Business of the House
Lord Lipsey Excerpts(6 months ago)
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Earl Attlee (Con)
My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble friend the Leader of the House for explaining what will be happening. I oppose my noble friend’s Motion, but in respect only of Clause 50 of the Media Bill, which seeks to repeal Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act.
Section 40 is crucial to the system of press regulation proposed by Sir Brian Leveson and has largely been implemented already by a royal charter. This is a highly controversial and important piece of legislation. We know it is important because Owen Meredith, the chief executive of the News Media Association, has been writing about it in the national newspapers. We know it is important because, when I won a Division on a similar amendment to the Data Protection Act a few years ago, national newspapers devoted several whole pages of detailed and unhelpful coverage to noble Lords who had the moral courage to support me in the Lobbies.
The House should not get confused about how few noble Lords are prepared to debate the subject of press regulation. I have had to draw on huge amounts of moral courage to pursue these amendments. Unfortunately, this, combined with the proposed changes to our Code of Conduct, made me simply run out of moral courage on Tuesday. I am sorry to say that I left the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, largely on her own yesterday. I stress that nobody, inside or outside this House, has applied improper pressure to me.
There is simply not the time available to plan and draft a proper Report speech when the Committee amendments were debated only yesterday. For instance, I understand that my noble friend Lord Black made a very interesting speech, but I have not been able to read it. The Government should either drop the relevant clause completely or, better still, accept Amendment 84 from the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins. If they did the latter, they would still meet their manifesto commitments in full. Relaxing the Standing Orders against the wishes of several Members of the House to suit the needs of the usual channels, and some frantic horse-trading down the other end of the Corridor, is not acceptable to me.
Lord Lipsey (Lab)
My Lords, I was one of the people who asked the noble Lord to separate these two Motions and I am very grateful that he has done so. It shows the great courtesy that he has always shown to this House and its processes since becoming Leader.
I rise to make a brief point about wash-up. I have been working in one House or the other for more than 50 years and I just calculated that I have done 11 wash-ups. They are always a bloody mess and they always will be, unless the procedure is properly revised. I may be deceiving myself but, in this case, I think the Government are trying to smuggle things through under wash-up that should not be in the legislation.
Like the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, I feel very strongly about Clause 50 of the Media Bill. We debated it yesterday and will debate it today, but that is doing it in very short order. One of the unfortunate things is that not only do the Government support this Bill but so does my own Front Bench—at least that is what the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, said yesterday—although the Liberal Democrats take a different view. There are others involved, including Cross-Benchers, and I pay tribute to the role played by the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins.
This is not the kind of change that should be smuggled through in wash-up. Wash-up is designed to allow elements in Bills that are still outstanding in the House and on which there is consensus to become law. There is no consensus about this. There is no consensus among the Cross-Benchers, among the Lib Dems and, if am honest, among Labour Back-Benchers.
I hope that lessons will be learned and that there will be no further attempts at smuggling. If I were an adviser to the Government, which I was once upon a time, in my good days, I would be saying, “Just forget about Clause 50. Let’s get the business we need through and proceed to the general election”.
Lord Watts (Lab)
My Lords, yesterday’s debate was very interesting. I raised the issue of a woman whose daughter had been murdered in a hit and run and who had made a complaint to IPSO. That complaint was not dealt with properly and there was no redress for that woman. I asked the Minister what protection the Bill would give to such people—ordinary people who face abuse by the press and have no way of getting justice.
This is a very controversial Bill that should not be included in the wash-up, and I support those proposing that this clause should be removed.
Health and Social Care
Lord Lipsey Excerpts(3 years, 2 months ago)
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Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)
That is exactly what we intend to happen. In fact, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will benefit from around 15% more than is generated for their residents, which will be equivalent to around £300 million every year on average. As a total, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will benefit from an additional £2.2 billion each year on average. We intend to put the money directly into the health services across the nations, as the noble Baroness said.
Lord Lipsey (Lab)
My Lords, as I think I was the first person to propose a cap on care costs in the minority report to the royal commission in 1999, it would be churlish of me not to welcome the fact we are now getting one, albeit a mere 22 years after I first proposed it. It is disappointing that the Government have concentrated their sole attention, practically, on government, state-funded—which means national insurance-funded—care and have apparently paid no attention whatever to the great role that the private sector can play in helping richer people to afford their care in later years.
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)
The noble Lord will be well aware that historically there has been very low demand for social care insurance products and insurers have actually withdrawn products from the market. We believe that there will now be certainty about costs faced by individuals. We hope that more financial products will come on to the market to enable individuals to plan for their future care needs. We intend to work with the financial services industry to innovate and help people insure themselves against expenditure up to the limits.
House of Lords: Procedures and Practices
Lord Lipsey Excerpts(9 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord Lipsey (Lab)
My Lords, it is desperately dispiriting that nearly all debate about reform of this House concentrates on the single issue of whether we should be elected. I am not in favour of election, but I am in favour of a radical change in the way the House works. I believe such a change is necessary if we are to earn our corn in the troubled political period ahead of us.
The pace of change in this House, though it never goes much above glacial, ebbs and flows over the years—it has over my 16 years, anyway. Perhaps it reached a peak just before the House debated the Goodlad report in 2011. Indeed, on hearing the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, I nearly bit back the reflection I am about to make. Looking at his period as Leader, it is as though we had a radical reformer, red in tooth and claw, at the helm of the Lords. Since then, nearly all change has come juddering to a halt. Even then, the agenda we were considering was relatively constrained.
I know that some noble Lords will disagree, but, for example, is it really sensible to examine a Bill by me making a speech at a Minister sitting there and the Minister making a speech back at me? Of course not: it should be in a reasonably small room, exchanging views in a conversational way and taking evidence if necessary. Even Commons Bill Committees now take evidence, but we still think that making 19th century-style speeches is the sole way to do it. We could be even more effective revisers of legislation if that changed.
