whether anyone would wish to travel south. I have travelled south of the river on many occasions for cultural pursuits. However, it is interesting that more than half of north Londoners have never done so. If that does not indicate that there is a difference in terms of community feeling, then nothing does.
The same survey demonstrates some quite interesting findings about the different interests of north Londoners and south Londoners. I am a north Londoner, and 55 per cent of north Londoners rated eating out as one of their top three interests, followed by the visual arts and popular music. While eating out and visual arts also ranked highly for south Londoners, they were more likely to enjoy the capital’s performing arts, heritage, classical music and markets. Again, I make no judgment about that. The indication is that on these issues alone there is a distinction in the approach of north Londoners and south Londoners.
Where does this come from? In the 1850s, London was already the world’s wealthiest city, but that success had come at the expense of many of the people of London. Population growth and overcrowding had created a divided city, with Londoners living in separate worlds of rich and poor. Up to half of those born in the capital’s slums did not survive their first year. However, not only the poor died young; tuberculosis, smallpox, cholera and typhoid also killed the rich. The significant point was that London had failed to provide clean water, basic sanitation and housing for its growing population. In its analysis, the People’s City, the Museum of London stated:
“The deadly River Thames flowed like an open sewer through the heart of the city”.
That open sewer feeling is the reason why the divide is so deep and cultural between the different parts of the city.
Even more modern literature reflects this. Wise Children, the novel by Angela Carter, centres on a particular family and focuses on the distinctions between members of the family as represented by the physical divide of the River Thames. A very deep-seated difference exists between north Londoners and south Londoners.
If we are to have any concern whatever about the importance of geography and community to representation in Parliament, we have to take these issues into account. If the Government say that that would wreck the central purpose of the Bill of fair representation, I would ask two questions: first, will they consider an alternative which changes the value of the votes of Members at the other end of the Corridor; and, secondly, what is the value of fairer representation if you destroy the basis on which it rests in the communities that elect Members of Parliament?
Lord Howarth of Newport
My Lords, over the centuries, rivers have been essential to the characters and fortunes of the cities of this country. My noble friend Lord Harris of Haringey has given an account of the significance of the Thames in the life of London. In Our Mutual Friend, Dickens compellingly describes the myriad human lives on the Thames; the power of the river is a symbol of the power of the city.
The noble Lord, Lord Cavendish of Furness, suggested, as a general proposition, that rivers unite while mountains divide. However, some of the speeches in this debate have demonstrated that that is too simple an antithesis. My noble friend Lady Morgan of Huyton has described convincingly the divide that the Mersey creates. Equally, I agree with my noble friend Lord Harris that the character of London south of the river feels and is profoundly different to the character of London north of the river. On the other hand, Newport, which I had the honour to represent in the House of Commons, is a city united by its river. Notwithstanding that the River Usk has one of the largest tidal rises and falls of any river, the history of Newport as a port astride the River Usk—and its subsequent history when the port was less important to its economy—has produced a state of affairs in which the Usk unites Newport West and Newport East very satisfyingly. In Norfolk, where I now live, the fortunes of the city of Norwich grew with the commerce and traffic on the River Yare, while the fortunes of King’s Lynn depended on the traffic on the Great Ouse. The tragedy of King’s Lynn was that the Great Ouse silted up and the town’s greatness waned from that point onwards.
Whether rivers unite or divide—or whether, indeed, there is no river, in which case it is not an issue—almost all our major cities and towns have grown up astride a river and, I would say, have been unified by a river. Birmingham is an oddity; it is perhaps the one great city in this country that does not have a river. I broadly accept the proposition of the noble Lord, Lord Cavendish of Furness—with the important exceptions that have already been discussed—but the point is that this matters and people have strong feelings about it. It is foolish of the Government to design legislation that will, in practice, make it difficult for the boundary commissioners to take adequate account of this extremely important factor.
The Government will certainly say that, under rule 5 in Clause 11, the Boundary Commission has a measure of discretion to take account of important geographical factors. However, as we have argued almost to the point of wearying ourselves and others, because of the other constraints in the Bill it is not possible for the boundary commissioners to give proper attention to this. Given the exceptions outlined in rule 5 to take account of geographical considerations, the alignment of local authorities—presumably one of the problems about the creation of the constituency of Tyne Bridge was that the Member of Parliament representing Tyne Bridge would have to relate to different local authorities on either side of the Tyne—local ties and inconveniencies, on all the grounds set out in the rule it must be right for the boundary commissioners to be able to take account of the significance of rivers.
The consideration of the significance of rivers has underlined the point that we have been making again and again. We need two things: a wider tolerance than 5 per cent either side of the numerical norm; and a continuation of the rights of people to give evidence to the boundary commissioners in public inquiries. If they were able to do so, my noble friends Lord Graham of Edmonton, Lord Dixon, from Jarrow, and Lady Armstrong of Hill Top—all of whom have spoken eloquently and with strong feeling about the significance of rivers in the parts of England that they understand intimately in political terms and about which they care deeply—would give evidence to those public inquiries and press on the boundary commissioners the fact that, while appearing to be, perhaps, an accident of geography and history, this is a factor of emotional, almost visceral, importance to the people whose lives are made on these riversides.
Lord Grocott
On this point, I should say to my noble friends of many years, Lord Graham and Lord Dixon, that the idea of a member of the Boundary Commission sitting in London reading their written submissions on the feelings that they have about the communities in which they were born and brought up is evidence of the unacceptable way in which the Government have decided how boundaries will be determined in the future. In no way can the feeling behind the words that we have heard today—which will not be allowed under the legislation—be conveyed by means of a written submission.
Lord Howarth of Newport
My noble friend is right. Communities and territories will be divided up, presumably on a computerised calculation, in a way that entirely ignores the feelings that, rightly and powerfully, animate people in their political views.
The Boundary Commission in its wisdom—or in its unwisdom—made a judgment some time ago that the constituency of Tyne Bridge should be created and no doubt vigorous representations were made then. However, the fact that it got it wrong on that occasion—if it did get it wrong, and I am persuaded by my noble friend Lord Graham of Edmonton that it did—does not mean that it should not have to take account of the expressions of public opinion that would come to it through public inquiries.
Building into the Bill one exception after another to take account of specific circumstances is not the right way in which to legislate on this matter. It would be much better if the Bill were constructed on general principles that enabled the boundary commissioners to make sensible judgments and decisions.
Lord Walton of Detchant
My Lords, I have no wish to delay proceedings and I shall be extremely brief. I was born in a place called Rowlands Gill on the River Derwent, a tributary of the Tyne, and I went to school in a place called Spennymoor, which later became part of the Sedgefield constituency. When I moved as a student and later spent my professional life in Newcastle, it was made very clear to me that the south began at the Tyne Bridge.
There was a story about the man from the south of England who came to Newcastle. He was walking up and down Northumberland Street and said to Geordie, “Can you show me the way to Gateshead?”. Geordie said, “Well man, it’s quite simple. Ye gan doon yon street and ye gan ower yon bridge. On t’other side ye’ll come to a whole lotta hooses and ye’ll say to yersel, ‘This canna be Gateshead’, but it certainly is”.
I make these points to stress the sense of community, which was stressed so effectively by the noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong. Newcastle and Gateshead are speaking together and collaborating very well indeed, but it is important to recognise that people in the north-east regard the Tyne as an important barrier.
Lord Howarth of Newport
I shall speak briefly, but with strong conviction, in support of the amendment tabled by my noble friend Lord Myners. I have never been resident in Cornwall, nor have I had the privilege to represent a Cornish constituency in the other place. However, I have frequently visited Cornwall, it has been an important part of my life, and it has been a source of deep pleasure to me.
I had the opportunity to gain some insight into the distinctive culture of the people of Cornwall when I was a Minister responsible for heritage. I spent two days in Cornwall at a time when we were reconsidering the listed status of nonconformist chapels in the county of Cornwall. That is a remarkable heritage. They are beautiful buildings whose main fabric and furniture were constructed with extraordinary craftsmanship that derived from the boat-building skills of local people. Those skills are something of which Cornish people are very proud indeed, and are emblematic of a distinctive vigorous culture that ought to be respected.
It is not that the people of Cornwall have been introverted. It is not that they are seeking to retreat into some kind of bunker by demanding that their parliamentary representation should be contained in whole constituencies in the county of Cornwall. The noble Lord, Lord Tyler, spoke of incursions by Cornishmen into Devon. I believe that it was Cornish miners who brought football to Mexico. The influence of Cornwall throughout the world has been powerful and beneficent. I simply make the point again in this context, as I have in many others.
Lord Davies of Stamford
Before my noble friend leaves his personal reminiscences of Cornwall, will he tell the House—we are all full of suspense—what ministerial decision he ultimately took on the heritage status of the nonconformist chapels of Cornwall?
Lord Howarth of Newport
It was a rather complex set of decisions, simply because there is a significant number of these chapels. They had been listed rather unsystematically over some years, and English Heritage and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport thought that it was time to take a more systematic look at them. In many cases, we raised the listed status of these chapels. However, I do not wish to detain the House further on that point. I simply use it to illustrate something important, which I regret to say is that this Government are apt to ignore and underestimate its value.
It is insensitive and foolish of the Government to legislate to bring about a system whereby parliamentary constituency boundaries are to be drawn through slavish adherence to rigid mathematical formulae, with a minimal tolerance of 5 per cent on either side of a quota of 76,000 electors. That does not leave adequate scope for the boundary commissioners to take account of very important considerations of community, history, tradition, identity and local ties. In this debate on Cornwall—as the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Goss Moor, suggested —we are talking not simply about a particular set of circumstances there, although those considerations are very important, but about the unwisdom of a policy that discounts and effectively disparages a passionately held sense of identity on the part of people living in particular communities. That is not a wise thing to do in politics. It is the course that the Government appear determined to persist in. It is foolish and I hope that they will agree to the amendment of my noble friend Lord Myners, not only in deference and respectful response to views that are unanimously and vigorously presented across the political parties and across the communities of Cornwall, but in recognition that throughout the country people believe and insist that their local identity should be respected and expressed in the patterns of their parliamentary representation.
