Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Howarth of Newport Excerpts

Wednesday 12th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

My Lords, in speaking to Amendment 55, moved by my noble friend Lord Lipsey, I am obviously happy that I will not speak to or move Amendment 56, which stands in my name. We are already in 2011 and the proposal in the Bill is that we are to have a report from the Boundary Commission in a little over two and a half years. That is just impractical. If we do not see some movement on this, we are creating the conditions whereby the Boundary Commission will find it almost impossible to have any sort of meaningful process with local residents, even under the limited proposals in the Bill.

Many years ago, I lived in Coventry—a great Midlands city—and I was involved in presenting evidence to the boundary inquiry in the early 1990s; I think it was in approximately 1993. That inquiry was triggered by proposals to reduce the number of parliamentary seats from four to three. At that time there were three Labour and one Conservative Members of Parliament. Going down from four seats to three meant that it was very unlikely, however you drew the boundaries, that the Conservatives would retain a seat in the city. In producing its recommendations, the Boundary Commission produced two seats in the north of the city. It had a Coventry North West seat and a Coventry North East seat. It put the Holbrooks ward from the north-west and the Longford ward, where I lived in the north-east, into the same constituency.

It made no difference to the outcome of a future election but the Boundary Commission, by drawing up its proposals back in its London office, had missed the Coventry-Nuneaton railway line and the A444 from junction 3 of the M6 into the city. I stress again to your Lordships that where those wards ended up made no difference to the actual outcome of the election, but it had completely missed that. We had a local inquiry; local residents, community groups, Members of Parliament, the parties and the local authorities all attended. The next day, the commissioner himself drove around the city, visiting the various points that had been mentioned by residents there. He saw the merits of the case argued by people and changed the proposals accordingly so that, even today, the Holbrooks ward remains in Coventry North West and the Longford ward remains in Coventry North East.

My point is that if the Government get rid of local inquiries and only allow less than two and a half years, as proposed in the Bill, for written submissions then such things will never be picked up. We will have constituencies created that have no basis in any sort of community ties and no relationship to local residents. I want to hear from the Minister whether the Government are prepared to risk that or are they prepared, as the amendment suggests, to give a longer time than they are proposing for the Boundary Commission to consider written proposals?

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

My Lords, there is no case at all for this process being rushed as the Government seek to insist that it should be. In the range of amendments so helpfully tabled by my noble friends, I personally prefer that in the name of my noble friend Lord Grocott, requiring that the Boundary Commission should report by 2017. The Government may argue, I suppose, that the case for insisting that the Boundary Commission makes its recommendations by 1 October 2013 is that it will hasten the great day when we have votes of equal value in this country, but if that is their argument it is a fallacious one. Equalising constituencies will not produce votes of equal value. Other factors will offset that effect. For example, differential turnout will mean that votes will be of different value in different constituencies. If you vote in a constituency where there is a 50 per cent turnout and someone else votes in one where there is a 60 per cent turnout and the margin of victory is the same, your vote in the 50 per cent turnout contest is a more significant one. Introducing the alternative vote will do nothing to alter the present state of affairs in which general elections are won or lost in the marginal seats. It will be the votes of swing voters in marginal seats that will continue to be intensively wooed by campaigning parties and candidates, and those votes will have a quite disproportionate effect on the electoral outcome.

[Lord Wills]

I agree with the powerful case that my noble friend is making, but does he agree that another factor militating against the equalisation of constituencies that the Government want to see—I think most of us want to see it—is the fact that this boundary review will be taken on the basis of a flawed register? Many constituencies will have nearly 100 per cent registration of all those who are eligible to vote, but others will have barely half that. How can constituencies possibly be equalised on that statistical basis?

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

My noble friend developed his argument compellingly in his speech just now. Just as differential turnout matters very much, so do differential levels of registration. These are all factors tending, unfortunately, to produce votes of unequal value. Moreover, within the alternative vote system, we know that the votes of the supporters of the minority parties that continue to be totted up and distributed will themselves carry more power in the ultimate decision than other votes will.

One is left puzzled about what the Government’s motivation can be in rushing this through, unless it is to secure political advantage for the Conservative Party as part of the deal between the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives. The Liberal Democrats do not even get the reformed electoral system that they really want, but the Tories get their opportunity to reduce the number of seats by 50, which, it has been calculated, if not by them—although I think they might be aware of the calculation—will advantage them and disadvantage the Labour Party.

The truth is that, while pursuing this pretty cynical policy, the Government risk causing the redistribution of constituencies to be botched. If it is botched and there is widespread public dissatisfaction with it, that can serve only to alienate sentiment and to alienate our citizens further from our democratic processes in this country. If there is a case for reform, and I believe that there is a case for significant reform in a number of aspects of our constitutional arrangements, then the benefits of reform will be dissipated and lost if the public feel angry that their legitimate entitlement to make their contribution to this process through public inquiries has been stamped upon by a Government who are in a hurry to effect change to suit their own political interest.

My noble friend Lord Dixon made a speech of profound importance, and I hope that Ministers and noble Lords opposite will think very carefully about what he said. He spoke with passion about the community of which he has been a member all his life. The Government’s formula of insisting on rigid numerical equality between constituencies risks violating community, ignoring history and causing profound offence to the people of this country. If indeed there is to be a rigid numerical formula, with a difference of no more than plus or minus 5 per cent from the norm of 76,000 voters, it is all the more important that the Boundary Commission should be allowed to have the time to take care to be sensitive to these other very important factors. If the Government rush in seeking to create numerically equal constituencies and do not pay attention to what people have to say about community, history, geography and the importance of the alignment of parliamentary constituencies with local government, they will make the process even more offensive than I fear it will inevitably be in any case.

[Baroness Corston]

Does my noble friend recognise that many of us have heard—as, perhaps, he has—from people in Cornwall, who have said that their boundary has been inviolate for more than 1,000 years? They are absolutely appalled that anyone should consider a boundary that includes areas of both Devon and Cornwall, which they would consider utterly unacceptable.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

It is a grossly insensitive and, politically, a remarkably stupid thing to contemplate. I add one further point. My recent observation of the working of the Boundary Commission was in Norfolk, on the question of whether there should be unitary status for Norwich within the county of Norfolk. The difficulty that we got into was, in part, because the Boundary Commission took so much longer than the timescale to which it had been tasked. It simply could not get the job done on the timescale that the previous Government wanted. It might be wise for this Government to study that instance and learn a lesson from it. If this process is pushed through with the kind of haste that is intended, all kinds of grievous consequences will follow. It is a waste of an opportunity for reform.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

I do not want to labour the issue of timing, other than to say that I support vigorously the amendment moved by my noble friend. However, I implore Ministers to listen to the wise counsel of the noble Lord, Lord Wills. He probably knows more about electoral registration than any other Member of either House. He was a Minister throughout a period when it dominated his agenda. Ministers in this Government would do well to consider carefully his words on the whole issue of why the existing register is useless for the purposes that they intend to use it.

I want to ask Ministers questions based on the 14th report of the Select Committee on the Constitution from the 2003-04 Session, Parliament and the Legislative Process. Paragraph 15 of Chapter 3 refers to the arrangements for the handling of legislation. I raise this issue because it deals with the question of consultation. I am trying to secure from the Government some more information on the extent to which they consulted on the time that is set out in the Bill for dealing with the Boundary Commission review. Paragraph 15 says:

“There is an extensive gestation and drafting process before a bill is laid before Parliament … Proposals now are regularly put out for consultation and there is an established framework for that consultation”.

