Queen’s Speech
Lord Rennard Excerpts(9 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Rennard (LD)
My Lords, the election results on 7 May 2015 felt for many of us like those of 1 May 1997 in reverse. However, what is consistent in our general elections is the lack of consistency between the votes cast and the number of MPs elected. This is not about unfairness to parties but about unfairness to voters, many of whom simply have not had their views properly represented as a result of the election.
Three weeks ago, the Conservative Party won just under 37% of the vote but 51% of the seats. The Labour Party won 30% of the vote and 36% of the seats and my party was reduced to 8% of the vote and only 1.2% of the seats. The lack of fairness and real democratic representation resulting from the recent election can perhaps best be seen in terms of the number of votes required to elect an MP from each party. On 7 May, it took 34,244 voters to elect a Conservative MP, 40,290 voters to elect a Labour MP, but 301,986 voters to elect each Lib Dem MP. The distortions from how people voted were even greater for other parties. It took 1,157,613 voters to elect a single Green MP and 3,881,129 voters to elect a UKIP MP. In contrast, it took only 25,972 voters to elect an SNP MP.
We heard much from the Conservatives in the election campaign about the threat of what they called the “undue influence” of the SNP but that influence now comes about because the electoral system rewarded a party that obtained 50% of the vote in Scotland with 95% of the seats in Scotland. This point was acknowledged by the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, who is not in his place but who noted the problem without pointing to the obvious solution. The distortions produced by first past the post in Scotland will again, in my view, put in jeopardy the future of the United Kingdom.
Lord McAvoy (Lab)
Would the noble Lord care to remind us of the result of the referendum on the AV proportional system?
Lord Rennard
My Lords, one of the big problems was that noble Lords such as the noble Lord, Lord McAvoy, clearly did not understand that AV was not a proportional representation system at all; it was far from proportional representation. If politicians in other parties had had the courage to let voters choose between proportional representation and first past the post, there might well have been a very different outcome. Certainly, it was an option in the Labour Party’s 1997 manifesto, when Tony Blair secured a majority of 179 on the basis of that manifesto having a referendum on proportional representation. That should have happened.
This Government should now realise that achieving a majority in the Commons based on the support of less than 37% of the voters does not give them the right to rule as though the views of the 63% who did not support them are unimportant. We heard earlier from the noble Lord, Lord Dunlop, in an excellent maiden speech, about what he called fairness for England, but we heard nothing about fairness for voters. We also heard much from the Conservatives in the last Parliament about what they called “fair constituency boundaries”. The consequence of the successful amendment to the then Electoral Registration and Administration Bill which I tabled in the autumn of 2012, together with the noble Lords, Lord Hart of Chilton, Lord Wigley and Lord Kerr, was to prevent new boundaries that would have given an even greater unfair advantage to the Conservative Party coming into force in the recent election.
However, I doubt that many of the newly elected MPs realise that the legislation passed in 2011 means that they may never be able to fight those same constituencies again. Unless there is another Bill to prevent it, the size of the Commons will be reduced from 650 to 600 in time for the next election. The coming boundary review will be very disruptive because of the very narrow margin of only 5% allowed for any variation in the number of electors from the average set as a target. Some MPs may also be shocked to learn that these reviews will also take place every five years under the existing legislation, so that MPs might never fight the same constituency with the same boundaries on two occasions. Nor will those MPs know the boundaries of the constituencies that they may want to fight until well into the second half of each Parliament. The Political and Constitutional Reform Committee in the other place did an excellent job of showing how the boundary reviews could proceed on a much more sensible basis. The new Government’s response has been to abolish the committee.
In some of the first debates in which I participated in this place, I led for the Liberal Democrats on the then Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Bill in 2000. I warned then about the escalating arms race in party spending. On 3 April 2000, I said:
“In each of the 1974 elections the Conservative Party was calculated to have spent less than £100,000 on its national campaigns. By 1979, with the services for the first time of the noble Lord, Lord Saatchi, in charge of advertising, the Conservative Party is estimated to have spent £2 million … By 1983 the sum was £4 million; by 1987 it was £9 million; by 1992 it was £11 million; and by 1997 it was a staggering £28 million”.—[Official Report, 3/4/00; col. 1160.]