I can think of a number of other issues on which wider reform is more necessary than anything that has yet been floated. Why does it not happen? It is because the forces of conservatism in this House are very strong. This is not mostly due to the Members, although there are a few who think that it has all been downhill since the 1911 Parliament Act.
Lord Lipsey
As I said, there are a few, though I doubt that they would command a majority today.
Lord Lipsey
Thank God we do not have them anymore.
The real resistance to change, let us face it, comes from the Whips—from the Government leadership—because they have a sole object, for all the gilded words in which they tend to clad it: to get the Government’s business through with as little trouble, scrutiny and change as they can get away with. That is their fundamental mindset. I do not criticise them for that—that is what they are paid for.
Those are the forces of conservatism. However, it seems to me that there is now a great countervailing force in the people who are coming into this House, particularly—we are all glad to see this—the growing number of women but also people from outside politics and those who have not been acculturated to the way in which we have traditionally done business. I know that there is an argument about whether the Lord Speaker should call questioners. Who has talked to incoming Members about Question Time—about the bear garden and about the bullying males thrusting ahead of polite women and preventing them getting in? I will not come in for Question Time; I have had 16 years of listening to it. Seeing what we tolerate brings the House into poor regard. Therefore, I believe that there is a constituency for change.
Lord Gardiner of Kimble (Con)
My Lords, first, it is impossible and incorrect that two noble Lords should be standing. Secondly, there is no point of order; it is for the noble Lord to agree to an intervention from the noble Baroness.
Lord Lipsey
I am happy to allow the noble Baroness to intervene so long as it is not on a point of order.
Baroness Deech
I just wanted to give another impression to the noble Lord, who is concerned about women being shouted down at Question Time. I carried out a statistical survey over four weeks and discovered that proportionally there were more interventions by women at Question Time than would be expected from their number in the House. In other words, they are not shouted down; they are managing quite nicely and the noble Lord ought not to worry.
Lord Lipsey
I am delighted that there are some bullying women as well as some bullying men.
I come to my final comment, which reflects a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde. It is true that the forces of conservatism that I have described have this House in a strong grip, but they need not be allowed to have that grip. Down in the Commons, people said, “We’ll never get a business committee here”, but they have. People said, “We’ll never get to elect Select Committee chiefs here”, but they have. Back-Benchers have fought for their roles and rights and they have won their roles and rights. If I am right that in this House there is now a new spirit—particularly among the new arrivals, although there are many distinguished older Members who share it—we simply have to stop knuckling under out of a false politeness towards the official leaders of the House and force change through.
European Union (Referendum) Bill
Lord Lipsey Excerpts(10 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Dobbs
My Lords, another hour, another group of amendments. We have 15 groups of amendments to get through today if we are to reach the end of Committee stage. That is my ambition, so noble Lords will understand if I attempt to be reasonably brief in responding to them.
These amendments go to the very heart of the differences between us. I believe in the Bill because I believe that we politicians have failed the people—it is as simple as that. We have flipped and flopped like a hooked fish dragged out on to the riverbank. I am also in favour of the Bill because I believe that ultimately it is the right of the people to decide their own future. Noble Lords pressing this amendment have an opposite view from me: they believe that Parliament should decide, not the people. In a representative democracy that is an entirely reasonable point of view, except—
Lord Dobbs
I am only a minute into my speech, but of course I will make way for the noble Lord.
Lord Lipsey
Last week, when we were proceeding at precisely this pace, the noble Lord said that we were making very good progress, so I think that he might allow a fuller debate today. He has just made a completely unsubstantiated accusation against the opponents of the Bill. Many of us are not against a referendum; I myself am strongly in favour of one. We are against this dog’s dinner of a Bill, which requires improvement by every side of this House.
Lord Dobbs
The noble Lord has made his point, again. I think that it is a point that he made last week in Committee and I suspect that we may hear more of it again today. Of course Parliament decides, and we discussed that in Committee last week, but there comes a point when all these nostrums about parliamentary sovereignty require a dose of carbolic and common sense, when we need to find a democratic balance. That balance is not achieved by this unelected House obstructing the clearly expressed view of the other place. Parliament is sovereign, of course it is, but even above a sovereign Parliament there are the people. When the people have expressed their will, it is a terrible thing for any House of Parliament to defy. What British Parliament, as sovereign as it may be, would be unwise enough to turn around to the people and say, “We hear you but we choose to ignore you”?
Noble Lords opposite have taken us around the planet. They have taken advice from Brussels to Washington and have sought advice from Strasbourg and in Japan, yet they are completely failing to convince anyone that they are keen to take the advice of the people. If we pursue these amendments, we are doing only one thing—turning around to the people and saying that their voice, will and instruction are not enough, and that we unelected politicians know better. That is why they are so disillusioned and why we need a referendum to cleanse these stables. If that is the side of the barricade where the noble Lord wishes to take a stand, that is his choice. Otherwise, though, I beg him to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Lipsey
My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resume. I had hoped that the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, would have leapt to her feet to do this, because we are now past the witching hour. I noticed that she did not do so; if she now wishes to do so I shall happily withdraw my Motion.
It is unusual for a Back-Bencher to move this Motion, and I do so only because the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, is not doing so. Of course, the Chief Whip is responsible for ensuring that the rules of the House are adhered to, and the facts here are straightforward. The Companion states on page 40, paragraph 3.01:
“It is a firm convention that the House normally rises … by about 3 p.m. on Fridays”.
On 10 January the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, said:
“I am indeed the guardian of the Companion”.—[Official Report, 10/1/14; col. 1737.]
Last week the guardian of the Companion did not put up much of a fight. The noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, the mover of the Bill, rightly said that the House had made good progress—and we have, dealing with 49 amendments. However, despite that good progress, the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, insisted on overtime to nearly 6 pm, despite a promise from the Whip on the Bench that the House would rise by 5 pm to 5.30 pm. It is no good crying over spilt milk, and every dog is permitted one bite. However, I submit that what cannot be tolerated in this House is that the Companion—the sole way in which we regulate our proceedings—is ignored week after week in the interests of one party in the House.