Baroness Corston
My Lords, I support the amendment of my noble friend Lord Myners. Thirty-five years ago I was the regional organiser of the Labour Party in the south-west of England. I spent a lot of time in Cornwall. What struck me was that whenever I went there, I would be asked one question: what is the weather like in England? People would talk about driving through Devon to get to God's own country. When I was in Devon, they would say that you have to drive through God's own country to get to Cornwall. That illustrates the tension between the two counties.
During the boundary reviews of the 1970s and 1980s, I assisted on behalf of the Labour Party. One thing that was always said was: “We don't even care if we are underrepresented so long as we keep the county of Cornwall”. I noted that the two noble Lords who spoke in this debate who have represented Cornwall in the other place—as I represented Bristol—addressed themselves to whether there should be five or six constituencies, but did not acknowledge the truth of what they must know: that their county would not wish its border to be crossed. That was my experience then. On subsequent visits to Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, I have seen no evidence that there has been any change of view. Given the antagonism between Devon and Cornwall, it would be profoundly misguided to have any constituency crossing that boundary.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
Lord Howarth of Newport Excerpts(13 years, 8 months ago)
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Lord Soley
On a constitutional matter of this importance in this Chamber? What makes the difference is that this Chamber safeguards the constitution against abuse in the other Chamber at times. If the noble Lord does not understand that, he does not know why he has been here. Maybe he ought to think that perhaps he should not have come here if he takes the view that we ought to just roll over and have our bellies tickled every time the House of Commons says so. It is not like that at all and I think it is sad that someone of his experience should actually say that. This is a matter of considerable importance. It really is. If he is complaining that it has become party political, he needs to take on board that it has been made party political by a Government who have decided to do what other Governments are not allowed to do under all the systems we observe when checking elections—to change the size of a Parliament to suit their own political ends. That is what makes this different, and that is what makes it party political.
I shall end with a quote from Vince Cable, who put it very well.
Lord Howarth of Newport
Before my noble friend concludes his valuable and very interesting remarks, would he care to remind the noble Lord, Lord Garel-Jones, that until very recent years it was unthinkable that constitutional legislation would have been timetabled and programmed in the House of Commons. This really is an abuse. Since it has happened, it is only in this House that it is possible to give adequate scrutiny to this legislation. Does my noble friend recall that, in the House of Commons proceedings on this Bill, Clauses 3 to 6 on very important matters—the conduct of the referendum, combining polls and the rules about media coverage—along with Clause 11 that we are now debating, on the number and distribution of seats, were entirely undiscussed in the other place, in Committee and on Report? My noble friend is absolutely right to treat these important matters at some length and searchingly as he is.
Lord Radice
Yes, that may well be so but it was a sensible way of proceeding on a very controversial issue—more seats for Northern Ireland. However, it produced a result that, if it was not supported by all the parties in Northern Ireland, certainly had the backing of all the major parties in the Commons. That is precisely my point: it produced consensus, which is what the Government have not achieved with the present Bill. I recommend the idea of a Speaker’s Conference or the commission, as suggested by my noble friend who is sitting next to me, as a better way forward if the Government want to achieve consensus. It may well be better for them in the long run if they achieve that consensus.
Lord Howarth of Newport
My Lords, the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Soley proposes that the number of constituencies for the future should be determined by an independent commission and the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Lipsey prefers that the recommendation should be made to Parliament by a Speaker’s Conference. I do not think that the difference between these two manners of proceeding is necessarily very great. Indeed, an independent commission could turn out to be a Speaker’s Conference. However, I prefer the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Lipsey because my noble friend Lord Soley has thrown into his amendment a stipulation that the number of constituencies to be determined by the independent commission should not in any case exceed 650. If we examine the arguments on whether there should be more or fewer Members of Parliament, there is a strong case not for reducing the numbers of Members of Parliament but for increasing them. But whichever device were to be adopted, both of these modes of proceeding are designed to be reasonable, to gather evidence, to enable all concerned to work towards consensus and for their conclusions to be perceived to be unimpeachable. That last point is extremely important.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, in responding to the earlier debate—he did so entirely admirably—defended a case that is very difficult to defend. He reminded us that in the approach to the previous general election both the Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrat Party signalled their view that there should be a smaller House of Commons. He suggested that there was therefore a mandate, but, of course, no mandate for a smaller House of Commons was provided by the electorate because neither the Conservative Party nor the Liberal Democrat Party won the election. Certainly, the coalition agreement has no status as a mandate at all. Of course, there needs to be a coalition agreement and of course this House treats with the greatest seriousness what the coalition agreement has put forward for the country, but this House is not intimidated by the coalition agreement, nor does it consider that it has some special quality.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, was of the view that in the end the size of the future House of Commons had to be a question of judgment. That is possibly so but, as the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, reminded us, when you are making a judgment it is your responsibility to make it on the best basis of evidence and of reasoning. Moreover, it is essential that the judgment is perceived to be disinterested. That is where the Government are in some political difficulty as they wax indignant at any suggestion that they are tilting the system in the political interests of one party or another. I will not impugn their sincerity in that matter but their political problem is in part that there is a perception that they are not objective in this matter. Irrespective of whether an independent commission or a Speaker’s Conference were involved, at least the matter would proceed reasonably, whereas the proposition that we have before us in the Bill—that the House of Commons should in future consist of 600 Members of Parliament—is not really even a product of judgment but of an opportunist wheeze.
The Prime Minister was of the view that Members of Parliament were unpopular and that there was a large deficit, which needed to be reduced. It occurred to him and his advisers that it would be a good wheeze to propose to the people that we should therefore have fewer Members of Parliament. That is the kind of opportunistic gimmick that political parties devise and resort to to get them through their relations with the media for a day, but it should be forgotten just as quickly as that.
You need a better basis for determining the appropriate size of the House of Commons. You have to start by looking at what those who elect Members of the House of Commons expect and, indeed, require them to do. Above all, they expect them to debate the great issues of the day, to scrutinise legislation and the propositions of the Government and to hold the Government to account. It is very important that there should be enough Members of Parliament who are not members of the Executive and not Parliamentary Private Secretaries on the payroll vote to be able to hold those independent debates. Such Members will take the Whip and they will have their party loyalties, but when push comes to shove those who elected them expect them to exercise a certain independence that is rightly not permitted to members of the Executive.
I was very interested in and listened very carefully to the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Martin of Springburn. Any of us must listen carefully to the views of a former Speaker of the other place. He favoured a reduction in the number of Members of Parliament on the basis that it might make for better debate, because he recognised that there is a problem for Members of the other place in getting into debates and having the opportunities to speak as often as they would no doubt like. That is true and relates to the procedures that the other place, in its wisdom, has developed over many years. It is interesting that Members of your Lordships’ House, who are more numerous and every day becoming significantly more numerous than Members of the House of Commons, can all individually get into debates when they wish. Indeed, there will be ample opportunity this very evening for noble Lords on the other side of the House to expound their views at length on this extremely important legislation. No Member of your Lordships’ House can say that they do not get the opportunity to contribute to debates. Therefore, it is just possible that the other place, in considering its procedures, might consider how it is that this House, which is more numerous, enables everyone to participate.
My noble friends Lord Soley and Lord Rooker were both of the view that it would be better if the size of the House of Commons were to be reduced. My view is that the House of Commons has great difficulty in performing all the functions that the citizens of this country want of it. It is getting more difficult as more and more Ministers are appointed. We are told that we have to look forward to there being more frequent coalition Governments—heaven forefend, but that is what is anticipated by quite a lot of people. We have seen that, when a coalition Government are formed, there have to be jobs for lots of the boys and girls in each of the parties that form the coalition. We now have an Administration in the House of Commons who have more Ministers than any other Administration have ever had. We are going to need more Back-Benchers who will still have an independent voice of their own.
Lord Elton
Can the noble Lord refresh my memory? I thought that the number of Ministers in the House of Commons was regulated by statute.
Lord Howarth of Newport
The noble Lord will find that, one way or another, Members of the Administration, including Parliamentary Under-Secretaries and Whips, have become even more numerous than they used to be.
Lord Myners
Perhaps I may suggest to your Lordships’ House that the number of Ministers receiving salaries is limited by statute, not the number of Ministers.
Lord Howarth of Newport
But even before we saw this unfortunate growth in the size of the Administration, it was commonplace that the House Commons had great difficulty in examining all the legislation that came before it with the care that everyone would wish. For example, the Commons found it very difficult to find the time to scrutinise European legislation with any adequacy. It is an important part of the history of government in this country that over several recent decades there has been a vast increase in the quantity of secondary legislation—statutory instruments—which the House of Commons is entirely unable to scrutinise as much as would be desirable.
Legislative committees, which used to be known as Standing Committees, are set up ad hoc to scrutinise pieces of legislation, but so difficult is it for very busy Members of the other place to give their detailed attention to Bills that these are now routinely programmed. Members of your Lordships’ House will also wryly acknowledge that important pieces of legislation such as this one come through to us without having been exhaustively examined in Committee in the other place.
Separate from the scrutiny of legislation is the work of Select Committees. Departmental Select Committees did not exist before 1979. They are a source of great pride to the other place and to us all, but it is not disrespectful to the other place to note that attendance at Select Committees is less complete than perhaps it should be and that, because Members of the other place are legitimately very busy on a host of matters, sometimes one has the possibly erroneous impression that not all those participating in the work of a Select Committee have entirely mastered the papers before them.