The failure of the last Labour Government to heed those warnings about party funding has now resulted in a far greater problem in which our democracy may quite possibly be considered to be “for sale”. The legislation that we approved in 2000 has clearly failed to control the arms race in party funding. In the year before the 2005 general election, the reported donations to the main parties amounted to £44 million. By 2010, the figure was £72 million, and this year it was over £100 million. That is a doubling in 10 years.
The proposal in the gracious Speech to limit trade union members making contributions without their express consent is long overdue. However, it must be part of a package that introduces a sensible cap on all donations, and allows all political parties to campaign without being in hock to the interests of the richest donors. Without that comprehensive package, British democracy may actually be sold off. We have an electoral system that is very far from one based on “fair votes”, and a party funding system which means that campaigns simply cannot be called a fair fight.
It is a cruel irony that the result of the most recent election is that those who have not been properly represented in the Commons will have to have their democratic voice heard here, in a Chamber without democratic mandate. In this House we have a duty to moderate the absolute power that this Government may try to exercise, and to ensure that constitutional legislation in the coming years has the interests of the voters—not any one political party—at its heart.
Elections: Registration
Lord Rennard Excerpts(13 years ago)
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Lord McNally
I would be extremely concerned if that was the outcome. Let us remember that the party opposite, when it was in government, started to raise the issue of individual registration—and even passed legislation—because, for the first time certainly in my lifetime, the integrity of the voting system was starting to be called into question. That is the origin of the exercise that we are undertaking, on which I hope we will have all-party support.
Lord Rennard
My Lords, does the Minister accept that it really is necessary to carry out a thorough, door-to-door, face-to-face canvass in order to ensure both the accuracy and the completeness of the electoral register? Does he accept that failure to do so not only threatens the integrity of the democratic process but could also cause problems for people trying to obtain credit? Credit agencies check that people are on the electoral register to ensure that they can have credit, and failure to maintain the register in this way could mean that people are denied credit and businesses are unable to supply goods and services. That would be damaging to the economy and to social mobility.
Lord McNally
That is an interesting point. If I may return to the central point of the question, yes, doorstep canvassing plays a vital role in ensuring that registers are complete and accurate. That is why in both 2014 and 2015 door-to-door canvassers will be used by electoral registration officers to ask people to register to vote.
Electoral System: Alternative Vote Referendum
Lord Rennard Excerpts(13 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord McNally
My goodness. What is that saying—in victory magnanimity? The decision to engage that company was the decision of Glasgow council. The chief counting officer, Jenny Watson, said:
“We have put in place detailed and comprehensive arrangements for monitoring the performance of Counting Officers and their suppliers, and I have no reason to believe that there is any risk to the integrity of the administration of the postal voting process”.
Lord Rennard
My Lords, does my noble friend agree that issues such as the supply of envelopes for postal vote mailings should be made on an entirely commercial basis, based on value for money and reliability of service, and that if there were ever any issues of either impropriety in the ballot or failure to deliver, it would be a matter for the Electoral Commission to report which, as he said, will happen shortly?
Lord McNally
My Lords, I can well understand the reason for this Question. It was probably to do with the inquest that went on in the Glasgow Labour Party about the reason that Glasgow Kelvin voted so overwhelmingly yes. As we know, what Kelvin does today, the world does tomorrow. My noble friend’s point is absolutely right.
Elections: Armed Forces
Lord Rennard Excerpts(13 years, 7 months ago)
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Lord McNally
My Lords, we continue to build on the work initiated by the noble Lord. However, as he recognised, there are no simple solutions to the difficulty of servicemen voting in remote areas in battlefield conditions, et cetera, which is why we continue to advise servicemen to use proxy votes where possible as the most efficient way of being able to vote.
Lord Rennard
My Lords, does the Minister agree that what we really need is a slightly longer timetable for conducting our elections in this country, one that would allow a slightly greater time for people to register to vote, to apply for a postal vote and for postal votes to be dispatched and received? That would significantly benefit members of our Armed Forces serving overseas and enable them to participate to a greater degree in our elections.