Paragraph 16 goes on to refer to a,

“Code of Practice issued by the Cabinet Office”,

which,

“stipulates that there should be a consultation period of twelve weeks”.

My questions are about that consultation period. When did it start? When did it end? Who was consulted? Where is the information that came back as a result of that consultation? That is highly pertinent to today’s debate. All I ask of Ministers is whether we can have that information. If that is the process that should have been undertaken, and recognising that there has been a short period between the election and today, some of us, including me, might wonder whether that code of practice was complied with. If it was not, let us have a full explanation of why not.

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[Lord Howarth of Newport]

I add two considerations to the important ones already put forward by my noble friends and the noble Lord, Lord Martin of Springburn. One is that it is not a question of what is fair to people serving as MPs: we ought also to consider that the House of Commons itself needs continuity. It needs experience. It needs committee officers who have experience of that particular committee work. It needs its subject experts who the House learns to respect and listen to on particular matters. It needs those who are knowledgeable about procedure and people in the Whips Office who keep the show on the road. All those contributions that different individual Members of Parliament make need experience. Ministers need experience. Some Ministers will demonstrate within a short timescale that perhaps they should return to the Back Benches. Others, who will be good Ministers, need time to develop. For all those reasons, it is profoundly important that, as the amendment of my noble friend Lord Lipsey, proposes, we do not destabilise the pattern of parliamentary representation more often than is genuinely necessary to ensure that the boundaries are adequately up to date.

I will touch briefly on the other consideration that I would like to put forward because I said something about it in one of our debates on Monday and I do not want to repeat myself. Equally, it is important that local political parties should not be destabilised and upset more often than is necessary. All political parties have difficulty in attracting membership and are too prone to dissipate time and energy in the tussle for office and position within the party. They need to be able to settle to their work and do the job that they do within their communities, which is absolutely fundamental to the operation of our democracy. We should not destabilise that process gratuitously.

[Lord Maclennan of Rogart]

My Lords, I am interested in the arguments that the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, put forward in support of his amendment. But there has been an unspoken premise throughout this short debate that the Boundary Commission will inevitably shake the kaleidoscope and the picture that emerges from it will be quite different from before. That will not necessarily be the case. Certainly, as a consequence of the reduction in the number of parliamentary seats that is proposed in the Bill, on the first occasion there will be a considerable change in the shape of constituencies. But once that position has become settled—and I do not imagine that even the most ardent constitutional reformer would anticipate that altering the size of the House of Commons would become a matter of custom—the stability of the total numbers is highly predictable.

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[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

I cannot accept that. If you were to have a longer period, that would lead to greater disruption, but you have to take into account the five-year period and the fact that in reviews after the first one the Boundary Commission has the discretion to take into account any inconveniences attendant on the change, even allowing for the 5 per cent variation. Therefore, I do not believe that it leads to the same degree of upheaval.

I cannot accept the premise that the noble Lords, Lord Howarth and Lord Martin, mentioned that this is somehow a recipe for one-term Members of Parliament. I do not think that that stands up.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

Even if the Minister is right that five-yearly reviews will not necessarily lead to the major redrawing of boundaries in every case, how can it be good for Parliament if Members of Parliament are continuously distracted by these reviews and feel that they are existing on shifting sands? I do not think that that will help them to do their job better.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

The contributions that we have heard from a number of former Members of Parliament indicate that, notwithstanding what was happening, they continued to apply themselves with considerable and utmost diligence to the task in hand representing the constituents who elected them in the constituency for which they were elected at the previous election. As my noble friend Lord Maclennan said, his constituency was increased by some 25 per cent and he accommodated that. I recall the effort that he made to address the needs of those new constituents. Even under the present system, new boundaries are drawn and come into effect at a general election. Anyone who wishes to see their current MP can readily find out who he or she is if they do not know, and indeed they do so. At an election they will know who the candidates are and will choose how to cast their votes. The two matters are separate for electors. As I indicated, the important principle here is fairness to electors. On that basis, I encourage the noble Lord to withdraw the amendment.

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[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

My Lords, not surprisingly, I support the amendment, which also stands in my name. I have a particular interest in young people voting. It is true that it comes somewhat second to my interest in women voting; nevertheless, for me it is a high priority, as the Committee will know from my, sadly, unsuccessful move to allow 16 year-olds to vote in the referendum next year. How we vote depends, of course, partly on the system, which is what the referendum will decide in due course. However, it is also a matter of when and where we vote, and of the interest that the authorities, parliamentarians and returning officers take in our votes.

As to the timing of elections, I have another interest—to allow voting at weekends and in town halls or in libraries or anywhere else and not just at one polling station. I think that that should be possible with electronic records. However, that matter is not in front of us today. Here, we are concerned about a new generation of voters—either those who first qualify to vote in the 2015 general election, or those who perhaps could have voted in 2010 but for a range of reasons did not do so. Part of the reason for that lack of voting was down to political parties: the choices that they offered, the language they used or their style of campaigning. None of those matters is in front of us today but some of them concerned the low level of registration of new, and particularly young, voters.

Part of the problem has been that there is no single body or person who has both responsibility for getting people registered and something of a vested interest in doing so. Of course, the parties want voters to register—or, if we are being really honest, they want their potential supporters to register. However, the responsibility lies with local authorities, for which there is no benefit from a high success rate in their area. Therefore, we need some carrot if no stick is to hand to ensure that someone with the responsibility for registration also has the incentive to flush out new voters and get them on to the list.

It seems to me that the new system of defining constituencies, which will be almost completely number-driven compared with our historical, more flexible approach, offers an opportunity for a fresh approach to voter registration, and I urge the Committee to seize it. We should write into the Bill that the Secretary of State will have to be satisfied that local authorities really have sought out their youthful populations and got them on to the register before the Boundary Commission starts on what will be a very demanding task. That will make it easier for the commission, as it can then be satisfied that it is not forced to ignore residents simply because they have not been registered. However, I believe it will also show the next generation of voters that the Government are serious about wanting to involve them in the democratic process and are taking steps to ensure that their voices and needs are not excluded from the arithmetic of boundary lines. I believe that such a move is needed. If we cannot use notional votes as the basis for drawing boundaries, we must find and register new voters so that they are included.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

Presumably a large part of the purpose of parliamentary reform is to refresh our parliamentary democracy, re-animate it, and re-engage the citizens of this country with it. My noble friend Lady Thornton’s amendment is particularly helpful because it addresses a problem that we all recognise to be real and disturbing, which is the poor propensity of people in the 18 to 24 year-old age group to vote. There is some evidence that the attitudes that people bring to their first opportunity to vote as young adults tend to persist through life. We must all agree that it is extremely important that we make a determined effort to ensure that there is a much fuller participation of young people in our parliamentary democracy and that they take up their right to vote.