The Public Administration Select Committee, chaired in recent years with enormous distinction by Mr Tony Wright, has persuaded not only the other place but the Executive that there should be greater independence for Select Committees. That raises hopes for the future work of Select Committees. It raises expectations about the amount and quality of the work that they will do. That is a large responsibility that falls on the other place and it may need more rather than fewer Members of Parliament to do full justice to it.
Party committees are a very valuable presence in the life of the other place because they enable the Executive and the Back Benches to explain themselves to each other. However, these meetings take time and, again, their attendance is not always as full as might be ideal. There are also all-party committees that come and go. All noble Lords have a view on whether it is necessarily a good thing that there are quite as many all-party committees as there are at any given moment. However, the best of them have enormous value. I will mention, for example, the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Disablement, in which the noble Lord, Lord Ashley, when he was a Member of the other place as well as when he became a Member of your Lordships’ House, played an outstandingly distinguished part. I see the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, in his place opposite. When he was the Member for Daventry in the other place, he inaugurated the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Archives, in which I, too, had the pleasure to serve. It is a very valuable committee, which brings together from all sides of both Houses Members of Parliament who have a particular interest and some expertise in a topic and, through the work of the committee, are able to relate to professional interest groups and others outside. This is extremely important in the representative work of both Houses of Parliament and very important for ensuring that there is a depth of knowledge on a range of specialised topics.
I mention also the All-Party Parliamentary Archaeology Group, which I have been involved with. I promise the House that I will not recite the entire list of all-party groups, tempting though it may be. The noble Lord, Lord Allan, when he was a Member of Parliament—I think it was for Sheffield Hallam—was a distinguished, active and expert member of that group. That is important. However, the reality is that it is very difficult for all-party groups to get a sufficient number of Members in the other place to take a full part in their meetings because there are not enough colleagues to carry out all the work that needs to be done. I could mention the all-party groups that are necessary to enable the House to function, such as the House of Commons Commission, for example, which has to be staffed and served. There is also the Speaker’s Panel. The enormous volume of legislation, particularly from the coalition, that is churning through Parliament creates a lot of demand. There is the international work of the other place. For some years, I was a member of the Intelligence and Security Committee. We have an important job to do on behalf of the Parliament of this country.
Lord Howarth of Newport
I know that the noble Lord is going to remind me of the Companion, and quite right, too. That is one of his valuable sentinel roles in this House. Is that right?
Lord Elton
I did not quite catch what the noble Lord asked, but would he accept that we have a general idea that there are a lot of committees in the House of Commons which have a lot of things to do. The noble Lord thinks that there should be more people to do it. He has made his point; we have got it.
Lord Howarth of Newport
I am infinitely obliged to the noble Lord. He is always rigorous and helpful to the House in exactly that respect.
Lord Winston
There is an important issue and I do not know whether my noble friend has addressed it. With the impending reform of the House of Lords, we may lose much expertise. For example, in my area of science and medicine, we may lose a great deal of expertise. Reducing the number of people in the House of Commons who may have that expertise, particularly scientists who might wish to stand for election, would be a grave problem.
Lord Howarth of Newport
I very much agree with my noble friend. What he says on this subject is bound to carry weight on all sides of the House. We have a scientifically illiterate democracy, but the position has improved somewhat in recent years in that we have seen more people elected to the other place with a scientific background. There has been some improvement in the capacity of the other place to debate issues of science and technology, but it must be self-evident to anyone reflecting on it that this is extremely important. If there is a deficiency in the number of Members of Parliament who are versed in science and technology and able to maintain an adequate debate in this extraordinarily important realm, that must be a worry.
The noble Lord, Lord Elton, has anticipated my point that if we reduce the size of the House of Commons it will be a lot more difficult for all those necessary functions to be carried out. My final point is that the House of Commons has also to furnish members of the Executive. That means that any comparison with legislatures in a presidential system or one in which the Executive are appointed from outside the ranks of the legislature is nonsensical.
I hasten to draw my remarks to a conclusion because I know that the House is keen to make progress. I could have said much more, but we will see how the debate develops as the evening wears on. It may be that I will have the opportunity to make some additional remarks, but for the time being I rest my case.
Lord Glentoran
I thank the noble Baroness. I have two or three points to make. I did not talk to anybody to get my peerage—I happen to be a hereditary Peer. That is why I am here and why I have been here as long as I have. I am a Conservative through and through, although I of course support the coalition. I live in a country where we have single transferrable voting and a total nonsense at the moment of some form of Executive which seems unable to make decisions. I for one—I think there are many people in my party like me—am not looking to pave the way for a different form of voting, as the noble Baroness said.
Lord Howarth of Newport
My Lords, I very much welcome the contribution by the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran. We have been looking forward to it for some hours since he trailed it a little earlier in the evening and it has been a sweet moment. It has also been a sweet moment listening to my noble friend Lady McDonagh as she moved her amendment. She spoke with a profound knowledge of elections and how they work, and, more importantly, of politics in this country much more broadly and of what makes people respond and behave as they do in politics. I have enormous respect for her judgment. I therefore have a natural disposition to be drawn to her proposal that the House of Commons instead of being reduced from 650 to 600 should be reduced only to 630. However, I have some difficulties with her amendment. One of the difficulties that I find in it I expressed in discussion of the amendments tabled by my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer. I do not think that it is appropriate for the Government to determine the size of the House of Commons. My noble friend and I both agree that, for all sorts of reasons that we touched on in earlier parts of the debate, it should not be for politicians to fix the size of the elected House of Commons.
However, I do think the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lady McDonagh is moving in the right direction. I shall probably be more inclined, when we come to them, to favour the amendments in the names of my noble friends Lord Snape and Lord Kennedy of Southwark. I am very much looking forward to those debates in due course. As I have already said to the House, I think there is a very strong case for a larger rather than a smaller House of Commons. I put some thoughts to the House earlier on why I think the pressures of business and demands on Members of Parliament within the House of Commons are very great and are difficult to be accommodated with the existing size of the House of 650. Equally, I think that when whichever body it is comes to consider the appropriate number of constituencies, it will also want to look very carefully at the volume of work that is expected of Members of Parliament in their constituencies—the expectations, indeed the requirements, of electors.
As a result of the defeat of the amendment proposed by my noble friend Lord Soley, we know that a generically independent commission will not determine this, but I live in hope that the solution put forward by my noble friend Lord Lipsey will in the end recommend itself to the House and that we can come back to that at Report. I mean his proposal that the Speaker’s Conference should determine the matter. As the Speaker’s Conference considers what the appropriate size of the House of Commons should be in future, I hope that it will take account of a number of factors that seem relevant. We all know that the age of deference is long gone, but the demands of constituents upon Members of Parliament will grow and grow—and will grow further should we see the introduction of a new constitutional arrangement proposed by the coalition, at the instance of the Liberal Democrats who have been keen, at least up until recently, to introduce a right of recall. I have been interested by the fact that, whereas all the rest of the agenda for constitutional reform, about which the Liberal Democrats have hitherto been so enthusiastic, has been pressed forward energetically and urgently, for some strange set of reasons we are not seeing them put the case with any comparable urgency for the introduction of a right of recall. I do not know whether my noble friends have any idea of why that might be, or whether it is anything that transpired in the politics of our country in recent weeks and months that could have caused them to have second thoughts and even, possibly, to lose their nerve over this.
Lord Kinnock
While the House reflects on the fascinating question that my noble friend raised about the evaporation of the passionate commitment to the right of recall, I take issue with him on his declaration that the age of deference has long past. I look across the House and see the age of dual but disproportionate deference actually in operation. I see the Liberal Democrats who fought the last election on a commitment to have 500 Members of Parliament in conditions of a single transferable vote, proportional representation, and devolution in England. I see a Conservative Party that fought the last election on an arbitrary and populist reduction of 10 per cent in the number of current Members of Parliament, taking us down to 585. It appears that both have deferred to the other, but the Liberals have done a damn sight more deferring, sacrificing a commitment to PR and devolution as well as a commitment to the right of recall. That is a pretty good definition of knee-crawling deference.
Lord Howarth of Newport
Indeed, as my noble friend suggests, they tug their forelocks quite obsessively. My noble friend makes the same very valid point as did my noble friend Lord Judd made so plangently in the previous debate. It is sad to see the Liberals defer to the Tories within this coalition in the way they do. None the less, the threat that the right of recall might have been be instituted has not entirely gone away because those cruel Tories might decide to bring it in, even if the Liberal Democrats have changed their mind about it for very understandable reasons. If there were to be a right of recall, that would enormously compound the uncertainty that already faces Members of Parliament in their own constituency, which would be yet further compounded by the increased uncertainty generated by the more frequent changes of boundary that the coalition proposes in this measure. Members of Parliament are naturally going to be watching their backs even more than has been the case in recent years. They will be worried that they might be recalled and worried in any case that their constituency will no longer exist, or will be so altered that they will have to spend a very great deal of time and energy salvaging their own political situation if they are to have a prospect of being returned again to the House of Commons. For those sorts of reasons, I fear that Members of Parliament in future are unlikely to give the same amount of attention and energy to their work in the House of Commons as they otherwise might have done. That seems to have a bearing on the question of how large the House ought to be.
Lord Glentoran
My Lords, I am so sorry to interrupt the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, once again, but he is giving us a lecture about all the possibilities of the future and about all the things that MPs at the other end do. What I, and I am sure people on this side of the House, would like to hear from him is what the party opposite thinks and considers is a sensible number of MPs to be elected to the other House.