The noble Baroness cited the precedent of the Bill on dignity in dying, when we did, indeed, go on until 6 pm. That was because we expected to finish the Bill that night by so doing. However, there is no prospect whatever of our completing this Bill by 5.30 pm this evening. Indeed, by my calculations, we could expect to finish at about two or three in the morning at the present rate of progress. On a Bill of constitutional importance of this magnitude, the idea that this House could be debating these issues at three on a Saturday morning cannot be contemplated.
I have a measure of sympathy with the Chief Whip. She sits on the Government Front Bench—I am glad to see her in her place—wearing three hats: as a Tory, a member of the Government and a defender of the rules governing our proceedings. However—and it pains me to say this—she is not in this case defending our rules. She is not acting as a member of the Government, as this is not a government Bill. She is acting wholly and solely as a partisan politician in what she perceives to be in the interests of her party. That cannot be permitted. I beg to move.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Geddes) (Con)
The Question is that the House be resumed. Since this is a somewhat unusual situation, I should advise the Committee that this Question is debatable and, if necessary, divisible.
House of Lords Reform Bill
Lord Lipsey Excerpts(12 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, I agree with my noble and learned friend that this Bill should be fully examined and I know that it will be. I agree with the examples that he uses: the control of the Executive in another place, the domination of Parliament by the Executive and the need for differences between this House and the House of Commons. However, I come, and the Government have come, to a different conclusion. I see these reforms as strengthening this House by giving it the authority of the electorate to be more assertive and occasionally to be more beastly to the House of Commons, to hold it to account and to challenge the decisions that it takes. This House will be able to do that far better having been elected than simply having been appointed.
Lord Lipsey
My Lords, I have no wish to extend discourtesy in public life, as the Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, did when he described my costings of the Richard report as complete nonsense. I will not apply those words to the Government’s costings. However, would the noble Lord the Leader of the House accept that their costings of £220 million omit a large number of costs that will certainly arise under the Bill—for example, the costs of election—and therefore do not stand a moment’s close scrutiny? If he will not, will he agree to refer those costings to an independent referee, such as the Institute for Fiscal Studies, which can examine their costings of their proposals and my costings of the Richard report, and give the public the correct assessment of the costs that they will have to pay through their pocket as VAT, income tax and so on?
Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, the underlying assumptions and cost projections are in the public domain today. I fully expect that they will be given robust scrutiny by the IFS, the TaxPayers’ Alliance, the Labour Party and anyone else who wishes to examine them. Of course, the Government will reply to any questions raised on costs, which I believe have been reached in a robust manner.
Draft House of Lords Reform Bill
Lord Lipsey Excerpts(12 years, 7 months ago)
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Lord Lipsey
My Lords, I apologise in advance for lowering the very high tone set just now by the noble Lord, Lord Low, and the speakers who preceded him. I will stick to my special subject, as the House’s resident geek—namely, the cost of what is proposed. Some noble Lords might not think that that is the kind of thing we should debate this afternoon but I can assure the House that it matters a good deal to the people out there who have to bear the cost.
The Joint Committee puts no cost on its proposals, although my noble friend Lord Richard said in presenting them that we will not get a second Chamber for free. That is one thing that he said that we can certainly all agree with. However, the alternative report produced a costing—mine. This is the cost of the Government’s original proposals drawn from my evidence to the Joint Committee, although the alternative report omits the six footnotes and 13 detailed references attached to that evidence which set out the assumptions that underlie it. The headline numbers are that the extra costs of the reforms will be, in year 1, £177 million, and over the five-year Parliament of 2015-20, £433 million. To put that in a more down-to-earth way, it is the equivalent of 80,000 hip replacements—a comparison that should appeal to Members of your Lordships’ House—or a year’s salary for 13,000 nurses.
There has been some confusion over these costings in the press. They are what they were billed to be or what it says on the tin: costings of the Government’s original proposals, given by me in evidence to my noble friend Lord Richard. They are not and could not be costings of my noble friend’s proposals, simply because that report only became available last Monday. As the committee failed to give costings—because the Government failed to give them—someone has to fill the gap, and I will have a go. I am working with the assistance of the Library to do a costing of the Joint Committee’s proposals.
I say two things about that. First, it is likely to come out a little lower than the costings I have already done of the Government’s proposals. Secondly, it will come out lower because some of the Joint Committee’s recommendations seem to be wholly unrealistic. Under them, you would have one lot of new Peers with salaries and support allowances and another lot—the transitional Peers—who would just get our current allowances. Whatever happened to the rate for the job? If you take out that assumption, the Joint Committee proposals will cost more than the Government’s proposals, simply because it proposes more elected and new appointed Peers.
Mark Harper, the constitutional affairs Minister, described my costings as “speculative”. In one sense, Mr Harper is right, as they depend on assumptions about what precisely will be in the Bill when it eventually appears and, indeed, on assumptions as to how the Bill’s proceedings will be implemented in practice. To that extent, the costings are speculative, as indeed will be the Government’s own costings, which he has promised to publish, belatedly, if and when the Government publish a Bill. The costings of every single policy adopted by this House and Parliament are speculative, in the sense that you cannot know exactly what will happen until it has happened. What a convenient brush-off the word “speculative” represents. Anyone who knows the first thing about government will know that cost estimates would have had to be given to the ministerial committee considering the White Paper, to the Deputy Prime Minister and the Prime Minister. Why should we not see them too, as those who have to legislate about those proposals?