My noble friend has tabled a helpful amendment in enjoining a particular duty on the Secretary of State. We had some discussion on Monday about our fear that local authorities, because of the reductions in their funding, will be unable to pursue electoral registration as vigorously as they should. My noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours made a powerful speech on that problem. If local authority funding is to be cut by some 28 per cent over the next four years, it must follow that any activity that is not statutorily required of local authorities will be in jeopardy. My noble friend’s amendment would insist that at least the Secretary of State was able to certify that every effort is made to bring 17 to 24 year-olds on to the register. That points in a direction that implies that the Secretary of State himself must take steps to ensure that the registration process is carried on vigorously, effectively and thoroughly.

It would be helpful if the noble and learned Lord would say something about the Government’s view on the practical prospects for improving the proportion of registration in all age groups, but particularly in this one, the behaviour of which will be so crucial to the future of our democracy. We can change the voting system and constituency boundaries, but if we fail to re-engage people to vote, those reforms are little better than a sham.

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

I do not think that there is much dispute about either the facts or the outcome sought. In March 2010, the Electoral Commission produced a report entitled The Completeness and Accuracy of Electoral Registers in Great Britain. In a sample of areas that it examined in detail, 56 per cent of 18 to 24 year-olds were missing from the electoral register. In the 2005 general election, 37 per cent only of those between 18 and 24 voted, so there is a more than 50 per cent underregistration, and only just over a third of that age vote.

We have heard repeatedly in the debate and outside that if young people are not registered and do not vote, they set a trend in their lives that distances them from democracy. I do not think that anyone in the House disagrees with any of those propositions. We on the Front Bench of the Labour Party support the amendment because we have heard nothing from the Government about what they propose to do about it. If they had some proposal that could assist, we would be interested to hear it, but this proposal, made by my noble friend Lady Thornton and supported by my noble friend Lady Hayter of Kentish Town, builds into the system the requirement for work to be done on the issue, which is something that the noble and learned Lord himself has said in previous debates that he wants to do. He should tell us what the Government will do about what they have already agreed is a problem. If it is not as good as this amendment, maybe this is the way forward.

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[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

I have no hesitation in welcoming such a proposal. It does not run counter to the other data matching that we are proposing or the roadshows on individual registration. I am sure that the very constructive suggestion by the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, will be taken into account.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

My noble friend Lord Rooker makes an excellent point. Will the Minister be kind enough to tell the House what view the Government take as to the likelihood of sufficient resources being available to electoral registration officers in local authorities?

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

As I have said, we are committed to undertaking the pilot schemes and, if they have proved their worth, rolling them out. I would not make that commitment unless we believed that the resources were there to do that.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Howarth of Newport Excerpts

Wednesday 12th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness McDonagh]

I ask the noble Lord, Lord Lester, or anybody on the government Benches: why are the roles of government and the big society mutually exclusive? I find the notion quite shocking that it should exclusively be political parties that deal with underregistration and with underregistration of individual groups. I think that government and not-for-profit membership organisations in the voluntary sector should work in partnership to achieve these goals. In the run-up to Christmas, I was out every week doing registration as part of my local Labour Party. All the political parties were doing that work, as was the local authority. We increased the register by just under 4,000 voters across the local authority. That would have brought in 1 million voters across the country if people had done likewise everywhere. Every strong democracy in any country in the world sees government as responsible for compiling an accurate register. I think that it is quite shocking that you would not see that as the role of government.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

My Lords, the life of this country has been enriched and energised generation by generation by waves of immigrants coming to Britain and forming communities here. Whether they were Huguenots in the 17th century, Jewish refugees from central and eastern Europe in the first half of the 20th century, the Afro-Caribbean influx in the second half of the 20th century or Ugandan Asians within that same period, they have all contributed immensely to our society. The brilliance and energy of this capital city, London, seems to arise from the fact that it is a completely open international city, not that that is something that any Government have ever intended. Indeed, we have attitudes to immigration in official policy that seem to be curmudgeonly and mean and which are getting worse.

The question at issue is how those members of black and ethnic minorities, and other minorities, who are legitimately resident in this country should be engaged in the democratic process, should be entered on the electoral register and should be motivated to play their part and to exercise their democratic rights as citizens. Of those people legitimately here in the minorities, far too many are grievously disadvantaged. My noble friends Lord Boateng and Lady Thornton have both explained in reference to London and to Bradford just how bad the situation is.

This polarisation of our society is shameful. It is something that we must act on and not simply contemplate with regret. The voices of those who are unenfranchised as it is need to be heard. Their needs and their aspirations need to be represented, but they will not be unless they are registered to vote and exercise their vote. The best possibilities for the future of our society depend on their doing so and on the fullest integration within our society of those minorities.

The one-nation tradition has been a proud tradition of the Conservative Party. I hope that that tradition is not in abeyance and is not dead. One nation, of course, has to be characterised by a rich diversity economically, culturally, socially and politically. The condition of the electoral register—its completeness and accuracy—is a crucial test of our progress towards achieving that fullness of integration that will enable all our people to have the opportunities that they ought to have and our society to achieve the potential that it ought to recognise and to see. Failure to achieve that political integration must be a source of division, of tension and of the impoverishment of individuals and of us collectively.

I strongly support the view that has been expressed by my noble friends in moving and speaking to the amendment, and as was expressed by my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer of Thoroton earlier today, urging the Government to accept that there should be a drive this year to achieve a step change—a major improvement—in levels of electoral registration. That has to be a responsibility of all sorts of institutions, agencies and different groups within our society.

During this debate, mention has been made of the role of the political parties, the churches, the Equality and Human Rights Commission and the Electoral Commission. We have spent some time discussing the role of local authorities and their capacity to promote electoral registration. Above all, it should be the role of the Secretary of State to lead. I hope to hear from the noble and learned Lord the Minister, in his response, some account of how the Secretary of State will lead this process.

While we can disagree with many aspects of the reforms to which the Government have committed themselves in this Bill, all of us will accept that we must have a voting system that engages people. We must have a Boundary Commission and procedures for it to ensure that the boundaries are sufficiently contemporary and appropriate for the proper functioning of our democratic system. Without the improvement that is needed in electoral registration, those reforms will be deprived of their utility and the value that they ought to have. Reform, therefore, in the sense of real improvement in electoral registration, is no less important than the other reforms to which the Government are committed in the Bill.

I was surprised to hear the noble Lord, Lord Lester, say to the Committee that the law will not change attitudes, as one of the virtues of the equality legislation with which he is so honourably associated is that, while it may have taken decades longer than many of us would have wished to achieve the purposes that were enshrined in it, the way in which it has worked has been, as much as anything else, declaratory: it has stated a principle and established new norms in our society so that people understand what is proper. Gradually, attitudes and practice have conformed to that. I believe that the law can change attitudes. If this amendment is incorporated in the Bill, it will, by the declaration that it makes, help to change attitudes for the better and will have significant practical effects. I think that we should welcome that.

[Lord Lester of Herne Hill]

May I suggest that the noble Lord reads the White Papers of September 1974 and September 1975, where he will see what we wrote and what I have just repeated, apparently in vain, which is that the law is not a panacea? In order to be given effect and to change hearts and minds, the law has to be translated into action by voluntary measures taken by ordinary men and women. I would also add, for the benefit of another noble Lord, that I did not say that the functions of the state and the private sector are mutually exclusive. I said that they are complementary.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

I shall be happy to follow the noble Lord’s suggestion and look again at the White Papers, but I believe that the benefit of those papers and the legislation was in part that they established principles to which as a society we should commit ourselves. It has taken far longer than we hoped that it would for the reality of our national life to match the aspirations set out in that legislation, but without that legislation that change would not have happened.