Lord Howarth of Newport
I cannot, of course, speak for the Front Bench of the Labour Party, but in my own view it should be not less than 650. I therefore disagree with the proposition from my noble friend Lady McDonagh, although she is shifting the debate in a direction I want to see it move in. I am making a case not only that she is proposing too few Members of Parliament—630—but that we ought to have an amendment down on the Order Paper, and probably will on Report, that will provide for an increase above 650. I do not want to detain the House unduly, but I think that some of these issues—
Let us consider the question of immigration, which is such a staple of Members of Parliament’s surgeries. Indeed, Mr Greg Hands, the Member of Parliament for Hammersmith and Fulham—
Lord Kinnock
Before my noble friend moves on to that point, in response to the interesting point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, which he answered with perfect rectitude and transparency, neither he, I, nor anyone in this House, or indeed in the other place, can anticipate what the finalised policy of the alternative Government—the Labour Party—will be on numbers in the House of Commons. However, does my noble friend not agree with me that it is a supreme irony that the only way for our parliamentary democracy to prove absolutely that the coalition Government are not engaging in gerrymandering is by seeking not to change the number after the next election, which will be won by the Labour Party, in order conclusively to demonstrate that while others may have sought to meet their political convenience by establishing a fixed number for election to the House of Commons, the Labour Party will not engage in the same nefarious practice?
Lord Howarth of Newport
I completely agree with my noble friend. I have said that I do not think it is appropriate for Governments or politicians to fix the size of the House of Commons. That should emerge from the deliberations of the Boundary Commissions, themselves informed by the criteria that a Speaker’s Conference or some other independent body has formulated and proposed for discussion and debate in the country and upon which I hope we could reach consensus.
As I say, I am anxious to conclude my speech, but I just want to say something about immigration. I was mentioning that Mr Greg Hands, the Member of Parliament for Hammersmith and Fulham, stated in 2007 that he had between 700 and 800 unresolved immigration cases in his constituency case load. It is immense. We are now seeing a tighter cap on immigration brought in by the coalition Government, so that it can only be expected that this pot will boil even more vigorously and fiercely than it has in the past and that Members of Parliament will be very busy with that. Of course, they are going to be busy dealing with the crisis about student debt and, very possibly, with bankrupt universities in their constituencies.
Lord Anderson of Swansea
My noble friend has given some examples of the increased workload on Members of Parliament: for example, the fact that with increased boundary changes there will also be a degree of internecine strife between Members of Parliament who will fear that a neighbour, perhaps of the same party, will seek to oppose them in future boundary revisions. Is he also aware that it is increasingly difficult to find Members of Parliament to be members of Select Committees? We pride ourselves on our Select Committees, but even the Foreign Affairs Committee—which I had the honour to chair over two Parliaments and which was, along with the Treasury Committee, probably the most prestigious and sought-after committee—frequently did not have more than two-thirds of its members present. That problem is surely likely to increase.
Lord Howarth of Newport
My noble friend Lord Anderson of Swansea must not tempt me to repeat myself. We must not repeat ourselves in these debates because there are many substantive issues that we need to look at. However, I suggested in some observations in an earlier debate that there was a problem in finding all the people needed to be members of the important committees in another place.
Lord Anderson of Swansea
I was not talking about finding people to be members but getting them to attend.
Lord Howarth of Newport
I had the temerity to touch on that, too, but I did not have time—because I did not wish to detain the House—to talk about the importance of finding people to serve on the Council of Europe and the NATO General Assembly, and for all the other important responsibilities that Members of the House of Commons, between them, all carry.
My noble friend touched on the possibility of internecine strife developing between existing Members, who might find themselves in some contest for the nomination for a future constituency. I will give way in a second. I do not think that in the Labour Party people would be so uncomradely as to engage in that, but who can say what might happen among the Members of Parliament of the parties opposite?
Lord Winston
I do not want to delay the House very much, but my noble friend has talked about committees. Is it not also true—I do not think this has been raised before—that Members of Parliament often deal with a large number of very technical issues? For example, as a scientist presenting to them on embryology, it was extremely difficult to get proper comprehension of the science that we were discussing and the ethical issues that were involved. MPs were eager to learn about this but it took a lot of time.
One of the problems I found, both as a Member of this House and before I joined it, was that it was very difficult to find enough Members of Parliament to attend meetings that we had organised with experts to make sure that there was a thorough recognition of the subtleties of the legislation. This certainly applied to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990. That is only one of several issues. More recently, it was also true of the issues of hybrid embryos, when there was great difficulty in explaining those things. Members of Parliament would attend a committee for 15 minutes and then be off to the next job. That, I hope my noble friend will agree, is one reason why he is making a very pertinent point.
Lord Howarth of Newport
My noble friend makes an extremely important point. With the abolition of bodies such as the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, which the Government seem to be contemplating, and a whole series of expert bodies that is adumbrated in the provisions of the Public Bodies Bill, we will face yet greater difficulty in ensuring that there is an informed body of knowledge among Members of Parliament to enable them to debate effectively these immensely important and sensitive issues. My noble friend Lord Winston has tempted me to explore that avenue but, in view of the time and the impatience of so many of my noble friends to make their own contributions to the debate, I ought to sit down.
Baroness Nye
I support my noble friend Lady McDonagh. I have worked with my noble friend over many years. On matters of organisation I always follow her lead because she has great expertise in this area. It has not always been the case on, perhaps, politics or personalities over that period, but this is not the place.
When I spoke at Second Reading, I started by saying that I thought there was a consensus among all the parties that we had a duty and responsibility to look at legislation to see whether it restores trust and confidence in our parliamentary democracy. I have listened to most of the debate in Committee and I am afraid that nothing I have heard has managed to change my mind. In the Second Reading debate I had the privilege of following the noble Lord, Lord Maples. Unfortunately, he is not present. I did not agree with him then and I do not agree with him now.
As has been said, there has been no pre-legislative scrutiny or any kind of consultation on this constitutional reform. We heard this afternoon—it was actually yesterday afternoon—from the noble Lord, Lord McNally, that the Government still strongly advocate pre-legislative scrutiny. If this Bill had had that scrutiny or consultation, more progress might have been made and we might not have found ourselves in such problematic areas.
I disagree with my noble friend Lord Kinnock—it does not happen very often and I apologise for it in advance—but I understand the position of the Liberal Democrats as before the election they wanted to introduce STV, and therefore saw no need for the other place to have any more than 500 elected representatives. They also wanted to have a thorough overhaul of the state and to introduce a form of federal government which would involve many decisions being devolved to the institutions. I will not comment on whether or not that was a good policy. I do not agree with it but at least it had the merit of being coherent and understandable. The Conservatives also went into the election seeking a reduction in seats of 10 per cent, which would have brought them down to 585. When they drew up the coalition agreement, because the Liberal Democrats agreed to a referendum on AV and not on STV, their proposal to reduce the number of MPs to 500 was obviously not appropriate and was withdrawn. In my humble opinion the next best thing would have been to go back to the figure of 585, but that did not happen. As we have heard in the debate tonight, yesterday and at other stages, we have not really got to the bottom of where the figure of 600 came from. We have heard that savings to the public purse is a priority. I should have thought that forgoing an extra 15 Members would have added to those savings. To go back to my point about confidence being restored, I do not think that it is restored if, within weeks of campaigning for a reduction to 585, the figure suddenly switches to 600, with no explanation.
I take the point that my noble friend Lord Soley made that, whatever the figure is, if this Government set a figure it establishes a precedent for any future Government to set a different figure. Governments should stay out of deciding the number of seats. The amendments proposed by my noble friends for an independent body to look at this would have been a good way forward. Why am I therefore supporting my noble friend? One of the things that the Government could have done was to look at the House of Commons (Redistribution of Seats) Act 1949 and the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986, which both had targets of 613 seats. It was a target, not a specific number that we should have, but there was a feeling that we all agreed on 613. An independent boundary commission would then put that into place. When the Minister winds up, I hope that he will say whether that figure was considered and whether the Government considered amending that legislation to make the 613 figure not a target but the limit.
I support my noble friend’s amendment because I think that 630 is closer to that 613 figure and therefore would also get rid of some of the problems regarding Cornwall, Ynys Mon and certainly the Isle of Wight, as my noble friend has pointed out. Therefore, it is a way of addressing the issues. I take the point that both parties in the coalition have put forward a reduction in seats and therefore we must take that seriously. I would prefer not to go down this route but, if we are going down it, we need some leeway in what the figure is, and 630 to me would be the best way of achieving that. Therefore, I support my noble friend.
Peers
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Lord Strathclyde
That is exactly why I will await the final report of my noble friend: to see whether or not he raises any of those issues.
Lord Howarth of Newport
My Lords, could a working definition of a working Peer be a Member of your Lordships' House who spends a lot of hours in the Chamber very properly scrutinising ill thought-out, badly prepared and excessive legislation such as the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill brought in by this Government?
Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, in many ways, that may well have been a definition of those Peers who worked bravely on behalf of the Opposition in the dark years between 1997 and 2010. However, I indicated in answer to an earlier question that I thought the term “working Peer” was now outdated.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
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Lord Lamont of Lerwick
My Lords, I had not intended to speak on this because, as the noble Lord, Lord Williamson, said, it appeared on the face of it that this was not about thresholds precisely, but a different issue. But the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, has demonstrated the connection between the amendment moved by the noble Baroness and the issue of thresholds. Because I spoke last week, I certainly will not go over the arguments, but I want to comment on two points made by my noble friend Lord Strathclyde in reply to that debate. He argued that if you have a threshold relating to turnout, that just encourages people to abstain. He repeated the argument several times, saying that people will think that all they need to do is to abstain and the referendum will be rejected, but my noble friend Lord Lawson pointed out that that is not necessarily how it would go. It might well go in the other direction. He pointed out that, for example, there would be people who were against change but who believed that the threshold will be met and therefore will have an added inducement to vote. That is one category of people who would have an inducement to vote. Secondly, there could be a group of people who are in favour but know that if they do not vote, they may lose the issue. So it can work in several ways.