Here is a thought for your Lordships. Let us suppose that the costings given to the ministerial committee, the Deputy Prime Minister and the Prime Minister had shown that the new House would cost not more, as it will, but less. Does anyone seriously suppose that that would not have been broadcast from the rooftops, with the Government showing how marvellously they were economising with our politics with their proposal? Of course they would. They have decided not to tell us the cost for one reason and one reason only. The cost of these proposals is an Exocet heading straight for the engine room of their ship. So they hope to manoeuvre, zig and zag, this way and that to avoid the impact, at least until their ship is a bit nearer port than it is today. That is of course why they resist a referendum, as recommended by the Richard committee, as they know that the chances of the public voting yes to reform will melt like a snowball in the midsummer sun once people understand the bill that they will have to pay for this folly. In this age of austerity, does anyone seriously believe that the public will agree to hand huge chunks of their hard-earned money to a whole new gang of second-rate elected politicians?
Let me issue this challenge to the Minister. I have published my costings—let us have yours. Opinion is free, but facts are sacred and, in this day and age, ought to be freely available for all of us to debate. Unless the Minister, in answering this debate, agrees to this, he will confirm what the whole House in its heart knows: this is a cover-up, which disgraces those who have perpetrated it.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
Lord Lipsey Excerpts(13 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Lipsey
“( ) These steps shall include measures to ensure that all those wishing to vote and arriving at the polling station within the appointed hours are able to do so.”
Lord Lipsey
My Lords, this follows an amendment that I moved in Committee, which included the general duty on the Electoral Commission, as included in this amendment. It was pointed out that in doing that I had not tackled one of the main problems that beset this area, namely that the legislation seems not to allow people who arrive at a polling station on time but have not cast their vote by 10 pm to cast their vote by the expiry of those hours prescribed by the legislation. Therefore, I drafted this amendment so that they should be permitted to vote. To remind the House; in Committee there was general agreement that the chaos of May 2010, when 1,200 eager citizens were denied the right to vote—in one of the most advanced democracies in the world—must never happen again. Many moving words were spoken about that.
The Electoral Commission also inquired into that, as you would expect. In its initial report it asked for legislation. It has produced a briefing document that summarises the position in the report, saying that,
“we recommended that the Government should urgently change the law so that people who are … in the queue to enter the polling station at the close of poll are allowed to vote”.
If I could pick one phrase out of that, it would be “urgently change the law”. When I picked up the Electoral Commission’s briefing for these debates, I expected that at least it would offer me some support in trying to do that. That was perhaps naive, because in between its initial report and now, the Deputy Prime Minister has made it clear that he is not in favour of legislation on this subject. I do not like to ascribe motives or to deduce cause and effect, but in the briefing the Electoral Commission went rapidly from calling for an urgent change to saying that the change proposed in my amendment would be significant, that it could be open to different interpretations, that there was insufficient time to consider its full implications, and that the Electoral Commission was unable to support it.
If the Electoral Commission did not like my amendment, given that it wanted urgent legislation it would have been perfectly sensible for it to have proposed a substitute. There is Third Reading to come, and if the matter remained not cleared up we could have debated it then. However, the Electoral Commission has not proposed a substitute. Here we have a situation, only the facts of which I describe, of a body urgently seeking a legislative amendment, an indication in the press that the DPM is against it, and a legislative vehicle to deal with the situation, and what is commission’s reaction? It shows all the urgency of a tortoise on valium.
You cannot spend long in either House without discovering that the Electoral Commission does not always command the total confidence in its activities which Members of both Houses would hope for. To some extent that is right, because the commission must not be a puppet of Members in either place. However, I detect an underlying lack of confidence that this is truly an efficient and fit-for-purpose body. The commission’s reaction in this case seems somewhat to underline that charge and suggests that it has validity.
I say nothing more than that the time has come for the Electoral Commission to up its game. I am sure that tonight Ministers will be absolutely delighted to hide behind the commission’s coat tails and will therefore not embrace the amendment or put forward a preferred amendment of their own. I should be highly delighted to be surprised. I beg to move.
The Archbishop of York
My Lords, the incident referred to by the noble Lord happened in my province, Sheffield. Had that happened in Africa or India, we would have said it was scandalous that people had been in the queue for three hours but, because the voting had to stop at 10 o’clock, were told to go away. There would have been an outcry that people had been queuing for hours and were denied a vote. For me, the purpose of the law is to state public policy. This amendment is a statement that such an occurrence must not be allowed to happen again, and the regulations should make that clear. If you do not prescribe it now, the same will happen somewhere else. The African saying, “People in Britain have watches, while in Africa we have time”, might come true in the end.
Lord Lipsey
I have enjoyed the contribution of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, to our proceedings and notice that tonight he has transformed himself into Sir Humphrey. That could come straight out of “Yes Minister” and we would have them rolling in the aisles.
The Electoral Commission rushed out a report within two weeks of this scandal because people were outraged. We are now nine months on from the incident and we are told that I am rushing by putting forward an amendment tonight when no alternative proposal has been put forward. It is another three months until the referendum. The Electoral Commission has plenty of time to put these things right and the Government have plenty of time to put the legislation right, which they could have started doing tonight. Therefore, I feel a sense of deep unease and disappointment. In the Government’s response I see none of the urgency that the Electoral Commission pressed for last May.
I wholly agree with, and am delighted with the contribution from, the most reverend Primate, who spoke from the experience of knowing just how bad it was for the people who were not able to vote. I cannot do anything further about it myself but I urge Ministers to push this to a resolution of some kind so that we can go out into the world in the future with a sense of pride that, when something goes wrong in our democracy, we put it right and do not let it linger, stinking, over our system. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
Lord Lipsey Excerpts(13 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord Lipsey
I can be even briefer. My amendment, Amendment 91B, reflects a suggestion made in the British Academy study to which the Minister has referred with great favour on a number of occasions, which is that the Boundary Commission should be bound to publish not just representations but comments. It is a small point, but the leading experts in the academic world regard it as an improvement. I therefore hope that the Minister will accept it.