[Baroness Liddell of Coatdyke]

My Lords, I am glad to have the opportunity to follow my noble friend Lord Howarth because the point he has made about the law changing attitudes in this case is very valid. If we were able to see this House accept my noble friend’s amendment, it would be a signal of the determination of the establishment of this country to reach out to those in minority communities. It had not been my intention to speak to this amendment, but my noble friend Lord Boateng’s very persuasive argument in relation to it has made me rethink some of my own attitudes. I think that some of us assume that communities are to a large extent homogeneous and that people go out and register their vote. However, I discovered a key thing in the 1970s when I was general-secretary of the Labour Party in Scotland, having come from a community that had almost no minority members at all but was also made up largely of incomers.

I come from the industrial west of Scotland where people settled either as a consequence of the highland clearances on the one hand or the Irish potato famine on the other. The policeman would be a native Gallic speaker and the miner would be a native Gaelic speaker. Often the two communities existed in complete oblivion of each other. It was probably not until I went to university that I was aware that I had actually been brought up in a Scottish town because all my heritage had been Irish. One of the reasons for making that point is that there were very few black people in that community. The only black people were Pakistani shopkeepers, and only a couple of handfuls of them at that. They transformed the community because, for the first time ever, you could get a pint of milk after six o’clock at night.

Thirty years later, I was elected as the Member of Parliament for that community. What was interesting was that the demographic had barely changed. What had changed was that those Pakistani shopkeepers were extremely wealthy small businessmen and absolute pillars of the community. But the real eye opener for me when I moved on to the Scottish stage was realising the sense of alienation, particularly among the Chinese community, who operated pretty much in isolation. The most shocking thing I found as someone trying to engage other women in the political process was the extent to which Pakistani women were completely blocked out from the opportunity to participate politically. At the time it caused me to look hard at how you get people from minority communities to engage in the political process. The light bulb moment was the recognition that it was not just about language, although that was significant. I was helped enormously by people like my colleague from the other place, Mohammad Sarwar, who helped to engage the Labour Party in the Pakistani community in Glasgow.

I also discovered the extent of suspicion of the political process. That was because of people’s backgrounds and fears, which were perhaps linked to the reasons why they had left their countries to come and settle in the United Kingdom. Some of them were second and third generation, but they were frightened of the consequences of being seen to be part of a political system and perhaps of taking the wrong decision as to which party to support, thereby being disadvantaged in the community.

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[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

With respect, I think that the point that the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, made was whether Ministers have such discretion. It is certainly my understanding that the power is not intended to be discretionary. The intention is that, if a boundary commission wants a modification, Ministers will be obliged to incorporate that modification in laying the Order in Council. The two new subsections (5A) and (5B) need to be taken together. New subsection (5B) describes the circumstances in which a modification would be made.

As I have indicated to the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, and indeed to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, I will read this again. I have done so already and I am satisfied that there is no malign intent that would oblige Ministers to follow a request from one of the Boundary Commissions, but I am willing to give it further reconsideration and others will no doubt look at it and read it.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

I am looking at the Explanatory Notes to Clause 10 of the Bill. It seems to be very clear that discretion is left to the Secretary of State in laying,

“before Parliament a draft of an Order in Council for giving effect to the recommendations in the boundary reports”,

to accept or not to accept the modifications that the Boundary Commission may wish.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

That is perhaps a good reason for us to examine it again. I have indicated what the intention is and I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, for flagging this up. It will give us an opportunity to be satisfied that the wording reflects the intention.

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[Lord McNally]

I will take comfort in it. It is still seared into my soul—we should count ourselves lucky here—that I once had an order in the other place that involved Northern Ireland. There was me, the government Minister, and five Ulster Unionists, and we finally got away at about 2.20 am. I take the noble Lord’s Gypsy’s warning; I will check on this, and if there are any worries I will bring it back to the House.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

Before the Minister sits down, I want to pick him up on his use of the term “paranoia”, which he has used a couple of times.

[Lord McNally]

I can give the noble Lord evidence. There has been bullying by—

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

May I just make my point?

[Lord McNally]

No.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

I ask the Minister and his colleagues on that side of the House to understand that there is deep and genuine concern on our side that great quantities of constitutional legislation are being driven through Parliament by the coalition, which has no mandate for it and has not offered the public or the political system as a whole the opportunity to consider it in advance of its introduction. The legislation is being driven through on a fast track. We have a responsibility to guard the constitution, and if the Minister considers that our objections to the process that the coalition Government are adopting are paranoid, he is being extraordinarily obtuse and insensitive.

[Lord McNally]

This side of the House has treated serious amendments seriously, but I invite any future historian to read Hansard and then they can make their judgment.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Howarth of Newport Excerpts

Monday 10th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Liddell of Coatdyke]

I am very grateful to my noble friend. Since he has given up the chairmanship of Hearts Football Club, he has become secretary of my fan club. I do not know whether that is more auspicious or inauspicious than being chairman of Hearts Football Club.

The issue of the shape and construction is very important. I say to the Liberal Democrat members of the coalition, who have, over the years, made a very convincing argument for localism in politics—that all politics is local—that what is proposed is an aberration. It completely denies the local input into the shape and size of constituencies.

I made reference on Second Reading to the fact that the very last speech that the late John Smith made in Scotland, the day before he died, was to the Boundary Commission, because there was a proposal to split the constituency that I went on to represent right down the main street. People assume that if you come from a mining community or a working-class community—if you do not come from a 12th-century mansion house and can trace your ancestors back to 1066—you do not care about the history of the place that you come from. My experience is that you care passionately about the nature of the place that you come from. People become grossly offended when bureaucrats—as they see it—simply pluck a figure out of the air and construct an artificial community as a consequence. That becomes enshrined in this legislation, and this adoration of localism is why my noble friend’s amendment is so important. It is critical to stand back, take time and do this properly. I urge the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, when he replies, to give us an answer on the figure of 600 and to recognise that these are not partisan points, but are about the nature of the communities that make up this country. He should properly take into account that the passion that people feel for their own communities requires that there be a proper consideration of the nature of their democratic representation.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

My Lords, this legislation has been constructed in haste and is being pushed through Parliament in haste. It was constructed in haste during the hasty negotiation of the coalition agreement; it is being introduced in the first Session of a new Parliament—so there was no Green Paper, no consultative process, nor, indeed, as has been noted, was there any pre-legislative scrutiny within Parliament; and it was very hastily proceeded with in the other place before it reached us. For all these reasons, it is right and proper that it should be carefully scrutinised not only by us here in this House now, but also on the basis that my noble friend Lord Wills has put forward.

Under my noble friend’s proposal for a committee of inquiry, the great advantage would be that people of enormous experience and wisdom would be brought into the process, and it would be conducted in a context that would ensure impartiality. I am sure that noble Lords want to produce the right outcome in the broader interests of our constitution and our country, but it is in the nature of the adversarial processes that characterise our Parliament that it is very difficult to achieve a consensus in parliamentary proceedings. However, under the process that my noble friend has advocated there would be a real prospect of being able to reach a large measure of agreement, proposals could be recommended not only to us but to the people of this country, and there would be a wider public debate on the interim recommendations of my noble friend’s committee and then, of course, on its final conclusions. That would be a better way to approach these enormously important issues and responsibilities than the way that the coalition Government have adopted.