I made the point that in 1979, when we did have a threshold, the turnout then was 63 per cent—very high, even though there was a threshold—and that when the subsequent referendum was held without a threshold, the turnout was actually lower at 60 per cent. So in the particular case of the referendums in Scotland, when we did have thresholds, the turnout was higher. The noble Lord may say that that was an outcome threshold not a turnout threshold—and that is true—but I would argue that the effects of the threshold there are also ambiguous. If the noble Lord thinks that an outcome threshold that is something like the Cunningham amendment, with 40 per cent of the electorate required to vote yes, would encourage a high turnout, why do we not have that kind of threshold rather than a turnout threshold? The argument that a threshold encourages abstention is not very persuasive.
The second point made by the noble Lord in reply to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, was that the Labour Government had been elected by only 21.6 per cent in 2005. If that did for them and the noble and learned Lord was happy with that, why was he not happy with 21.5 per cent in a referendum?
A referendum is different from a general election. In a general election, Members of Parliament are up for election and may be up for re-election; a constitutional change is likely to be permanent and difficult to reverse. Secondly, even with 21.6 per cent in 2005, the turnout threshold put forward in the amendments would have been met anyway. There is obviously a difference between 21.6 per cent when at least three parties, and possibly four or five, are standing, and 21.6 per cent in relation to a yes/no proposition. Neither of the arguments the noble Lord puts forward against thresholds is persuasive.
I do not know whether or not we will have to vote on this but, on the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, to the noble Lord, Lord Roberts, that we did not have thresholds in previous referenda, although we did have one in relation to the Scottish referendum, one cannot think of a country in Europe that does not have a qualified majority provision for changes in the constitution. I shall be interested in what my noble friend says in reply to these points.
Lord Howarth of Newport
My Lords, in tabling her amendment, my noble friend Lady Hayter has done two useful things. First, she has reminded us that in legislating, particularly on constitutional matters, we should be sensitive to sentiment in the different nations of the United Kingdom. We needed to be sensitive to that sentiment 10 years ago, which is why we brought in devolution; and, in the context of devolution, and after 10 years’ experience of it, it is all the more important that we should be so. However, the legislation proposed by the Government fails to be sensitive in that important regard. Under their model, a majority in the United Kingdom as a whole would trump a no vote within one of its constituent countries. In that way we risk alienating national opinion and national sentiment in whatever part of the country it was—it might be Wales or Scotland—that found its wishes thus crudely overruled.
The second important thing that my noble friend’s amendment does is to underline that whatever the result of the referendum and however the procedures might be amended in this legislation, if we then went on to have a referendum under whatever set of rules, the result is liable to be divisive. It would be divisive in the case of a particular country of the United Kingdom having its wishes on the electoral system overruled; and, equally, under my noble friend’s amendment, it would be divisive because what she proposes would mean that where there was a no vote in any individual part of the United Kingdom, that would trump the yes vote across the wider United Kingdom and invalidate yes votes in other parts of the United Kingdom. That cannot be a happy outcome either.
A third way in which it would be possible to go, although it is not proposed in the amendment, is for each of the constituent countries of the United Kingdom to determine its own electoral system. In those parts of the kingdom that voted for AV, general elections would in future be conducted on the basis of AV; in those parts which preferred first past the post, they would continue to elect their Members of Parliament on the basis of first past the post. The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, smiles at the evident fatuity of such a scheme, yet I do not know whether he entirely rules out the possibility of two classes of Member coming to this House of Parliament, some elected, some appointed, because he very wisely does not show his hand and delays doing so for as long as he can.
The only circumstance in which a referendum on the voting system would not be divisive and set parts of the United Kingdom at odds with each other would be the eventuality of every part of the United Kingdom voting the same way, either for AV or first past the post. It is reasonable to think that that is rather an unlikely outcome.
Lord Wills
I am very interested in the case that my noble friend is making, but is he not worried that his third-way proposal might undermine the integrity of the Parliament of the United Kingdom?
Lord Howarth of Newport
I am worried precisely about that. That is why I set it up as an Aunt Sally, because it would be an alternative. It would have at least the virtue of being respectful of political sentiment, public opinion and the way people had voted in the individual parts of the United Kingdom. But it would be an absurd arrangement for us to alight upon.
Baroness Liddell of Coatdyke
My noble friend makes a serious and important point, but he, like me, will be aware that in the second part of this legislation we will be considering a system of parliamentary inquiries that will mean that, in different parts of the country, the setting of parliamentary constituencies will be different. Parliamentary constituencies for the Scottish Parliament will still have access to the inquiry system, whereas parliamentary constituencies for Westminster, if the legislation is carried, will not. Random mixtures of parliamentary rules for election to the other place are therefore not inconceivable.
Lord Howarth of Newport
My noble friend is absolutely right. This legislation is fraught with potential to divide and disintegrate the United Kingdom. I am conscious of that particularly as someone who had the honour of representing a Welsh constituency, because the proposals in Part 2 as they would affect Wales are particularly traumatic.
Lord Tebbit
While the noble Lord is going through his catalogue of anomalies, I am sure that he will not have forgotten that there have been occasions when the voters of Wales and of Scotland have imposed a Labour Government on England, which has voted Conservative. I am not sure whether he is agitated about that, wants to change it or just regards it as another of the glorious anomalies of our constitution.
Lord Howarth of Newport
I am a believer in the United Kingdom and I think that the noble Lord is also. I am sure that he will be generous enough to acknowledge that the results of elections in which that has occurred have been beneficent for the country as a whole.
The amendment of my noble friend Lady Hayter is an ingenious way to introduce another version of a threshold, which is that there would have to be a majority in each constituent part of the United Kingdom. I would like there to be a threshold, but I do not think that this is the right way to introduce it.
Lord McAvoy
I, too, am grateful to my noble friend Lady Hayter for moving the amendment, because it raises as a serious issue—I hope that it is treated by the House accordingly—the cohesiveness of the United Kingdom. Speaking as a former Member of Parliament representing a Scottish constituency, I would not claim any great authority but I was representative for the area that I came from and embody in this place a particular opinion about Scotland’s place in the United Kingdom, which we value a lot. To move to a semi-federal system where one nation imposed its will on another on a constitutional matter would raise issues and give manna from heaven to the nationalists and separatists who would divide up the United Kingdom.
Naturally, there have been a lot of contributions about referenda and thresholds. The noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, mentioned the 1975 referendum and how he voted one way and then changed his mind some years later. He voted yes in 1975, he tells us, and says that he has changed his mind since. I voted no in 1975 and I am still not yet totally convinced that I was wrong, so there is a twist in that as well.
Lord Howarth of Newport
Since we debated thresholds last Wednesday, I have had the opportunity to read the Government’s Localism Bill, which they have just published. I was interested to see there evidence that might indicate the beginning of some flexibility in the Government’s view on thresholds in referendums. Perhaps it is just a case of double standards, I do not know. Clause 41 of the Localism Bill is entitled “The required percentage”. It requires that, for a petition for a local referendum to be valid, no less than 5 per cent of registered electors must vote for it. The noble Lord would be entitled to say that a petition is quite a different thing from a referendum, but then we go on to Clause 51, “Voting in and conduct of local referendums”. Here we find that:
“The Secretary of State may by regulations make provision as to the conduct of local referendums”.
The clause goes on to say in subsection (5):
“Regulations under this section may apply or incorporate, with or without modifications or exceptions, any provision of any enactment (whenever passed or made) relating to elections or referendums”.
Do I see in that the kernel of some rethinking on the part of the Government about the possibility of thresholds making sense in referendums? Of course, the Localism Bill deals only with local referendums. If the Government do not believe in thresholds, presumably they ought to be consistent. Will the noble Lord say categorically that, whatever powers the Secretary of State might use—the powers given to him in the Bill are almost universal—to alter the rules on referendums in the local context, the Government will never in any circumstances institute a threshold?
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Lord Grocott
My Lords, I agree wholeheartedly with everything that the noble Lord, Lord Lawson, said, except in one respect. He anticipated, or perhaps reflected, on what might have happened, or could happen, in terms of people’s second preferences should there be an alternative vote system, or had there been in his constituency in the past. He made the assumption that every Labour voter would probably vote Liberal as their second preference. However true that may have been in the past, having seen the Liberal Democrats’ performance during the past six months, I would not make that assumption now. Not least, we have a coalition, so where do I put my second preference? I hope that the question will never arise, because, as I have made plain, if we were to have a referendum—and I would prefer that we did not—I would hope that the no campaign won.
I am very mindful of the time, so I shall not go on at any length. However, I have put my name alongside Amendment 44B in this group, which puts the threshold at 50 per cent, and I should like to make a couple of points. The first is to remind the Committee that, as my noble friend Lord Rooker pointed out very clearly, this is not an indicative referendum; it is a referendum which legislates. Should it be carried under the Bill as it stands, even by two votes to one—I know that I shall be criticised by the noble Lord, Lord McNally, for going to ridiculous extremes, but we have got to see the logic of the argument—the legislation would be passed. It would become part of the constitution of our country and represent the most dramatic constitutional change for a very long time.
I take it as read—at least, I hope that I can in this Committee—that if a Bill were passed at Third Reading in this House by two Members to one, with the remaining 800 Members wherever they preferred to be, and although it would be unchallengeable in constitutional law, it would be seen as ridiculous. I cannot believe that there is anyone in this House who does not think, though they may not want to put it in the Bill, that there has to be a threshold for a decision of this magnitude. The noble Lord, Lord Lamont, made a number of the points that I would have made. I simply say that I wholeheartedly agree with him that we are quite an unusual country—not unique, I think, but close to it—in there being no distinction between ordinary law and constitutional law. The only difference that we seem to apply is that it is increasingly assumed that major constitutional changes have to be ratified by referendum, which is not unreasonable. The reason for having a threshold is that, to quote a seasonal comment, a constitutional change is not just for five years; it is probably for life. If, as I half-anticipated, I had been intervened on and a noble Lord had said that Governments are elected by less than 50 per cent, I would have said that Governments come and go—we are now told that they can come and go only every five years, but they do come and go—whereas I think that we can all acknowledge that, should this change be made, it is incredibly unlikely that it would be reversed in our lifetime. That adds even greater import to the suggestion that we should be absolutely clear about the decision that we are making.
