Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Lord Lipsey and Lord Howarth of Newport

Monday 31st January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lipsey]

My Lords, first, I apologise for the fact that I arrived back in the Chamber seconds too late to move Amendment 99ZA. I do not think that anything catastrophic has been lost thereby, because Amendments 99ZA and 99A were in effect accepted by the Minister. We will see the drafting on Report. If I might be permitted to say it, Amendments 99B and 99C are purely technical and if the Minister or his officials would correspond with me about their substance, we might avoid having to return to the subject on Report.

Amendment 100, however, has fine breeding because it is another from the stable of the British Academy, whose thoroughbreds have been praised throughout these debates. It relates to the discussion that we have just had because it is perfectly clear that the commissions have a big task on their hands to complete the work before them by 2013. In particular, the English commission faces a tough task. It would be very regrettable if there was any slippage in the timetable, because it leaves only 18 months for parties to choose their candidates and for those candidates to bed themselves in. That is even without the possibility, which must still exist even under the Government’s fixed-term Parliament legislation, of an earlier general election. It really is crucial that the Boundary Commissions do not get behind with the task.

The Government have been comforting throughout on the question of the resources that will be made available to the Boundary Commissions. That is important, but the British Academy study argues that an additional weapon in the commissions’ armoury would be the appointment of assistant commissioners. This amendment, as I understand it, in effect repeats the provision of the 1986 Act in that regard by providing for the appointment of assistant commissioners. That may, it occurs to me, also have a part to play when the Government bring forward their detailed proposals for implementing the spirit of the amendment spoken to earlier today by the noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, in providing for oral hearings in some form or another. I hope that this modest, technical proposal—it is of course not saying that the commissions have to appoint assistant commissioners—sourced as it is from the true experts of the British Academy study, will find favour with the Minister. I beg to move.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

In light of the Government’s agreement that provision shall after all be made for public inquiries with oral hearings, would my noble friend wish to modify the terms of his amendment when we return on Report?

[Lord Lipsey]

I am so sorry if I was unclear. I explained that I thought that that new provision might increase the necessity for assistant commissioners and therefore be incorporated into the Government’s proposals.

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[Lord Howarth of Newport]

Those words spoken by the noble Lord, Lord Newton, himself a former Leader of the House of Commons, who always sought to calm troubled waters in that capacity and did so very successfully, should certainly be heeded. I add my appreciation for the noble Lord, Lord Williamson of Horton, and the Cross Benchers who, in tabling this amendment, as the noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, did earlier in the day, have sought to steer our proceedings into calmer waters, recognising that in Part 2 there are some intensely controversial and very major constitutional issues that are not best resolved in a spirit of hot and angry political contest.

In any case, even if the mood of the Committee had been as placid and as genial in the previous 14 days as it has been today, it would still have taken time to consider properly and for us to be able to reach agreed conclusions that are in the interests of all our people and in the interest of sensible, constructive reform of the constitution, not animated by party political considerations but by real concern to reform and advance the constitution so that it better serves our people.

I very much welcome, therefore, what the noble Lord, Lord Williamson, has suggested. He offers a way in which we can resolve some of these very difficult and important issues in a calmer fashion and on a sensible timescale. I hope that the noble Lord the Leader of the House will respond in a similar spirit.

[Lord Lipsey]

My Lords, just to make the bait on the hook of the noble Lord, Lord Williamson, even more appetising, there is a point to be made. Earlier on the point was made that the problem with the reduction to 600 is that it increases the size of the Executive relative to the Back Bench. That point was taken on board by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace. He said he did not think the legislation should be altered but he wanted to think about it. The amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Williamson, provides an excellent opportunity for a structured way in which we could look at that very important question and come up with a solution without amending the Bill. That should also commend it to the Government who have already endorsed the point that lies behind it.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Lord Lipsey and Lord Howarth of Newport

Tuesday 25th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lipsey]

I beg to move.

[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?