Frankly, the way that the Government have introduced this Bill, and the way they are proceeding with it, is not a good way to govern. These are major issues that need to be treated with proper deliberation, bipartisanship and responsibility—issues such as the appropriate size of constituencies, the number of Members of Parliament who should serve in the House of Commons, the make-up of a House of Commons that very possibly will be elected under the alternative votes system instead of first past the post, the relationship between a Member of Parliament and his constituents, and the relationship between Parliament and the Executive. One recites the issues that fall to be resolved in this process and it is self-evident that they are of major importance to the health of our democratic culture and to the good functioning of our Parliament. So my noble friend’s recommendation is one that we ought to welcome and embrace.

Among the particular issues that he has itemised and drawn attention to in his complex amendment is the relative importance of electoral equality. The noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, spoke very well on that issue. Coming—as he also does—from Wales, I am particularly conscious of the devastating impact on the structure of political life in Wales that a dogmatic insistence on numerical equality in the size of constituencies would bring about. We have a responsibility not to proceed as recklessly as that. Of course it is desirable, other things being equal, that constituencies should be more or less of equal size, but I think that the very narrow margin of fluctuation of 5 per cent either side of the norm of 76,000 electors that the Government propose is simply inadequate.

So the committee of inquiry ought to examine the options for a 5 per cent toleration, a 10 per cent variation and, indeed, other margins of flexibility, so that the desirability of constituencies being of equal size should be weighed against what is also, surely we must all agree, highly desirable—that the integrity and character of particular communities should be recognised and respected and, of course, that the relationship between parliamentary constituencies and the boundaries of local authorities should also be so designed as to make sense.

The Deputy Prime Minister compares this legislation in its significance to the Great Reform Act of 1832. But the difference between his approach in this measure and the approach which was enacted in the 1832 legislation is that it was the 1832 legislation that, for the first time, established in our parliamentary culture and our practical parliamentary arrangements the representation of communities. It was because people in the newly urbanising and industrialising communities, particularly in the north, objected to being represented in Parliament by county MPs, and because people in the counties themselves found that unacceptable, that the pressure grew to look again at how parliamentary representation was constructed. It was in consequence of the 1832 measure that the great industrial cities and the new industrial communities—Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool, Bury, Rochdale, Bradford; these very significant and very important places—got proper parliamentary representation and that, for the first time, the people who lived in those places had the chance to elect their own Members of Parliament and to hold their own Members of Parliament to account. Of course the accountability was imperfect on the limited franchise, but we saw a development from that point which led to a state of affairs in which—even though the pressure for reform rightly persisted for more than 100 years after that, and there is still pressure for reform—there was a pride in the British constitution and an ownership of the British constitution.

We all are concerned that that pride in our constitution has diminished. However, hastily spatchcocked reforming measures which are perceived, fairly or unfairly, to be tainted by a bias in terms of party interest—for example, whether the number of 600 constituencies, a figure apparently arbitrarily chosen, has been calculated to be to the disadvantage of the Labour Party—give rise to doubts and questionings about the process that we are engaged in at the moment, not only for noble Lords on this side of the House but for many people in the country. Many people are very uncertain whether this is the right way to be going.

If we could take the suspicion of partisan politics out of the process through the establishment of the committee of inquiry proposed in this amendment then we would help to build the public’s confidence in this important reforming process. We shall of course have opportunities to debate specific amendments about numerical equality and what exceptions should be allowed for that, but let us recognise now that there are protests coming from Cornwall, from the Isle of Wight and Ynys Mon which have to be taken seriously. There is a danger that places which regard themselves as authentic communities will be split and that others will be yoked together with places with which the residents of both feel that they have nothing in common. That will not be at all good for confidence let alone for pride in our parliamentary democracy.

My noble friend Lord Wills also rightly makes the point in subsection 2(b) of his amendment that the House of Commons is part of a much larger system. You cannot simply take a chunk of the constitution and push it, pull it around, mould it and remake it as if it was a piece of plasticine while ignoring the impact that a change in one part of the constitution has on other parts. If you alter the size of the House of Commons, if you alter the relationship between Members of Parliament and the Executive, and if you alter the capacity of Members of the House of Commons to scrutinise legislation, from all of these things there necessarily follow major implications for the work of this House.

It has been noted by a number of speakers that we ought also to consider the relationship between the House of Commons, the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly and the devolved representative institutions of government. I think that that point is not included in my noble friend’s amendment, but perhaps we can reconsider his amendment on Report, and perhaps amendments can be made to his amendment so as to perfect the excellent scheme that he has put forward for our consideration. Additionally, the relationship between Members of the House of Commons and elected members in local government has always to be considered when you are considering making changes to the House of Commons. You cannot change the House of Commons in isolation without there being very important implications. It is not of course just the interests of MPs and elected councillors that count, although their capacity to do their job is in itself important, but we have to consider above all the interests and views of members of the public.

My noble friend and indeed all of us agree that the present system of boundary reviews is imperfect and needs to be reformed because clearly it takes too long to achieve changes in boundaries. But how long the Boundary Commission ought to take in its processes is not something that we are going to be able to resolve in the course of debates in this House or back in another place. As a number of noble Lords have already argued today, it is again of the greatest importance to ensure that boundaries are appropriately determined, and particularly that the people who are to be represented by Members of the House of Commons have themselves had an opportunity to contribute to the formation of the judgment and decision as to what the revised boundaries ought to be. This is a complex matter that needs impartial, expert and thorough consideration which again a committee of inquiry would be well placed to undertake. For this and a considerable number of other reasons, what my noble friend has suggested is a helpful and excellent idea.

My noble friend did suggest the committee of inquiry should be a Royal Commission, but hearts are slightly liable to sink at that suggestion because Royal Commissions have a reputation for taking minutes and going on for years, or whatever the saying is. But he has written in to his amendment that an interim report should be made each year and that there should be a final report within three years of the passing of this Bill. Although I think it would be a tight squeeze, it would then be possible for all the key decisions to be taken within the life of this Parliament. Perhaps not all the consequential legislation could be enacted, but the decisions would be taken so that this would indeed have proved to be a great reforming Parliament. The coalition could claim with better justification that it was a great reforming Government, but the reform should have been designed on the basis of impartial, expert and thorough deliberation instead of hasty legislation subject to the force majeure of the Whips. That is not a good basis for ensuring lasting and well-judged reform.

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[Lord Harris of Haringey]

The case that I am making is that we have to define the appropriate numerical relationship between the electorate and the Member of Parliament. If you want to go down the route of equalisation, you should first define what the appropriate ratio is. If you do not know that, the argument is, frankly, pointless and otiose.

However, I do not necessarily believe that equalisation is the sole point that we should be looking at. One of the dogs that have not barked in this debate has been the question of what other factors are important, and the amendment provides the opportunity to consider the character of localities and their different natures. When I was the elected Member of the London Assembly for Brent and Harrow, I had the privilege of representing the most ethnically diverse local authority area in the country and, separately, the most religiously diverse. To suggest that the characters of those areas did not influence the nature of the work that I did as a public representative is, again, ludicrous. The characteristics of local constituencies matter. You will find that nearly every other jurisdiction recognises that as part of the factors that need to be taken into account when it comes to deciding where to draw boundaries.