My amendment is for a 50 per cent threshold. It is not a figure that I have plucked out of the air, although “50 per cent” has constantly been repeated by the proponents of constitutional change. I have glanced through the most recent turnouts under the various electoral systems that operate in our country—there are far too many in my view, but that is not the point of this amendment. For local county council elections in 2009, it was 35 per cent; for Westminster parliamentary elections in 2010, it was 65 per cent; for the Greater London Assembly election in 2008, it was 45 per cent; for the Scottish parliamentary election, it was 51 per cent; for the National Assembly for Wales election, it was 43 per cent; for the European parliamentary elections, it was 34 per cent; for the European parliamentary elections in Northern Ireland, it was 42 per cent; for the Northern Ireland Assembly elections, it was 63 per cent; for the local government elections in Scotland, it was 53 per cent; for the local government elections in Northern Ireland, it was 62 per cent; for the Bedford Borough Council mayoral election, it was 30.9 per cent—I bet no one knew that one; and for the Greater London mayoral election, it was 45 per cent.
I hope I can convince the Committee that, for a major constitutional change, a 50 per cent turnout is not an unreasonable figure to validate that change. In fact, it is quite a modest figure bearing in mind that only half of those voting need to have voted in favour for the constitutional change to take place, which means one in four. Is it really an extremist position to suggest that, before we make this huge change, we should require one in four of our fellow citizens to vote in favour of it? That is the simple argument that I am presenting to the House and I hope the House will accept it.
Lord Howarth of Newport
My Lords, I am conscious of the time but I would like to say a few words because I think this is one of the most important groups of amendments we shall deal with in this Committee. I reject the proposition put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, that the debate and the vote in the House of Commons should constrain us in the analysis we make, and indeed the decision we take. I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, similarly objected and I agree with him on that and I agree with him on everything else that he said.
Plainly, a decision to change the electoral system is a momentous one—it is one of the most important decisions that we could take in our constitutional affairs. It is playing fast and loose with the constitution not to write some sort of a threshold requirement into this legislation. It would be ironic if a reform, which is motivated in part for the very good reason that we have seen declining turnouts in one set of parliamentary elections after another over a long time, should be brought in on the basis of very low turnout indeed. That would be deeply unsatisfactory.
I am sure that it is right in principle that there should be a threshold and I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Hayter of Kentish Town for introducing this debate with her amendment. However, I agree with other noble Lords who have put the case that a 25 per cent turnout threshold is simply inadequate. However pessimistic we may be about participation in the other elections that are due to take place on 5 May, I do not think that any of us supposes that they will be less than 25 per cent. As the elections are to be combined with the referendum on the same date, it seems to me that it is all the more important that we should be very clear that people have come to the polls deliberately to vote on this issue of constitutional reform, as well as on the other issues that are before them in the other elections.
We need a high threshold to satisfy ourselves that there really has been—if indeed in the referendum a change in our voting system is to be approved—to borrow a phrase that has been a little tarnished by experience but is still expressive, the full-hearted consent of the British people. We need to be sure that this is a decision consciously and deliberately entered into and endorsed by a sufficient majority of the British people for us all to feel that they have together taken a decision in which they believe and with which, whatever our personal views may be, we must go along.
Grateful as I am to my noble friend Lady Hayter, I do not think that 25 per cent will do. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, for upping the ante but I would be with my noble friend Lord Grocott: I think that 50 per cent of those entitled to vote is a decent minimum for a change of this magnitude. My noble friend Lady Hayter’s amendment would mean that we could introduce this radical change to our political system on a basis of less than 13 per cent of those voting in favour—50 per cent of a turnout of 25 per cent is just less than 13 per cent. That would be inadequate. My noble friend Lord Grocott has stated a decent minimum and I think the debate should proceed on the basis that his proposition is the one we need to examine seriously and to consider precisely what we should do, but certainly to ensure that there is a threshold that enables this decision to be widely regarded as a valid and proper one.
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Lord Greaves
I am talking about the supplementary vote and trying to point out why that is a bad system. However, in any long ballot paper with lots of candidates, people near the top of the ballot paper always do better than people near the bottom. That happens with multiseat elections under the first-past-the-post system, for example. If noble Lords have ideas on how to counter that issue—there are several ideas around—perhaps they can put them forward, but that is not what we are talking about today.
In the 2010 Watford mayoral election—which was won by a Liberal Democrat, so I am not making a party-political point about rejected votes, which might have been against the Liberal Democrat candidate—the number of eliminated ballot papers was 12,202. Of those, the number of valid ballot papers was only 5,381, which is less than half.
The most ludicrous example of all comes from the most recent mayoral election in Torbay in 2005—I do not think that there has been another election since—where the 14 candidates, which I agree is an extreme example, included a Conservative, a Liberal Democrat, a Labour candidate and 11 independents. The Conservative was elected on the second count after the first preferences were added to those few second preferences that transferred to the top two candidates, with a grand total of 28.9 per cent of the vote. Surely that is not a particularly efficient electoral system. The 9,094 first-preference votes for the top two candidates—who were Conservative and Liberal Democrat—accounted for 37.6 per cent of the vote. The other candidates got 15,076 first-preference votes, which is 62.4 per cent of the vote, but only 3,199 of those 15,000-odd votes—that is, 21 per cent—could be transferred. Almost half—49 per cent—of all second preferences votes did not count because they were not transferred, although they accounted for nearly 79 per cent of second preferences. I am not complaining about the fact that the Conservative was elected—the Conservative might have been elected under AV—but what a hopeless voting system to end up with a result like that.
The supplementary vote results in people being cheated out of their second preferences. SV is an inefficient and unnecessary system that was invented for party-political reasons by the Labour Party, which imposed it on the mayoral elections. The supplementary vote is a very bad system that should be rejected.
Lord Howarth of Newport
In Amendment 25, the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, has offered a lifeboat to the coalition, just as my noble friend Lord Rooker did the other day, when—slightly to their surprise—the coalition Government found themselves in another lifeboat. For two reasons, they might do well to take a ride in it.
First, the alternative vote system proposed in the Bill plainly will not work. It would be very foolish for the Government to plough ahead with the proposal because the inadequacies of the system will be exposed in the process of the campaign. There may not have been a seminar on that in the Cabinet room, but there will be a national seminar. If the system is as fallacious as I believe it to be, those weaknesses will ineluctably be exposed and the campaign for the alternative vote will disintegrate and become a fiasco. That might be a matter for some quiet satisfaction to the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, but it should be a matter of some anxiety to the noble Lord, Lord McNally, and indeed to all of us. Whatever our views on the rights and wrongs of holding a referendum, getting rid of first past the post and having AV instead, none of us wants to see this process reduced to complete impracticality and ridicule, which is what I fear will happen.
Noble Lords would do well to heed the arguments of, and to use the opportunity put forward by, my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours. The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, has sought to persuade the House that the supplementary vote is a bad system. In those very interesting exchanges, my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours seemed to have the better of the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, in the argument. The supplementary vote system has been road-tested in this country through the practicalities of election campaigns. I am not aware of any significant public dissatisfaction of the practical operation of the supplementary vote system. In Amendments 22 and 25, my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours has offered a lifeboat to the Government; they would be very wise to accept the opportunity that he has presented to them.
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Lord Howarth of Newport
My Lords, I fear that a number of important issues are all too liable to become confused in the minds of electors on 5 May if the referendum is held on the same date as the local elections. The Government are understandably preoccupied with advancing their policy of a referendum in which the people of this country will be offered a choice as to the future system of elections to the House of Commons. It is a profoundly important issue. Also to be held on that day are local elections, which are profoundly important as well. We ought to keep the interests of local government in the forefront of our minds, as there is a question about respect for local government that we should consider very carefully. However, perhaps I may come back to that point in a second.
Whichever side of the argument we may be on—in favour or against the alternative vote system—and whichever side we are on in the argument about whether there should be some sort of change to the system of electing Members of Parliament, I think we all agree that this is a momentous issue of the utmost importance. It is also an issue that will be considered only on very rare occasions in our political life. I believe that there is a compelling case for keeping the nation’s deliberations on that issue distinct from the deliberations on other important issues that are to be put to the vote. Therefore, in the interests of clarity and wise decision-taking, and, as my noble friend Lord Rooker put it to us, in the interests of simply not rushing the process, there seems to be a very strong case for holding the referendum separately from, and later than, the local government elections.
The noble Lord, Lord Fowler, argued in favour of holding the two elections on the same day precisely on the basis that the referendum is extremely important and that it would be most unsatisfactory if it were to be determined on a low turnout. However, I put it to the noble Lord that there is a better and more reliable means of ensuring that there is an adequate turnout, which is to introduce a threshold requirement into this legislation. That is a debate for another day but I think we shall have that debate. Personally, I hope very much that Parliament will conclude that we should not change anything so fundamental in our constitution as our system of elections to the House of Commons on a derisory turnout, that we should insist on a requirement for a minimum percentage of those entitled to vote and that, if that minimum percentage is not reached, there will be no change to the system. I think that that is a better way to secure the entirely valid objective of the noble Lord, Lord Fowler.
Perhaps I may come back for a moment to the question of respect for local government. One sadness of my political life is that in all the years that I have been in one House of Parliament or another I have seen local government disparaged and demeaned, and, if I may say so, that has been all too characteristic of Parliament and of Governments of all parties over a long period. We are at risk of showing insufficient consideration and respect for the validity and importance of the local elections on 5 May next year. One understands why in the mid-1970s central government felt that they had to move to restrict some of the more exciting activities of local government. Indeed, one Secretary of State said that the party was over.