Lord McNally
My Lords, there is a lot of common sense in what my noble friend says. My honourable friend Mark Harper is considering these issues and the Government will put forward proposals when he has reached conclusions with colleagues. However, as I say, I think there is a lot of sense in allowing more time for elections to be processed.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
Lord Rennard Excerpts(13 years, 9 months ago)
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Baroness Butler-Sloss
I should like to make it clear to the House that I speak as an individual and support what the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, said: that the Cross-Benchers are never to be seen as a group. We all vote according to our individual consciences, as we see our position in this place. I live in an area that has had three changes of constituency in the past three elections, and I have not had the slightest problem with that. I also recognise the importance of all these changes being done by the next election in 2015. Consequently, I totally support the Government’s approach that there should be a leeway of 5 per cent each way. However, I support the noble Lord, Lord Pannick. I played no part whatever in drafting the amendment, and indeed had not read it until I came into the Chamber this afternoon. If one reads the amendment with care and listens with care to what the noble Lords, Lord Pannick and Lord Williamson of Horton, have said about it, it is perfectly obvious that it would give the Boundary Commission leeway in an exceptional, small group of cases. It is not intended to disrupt or change the standard situation, which is the proper way in which to readjust constituencies that are out of kilter.
As someone who has been a judge, I would say that it would be most extraordinary if there was a judicial review of any of these cases. If there was one, it would be very unlikely that the result of that one would encourage further judicial reviews.
Lord Rennard
My Lords, I wish to address individual consciences on this matter. I do so having reflected on yesterday’s debate about public inquiries and the role of lawyers and legal challenges in the Boundary Commission process, and having noted that that debate was almost entirely dominated by those from the legal profession. I speak as someone who is very much not a lawyer and who cannot possibly say that he is in any way above the political fray between parties about elections, campaigns and constituencies. However, I am someone who, over more than 30 years, has had extensive experience of fighting and organising elections in many dozens of different constituencies in every part of Great Britain, in general elections and in parliamentary by-elections, as well as extensive involvement in the Boundary Commission processes that have gone into drawing up those constituencies in the past.
I very much appreciate the very sincere efforts of the noble Lords, Lord Pannick and Lord Williamson, and other noble Lords, to try to see whether some reasonable consensus or agreement might be reached and to try sincerely to improve aspects of the Bill in reasonable time, so that the Bill is agreed on the timetable that the Government want. However, there is a fundamental problem with the definition that the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, and his noble friends have drawn up. There is simply no reasonably agreed and commonly accepted definition of the key phrase “a viable constituency”. There is no agreed definition, and to try to agree on it would be a subject of great controversy. Without a definition of a viable constituency, we are simply inviting four different Boundary Commissions to devise their own definitions of the phrase, which I believe would be very controversial. Nor was it clear to me—or I think to anyone else, although I am not a lawyer—what the meaning of the phrase “exceptionally compelling nature” might be. The Boundary Commissions would have a lot of argument about what considerations of an exceptionally compelling nature are.
I can easily see large numbers of lawyers in many courts arguing for a very long time over definitions of a viable constituency and over exceptions, such as geographic ties and local considerations, which in themselves are very vaguely defined, that might be considered to be of an exceptionally compelling nature. Such phraseology will, I am in no doubt, lead to many legal challenges to the Boundary Commission’s processes, which should be determined by independent boundary commissioners using the criteria given to them by Parliament. They should not be determined by lawyers in the courts arguing over these definitions. Too many problems in the past have been caused by legal arguments. A noble friend of mine, when a Member in the other place, came to me for advice on how to handle Boundary Commission processes. I gave him the best of my advice—and, of course, it was free of charge. By the time he had consulted learned counsel on how to make his representations to the Boundary Commission, a bill in excess of £10,000 had been incurred. If we pass an amendment such as this, we will have to go on by defining viable constituencies and exceptional circumstances, and there will be many legal challenges. These issues will be determined by who has access to the funds for which party, which MP, which candidate and in which constituency. That will be a wholly unsatisfactory process.