The other dog that has not barked has been the size of the House of Commons. The issue has been brought up today but we have not had that debate. What will be the most effective size of the House of Commons to do the work that we believe it should carry out? What is the effective size for both representing constituents and scrutinising legislation? Where is that debate? We are sidestepping it because of the desire to push ahead without proper consideration of these issues.

My noble friend Lord Beecham talked earlier about the relationship with local authorities. My noble friend Lord Knight, who has just spoken, said that he was in favour of this. I have to say that I am against it. The Bill encourages, or at least would make it far easier for, constituency boundaries to cross local government boundaries. I do not believe that that is in the interests of good and effective representation. It will make it more difficult for MPs to cover the ground, and for them to have a relationship with local authorities so that in partnership they can achieve things for their constituents both at local government level and in working with central government in Parliament. Those are the issues that make talking about crossing local government boundaries in this way so inappropriate.

The final issue that I want to refer to, in terms of dogs that have not barked in this debate but that should have been allowed to be considered in detail, is the nature of the electoral data on which all this is based and the frequency with which they change. I have spent all my political life in London. London is an area in which, historically, there has often been underrepresentation because of the number of people who are registered to vote. That underrepresentation was at a particular peak when the community charge—the poll tax—was introduced, and all that went with that. A large number of residents in London chose to drop off the electoral register, as they did in many other urban areas and no doubt elsewhere. That legacy of underrepresentation remains.

We should also consider the turnover in big inner-city populations and the number who come in. At one point when I was leader of my local authority, the collection register for the community charge turned over by one-third each year, indicating a great flow of population dropping into and out of the area. That was partly a consequence of migration and partly because of the mobility of populations at that time, but it also involves the recognition of particular areas. Because the Bill is constructed around drawing up these boundaries and quotas on the basis of an already flawed electoral register, we are building into the system an inappropriate bias against areas with historic underregistration and areas with an historically very high turnover.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

Does my noble friend agree that the factor he has just been speaking of will be exacerbated in consequence of the coalition Government’s housing benefit changes?

[Lord Harris of Haringey]

My noble friend is absolutely right. The projections that people have talked about—of the flows of people having to move because they will be displaced by changes to housing benefit—necessarily means that he will be right. I also suspect that we will see more people dropping out of the system and being difficult to pick up. They will be trying to avoid various obligations as a consequence of that. I thought the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, was moved to intervene again but he has not done so, which is fine.

My point is that these are fundamental issues which should be considered before we make a final judgment as to the direction we are taking in this legislation. It may be that, after proper consideration, a simply numerical allocation would be the most appropriate way forward. It is not one that I would favour but I can see how we could get to that. First, let us debate these issues properly. This legislation is not giving us the opportunity, whereas my noble friend’s amendment would enable that to take place, for the public to be engaged in it and for this to be as transparent a process as possible. If I remember correctly, transparency is one of the objectives of this Conservative-led coalition Government; they believe it is so important. Let us see that importance reflected in this legislation.

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[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

The noble Lord rightly reminds me that I am speaking on behalf of the coalition Government, and I reiterate that we have not done any political modelling on the possible political outcome of a House of Commons of 600.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

My Lords—

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

I am not sure that I will ever be able to answer all the points.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

The noble and learned Lord has dismissed suggestions as to why the Government might have alighted on the figure of 600 parliamentary constituencies. He has explained why they did not make that choice, but what is the rationale for that figure?

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

I thank the noble Lord for that question, because he has illustrated that if he had not intervened I might have reached that point by now. I hope noble Lords will allow me to answer that important point, which was made by a number of noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Howarth. I hope to respond to these points as we proceed.

The noble Lord, Lord Wills, has made an ambitious attempt to balance the effect of almost every electoral procedure against every other one. His amendment asks us to wait longer to turn the Bill from a Bill that is workable and achievable into a deeply analysed but almost impossible one that would then have to be taken forward. As I have said, our objectives are clear and we believe that they are attainable. We want one elector to have one vote throughout the United Kingdom. By contrast, the amendment promises a comprehensive overhaul of the whole system that we are considering, including the maintenance of the union and the relationship between the two Houses of Parliament that might produce a magic number of electors and the optimum constituency size.

The current rules by which the Boundary Commission carries out its work have not been considered by a committee since the 1940s. They have been changed on a number of occasions since then by the decision of Parliament through legislation. There is a clear precedent for adjusting boundary rules in the light of experience. The changes have included important elements, such as a longer period of reviews of 10 to 15 years rather than three to seven years. It was right for a Speaker’s Conference to determine the basis for boundary reviews when that happened for the first time back in the 1940s. When the Boundary Commission has asked in its reports for the rules to be made more coherent, Parliament has not asked a conference, a committee or an inquiry to consider what an independent—I stress independent—Boundary Commission has asked for. It is right for the debate to take place in Parliament. Even the 1944 Speaker’s Conference recommended that electoral equality across the constituencies of the United Kingdom should be an overriding principle. We should allow the Boundary Commission to commence that work without delay.

On Second Reading my noble friend noted the dangers of a perfectionist approach, which perhaps is the approach summed up in the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Wills, when he said:

“The Bill is not a panacea. It is not some holy grail in the scripture of political re-engagement, but it is a good start”.—[Official Report, 15/11/10; col. 594.].

Again I say to noble Lords opposite that it is a great pity they did not start the process when they were given such a long opportunity to do so. The point was made by the noble Lord, Lord Gilbert, that there is no perfection of fairness; one person’s fairness may be seen as another’s unfairness. I believe that the Bill, by establishing one vote of equal value across the country, goes a long way to getting a better perception and reality of fairness. I would add that the British Academy report found that the new rules set out in the Bill,

“are a very substantial improvement on those currently implemented”,

and that,

“they have a clear hierarchy and are not contradictory”.

A number of noble Lords, including the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, and the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, asked how the figure of 600 was reached. We have never suggested that there was anything magical or ideal about a House of Commons of 600 any more than the current size of 650 is ideal. It is flawed legislation that has allowed the size of the House of Commons to creep up over time.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Howarth of Newport Excerpts

Monday 10th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

My Lords, “more haste, less speed” is a maxim that every Lib Dem Minister in the coalition—and, perhaps, other Ministers—should pin up above their desks in large Day-Glo letters. We can see that the dynamic behind the Bill—and the reason why the coalition seeks to thrust it through as fast as it can—is the ambition of the Deputy Prime Minister to establish himself as an effective constitutional reformer and his anxiety that he does not have much time in which to do it. How very much more important it is to get it right than to do it hastily. That is why my noble friends were quite right to table this amendment which would place some restraint on the Boundary Commission process.