But the Treasury—above all, the Treasury, I believe—exploited that opportunity quite ruthlessly. Expenditure in this country and power in this country are, in a way, a zero-sum game, and the Treasury was deeply resentful of any fiscal independence on the part of local government and of any independent rights that local government might have to raise money. So we saw increasing restrictions. We saw capping. We saw limits on borrowing. We saw an increasing tendency of government to ring-fence the grant to local government through specific grants. All of this has been profoundly bad for our democratic culture in this country. If there is an alienation from our politics in this country then I believe that, in important measure, it stems from this source. Therefore I think that we should always think very carefully about the standing of local government, the dignity of local government and, indeed, the independence of local government to act as a check and a balance within our constitution and within the power structure of this country.
To muddle up the issues on 5 May next year could with some justification be interpreted as cynical and as far too characteristic of the habitual attitude of central government and, I fear, of Parliament to local government. For that reason also, therefore, it would be unfortunate if the two sets of elections were to be held on the same day next spring or early summer. However, the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Rooker is not prescriptive in this particular matter. It allows a margin of flexibility. It allows the Government to reflect carefully on whether it is wise to hold the referendum on the same day as the local elections. As my noble friend said, it also provides a contingency margin so that, if we do indeed find that the preparations cannot be advanced with sufficient speed and the conditions in which the referendum would be held would be unsatisfactory, the Government can with dignity adjust the date and we can still go ahead with the referendum on this extremely important issue, but we can do so in a sensible set of circumstances. So I hope that the House will be willing to support my noble friend Lord Rooker if he presses his amendment this afternoon.
Lord Soley
My Lords, I rise with one intention only: to ask a specific question of the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, and ask him to deal with it in his response. In asking it I should declare an interest as one of the political panel drawn from all the political parties, from both the House of Commons and the House of Lords, who act as advisers and information givers to the Electoral Commission.
At the moment the Electoral Commission believes that it is possible to hold these elections on joint dates without problems. Along with everyone else, however, it acknowledges—I think this was the key point made by my noble friend Lord Rooker—that problems could arise; and if they do arise, that will have a major impact on how well the referendum—or indeed the elections, but particularly the referendum—is held.
If in the course of events the Electoral Commission decides that it is not able to conduct a referendum in a manner that is acceptable to both national and international standards, will the Government put off the referendum to another date? That is an important question and I hope the noble Lord will address it with some care.
Lord Howarth of Newport
I am very grateful to my noble friend, who has certainly done his homework and research very carefully indeed. Have I been advised correctly that the type of AV system that the Government propose should be used for elections to our House of Commons is found elsewhere in the world only in Papua New Guinea and Fiji? Has my noble friend, in the course of his research, found any lessons of more general application from those two laboratory experiments, which may be useful for us to think about as we consider an appropriate system for use in this country in the future?
Lord Campbell-Savours
I have identified those areas, but I think that the more relevant results are those in Queensland in Australia and in Scotland, which we will go through in some detail as we proceed on the Bill.
Lord Strathclyde
I accept the noble Lord’s point; he has made it before. Perhaps if we were doing it differently, it would be done in a different way. For reasons of confidentiality and of making a statement, and rather than allowing the rumour mill to flow, it was right to make the decision we did.
Lord Howarth of Newport
Can I tempt the Leader of the House to apologise on behalf of the Government to Members of the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly, as I think there has been discourtesy towards them? He was good enough to say just now that possibly, if the Government were doing this again, they would do it differently. Will he go a step further and make a handsome apology? They have been treated with discourtesy and disrespect.
Lord Strathclyde
I do not believe in apologising when I am not fully aware of the facts.
Lord Howarth of Newport
This amendment is a helpful and important one. It certainly needs more work, and I do not think that it should be passed as it is at present drafted, but it points in the right direction. The political parties have been right to come to the view, and have somehow stumbled in the past 12 months or so into agreement on the notion, that it is now timely to offer the opportunity to the people of this country to revisit their electoral system and consider whether they want change.
It is too melodramatic to talk in terms of a crisis in our political culture, but it is realistic to acknowledge that there is a malaise and a widespread disaffection from our politics, and a widespread view that elections are determined by small numbers of voters in small numbers of constituencies, and therefore that large numbers of votes are wasted. That is wrong in principle and unsatisfactory in practice. It may be that the malaise would be dispelled were we to be blessed with good government. If we were to enjoy a period of government under which the people of this country came to the view that they were being wisely and benignly governed in the interests of all the people and that they could look forward to unlimited peace and prosperity, no doubt the demand for constitutional change, such as it is—it is not very well articulated, but I think that it is there—would abate.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
Would my noble friend care to come with me to Scotland, where we have had a change in the electoral system for the Scottish Parliament for the past 10 years, and where he will certainly find that that malaise has not been dispelled? He is living in a fool’s paradise.
Lord Howarth of Newport
I absolutely recognise the force of what my noble friend says and would be happy to visit Scotland with him at any time. However, I disagree with my noble friends Lord McAvoy and Lord Grocott, who contend that there is simply no public interest in this question. While I accept that it is something of a preoccupation of the chattering classes and the professional political class, those of us in politics who believe that there is significant dissatisfaction in our political culture and that it has something important to do with the electoral system simply seek to understand the public mood and to see what ways there might be to improve on it.
It is right that we have a referendum on the future electoral system to be used in this country for elections to the House of Commons, but if we are going to do it we should do it properly. It seems quite absurd to have a great national debate and to go through all this palaver, expense and effort to resolve a timid and incomplete choice between first past the post and the alternative vote. If we are to have a referendum on the future electoral system of this country, a rare and very important event, then let us allow the people to have the choice between the range of plausible and significant systems. I support my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours in his view that the supplementary vote should be among the choices offered at a referendum. That means, if we are going to do it properly, we would have to take time over it and the debate would have to be much more extended.
It makes no sense at all to try to rush a debate of this complexity and importance through in the brief period between whatever date this Bill gains Royal Assent and 5 May. Let us have a sustained exercise of political education and debate, following which a decision shall be made. How that decision should be arrived at—the technicalities of the choice to be offered in the referendum—certainly needs more careful examination. I am worried that offering a choice between four major options —but that choice to be determined by AV, which is among the choices to be offered—might somehow bias the outcome. I do not know; I think these things need careful thought. But we should not fluff this opportunity. We should enable all the important choices to be fully considered. That must surely be right. From a personal point of view, I suspect that I would end up voting for first past the post. But it is right that everybody should have the freedom to decide between the major serious options. This amendment is not the occasion to rehearse the virtues or defects of any particular electoral system. The question is whether the full choice should be offered to the people, or the limited choice that it has suited the political parties to offer so far. I hope that it will be the wider choice.
Lord Touhig
My Lords, I would not go into the Lobby and support the noble Lord if he were to push this to a vote tonight, but I welcome proposed new subsection (4) which states:
“In Wales, a Welsh version of the question is also to appear on the ballot papers”.
I remind noble Lords that Wales is the only part of the Union where a substantial number of people speak two languages. Indeed, 20 per cent of people in Wales speak English and Welsh, so it is important that any ballot paper should contain information in both languages. Indeed, there are five parliamentary constituencies in Wales—Ynys Mon, Arfon, Dwyfor Meirionnydd, Ceredigion, and Carmarthen East and Dinefor where the majority of people speak Welsh as their first language. We will come to that when we come to the part of the Bill on boundaries. I hope that we will have support around the House when we try to ensure that those Welsh-speaking areas will not have their representation in the House of Commons diminished.
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Lord Sewel
My Lords, when it comes to major constitutional change, there is some benefit in looking at what has happened in the past when Parliament has confronted the best way of proceeding—a way that enables Parliament clearly to have the decisive say but nevertheless has reference to the directly expressed will of the people.
I hope that the House will forgive my making reference to Scottish devolution. There were two attempts to establish Scottish devolution. The parliamentary processes of those two attempts were markedly different. In 1979 there was a Bill that was amended by Mr George Cunningham—in the Cunningham amendment. This is where we pick up the point made by my noble friend Lord Rooker. Because it was effectively a referendum to implement the Bill, the Cunningham amendment was a threshold amendment. The Secretary of State was required to move an order abandoning the whole project because the threshold was not met.
In 1997 the process was different and, I think, sounder. Then the party went to the electorate with a manifesto commitment. It then produced a White Paper and held an indicative referendum on the White Paper. Parliament then considered the Bill in the light of the referendum. That seemed to be the better way of doing things. It enabled a fully informed debate to take place on the basis of the proposals in the White Paper. There was a national debate on devolution in Scotland and Wales, which people could understand much more clearly and meaningfully from a White Paper than through the technicalities of a Bill. There was the clear expression of the people’s choice through a referendum. Parliament then proceeded in light of that to produce a Bill that satisfied both the manifesto commitment and the referendum outcome.
That is the best way forward. If the Government do not accept the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, they will face the problem of thresholds. Thresholds are difficult; they have an element of subjectivity and politics-playing comes into them. It would be much better, clearly, for this referendum to be indicative, with Parliament then making the final judgment on the basis of its outcome and the degree and strength of the views expressed by the people through it.
Lord Howarth of Newport
My Lords, it would be a good deal safer, and therefore wiser, for the referendum to be indicative rather than mandatory. One reason is the hasty and, frankly, slipshod manner in which the proposition in the Bill has been formulated, has been presented to Parliament and will be presented to the people. These are decisions that have been made in haste and without adequate consideration by all parties.
I confess that it was something of a surprise to me when the Labour Party adopted the alternative vote as party policy. I am not aware that there had been intensive internal consideration within the party. Perhaps I was not listening or was looking the wrong way; or perhaps people, rather wisely, decided not to ask my opinion on the matter. At all events, it was a hastily arrived-at policy shift. If it was hastily arrived at by the Labour Party, it was a good deal more hastily arrived at by the Conservative Party and, I dare say, by the Liberal Democrats. As we all know, the Liberal Democrats did not want AV and the Conservatives did not want AV, yet in this curious fashion they found themselves united in proposing that, after all, it would be a good way to reform the voting system of this country.