The Advocate-General for Scotland (Lord Wallace of Tankerness)
Amendments 91AA and 91B would change the process of consultation as set out in the Bill. The Government believe that it is important that there should be a good flow of information between the Boundary Commissions and the public so that people can be informed about the review and have their say. That is why we have extended the period for representations to 12 weeks from the four weeks currently provided for.
Amendment 91B, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, would, as he said, require the commissions to take into consideration any comments that they receive on representations made on their recommendations—that is, the ability of the public to make counter-representations to those of other individuals, if that is not too convoluted. He referred to the British Academy study, which made that recommendation.
I reassure the noble Lord that our thoughts are very similar to those during yesterday's debate on the issue of wards—yesterday or the day before; anyway, earlier this week—and their use in making recommendations for constituency boundaries. That is that we are open to considering improvements to the process of public consultation on recommendations for boundary changes that do not compromise the key principles of the Bill. Adding an opportunity for counter-representations would not compromise the key principles, particularly that of dealing with boundaries that are as up to date as possible. We will consider the details of how the process set out in the amendment might function and come forward with our amendments at Report.
The amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, would require the Boundary Commissions to publish all written representations received as part of the consultation process online, in a very environmentally friendly way, within 24 hours of receipt. That is a helpful and useful suggestion which we will certainly want to consider carefully before Report. We question one element. The commissions made extensive use of the internet in the course of the previous general review and, although it is for them to decide, I am confident that they would do likewise this time.
The practical problem with the noble Lord’s amendment is the requirement to publish those representations within 24 hours of receipt. Our experience of consultations is that many people submit their representations very shortly before the deadline. If the commissions have received thousands of representations just before the end of the period, they might find themselves overwhelmed if they are then required to publish them online within 24 hours, especially if a number of representations were received in paper form that had to be turned into a version that was electronically presentable. The secretaries to the respective Boundary Commissions told the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee that they have sufficient resources. I do not doubt that the commissions will act to publish the representations in good time following the end of the consultation period, but I fear that there may be occasions when it would be impractical to do so within 24 hours.
I thank the noble Lords, Lord Lipsey and Lord Kennedy, for highlighting these issues by way of their amendments and reassure them that we will bring our proposals to the House at the next stage of the passage of the Bill through your Lordships' House. On that basis, I invite the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
Lord Lipsey Excerpts(13 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord Lipsey
“( ) Should the Boundary Commission conclude in the case of any individual constituency or constituencies that these considerations are of exceptional importance, and that they cannot be appropriately accommodated with the provisions of rules 1 to 4, it shall have the power to give priority to those considerations over the provisions in rules 1 to 4.”
Lord Lipsey
My Lords, I assume that I will not be accused of filibustering if my first remarks are not as relevant to the amendment as my later ones will be. They are to enable those who have more pressing engagements to leave the Chamber. Such very modest success as I have achieved in my life has been due to one thing only, and that is people confusing me with the genuinely world-class economist, Richard Lipsey—Lipsey being a very rare name. That name got me into Oxford, it got me out of Oxford and it got me most of the jobs for which I have applied. I assure the House that we will come to some relevance in a minute.
Richard Lipsey is known to anyone who has studied economics at university as the author of An Introduction to Positive Economics, the standard textbook. However, among economists, his main reputation is founded on the paper that he wrote with Kelvin Lancaster in 1956 called The General Theory of Second Best; and, in pursuing the guru’s great career, the amendment that I put before noble Lords today concerns the practice of second best. It is a practical second-best solution to the problem that has been bugging the House throughout proceedings on this Bill.
This problem, which has emerged from so many debates that by now the penny must surely have dropped, is the extreme rigidity of the Government’s proposed 5 per cent variance in constituency size. There is complete consensus in the House that there should be greater equality in the size of constituencies—that is not in question—but there is no consensus that that should be within the 5 per cent limit, under which only 36 per cent of present constituencies would qualify.
I make no apology for saying again that the best solution to this issue would be to move, wholly or perhaps in part, to a 10 per cent variance, which would, at a stroke, remove nearly all the problems that we have with this Bill. No doubt it would also prolong the nights of sleep which some of us are enjoying at the moment, because it would then be a much better Bill. I say that yet again without hesitation. The second best solution is the one incorporated in this amendment. It is not a full substitute for 10 per cent. It might be a modest supplement to 10 per cent, and it is designed with that in mind. I understand from what the Leader of the House said yesterday—and very welcome it was—that discussions are taking place. I trust that that is happening and I hope that this amendment might provide some grist for that mill.
The Lord Speaker (Baroness Hayman)
Because the point that the noble Lord is making is quite complicated, it would be simpler if I put the question first and then we had contributions after that.
Lord Howarth of Newport
I apologise to the Lord Speaker and to the House. Will my noble friend clarify his thinking, so that we really understand what he is inviting the House to agree to? He is saying that the Boundary Commission should have the power to give priority to the very important considerations set out in rule 5 and give those priority over the requirements of rules 1 to 4. Rule 1 is the one that says:
“The number of constituencies in the United Kingdom shall be 600”.
It is my view that the Boundary Commission might frequently conclude that an exception should be made if it had discretion to exercise its judgment and to attach significant importance to various factors in rule 5 such as geography, local government, local ties and so forth, within existing constituencies’ boundaries. The consequence could be that the number of constituencies in the United Kingdom would rise significantly above 600. I would favour that for a whole variety of reasons, but would my noble friend draw out the implications of his amendment in that regard—or what he thinks the implications could be for the eventual number of constituencies in the United Kingdom?
Lord Lipsey
To fill the silence for a minute, my noble friend is of course right on his first point that this could lead to a small rise in the number of constituencies—I said half a dozen to a dozen. However, if the Government do not like that, since we are in Committee and these are exploratory proposals, they could remove rule 1 from my amendment and apply the other three rules as the exception. They would then need to change the formula, for reasons which will be evident, but they might have to change that anyway. On my noble friend’s second point, it is inconceivable in view of the guidance given to the Boundary Commission in the Bill on its general rules, that it would consider crossing a national boundary. What he describes is a perfectly fair theoretical possibility and if the Committee wished to nitpick, it could draw the Bill accordingly to prevent that in law. I do not think it would make any practical difference to his very good point.