The noble Lord, Lord Tyler, talked about the Electoral Commission and the art of the possible. We ought also to consider what it is reasonable and realistic to expect the Boundary Commission to do. As my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer said in his opening remarks, the proposition in the Bill that the Boundary Commission will submit reports for the redrawing of effectively every constituency in the United Kingdom in a short period of some two and a half years before 1 October 2013 is not a sensible thing to undertake to do, and I do not think that it is a proper thing to undertake to do. While there are all sorts of reasons why it would be very difficult for the Boundary Commission to do that satisfactorily, not least because it would be impossible for the citizens of this country to have the opportunity to make their representations on the process in this abbreviated timescale, there is also the factor of electoral registration. This amendment, which focuses particularly on the indispensability of having a decent level of electoral registration before we draw the boundaries of the new constituencies, is absolutely right. You can reform electoral systems and constituency boundaries as much as you want but it will be a hollow process if you fail to ensure that those who should be the beneficiaries of these reforms—the citizens of this country—are in a position to benefit from them. If you merely reform without ensuring that people will be able to exercise their vote under your reformed system, it is effectively a case of “Hamlet” without the prince.

The reasons for declining turnout at successive elections over a considerable period of our modern history are mysterious and it is a very difficult phenomenon to understand. There are a number of proximate causes that we can see. The noble Lord, Lord Martin of Springburn, drew the House’s attention to the decision by a significant number of people to drop off the electoral register when they saw the poll tax heading towards the statute book. Certainly, more of them did so after it had become law. That is one reason why, since the late 1980s, the electoral register has not had the respect and integrity that it had before then. There are other factors. We will see some new factors that will cause imperfections in the electoral register in our own time. One of them will, I fear, be the effect of housing benefit changes because more and more people, particularly tenants of private rented accommodation, will be on the move because they cannot afford to continue to live in the same place in which they were living. That will impair the electoral register; so will rising unemployment, particularly among people who have been employees in the public sector. They will also be on their bikes and on the road, trying to find work in new places. All that makes it more difficult to ensure that we will have an adequately up- to-date and comprehensive electoral register. Therefore, the pressure that this amendment would introduce into the system is extremely valuable.

I refer to another reason why we should be worried about what may happen to registration. Here I disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Martin of Springburn, as I am not confident that, as he said, local authorities will necessarily have the resources to employ more electoral registration officers. We are going to see very draconian reductions in local authority budgets and they will find it very difficult to do anything that is not mandatory. Anything that is discretionary expenditure will be difficult for them to take on board.

[Lord Martin of Springburn]

Given the size of local authorities, it is not a question of having more electoral officers but of having a specific official to look after electoral registration. That person in turn would give an account of his or her stewardship to the Electoral Commission. That is different from employing more people, and it is not the point. It will be a sad day, given the size of local authorities in the United Kingdom, when there is no official in charge of electoral registration.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

I certainly share the noble Lord’s hope that that will indeed be the case, and it is important that it should be, because it will be more difficult for the regime which this amendment envisages to operate if local authorities do not have registration officers in place doing their work energetically and with adequate resources. It is something on which we will need to keep a careful eye. I do not have quite the confidence that he does that that will necessarily be the case.

I should like to make just one observation on paragraph (b) in Amendment 54A, in which my noble friends have proposed that the Boundary Commission should submit reports every sixth year, rather than every fifth year, after 2013. That is wise for a number of reasons, but at this time of the evening I shall mention only one of the reasons. If constituencies are to be redrawn—and perhaps quite radically redrawn—at pretty frequent intervals, it creates problems for political parties. If political parties have to be re-formed election by election—and we know that they will all have to be re-formed in the period between 2013 and 2015, if the election is postponed for that long, and at quite frequent intervals thereafter—that creates a lot of difficulties for political parties.

We know the problem—I suspect that all political parties share this problem—of securing an adequate membership. We need a degree of stability to ensure that political parties can perform their role. Healthy, thriving political parties are a precondition for healthy, thriving local government and for healthy, thriving parliamentary democracy. So I do not think that we want to cause upheaval in political parties any more frequently than is really necessary. Of course the Boundary Commission reviews need to be of sufficient frequency and of a regularity to ensure that they adequately reflect the changing composition of the population of this country. That is essential and we all acknowledge that. It is a question of judgment and of striking a balance between that imperative and what I think is also very desirable, which is not to keep on throwing the system up in the air and destabilising political parties. For that reason, the modest change that my noble friends have proposed—having reviews every six years rather than every five years—makes good, practical sense.

[Lord Lipsey]

The nearest that any noble Lord comes to being economical with the truth is when they stand up and say they are going to be brief. Let me try, for once, to ignore that rule and be brief.

First, we all agree that we need a better electoral register—that is common ground. Secondly, and slightly less obviously, the accuracy of the electoral register matters far more under the system that the Government are proposing for constituency boundary drawing than it does at the moment. The Boundary Commission now has reasonably wide discretion. If there is an extra elector here, the commission can make an adjustment there. It cannot do that under the Bill. If there is one voter more than the 5 per cent threshold, all the boundaries of that seat, and in consequence the boundaries of all the surrounding seats, need to be redrawn. An upheaval can rest on whether a single voter is registered.

I have a third point, and given that we are at Committee stage, perhaps we are allowed to inject new ideas into the debate. I can see why the Government are reluctant to go along with the excellent amendment moved by my noble and learned friend, because they think that it will delay the process. However, there is an alternative. Instead of the Boundary Commission trying to equalise the actual number of registered electors, it should try to equalise something different: notional registered electors—that is, the electorate as it would be if there was 100 per cent registration everywhere. That is perfectly achievable.

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[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

I am only indicating that it could be a circumstance in which the Electoral Commission may take that view. All the problems that the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, identified may well have been addressed, but there may be a recalcitrant council somewhere in the country which, for one reason or another, has not done that.

I remind the Committee that electoral registration officers are under a statutory duty to compile and maintain comprehensive and accurate electoral registers. It is not as if it is a voluntary activity; there is an obligation on local authorities to compile as best they can comprehensive and accurate electoral registers. As was commented on earlier, the Electoral Commission’s report on performance standards for electoral registration officers in Great Britain, published in March, showed that just under 96 per cent of electoral registration officers met the completeness and accuracy of electoral registration records standard this year.

I salute what Glasgow has done—the noble Lord, Lord McAvoy, mentioned this—and that should be the model. It is important that we have as accurate and comprehensive registers as possible. It is worth reminding the Committee that another report of the Electoral Commission, The Completeness and Accuracy of Electoral Registers in Great Britain, also published in March, stated that the UK’s registration rate of 91 to 92 per cent compared well with other countries. I am sure that that touches on the question of notional registration, which I am sure we will debate further when we come to Amendment 89C—I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, for advance notice of it. The 91 to 92 per cent figure for completeness is derived from the 2000 census, but it is an approximate measure. It could not form the basis of a boundary review as it does not provide sufficiently robust data to give confidence for something such as a boundary review. However, I take the noble Lord’s point and I shall carefully look at his amendment before we come to debate it.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

Is the noble and learned Lord saying that this reforming Government are really satisfied that the present condition of electoral registers will do, that they are as complete and accurate as they need to be, and that it is therefore perfectly acceptable to go ahead with the boundary reforms on the timescale that is written into the Bill? Is he really saying that we can be complacent and be satisfied with the state of affairs that we have at the moment, particularly in the light of what my noble friend said about Bradford?