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[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.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Lord Lipsey and Lord Howarth of Newport

Tuesday 18th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lipsey]

My Lords, I would not like your Lordships to think that I have not been sufficiently assiduous in my preparation to deliver a long speech this afternoon. Who knows, it might have been different if it had been delivered in the middle of last night. However, I think that almost everything that needs and ought to be said on this subject has been said in the debate we have just had. I want to make only two brief points.

I listened with great attention to the admirable response of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace. We ought to be aware that at the moment the discrepancy in constituency size is absolutely enormous. It is not 5 per cent on each side, and not 10 per cent. The smallest seat is 31.7 per cent of the average seat, while the largest seat, that of the Isle of Wight, is 156.7 per cent of the average. So it is possible to go a long way towards reducing the disparity without transgressing the line drawn by the Minister.

The other point I want to make in preparation for the discussions I hope we will have is this. There is not just one thing you can change here; there are two. There is the limit of 5 per cent, 10 per cent or whatever turns out to be the right figure, but there is also the degree of attention that the Boundary Commissions are asked to give to their rules as to the circumstances in which they can allow exceptions. I agree with the Minister that, on the whole, the Boundary Commission has perhaps been too slack and paid too much attention to the rules on observing local boundaries and so on compared with its standing instructions on size. This is something on which it will take its instructions from Parliament, and something on which, with the co-operation of the Minister, I am quite sure a number of us can bottom out. I hope most of all, and this is a perfectly genuine remark, that, at the end of what has been a testing period for this House, we can achieve what in my 10 years’ experience here has so often been achieved—that is, we can give the Government their legislation in a form that makes it still better than the form in which it was conceived.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

I am not sure whether I can still intervene on my noble friend before he sits down, but I put the point to him: he is right to have said that there needs to be a proper emphasis on numerical equality, and we have to get the question of local boundaries into the right perspective but not jeopardise the highly desirable objectives that the Government have of achieving numerical equality. However, does my noble friend think it acceptable that the tolerances should be so tight around the norm that the system will mean that county boundaries and even ward boundaries are routinely crossed?

[Lord Lipsey]

Absolutely not. Indeed, the 10 per cent rule does not entirely avoid the contravening of county boundaries; there are two cases in which county boundaries would have to be contravened even then.

All this is a matter of getting the right balance in the rules and tolerances to achieve equality of size without trampling over local loyalties. That is what I believe a group of people from this House—and from elsewhere, if necessary—sitting down with good will could readily and easily achieve, to the great benefit of this legislation and of the country.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Lord Lipsey and Lord Howarth of Newport

Monday 10th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[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.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Lord Lipsey and Lord Howarth of Newport

Wednesday 15th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lipsey]

My Lords, this is not the greatest matter before us, but it is an important one and I support the amendment. If there is one rule that one learns in life, it is that making two people responsible for something is a recipe for it not getting done properly. There is not one person to blame or to take the lead and it leads to confusion and non-action. That is my first point. My second point relates to precisely the other side of the coin of the argument put by my noble friend Lord Bach; namely, the present occupants of this position. On the one hand you have the Justice Secretary, who is a passionate supporter of first past the post. On the other hand, you have the Deputy Prime Minister, the Lord President, who is a passionate supporter of AV. They have come together in this coalition and that is simply a fact.

But honestly, there is scope here for mischief-making—and I used to be a journalist. There could be real mischief: for example, the Justice Secretary waits until the Lord President of the Council has gone off for the weekend to make some amendment or order under the Bill to suit his book. More likely, there will be journalistic mischief-making, where the fact that these two gentlemen agree on the Bill when they do not agree on the subject of it is elevated and makes a good diary paragraph. I am sure this Government’s backs are extraordinarily broad. They probably do not read the newspapers at all and are not the least interested in the gossipy things that I suspect might arise from this, but it does seem a completely pointless goal to leave the matter without a goal-keeper so that anybody can have a pot-shot at it.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

Does my noble friend agree that this is significant in terms of proper accountability to Parliament? Parliament needs to know which Minister within the Government holds responsibility, and the statute ought to make that clear.

[Lord Lipsey]

My noble friend makes clear in more formal terms what I meant by confusion. Parliament is indeed one of the bodies that could end up confused.