Lord Soley
Briefly, I support my noble friend on this amendment. I agree entirely that it would be better if the Government chose to go for the 10 per cent rule option, which would take a lot of the sting out of this Bill and reduce the dangers of long-term gerrymandering. One of the things that constantly troubles me about the Bill is that, although we might not like the amount of time it is taking, it is allowing a situation where, after every Parliament, a Government come in and change the rules on boundaries and numbers in the House of Commons in a way that suits their party-political advantage. Down that road lies gerrymandering and I really do not recommend it. They really need to think again but, if they are not going to move on the 10 per cent rule, the proposal being put forward by my noble friend is a good one.
I have a couple of points on this amendment. First, last night I raised the issue of “may” in paragraph 5 of the proposed new schedule in Clause 11 as opposed to “shall” which, as the Committee will know, has a much stronger legal meaning. It would therefore state that,
“the Boundary Commission shall take into account”,
instead of “may”. That was on an amendment put forward by my noble friend Lord Kennedy. Unfortunately, the Minister replying at that time was not able to respond because he was rather sadly taken ill, as we know. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, tried to deal with it in passing but if we were to have that in, along with my noble friend’s amendment today, it would give the Boundary Commission not only greater flexibility but the strength to say that there are certain geographical or other factors, as listed in paragraph 5, that would allow it to override the rules in the four points of the allocation method.
I do not want to spend too much time on it, but I draw attention to this; the Committee has heard quite a bit, over the past day or so, of the problem of large, rural areas and the drawing of their boundaries. I really do not want to go into the details of my previous constituency, or others, but at times—and this would have applied to my constituency and to many other inner-city ones too—the Boundary Commission is faced with particularly difficult situations on areas which have suffered as a result of a development there which has divided the community in some way. It might be a major road, a shopping site or whatever. The Boundary Commission needs to have the ability to take that into account. That is why I would prefer the stronger wording in paragraph 5 to allow the Boundary Commission to say, “We regard this as being of such importance that it must override the four points otherwise”.
There are many examples; the geographical ones are probably the best, inasmuch as they deal with both rural and urban areas where the geography changes significantly. For example, the building of the Westway in London divided communities very significantly, which had a big effect on my constituency. Obviously, in rural areas it would be mountains, rivers, estuaries or whatever. That geography example is very important. To put the Boundary Commission into a position where it is, in my noble friend’s words, tied in to such a degree that it cannot be flexible is a big mistake. The same applies to headings (b), (c) and (d) in paragraph 5(1). All of those will come up from time to time and the Boundary Commission will be faced with that decision.
As I indicated yesterday, I would prefer a situation where we change the wording in the proposed new Schedule 2 to read “shall” not “may” and, at the same time, to accept my noble friend’s amendment. The better alternative is to accept the 10 per cent rule but the Government seem thoroughly dug in on that, for many wrong reasons. It is one of the things giving us so much trouble on this Bill, because of its long-term implications for the political structure of our Parliament. The Minister is always very thoughtful on these things. I appreciate why the noble Lord, Lord McNally, could not answer the point about “shall” and “may” last night but perhaps the Minister could bear this in mind when he sums up: my noble friend’s amendment, combined with the use of “shall” instead of “may”, which therefore gives the Boundary Commission greater authority and strength in its decisions, would benefit the Bill. It would be a small step forward and I recommend it to the Government.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
My Lords, even if one puts aside for a moment the question of public hearings, there is still opportunity under the Bill for representations to be made. The minute you import words such as “exceptional importance”, however the case may be presented, you can bet your life that organised groups such as political parties would find some means of suggesting exceptional importance in almost every constituency. Some have argued that the constituency boundaries should be drawn on the basis of population. We have heard that argument; it was suggested earlier that it would be one way of dealing with the situation, but I hope we have dealt with that in times past.
The noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, said that this is a modest amendment. However, some of the key principles that the Government have enunciated about what is important in the Bill—for example, that there should be no increase in the size of the House of Commons beyond 600—could be undermined by this amendment. Even if we set aside the question of whether there is a 5 per cent or 10 per cent variation, the amendment would allow for a variation that goes beyond even 10 per cent. That would override the parity of one vote, one value and would almost certainly inhibit the Boundary Commission’s ability to report that it had ensured that the new boundaries were in place for the May 2015 election. It is against the background of these different points being undermined by this modest amendment, as the noble Lord called it, that the Government cannot accept it and I ask him to withdraw it.
Lord Lipsey
I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this brief but informative debate—my noble friends Lord Howarth, Lord Soley, Lord Davies of Stamford and Lord Bach. They have all made substantial contributions to moving the argument forward. I thank the Minister for a comprehensive reply but I cannot apply the phrase “moved the argument forward” to his remarks. I know there is a feeling in many quarters of the House that this debate has gone on too long; I share it. However, one reason for that is that scrutiny is not just about making changes to the Bill; it is about listening to each other’s arguments and hearing what we are saying—not merely repeating one’s starting position. I was saddened to hear the Minister repeat what we debated last night when the noble Lord, Lord McNally—I join in wishing him a very quick recovery—repeated this stuff and nonsense about the equal weight of votes. Indeed, he did not seem fully to have wrestled with the concept because he thought we were talking about something to do with differential turnout.