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

I am rather disappointed because I have tried my best to listen to what noble Lords have said, and I rather regret that the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, did not listen to me at the very outset when I said that I hoped that there was common ground in our not being satisfied that people who are eligible to be on the electoral roll are not. That should concern noble Lords in all parts of the Chamber. I apologise if I did not make that clear enough to the noble Lord.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

Is the Minister saying that he is happy for the legislation to proceed on the basis of the present condition of electoral registers?

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

I am saying that I do not believe that it is an either/or. The noble Lord, Lord McAvoy, mentioned the previous Labour Government. I think it is fair to say that 3.5 million people have not suddenly disappeared from the electoral register since 5 May 2010. Indeed, the figures which the noble Lord, Lord McAvoy, gave related to mid-2008. It is a problem that occurred under the previous Administration; it is a problem which we must address. It is not as if we are sitting back; we are being far from complacent. The noble Lord, Lord Soley, said that there should be some leadership. I indicate to him and to the Committee that a pilot will be launched for local authorities to compare the electoral register against public databases to identify people who are not currently on the register.

There are other things, such as the door-to-door canvass, which has been referred to, and the importance of going back to contact people who have not responded, which there is an obligation to do. It is important that councils use their own data, such as council tax data. Some do and I understand that some do not, but it is important that they use that data. There ought to be other data. We are looking at using public databases to identify people not currently on the register—for example, the national insurance and DVLA databases. Those are the pilots that we want to set up.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Howarth of Newport Excerpts

Monday 20th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

Instincts. I thank my former boss—the former Secretary of State for Scotland—who always chooses the right word for me. However, it seems astonishing that Conservative Members can face this situation with equanimity.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

My noble friend has only just begun to touch on the scale of the changes that are impetuously and dangerously being rushed through Parliament. We also have the European Union Bill, which will lead to a proliferation of referendums every time there is a possibility of some shift of power between Brussels and London. We have the Localism Bill, which will turn local government absolutely upside down and will, in many ways, eviscerate it. This Government are extraordinarily reckless.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

Reckless is the word for it. As my noble friend Lord Bach was talking, I was sitting here and considering what the common factor was behind all this. It is the Deputy Prime Minister. I must choose my words carefully, but I do not think that he thinks in British terms. He thinks in terms of continental European constitutions and is moving our constitution inexorably towards some kind of continental European constitution, with fixed-term Parliaments, a different electoral system, and changing the composition of the second Chamber—all of this. Okay, that is the agenda, but is it a Conservative agenda? Is it one that all my friends on the Conservative Benches really feel in their guts, in their blood, their water or their instincts? Some of them are my friends—there are only three on the Back Benches at the moment but there were quite a few earlier. I am sorry, there are more; there are five of them. I missed the two distinguished Members perching in the corner. Do they really want this country to go that way?

Someone is shaking his head almost imperceptibly, but I can see it. I know that I am going well beyond the terms of the amendment. If someone with the powers of a Speaker of the House of Commons was in the chair, they would be drawing my attention to it. However, this is relevant, because we are going down a road which is really troubling me and should be troubling Members opposite even more.

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[Lord Deben]

I do not believe that I get upset as easily as the noble Lord thinks. All that I believe is true is that we tried for a consensus. What is happening now is the correction of a deeply offensive fact that some constituents have a much smaller vote than others, because of the retention of very small constituencies which ought not to be there.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

My Lords, I am very surprised that the noble Lord, Lord Deben, is suggesting that the debates so far on the Bill have not been appropriate. If he reads Hansard, he will see that contributions from all around the House have been thoughtful, succinct and related to entirely appropriate matters that Parliament ought to be thinking about. I put it to him that the cynicism of the motivation of the coalition in yoking, as they have, the two main components of the Bill together is a sore provocation to us and might have tempted some of us to engage in wrecking tactics. The fact that we have not done so reflects very well on us.

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[Lord McAvoy]

Surely not. That could not possibly be the case on the other side of the Chamber. I shall get to my point. One evening last week, I spoke on this very important Bill for two periods of about two minutes each and then for a third time for about five or six minutes, making 10 minutes in total, so I do not think that I can be accused of filibustering and so on. I was involved as much as anybody and the only House of Commons attitude that I see in this House is a capacity of Governments of both kinds, Labour and Conservative—because it is an elected House and that is fair enough—to ram Bills through with strict timetables and so on. Here, the Government are trying to ram through an important constitutional change without any regard to the views that are put forward, and they are getting very annoyed because people want to make and answer points. If they do not answer them, they will be on record as never having answered. I genuinely do not believe that there is any filibustering going on here. If the noble Lord had been here more often, he would have heard the wide range of different views on this side of the Chamber on these very matters. Therefore, he should be a bit fairer about this.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

I hope that my noble friend will not feel constrained in developing his points at whatever length he considers appropriate. After all, this Bill had no pre-legislative consultation, it was not consulted upon with the Welsh Assembly and the Scottish Parliament, which have a vital interest in the provisions of the Bill, and it was programmed in the House of Commons, so very important parts of it were not considered in Committee or on Report there. Therefore, I think that we have a responsibility to examine it closely and I am very glad that my noble friend is doing so.

[Lord McAvoy]

My noble friend is absolutely right. I am not going to repeat all the points that have been made but shall leave it at that. However, I am certainly not going to allow attacks such as those to stay on the record without being refuted, despite the annoyance of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness.

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[Lord Howarth of Newport]

This is the third time the noble and learned Lord has put forward the claim that the coalition exists to provide stability for this country. Why, then, this Maoist approach to the British constitution?

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

As I do not recognise the allegation that the noble Lord, Lord Howarth of Newport, has made, I am not really in a position to answer. The noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, has identified that these two are linked together. He went on to argue that it was not the Liberal Democrats who got the better of the deal. He made the point that if there is a no vote in the referendum, the boundary proposals still go through. If there was a no vote—as I hope not, and our parties in the collation are agreed about what the outcome of the referendum should be—as a Liberal Democrat, I do not think I could ignore the view of the people. It would be wrong. If the people vote no, I expect that my colleagues will accept it.

The noble Lord, Lord Deben, made a point about fairness and the equality of constituencies. He said that that is a Conservative principle, and I am sure he would claim that it is not unique to the Conservative Party because the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, endorsed it, and I have no difficulty in accepting that as a principle. Indeed, as my noble friend Lord McNally has said on a number of occasions, this Bill is about fair votes and fair boundaries. It shows that the two are, in fact, linked. It shows how the two will be linked because it will shape the way in which the other place will be elected in 2015.

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[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

I recall very clearly that when we discussed this in the debate on the Motion tabled by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, on hybridity, the very clear advice we got from the Clerk was that there was no issue of hybridity, which is the other side of the same coin to which the noble Lord, Lord Soley, was referring.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

I appreciate the Minister’s courtesy to me and to the House as a whole. He just said that he personally believes in the principle of numerical equality between constituencies. As the former Member of Parliament for Orkney and Shetland, does he now hold that that principle ought to apply to Orkney and Shetland and that they should be subordinated to it?

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

For good reasons, which the Bill addresses, there are exceptions. There are only two, and I do not want to take up the time of the House, although we will, no doubt, have plenty of opportunity at a later stage to explain why in these two limited cases, which by any stretch of anyone’s imagination are different from any other part of the United Kingdom, an exception has to be made. Two out of 600 does not really depart from the principle of fairness that I illustrated.