The noble Lord, Lord Pannick, said that he was creating a narrow definition in this amendment. With great respect to the noble Lord, it is absolutely not a narrow definition to try to say what a viable constituency is or what wholly exceptional circumstances are. They are two very widely defined concepts. He also said that he was trying to reassure Ministers who are concerned that the exception might become more general. This amendment will fail, because the exceptions will become very general.
Lord Butler of Brockwell
My Lords, this amendment allows the Boundary Commission, in very exceptional circumstances, to exercise its discretion within a range of 15 per cent rather than 10 per cent. The noble Lord, Lord Rennard, made the point that this would give people who wished for one reason or another to delay the operation of the reforms greater scope to introduce litigation. Of course, even within the 10 per cent provided in the Bill, the Boundary Commission is exercising discretion. It is not clear to me why, in these very exceptional circumstances, there would be more scope for challenging under the 15 per cent variation than under the 10 per cent. If people, for reasons of their own, wish to obstruct this process, is there not exactly the same power to do that under the 10 per cent provision? The advantage of having 15 per cent is that without giving much greater scope—or, indeed, any greater scope—for challenge, the Boundary Commission can reach reasonable recommendations in cases where it is necessary.
Lord Rennard
My Lords, my point about the prospects for potential legal challenges is not relevant to the 5 per cent or 10 per cent consideration. It is purely about the existing Boundary Commission criteria as in the five previous general reviews undertaken by the Boundary Commissions.
Lord Glentoran
My Lords, I think noble Lords are allowed to speak only once on Report.
Lord Rennard
I understood that an intervention on a matter of clarification was allowed. My point is that the criteria of the Boundary Commissions are clearly established and therefore not likely to be subject to future legal challenge. Interestingly, the amendment contains wholly new criteria regarding viable constituencies and considerations of a wholly exceptional nature.
The Countess of Mar
The Companion says that noble Lords may make a brief intervention in order to clear up a point. The noble Lord is making a speech.
Lord Rennard
My Lords, I think I was briefly clearing up the issue, which I have done.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
Lord Rennard Excerpts(13 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
My noble friend is absolutely right. I would have preferred to have had the opportunity of being on a committee to scrutinise the Bill before it came before this House. I would have been happy to deal with some of these points during the pre-legislative scrutiny. However, I know that many of my noble friends will want to come in on one or other of these 12 amendments and I certainly do not want personally to detain the House any longer.
Lord Rennard
My Lords, the statement from the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, that he does not wish to detain the Committee any further will perhaps be a welcome relief to the small number of people who may be watching the parliament channel at the moment. Anybody who is watching or perhaps even reads this debate in Hansard tomorrow will clearly see that in the past 26 minutes we have had yet again an extensive and irrelevant filibuster in the Committee, rather than serious scrutiny. I suggest to anyone following this debate that, were they to look at the last half-hour of our debates on Wednesday night—or the early hours of Thursday morning—which were again led by the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, they would see the clearest possible proof beyond any reasonable doubt for any Member of the Cross Benches, any Member of this House or any member of the public that these are simply delaying tactics of a wholly unreasonable nature. Students of political history such as me will have studied how—
Lord Rennard
No, my Lords, I am sorry. I am not going to give way because we should try to make progress. I will say why: there are some significant points that we should be looking at in terms of scrutiny. I agree with some of the points that the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, has made on the ward boundaries. If we were to look at all 12 amendments in this group, the last three of them, which are in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Tyler, are technical amendments to flag up formally to the Boundary Commissions the importance of the ward boundaries. Unlike Amendment 74B in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, they are rather more correct because they deal with the issue of the ward boundaries in its relevant place within the Bill, rather than in just one place.
Unlike other arguments relating to other amendments within this group, it seems to me that the importance of our amendments is that they are not prescriptive in that they do not demand that ward boundaries never be crossed. However, they say to the Boundary Commissions that they are an important building block. They should not necessarily always be adhered to but they should be taken into account to some degree. The origin of these last three amendments within the group was my own puzzlement in looking at the wording of the Bill, where there is a reference to wards in Northern Ireland but none to ward boundaries in England, Scotland or Wales. I thought that it would be helpful if a little clarity were given to the Boundary Commissioners about the importance of ward boundaries as one of the factors that they should take into account.