Differential turnout has nothing to do with it. In a majoritarian system only some votes affect the result of a general election. Those are votes cast in marginal seats. Everybody else’s vote has no weight whatever, except in so far as it is used to claim that the system is biased in some way after the election. Sadly, under our system most people might as well not bother going to the polls for all the chance they have of affecting the result. To talk of some cast principle of equal weight for equal votes when our system embodies a quite contrary principle seems wrong. Moreover, it is sad that it is still being repeated after 13 days of argument
Lord Howarth of Newport
My noble friend has been very generous and tolerant. Does he share my puzzlement that the Government are so obsessed by this question of exact numerical equality across electorates in different constituencies, given that the existing distribution of electors across constituencies in this country is not out of line with what is found in other countries, such as Canada, France, Australia and the USA? The Minister expressed his great concern that there was a 41 per cent difference between the size of the electorate in one constituency and another. However, is it not the case that in the United States of America, where it is generally held that the distribution of districts for the US Congress is pretty equal, there is an 88 per cent difference between the electorate of a single seat in Montana and the electorates of two seats in Rhode Island? There is nothing particularly out of line in our existing arrangements by international standards. Unless we are prepared to tolerate some numerical inequality, we will get the absurdity that all sorts of other valid and important factors will be too much discounted.
Lord Lipsey
My Lords, I come to another point that the Minister appeared not to have absorbed fully in our earlier discussions. He again said that there was constant upward movement in the number of seats in the House of Commons. This is simply incorrect. In 1918 there were 707 seats in the House of Commons— 57 more than there are today. In 1983 there was precisely the same number of seats in the House of Commons as there is today. The figure varies, and I agree that there is a flaw in the rules at the moment. It is like the Schleswig-Holstein question; I have forgotten exactly how it works but it has something to do with the use of the harmonic mean. There is a flaw in the rules that can tend, if not otherwise compensated for, to raise the number of seats. You just deal with the flaw; you do not need a Bill of this kind to deal with that. It simply is not true to say that the number of seats has increased.
Lord Grocott
My noble friend is absolutely right, although the number of seats has tended to increase in recent years because of the tendency to round up, rather than down, at the end of a redistribution in individual areas. I mention this point simply to remind my noble friend that at some unearthly hour on Monday I spoke to an amendment that was intended to do precisely this in an attempt to meet some of the Government’s concerns. That would have provided that in each of the five-yearly boundary changes—of which I am not in favour, but we have to give and take in this kind of situation—there would be rounding down and not rounding up. I need hardly remind my noble friend that that persuasive amendment was not listened to by many noble Lords because it was spoken to at an unearthly hour. However, that is the kind of thing that we need to do if we are to reach a settlement on the Bill.
Lord Lipsey
Indeed, and the point about the escalation in the number of seats could quickly be dealt with if the admirable Professor Iain McLean were to be summoned by the Bill team to explain the changes in the rules, which I have heard him explain at innumerable academic conferences, to my great edification. That is how I know that the harmonic mean comes into it, even if its precise meaning escapes me for the moment.
I want to conclude where the Minister ended, when he said that the task of the Boundary Commission in producing a reasonable electoral map would be far harder if my amendment were to be passed. I agree that it is hard work being a boundary commissioner. However, although far harder work might be produced by my amendment, his Bill makes that work not harder, but impossible. We cannot produce an electoral map of Great Britain that makes sense with this Bill as it stands. I hope that in discussions on either the Floor or discussions that I devoutly hope are taking place elsewhere, there will turn out to be more flexibility in the Government’s position than the Minister, with all his courtesy, has indicated this afternoon, and that we can therefore move beyond this sterile position whereby arguments are repeated without evolving. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
Lord Lipsey Excerpts(13 years, 10 months ago)
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The Lord Speaker (Baroness Hayman)
I have to inform the Committee that if Amendment 59 is agreed to, I cannot call Amendments 60 to 63ZA for reasons of pre-emption.
Lord Lipsey
My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 60, which is a companion amendment to that moved by the noble Lord, Lord Soley. Before I go into the substance of the argument, perhaps I could make an offer—I must say that this is without any permission from my Front Bench—to the party opposite. We will happily stop accusing you of gerrymandering if you stop accusing us of filibustering. I heard the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Soley. It was all material and to the point. If I was filibustering, I would have been extraordinarily grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Garel-Jones, who unfortunately is not still in his place—I expect he thinks that he has made his point—for prolonging the debate. Yet I was not grateful for it because it seemed to do what we all want to avoid doing: to turn this into a party political argy-bargy instead of being, as it should be, a proper scrutiny of the Bill before this House of Parliament.
In the interests of proceeding reasonably rapidly, I shall not go over again the arguments that my noble friend Lord Soley put so well for an independent look at this. My remarks are devoted more to the case for that being done by a Speaker’s Conference. A range of views have been expressed on the substantive issues of whether we should stick with 650—my conservative noble and learned friend Lord Falconer has strongly argued that case; or whether we should reduce the number—the reductionists include the noble Lord, Lord Maples, and my noble friend Lord Rooker; or should, like me, sit on the fence but say that there are arguments against a reduction. I am bound to say that I did not find the Minister’s response to the earlier debate terribly convincing on why the number should be 650. He did not say the figure was plucked out of the air because he is too shrewd an operator to do so, but it did not sound very different from being plucked out of the air to me. I am therefore taking as made the case for independent inquiry, and I will detain the House only to make the case that that should be by a Speaker’s Conference and not, for example, by a royal commission, an independent inquiry headed by a judge or whatever.
The main reason that I think it should be by a Speaker’s Conference is that this is essentially a matter for parliamentarians. I say “parliamentarians” because I should want this House to be represented on any such Speaker’s Conference. This is not because it is Members of another place who are going to be most adversely affected by what is being proposed. That is an issue—they have trade union rights, if you like—but that is not a good reason why they should be involved. The first reason that they should be involved is that they are the most knowledgeable about the issues involved. They may not all agree, but they have the experience of representing their constituents and existing in the House of Commons to weigh the arguments. There are arguments for a reduction; there is no doubt about it. It is difficult, for example, to get to speak in a debate in the Commons now. It is important that they should be weighing those arguments with the issue of which they have more knowledge than anybody else, which is whether the workload can be coped with by the average MP with the current level of staffing or even an increased level of staffing. They would bring that wisdom to bear, and we need it.