As the noble Lord, Lord Deben, said in the previous debate, you can hardly imagine a more momentous constitutional decision. It is important to think extremely deeply and carefully about how we alter our voting system. Few things could be more important to how we live and how we will be governed, yet self-evidently there has not been any careful pondering of this question. The haste of the timetable that is proposed in the Bill means that, just as Parliament and the political parties will not have thought about it with the care that it warrants, nor will the people have had the opportunity to do so. It is, therefore, all the more important that the referendum should be indicative, in that it would give Parliament the opportunity to think further about what it may be appropriate to do in the light of the advice given by the people.
That is more the case now that the House has not approved the amendment proposed by my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours. It would have been a wise device to enable the merits of alternative versions of alternative voting to be expertly and objectively considered, so that Parliament would have the opportunity to think more carefully than it so far has about which system of alternative voting—if it is to be the alternative vote—should be proposed to the people. If that process is not to go forward, that is another reason why it is important that all concerned should be able to deliberate on these matters for rather longer.
It seems to me also that if we have an indicative rather than mandatory referendum, it will preserve the rightful authority both of the people and of Parliament. I am not an enthusiast for referendums but an exception should be made where the question at issue is major constitutional change and, perhaps most importantly, how the electoral system might be altered. We are trustees of the constitution on behalf of the people who elect their representatives to the other place. In this House we have an important watching brief—a kind of trusteeship of the constitution—to ensure that things are not done recklessly, shoddily, hastily or, in so far as we can influence and determine this, unwisely. Therefore, I am not against a referendum on a major constitutional issue. The people who confer political authority on parliamentarians to act on their behalf should have the right to determine by what system they do so.
Equally, if we subject issues routinely to referendum, we undermine Parliament. I am not an enthusiast for referendums but it is appropriate in this case. If it is indicative rather than mandatory, not only do we give the people the opportunity to have their considered say but we uphold the authority of Parliament finally to determine these matters. For both those reasons I hope very much that the House will approve the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Rooker.
Lord Hamilton of Epsom
Like my noble friend Lord Deben, I too have great reservations about referenda because they undermine the sovereignty of Parliament. If the result of this referendum is absolutely overwhelmingly in favour of AV, then there is no way that Parliament could ignore the expressed wishes of the people. I do not quite know why my noble friend Lord Tyler is concerned about it being “indicative” rather than “mandatory”. The noble Lord, Lord Rooker, is right. If a very narrow vote completely changed our voting system, then Parliament should have the option of being able to think again to explore the issues because Parliament has a right and responsibility at that point to give its advice and to debate the issue rather more widely.
Let us face it—we have not had many opportunities to debate this form of voting and an awful lot of the people in this country do not really understand it at all. If this referendum happens, the turnout may conceivably be boosted if we hold it on the same day as the local elections. If it was held on any other day, the turnout would be very low indeed and it would be quite difficult to say that this was a seriously expressed wish of the people of this country. However, as I say, if there is a clear and overwhelming majority in favour of AV, Parliament could not in any way ignore that and the arrangement would have to go through. To be concerned and worried about the idea of this being “indicative” rather than “mandatory” shows a certain sort of paranoia on behalf of those people who believe in this referendum. I advise my noble friends not to be too concerned about it.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
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Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton
I am surprised that neither the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Wirral, nor the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, referred to the big change that will be made in the process and procedure for determining constituencies. I do not declare an interest because at the moment I do not have a vote in elections to the House of Commons. However, I know from years of experience in politics that the public are very interested in and concerned about the process of how parliamentary boundaries are determined. I believe that we have a duty and resent anyone telling me that I am party to time-wasting. In my imagination, I could hear the howls of rage that both noble Lords I named would have uttered had the previous Government attempted to do away with the right of people in our communities to express a view.
Ultimately, I would like to be out of this place and have my vote back, because, as noble Lords know, I have a personal commitment to reform of your Lordships' House. However, while I am a Member, I bitterly resent anybody implying that my motives are unworthy. In my experience, the Conservatives’ partners have in the past used to the full their right to locally-based inquiries into where boundaries should be. On this issue, we are defending the rights of communities to speak for themselves. We are the only ones who can do it, and if we do not, the rights will be abolished.
Lord Howarth of Newport
My Lords, before the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, effectively accuses this side of the House of procedural malpractice, he might care to consider that the coalition is introducing radical proposals for constitutional reform without any authority to do so from the electors. He might also care to consider that the Bill comes to us from the other place with very important parts of it entirely unexamined, both in Committee and on Report. Against that background, perhaps he would accept that it is the duty of the Opposition to scrutinise this legislation exhaustively.
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Strathclyde)
My Lords, we are in danger of having a rerun of Second Reading: let us not to do that. I thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, for what he said. I completely agree with much, although not all, of it. He spotted that the Motion before us is defective and would not do what the noble Baroness intends. I am glad that he confirmed that, if there is a vote, he will not be able to support the Motion. I thank my noble friend Lord Hunt of Wirral, who spoke extremely well, and my noble friend Lord Tyler, who made some important points about the Bill, some of which I will return to.
Most Peers came here to attend the Committee on the Bill. Instead, we have had yet another procedural device. I am not questioning the motives of the noble Baroness. I am sure that she believes that it should be two Bills rather than one. However, to put that Motion now gives the impression that noble Lords opposite do not want to engage in the proper debate in Committee that I hope we will have in a moment.
Noble Lords opposite do huff and puff rather too much. Only a few months ago, earlier this year, we had the previous Government’s Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill. Noble Lords opposite will remember that legislation joyously. It included provisions on no fewer than 13 different subjects ranging from a referendum on the alternative vote to freedom of information, the removal of hereditary peers and the ratification of treaties. Not one Peer opposite—including the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis—jumped up with great outrage about how wrong it was to do that. It was not wrong then, and it is not wrong now.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
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Lord Rennard
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that point. As many noble Lords will know, I was very proud to be his agent in elections some years ago. We have discussed this issue many times. I noted very carefully his comments when he spoke of it not being a question of persuading people that they should have more options than simply two. I wish it were as easy as that because I think the electorate could cope very easily with that choice, as other electorates do in a number of elections in other countries. It is not a matter of persuading the people that they could do this; it is a matter of persuading people in other parties to allow this to happen. Sadly, people in other parties will not allow it to happen so we have to make what progress we can.
Lord Howarth of Newport
My Lords, I remain very puzzled by the noble Lord’s explanation. Surely, Mr Clegg simply messed up the negotiation. He was in a very strong position indeed to get anything he wanted into the coalition agreement and he missed the opportunity to get STV on this ballot paper.
Lord Rennard
My Lords, I can think of a number of very good books that are to be recommended, some of which are currently in circulation and more are due out, which will explain the fallacy of that argument. From personal experience of the 1990s, I know there were clear commitments from the party which the noble Lord now represents to hold a referendum on proportional representation and to support the outcome of that referendum. In 13 years of trying, no progress was made. More progress has been made in the past six months at least in allowing the voters to have some say on this key issue of how representatives who serve them should be chosen than was made in the 13 years the Labour Party was in office with three good majorities and a manifesto in 1997 pledging to give people the choice between proportional representation and first past the post. I am grateful now that at least some progress is being made and a precedent is being set to allow people some say in how their representatives are chosen.
Let me briefly address the question of the boundary review, because it is a very important part of the Bill. I think that the consequences of the reduced and equalised proposals are greatly exaggerated by many people. Most of the academic research on the issue confirms that marginally reducing the number of MPs increasing slightly the size of the average electorate, and making the number of the electors in each seat close to the average will not have much benefit or disbenefit.
I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Wills, is not in his place, but he made the most effective points psephologically in our debate so far. He pointed to a number of factors as to why there is the apparent advantage—it has been described as an 8 per cent advantage—that the Labour Party holds over the Conservatives in the present voting system. He highlighted a number of reasons why, of that apparent 8 per cent advantage, very little is to do with the different sizes of electorates in Labour and Conservative-held constituencies.
The highly respected psephologist, Lewis Baston, was also prayed in aid by noble Lords opposite a few hours ago. He has made calculations suggesting that perhaps eight or 10 seats may be varied between what the Conservative Party or the Labour Party might have as a result of these reviews. Those are figures in line with all the previous Boundary Commission reviews—and there have been three in the past 27 years. There is no big change out of this.
To some of those whom I must now call my noble friends, I must say that the enthusiasm in their party for making these changes—although I note a little lack of enthusiasm looking at their Benches at the moment—is misguided, but so is the opposition on the Labour Benches to the changes, because they will not actually have a big outcome in the general election. Of course, changing boundaries is never an easy process for MPs, candidates or parties, but the principle that MPs should generally have the same number of electors must generally be a sound one. It is the same principle for which the rotten boroughs were eventually abolished by the Great Reform Act 1832. It is not a principle that is unusual, unfair or undemocratic, and it has been at the heart of all the previous boundary reviews—perhaps in a less rigid way—conducted under previous Governments.
I close on what is a very important point for me about the process of the boundary reviews. I think that the Bill may make the problem of redrawing the boundaries a little more problematic than it needs to be. All the previous Boundary Commission reviews have had a guideline asking them to respect the need to minimise inconvenience among other logical factors when redrawing boundaries. The Bill provides for that provision to apply in reviews for the 2020 general election and in subsequent reviews, but it does not do so for the next review to be published in September 2013 for a general election in 2015. There will, of course, be significant changes to constituency boundaries when there are significant reductions in the number of MPs.
Of course, it would be much easier for the staff in the Boundary Commission to start with clean maps that do not have existing boundaries marked on them which must be considered as part of the new configuration, but I believe that it would be much better to allow the commission to take into account the existing boundaries—at least as far as it sees fit. This would go a little way, at least, to addressing the many concerns raised in the debate about the consequences of the review in many areas.