As we know from the informal evidence provided by their members, the Boundary Commissions will, in any event, have every intention of looking at ward boundaries, but it would be better if the legislation were improved, if possible. I hope that the Minister will respond by saying that this is something that might be considered as an improvement to the legislation.
The language with which we look at issues such as ward boundaries or other boundaries is, in my view, of some importance to the Boundary Commission processes. There are alternatives within these different amendments, using either “should”, “must” or insofar as they see fit. It seems to me that there is a good reason why the previous legislation on Boundary Commissions and this legislation tend to use the phrase “insofar as they see fit”. You can suggest that boundary commissioners look at different criteria when they redraw the constituency boundaries, but it is very hard to rank them in any priority or say that one carries more weight than another. The commissioners have to look at competing priorities. By saying, “in so far as they see fit”, independent and impartial people would be given the power to choose the relative weight of geographic ties, minimising inconvenience and such factors, and we would also avoid the danger of getting to the end of this process and the boundary commissioners being drawn into political rows and continuous legal challenges. By using the phrase, “in so far as they see fit”, we would allow the boundary commissioners to exercise their judgment while minimising legal snarl-ups thereafter.
Lord Kinnock
I am very grateful to the noble Lord and I have a great deal of sympathy with the case that he is putting forward. However, will he not join me in recognising that, before any Boundary Commission gives consideration to this Bill, let alone the Bill as amended in the way that the noble Lord wants, they are completely ensnared by the reality that, in all and any circumstances, they must return boundaries for precisely 600 constituencies, or, more appropriately, 598 constituencies because two are protected? Does that not remove a great deal of the effective discretion that should be employed, in the way that he suggests, by independent-minded boundary commissioners taking full account of precisely the arguments that he is making and arguments that have been deployed on both sides of the Chamber in our debates hitherto?
Lord Rennard
I do not accept that the democratic principle is such a constraint. The criteria in the Bill given to the four Boundary Commissions are remarkably similar to the criteria we have had in historic legislation dealing with how the Boundary Commissions work. There is then the issue of the number of seats, but I do not accept that the number of seats will affect too much the way in which the boundary commissioners choose to judge the importance of those competing factors.
Lord Rennard
I am sorry but I will not give way again on this point. Perhaps I may be allowed to finish the point that I am responding to from the noble Lord, Lord Kinnock, and again make the point that I have had to make when this position has been taken many, many times in debate on many amendments during the passage of the Bill over the 12 days of Committee so far. It seems to me that it is not uncommon in many countries for Parliaments to fix the size of Parliaments, usually through a written constitution. As the noble Lord, Lord Kinnock, will know, my party, and I in particular, think that it is very important to have a written constitution. I believe that in this country we are moving, in one way and another, towards a written constitution, but it is absolutely not unprecedented nor considered remotely undemocratic in other countries for Parliament to determine the number of seats that there should be. In the United States, for example, it is the constitution that sets out that there shall be two members of the Senate for each state. That appears very early in the principles of the United States constitution. Therefore, I do not accept that the Boundary Commissions are unduly constrained in this way.
Lord Rennard
No, my Lords, I want to make progress on my argument and allow us to proceed with a couple of issues of serious scrutiny that I still want to raise in this group of amendments. The first concerns the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, making the boundary commissioners take into account their perceptions of the socioeconomic base or relative wealth of each constituency. Over the decades in which many of us have been involved in Boundary Commission processes, I have not heard it seriously argued by anybody that the boundary commissioners are anything other than impartial and independent. However, my view is that we should not start asking them to exercise their judgment about the relative wealth of different constituencies, using different, competing socioeconomic factors, or to try to use their judgment to suggest that, because certain MPs have a lot of problems of this nature or fewer problems of that nature, these seats should be varied in some way. How could the boundary commissioners possibly be expected to remain being seen to be impartial and independent in their judgment? I suggest that that is not a serious factor that the boundary commissioners should have to take into account.
