Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Lord Lamont of Lerwick and Lord McNally

Wednesday 15th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick]

Of course it is independent. That is how it was set up. I intervened earlier with a comment about the Electoral Commission that I was rather nervous about making, and I hesitated to make the comments directly; in some of the evidence presented to the Constitution Committee by at least one academic, the independence of the Electoral Commission on this issue of electoral reform was brought up. I am not saying I agree with that, but it was brought up—it was mentioned in a submission to the Constitution Committee by a well respected academic. When bodies exist on a permanent basis, such as the Electoral Reform Society, what constitutes routine non-campaign expenditure for them and what has to count as an item of spending in the campaign? At what point does academic and educational activity become a form of campaigning covered by the PPERA? I am afraid that these rules are full of holes and really quite impractical.

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, on the question of how these rules are applied, I suspect that the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, and I have a philosophical difference. As I said earlier, I supported the 2000 legislation and the setting up of the Electoral Commission. I am not in favour of the untrammelled process of elections. You need rules and checks and balances if you are going to offer a level playing field in these matters. Much of what was done during the period of the previous Government was worthy of support in making our electoral systems fairer and more transparent in funding and process. What is clear about the process is that much of what is in the Bill, although it is a fairly thick Bill to look at, and certainly what is in this clause, rests on tried legislation that is already in place.

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[Lord Lamont of Lerwick]

I apologise for intervening before my noble friend speaks; I do not want to encourage anything that would prolong this debate. However, he says that the laws governing referendums have worked very well and have been in existence for 10 years. Yes, they have been in existence for 10 years but, as the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, pointed out, there has been only one referendum—a very local referendum about whether there should be a north-east assembly. I do not know what the expenditure on that referendum was but I dare say that an upper cap of £5 million was not a great problem. When the Minister says that it is tried and tested, it absolutely is not. It was tried in the north-east and that is all.

There is the problem, which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, reminded me that I raised a decade ago and which I have alighted on again, of groups splitting up. How do you ensure that a so-called independent group is not related to the designated group? This is a real problem. As the Minister pointed out, my worry is not about rich people intervening. I always remember that it was the millionaire Engels who subsidised Karl Marx. I am surprised that the other side of the House is not more in favour of rich people. My fear is just that these limits will be completely meaningless because so many organisations will claim that they are independent. I do not wish to name the different organisations that favour changing the voting system but there are a lot of them.

I asked the Minister how you distinguish between the money that those organisations spend day by day now, before the campaign begins, and the money that they will spend during the campaign. What will be defined as a campaign contribution? The Minister can say that we have legislation to cover this but it has not been tried on any significant scale. If he cannot give some guidance today, perhaps he could answer these questions on another day of the Committee or at a different stage of the Bill. They are genuinely of concern, or they certainly are to me.

[Lord McNally]

I am sure they are of concern. How we govern referendums and finance political parties will rightly be of continuing interest to this Parliament, the political parties and the political process. We are confident that this legislation and the powers of the Electoral Commission are strong enough to ensure that this referendum is carried out fairly and transparently. Many of the concerns that have been raised will be tested. I have already said that, as with other referendums, we will learn from experience.

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[Lord McNally]

No, the Government do not intend to produce a leaflet. No, the Government do not intend to rig the referendum.

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick]

Does the Electoral Commission intend to produce a leaflet or anything on the internet?

[Lord McNally]

I think that the Electoral Commission will publish some guidance on the conduct of the referendum, but it certainly will not make any judgment on the question to be put before the people. The one thing that I do remember about the 1975 referendum is that it gave a resounding 2:1 yes vote.

[Lord Rooker]

According to the Bill, the Electoral Commission is going to produce a leaflet explaining the AV system; it will go through every front door in the country. We would like to see a draft of that leaflet, because that is where the value judgments come in. How will it explain this rigged, dishonest AV system, which is so open to abuse? As I have said, I will be forced to vote for first past the post if that is the alternative.

[Lord Deben]

If there is to be a leaflet from the Electoral Commission—I find that idea difficult, because the Electoral Commission will have an attitude that comes through—will it give a full and detailed explanation of why AV has not always worked and will there be an explanation of why the first past the post system is on occasion thought to be better? That is the only way in which there can be an unbiased leaflet. If it merely explains AV, it will lead people to believe that the system is sensible, when it manifestly is not, because the leaflet will have the Electoral Commission’s name on it and will therefore be taken more seriously than it would be if it did not. It seems wholly unacceptable that the Electoral Commission should interfere in something that is none of its own business.

[Lord McNally]

I think that the opponents of the yes vote are already getting their excuses in. The leaflet will help people to make a decision and factually explain both systems. I am not sure that the outcome of the 1975 referendum owed itself to a government leaflet in the way that the noble Lord, Lord Gilbert, suggested.

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick]

But does the Minister remember that the leaflet that was published had a map of the United Kingdom on the front that left Orkney and Shetland off, which were the only areas to vote against continuing our membership of the EEC?

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[Lord McNally]

As the noble Lord said, they have a vested interest. I want to make a national decision in the national interest.

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick]

I accept the argument that the noble Lord is putting forward, though there remains the mystery of Northern Ireland. However, there is also the mystery of London. Why is London on a borough basis when there are no elections in the boroughs?

[Lord McNally]

I suspect that, again, the decision is based on administrative convenience, which is not a dishonourable reason. What we are trying to do, as I have said so many times before, is to make the procedure as straightforward as possible. I believe there was an amendment in the other place. Perhaps, when this Bill goes back to the other place, Mr Chris Bryant will put down an amendment for a constituency base.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Lord Lamont of Lerwick and Lord McNally

Tuesday 16th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally]

For goodness’ sake, here we are, with everyone telling me that this is a constitutional Bill of the greatest importance, and the Labour Party gets obsessed with some conspiracy theory about the number 600. Perhaps we should have chosen 666; that would really have frightened them. Let us have the debate—we are certainly going to have a good debate and, I suspect, a lengthy one—and I am willing to go through all these points.

If you want to be mentioned in the debate, the key thing is to be either a Liberal Democrat or a Conservative against the Bill or a Labour Member who is speaking helpfully as far as the Government are concerned. On the question of thresholds, Mr Chris Bryant, spokesman in the other place, said that they are not a good idea:

“We should have a straightforward system where people fight to win their side of the argument. They win that side of the argument by getting people past the ballot box to vote either yes or no”.—[Official Report, Commons, 2/11/10; col. 850.]

The amendment to have a threshold was defeated by 549 votes to 31. Again, we can discuss this, and I am sure that amendments will be tabled.

On the number of Ministers in the Executive—

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick]

Will the Minister answer the specific point: would a threshold that related to turnout, as opposed to people voting yes, be consistent with the coalition agreement?

[Lord McNally]

I do not think so, and I do not think that we are going down that road.

On the boundaries, the Bill corrects the flaws in the current legislation that not only has seen the number of MPs creep up—by only a small number, I admit—but leads to the unfairness of constituencies with vastly unequal electoral sizes. As both my noble friends Lord Norton and Lord Oakeshott quoted a British Academy report, let me quote from it:

“the rules set out in the Bill are a very substantial improvement on those currently implemented by the Boundary Commission (they have a clear hierarchy and are not contradictory)”.

On the question of exceptions—

[Lord McNally]

We will certainly look forward to the amendments but we take guidance from the House of Commons, which seems to have pretty comprehensively rejected thresholds—not the coalition agreement, but thresholds.

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick]

The Minister was given 24 hours’ notice of the question.

[Lord McNally]

We are not going to have thresholds. Put the amendments down and, at the appropriate time, I will oppose them. Okay?