The second reason for thinking that a Speaker’s Conference is right is that however wise the verdict, if it does not attract political consensus, it will not be right and it will not necessarily stick. It is important that we achieve such a consensus, and it is important that all parties are agreed on it. A Speaker’s Conference could achieve this. The coalition should be very sympathetic to this line of argument because the figure we have came about not because either one of the two parties involved was committed to it but because they sat down together and this was the figure they came up with. Widening the consensus to embrace all parties would seem to be an argument that should appeal to the coalition. It seems to me that those are the two fundamental cases for a Speaker’s Conference.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
I wonder whether my noble friend heard me arguing earlier for some flexibility for the Boundary Commission. Would it not also be possible for the Speaker’s Conference to recommend a range so that it should be between figure x and figure y to give a little bit of flexibility to the Boundary Commission? Is that not another advantage of his proposal?
Lord Lipsey
That would be a possible outcome of a Speaker’s Conference. It might also decide that the way to deal with the particular problem that he is advancing is by increasing the tolerance allowed in the size of constituencies, and that is a matter to which this House will return.
In order to have a look at whether a Speaker’s Conference is the right way forward, I devoted a happy Sunday to examining the records of past Speaker’s Conferences. Funnily enough, that is not as easy a task as you might think, partly because there is no agreement on how many Speaker’s Conferences there are. I started off with British Political Facts, which is the bible on all these matters, and it said six, but I then found a speech made by Jack Straw in another place—Official Report, Commons, 12/3/98; col. 781—in which he listed two Speaker’s Conferences not listed by British Political Facts in 1908-10 and 1930. There is also the ambiguous case of the 1919 Speaker’s Conference on devolution, which was chaired by Mr Speaker Lowther, and nobody seems to be able decide whether it was a Speaker’s Conference. Let me confine myself to the six Speaker’s Conferences that everybody agrees on and the progress that they made.
There was the Speaker’s Conference on electoral reform of 1917, which is my favourite. It not only advocated extending votes to women but—prize of prizes for the Lib Dems—it recommended STV. This, alas, was subsequently voted down by seven votes in the House of Commons. There was a Speaker’s Conference on electoral reform in 1943-44, which dealt, for example, with Welsh representation. The 1944 Speaker’s Conference was notable, incidentally, for including three Peers of the realm. It set out lasting principles for redistribution and directions to the Boundary Commission, which endured well. Sixty of 71 quite controversial recommendations by the 1965-68 conference on electoral law and procedure, under Mr Speaker Hylton-Foster, were accepted.
The 1973-74 Speaker’s Conference was under Mr Speaker Selwyn Lloyd. I am sorry the noble Lord, Lord Maclennan, is not present because I believe he sat on that as an MP, as did the noble Lord, Lord Pendry. That brought about an increase in election expenses, which otherwise would not have come about, for the February 1974 election. There was the 1977-78 Speaker’s Conference, under Mr Speaker Thomas, on Northern Ireland representation. I see my noble friend Lord Radice is with us evening but the noble Lord, Lord Molyneaux, who also sat on that conference, is not present. That managed to solve the question of increased representation for Northern Ireland, although not everyone got everything they hoped for out of that. Then there was Gordon Brown’s Speaker’s Conference on electoral turnout and women and ethnic minorities in Parliament. It is not a flawless record but it is a considerable one, covering some of the most difficult problems that have faced this country’s constitution.
Lord Davies of Stamford
Does the conference on the future of home rule, which took place in the summer of 1914 at Buckingham Palace, and was certainly presided over by the Speaker, not count as a Speaker’s Conference?
Lord Lipsey
I do not know whether it should but it does not count in Mr Straw’s list or in British Political Facts. If my noble friend wishes to inform the House further about that, I am sure it would be immensely valuable to our proceedings this evening.
Lord Morgan
I think the difference is between a conference convened by the party leaders, which they ask the Speaker to chair, and a conference that the Speaker is a dynamic element in arranging.
Lord Lipsey
I defer absolutely to my noble friend. Indeed, I was quailing in my seat at the thought of the intervention he might make, which might have sent me back to the classroom on this matter.
Lord Anderson of Swansea
On the Speaker’s Conferences, I genuinely am ignorant about this one question. To what extent was there a clear remit to each of these Speaker’s Conferences? From this debate, it is rather important that there should be flexibility and that a number of principles should be put to the Speaker’s Conference to decide. Has it been the practice to give a very broad remit or to set out in extenso the various principles on which the Speaker’s Conference should decide? Since my noble friend has devoted all of one Sunday to the study of this subject, I am sure he can enlighten us.
Lord Lipsey
Noble Lords will find that a range of experiences are set out in a Speaker’s Conference Standard Note, House of Commons document, SN/PC/04426, which has in it most of the knowledge that I have tried to impart. In some ways we should learn from the shortcomings of past Speaker’s Conferences in setting up this new one. They have tended to be rather big, often having 27 members. Not all of them have included Members of this House. For very good reasons I am sure that this time we would want to include Members of this House this time. In particular—this deals with the point that the Government might make against them—this one will need a speedy timetable as it is no part of the purpose of this side of the House to delay a decision or to make it impossible to introduce these changes for the next general election, if that is the desire of Parliament. Indeed, it would speed the passage of this bit of the legislation through this House if there was such a speedy conference. I really do not think this issue is so complicated that two or three months of hard work would not get us a good verdict which would enable the whole process to go forward on a sound basis of consensus, and therefore to endure.
The Government have rushed us into a bad place and now they are complaining that we are rushing willingly into that place. The figure they have come up with may be right, but if it is right it is by sheer fluke, not by plan or consideration. This House, of the parliamentary Houses, stands for a reasoned approach to public policy, and in particular to public policy on our constitution. I therefore commend this amendment to the House.