Having seen many submissions to public inquiries on Boundary Commission processes and read many of them in the past, I have thought that the criteria which people sometimes think could be applied are not serious ones on which you would expect the commission to impartially draw the constituencies in the way that it has.
Finally within this group, I want to comment on Amendment 76, which concerns eliminating references to the euro regions with particular regard to the way in which the Boundary Commission for England works. That does not seem a sensible way in which to suggest that the Boundary Commission for England should go about its business. The Bill is not prescriptive in saying that it must follow the boundaries of the euro regions but, if it is to work in a sensible way across the whole of England, it could not possibly start in, say, Northumberland, go down to the Isles of Scilly and then go across to Kent. In order to make this effective, we need to retain the language in the Bill suggesting that the euro regions may be building blocks that the commissioners use, saying that they will want to work simultaneously on the south-east, the south-west and the north-east, and have a proper process of scrutiny that could be effective with online representations. They will need to work simultaneously on the different regions rather than across England as a whole.
Lord Soley
The noble Lord who has just spoken makes a fundamental mistake when he says that Parliaments in other countries decide the size of constituencies. He is right that they do, but the problem here is that the Government are deciding it. In other countries, political parties agree it, usually jointly or independently. That is all I want to say about that but it is an important point: Governments do not decide the structure and size of Parliaments; Parliaments decide that, and they normally do it by consent.
Lord Liddle
I support, particularly, the first part of the argument of my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours and the argument of my distinguished noble friend Lord Kinnock. The key point about this section of the Bill which the Government have not satisfactorily answered is that the function of the Boundary Commission, as it has operated since the Boundary Commission was established by all-party agreement during the Second World War, will be drastically curtailed by this legislation.
Although all the nice, reassuring words about taking account of communities, geography and so on will still be there, the work of the Boundary Commission will be curtailed as a result of the cap on the number of MPs. The Bill does not say that we should have 600 MPs but the Boundary Commission can increase the numbers by five or 10 or 15 in order to take account of local circumstances; it imposes a rigid number. There is also the corset of the 5 per cent on either side of the quota. The effect of these two measures will be to completely change the flexibility and discretion that the Boundary Commission has been able to exercise, under all-party agreement, since the Second World War. Why do the Government feel that they have a mandate to make that change without consulting all parties through a Speaker’s Conference? What argument do they have for doing this? I do not think that there is a good argument.
Once again, from my own part of the world, I shall use an illustration of what the impact of these changes will be, so that the noble Lord, Lord McNally, understands how he is tearing up decades of cross-party agreement on how the Boundary Commission should operate. Let me talk a little about my beloved Cumberland. Before my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours became MP for Workington, I remember as a young man that the Boundary Commission came up with a proposal that Cumberland—this was before Cumbria—should be created—
Lord Rennard
Will the noble Lord tell us which amendment he is speaking for or against in these remarks?
Lord Liddle
I am in favour of the amendments that would change the wording from may to shall or must because I feel very strongly that the wording is being kept as it was in the previous legislation but disguising that a fundamental change is being introduced. The noble Lord, Lord Rennard, knows that very well. It is all part of a deal that his party has done with the Conservative Party without consultation with other parties, which is without intellectual justification.
Let us think about the situation in the 1960s when the Boundary Commission suggested that Cumberland should come down from four to three seats. There was an inquiry and it was decided that on grounds of community and geographical representation the four seats should be kept. In the 1980s and 1990s, with the new county of Cumbria, as I mentioned before, the quota did not justify having six seats. The Boundary Commission used its discretion that because of the special geographic nature of Cumbria, there should be six seats. That is what the Government will destroy. The Boundary Commission will not have the ability to show such discretion. We are all in favour of equal-size constituencies and the principle of equality, but you have to have around the edges flexibility to cope with special situations. Therefore, I urge the Government to think again.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
Lord Rennard Excerpts(13 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord Lipsey
The Electoral Commission would be the obvious body to do this work, because it has done the original study and is very familiar with it. I do not think that it would take long at all, given a decent computer; it is a perfectly simple mathematical formula. It would generate a notional electorate for each constituency. I agree with the noble Lord—I was going to say this later—that there are practical matters to be sorted out later about whether the proposal is workable. That is why I said that the amendment is exploratory and is not necessarily the finished article.
