Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Lipsey Excerpts

Monday 20th December 2010 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Lipsey]

45: Clause 8, page 6, line 7, leave out paragraph (b)

[Lord Lipsey]

My Lords, I apologise for my eagerness to get on with the House’s consideration of the Bill. I know we have a lot of work to do and that the House is eager to do it. With this amendment, to which my noble friend Lord Bach and my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer have appended their names and added a complementary amendment, we come to the political heart of the Bill. This is the buckle that ties together the two bits of the Bill—the AV referendum on the one hand and the reduction of MPs and redrawing of constituency boundaries on the other. The first bit is the fervent wish of the Lib Dem partners in the coalition; the second is the fervent wish of the Conservative partners in the coalition.

Before I explain why I believe that to be misguided, I will get my retaliation in first to an intervention that I would otherwise expect. My objection is not to both measures being in one Bill. I know that there is a case to be made that the Government I supported included many more than two measures in their Constitutional Reform and Governance Act before the general election. It is interesting to speculate about what the full purpose of that Bill was since it clearly could not pass before the general election. Partly, no doubt, we felt that the wise British people would be very appreciative of all the proposals that we were putting forward, but we were particularly interested in the reaction of the Liberal Democrats. We realised that we might have to form some kind of agreement with them after a general election and we wanted to show that we shared their views. After a few months of observing the Lib Dems in government, I think we were totally wrong about what their views were. We thought they were constitutional and economic liberals; it turns out that they are constitutional conservatives and economic reactionaries.

I will pass swiftly on. What I object to is not that the two measures appear in one Bill but that they are conditional. They enter the concept of conditionality into our legislation. You can only do the one if you do the other, too. This seems wholly wrong. Either these two proposals—the AV referendum and the constituency redrawing—are justified on their individual merits or they are not. There can be no case whatever for saying, “We’ll only do one if we do the other”, in logic or constitutional parlance, although we understand the political realities of this. It says a lot about the nature of the coalition and, in particular, the atmosphere in which it was formed. This stuff is here because the two coalition partners, when they were negotiating their agreement, did not trust each other. They could see that there was a grubby deal to be made.

The Lib Dems could make some headway on electoral reform. They did not want AV and there was a system they liked more but they understood the realities. The Tories were trying to change the number of constituencies and their boundaries so that they won more seats at the next general election. The deal that was made between them was that they would do both. Because one proposition was likely to lead to fewer Conservative seats and one to more Conservative seats, they decided to bung them together—all that I understand. What is sad, and does not increase one’s confidence in the long-term viability of the coalition, is that the parties so distrusted each other that they wanted it incorporated into legislation in the subsection before the House at the moment.

This is a more political speech than I would like to make in Committee but this is a political clause. We have to understand it. Some bits of the Bill are technical. We will come to those and deal with them in a technical way but this is a political clause. My next observation about this provision is that it says a lot about the balance of power within the coalition. The Lib Dems did not say, “Our condition for giving you the boundary changes that suit you is that we get the electoral system that suits us”. They feebly said, “Our condition for your getting the boundary changes you want is that we get not AV but a go at AV through a referendum”. However, if the referendum is lost, which, as a strong supporter of AV, I hope it will not be, the Conservatives can still have their boundary changes and reduce the number of MPs.

We will come to the substance of the case about the number of MPs later in our debates. Suffice it to say that no case of merit has yet been put forward for reducing the size of the House of Commons. It may be that there is such a case to be made—I look forward to Ministers developing it—but we have not heard a word about it yet. So far we have just heard the Government admit that they got a figure straight out of the air and incorporated it into a Bill. We have seen no case made—not for greater constituency equalisation, which I would grant—for the figure of 5 per cent included in the Bill, which, as we shall see when we get to it, is not a sensible figure for the variance in the size of constituencies. Nor has the case been made that the exemptions in the Bill get anywhere near meeting the very strong case that can be made for further exemptions.

The suspicion must be that the measures in Part 2 of the Bill are entirely designed for the sole purpose of increasing the number of Conservative seats at the next general election. If the Government can produce a statistical analysis from a reputable team of psephologists that says that it will not have that effect, the House will be delighted to see and discuss it. However, I say with no little confidence that they will not be able to do that because the effects are as I have described them.

I do not want to detain the House for too long on this but my third point is about how much the Government must regret the need to link these two measures. How sorry they must be. In any sensible world, if it is true that the coalition wants the referendum to take place on 5 May 2011, it would have introduced two separate pieces of legislation. There would have been one on the alternative vote, which might well have concluded its stage in your Lordships’ House if not tonight then in the first session in the new year, after the good examination that we have given it. The Government could then go ahead with the AV referendum. They could then take a more measured approach to the constituencies bit of the Bill. They could even have allowed it to be subject to some measure of joint scrutiny, without prejudicing their timetable to get it into effect by the next election. They could have allowed, as we propose later in the Bill, that there should be some conference—a royal commission or Speaker’s Conference—on the number of MPs to take a rational view as to what should happen. That consideration could have moved in parallel to your Lordships’ House considering the AV bit of the Bill.

Where are we? Your Lordships have an awful lot of the Bill to consider as yet. We are to do so against the looming timetable; the Electoral Commission has made clear when it requires the Bill to be passed to allow the campaign for 5 May to occur on an orderly path. We are struggling to meet this wholly artificial timetable, imposed by the Government solely because of the political deal that they have done and the fact that neither party trusts the other to abide by its words.

[Lord Anderson of Swansea]

Is it not even worse, from the Liberal Democrat point of view, that they are clearly not very good negotiators? The deal that has emerged is wholly lopsided, as the chances are that their part of the deal—they wanted AV—will not happen and therefore they will have nothing to show for it at the end of the day.

[Lord Lipsey]

My noble friend would say that, but I cannot possibly comment because I believe of course that AV will win a referendum whenever it is held.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

They would have something to say if the amendment that I tabled was accepted. I have tabled an amendment that would be extremely helpful to the Liberal Democrats on that very issue.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Lipsey]

When we table amendments from this side of the House we do not consider their partisan impact; we merely consider their impact on the constitution of this country. I am sure that if my noble friend’s amendment meets that test, it will be given proper and due consideration by the House.

In moving this amendment I give the Government and the House an opportunity to say that each of the two propositions—the AV proposition and the number of MPs/seats proposition—should have separate consideration. They should be taken on their constitutional merits as a whole and treated in that way. I deeply regret, and what is more I believe that the Government will have reason deeply to regret, that the reality of the way in which they have chosen to proceed will make consideration of the issues on their merits more difficult for the House.

[Lord Bach]

I will speak to both amendments. The first is in the name of my noble friend Lord Lipsey, who has moved it so ably, and the second is in my name and that of my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer of Thoroton. Clause 8(1)(b) is an astonishing paragraph of this Bill. It is very remarkable. It was overlooked in debates in the other place, which perhaps makes it all the more important that we debate it properly in this House and in this Committee.

Clause 8 informs the Minister what to do following the result of the referendum being announced. If more votes in the referendum are cast in favour of the answer yes than in favour of the answer no, the Minister must make an order that brings into force provisions to change our voting system for elections to the House of Commons from first past the post to this type of alternative vote system. However, that is not the end of it. An affirmative result in the referendum is not sufficient according to the Bill. The changes in the boundaries detailed in Part 2 of the Bill, particularly in Clause 10, must also have taken place before the alternative vote system can take effect.

In Committee last Monday the Committee was delighted to hear the noble Lord, Lord McNally, tell the House that he and the Leader of the House, the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, were joined at the hip on this Bill. I wondered what it is that joins them at the hip on this Bill. I now believe it sincerely to be Clause 8(1)(b) that joins them thus. It has been clear from the introduction of this Bill that this clause is the glue that holds the Government together. Part 1 of the Bill, as was said at Second Reading, is clearly and plainly the Liberal Democrat part of the deal. However AV may have been described by their leader in the past, the Liberal Democrats have decided that it is worth the candle and that it is best not to go searching for some sort of proportional representation, or certainly not at the moment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Lipsey]

My Lords, the Minister stood up to speak 25 minutes ago and he has been most courteous in his responses to the many interventions. He said rather wryly that it seemed to have been a long time since I stood up to move the amendment in my name. I did not manage to speak for as long as he did. I do not think that I spoke for more than 10 minutes, and I was trying to make a substantive case, on which we have had a good debate.

However, I think that the debate was thrown off course at one point by the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Deben, whom we all greatly admire. The noble Lord made a partisan attack on ex-Members of the House of Commons on this side of the Committee in a speech made by an ex-Member of the other House. I do not think that we progress best in this House by swapping partisan insults of that kind. Perhaps this should be a warning to us to keep them to a minimum. Unlike the noble Lord, Lord Deben, I was never a Member of the House of Commons and so I have not adapted to the kind of things that I understand from this debate go on there.

It is important to get away from the partisan, and I do so, as part of my concluding remarks, by referring to the non-partisan committee of this House— the Constitution Committee—which examined the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill and had many prominent Conservatives in its ranks, including the noble Lords, Lord Norton, Lord Crickhowell and Lord Renton of Mount Harry. It said:

“In general, we regard it as a matter of principle that proposals for major constitutional reform should be subject to prior public consultation and pre-legislative scrutiny. We recognise that there may exceptionally be good reasons for departing from this principle, but the perils of doing so are well illustrated in the present Bill. The case for proceeding rapidly with one Part of this Bill is far stronger than for the other”.

In other words, the non-partisan examination of the buckle in the Bill said that it should not be there. However, it is there—the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, was commendably frank about this—and it is there for purely political reasons. Therefore it is right that we in this House, with our responsibilities to the constitution as a whole, should examine whether those reasons are convincing.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, was a little less convincing when he tried to explain the reasons for it being there when he said, “Of course, if the AV referendum is lost I would not want to push ahead with it”. With great respect, that is not the point that we on this side of the House are seeking to make. Our point is different: it is that the two sets of proposals are not treated the same. Of course, if the AV referendum is lost, noble Lords should not proceed with an AV proposal, but there is no such conditionality on the proposals for constituency and boundary changes—they are to go ahead nevertheless.

Before the House has even started to examine these proposals—and before the Boundary Commission has started on the extremely onerous, some people believe impracticable, task it is being set—the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, says that the boundary changes and the change in the number of MPs will go ahead. If they do not go ahead—and all kinds of happenstance could prevent them from going ahead—neither will AV. As my noble friend Lord Bach points out, AV could be prevented from going through even though it had the overwhelming support of the British people. That cannot be right.

I do not propose to force this issue to a Division today. I hope Ministers will think carefully about the situations, that wiser counsels will prevail, and that even now they will find a way of separating the two bits of the Bill so that each can be taken on its merits. I withdraw the amendment hoping that Christmas cheer will suffuse the Government’s approach when next we turn to these matters on 10 January.

Amendment 45 withdrawn.