Lord Rennard
Before the noble Lord develops his argument much further, perhaps he could tell us what consultation he has had with the Electoral Commission about this rather unusual proposal, which gives the Electoral Commission potentially tremendous power that could involve it in huge political controversy? We have always agreed in this House that it is important that the Electoral Commission is seen to be above party political controversy wherever possible. Does the noble Lord not think that conferring on the Electoral Commission the power to make crude estimates of the electorate for the purpose of redrawing constituency boundaries and somehow to define socio-economic profiles in making those estimates would embroil it in such huge controversy that it would undermine much of the rest of its work? Perhaps he could tell us what consultation he has had with the Electoral Commission.
Lord Lipsey
I am happy to: I have not. I was going to suggest that the Government should now embark on such consultation. The noble Lord seems to be making a mountain out of a molehill. The Electoral Commission and the Boundary Commission already deal with matters of extraordinary—
Lord Lipsey
The noble Lord sustains the point I am making. This is not a completely impossible exercise and other data sources could be brought in to meet the point. Does the noble Lord wish to intervene again?
Lord Rennard
The noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, said that I was suggesting that every organisation had to be consulted before we could consider something like this, and I was not. I was suggesting that it would have been proper to discuss it with the Electoral Commission. The noble Lord said that the Electoral Commission deals with Boundary Commission matters, but of course it does not. As it was set up in 2000, it was going to be responsible for boundary committee reviews but, when this House considered the report of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, it felt that the Electoral Commission was dealing with too many and too wide a range of issues. The commission itself suggested that it should have its remit narrowed and that it should concentrate on what was really important and not be responsible for matters such as Boundary Commission reviews. I suggest the Electoral Commission would not welcome being tasked with this purpose.
Lord Lipsey
The noble Lord might be right. I did not say that this particular proposal should go to everyone for consultation. I said, in general, that I did not agree with the proposition that you could not raise an issue in this House in Committee without first consulting everyone who might be affected. This amendment has been on the Marshalled List since the moment I tabled it.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
Lord Rennard Excerpts(13 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord Lamont of Lerwick
Will the Minister comment, at least for my benefit, on one aspect of what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, said? How will the Electoral Commission distinguish between the designated lead organisation and other organisations and decide whether they are truly independent of it? My noble and learned friend Lord Mackay was quite right to remind us that the rules in the PPERA were set down for referenda. None the less, all sorts of problems come with these rules. That is the point that some people on the other side were genuinely making, and that I was making when I intervened earlier. In many ways, these rules are inappropriate.
I am particularly worried about how you identify the designated lead organisation. The very fact that there is a body in this country that actually decides that there is a permitted lead organisation in a campaign makes me quite nervous. It gets rather close to the situation recently when the United States Supreme Court overthrew many of the rules relating to campaign contributions because they were interfering with the freedom of individual citizens to spend their money and support causes they wanted. I can hardly remember what I said a decade ago, despite the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, reminding me, but one of the points that I raised then was the interference, as I saw it, in certain basic freedoms: that a government organisation will decide who the lead organisation is, and that other organisations will be subject to this or that control.
These rules, frankly, made me very uneasy at the time, and I remain uneasy. Will my noble friend tell me how he envisages that the Electoral Commission will distinguish between expenditure of the lead organisation and whether another organisation is genuinely independent or not? Some of these organisations are very interconnected.
Lord Rennard
On a point of clarification, does the noble Lord accept that the Electoral Commission is absolutely not a government organisation, that it is independent from government and can therefore do something that perhaps a Government cannot do?
Lord Lamont of Lerwick
Of course it is independent. That is how it was set up. I intervened earlier with a comment about the Electoral Commission that I was rather nervous about making, and I hesitated to make the comments directly; in some of the evidence presented to the Constitution Committee by at least one academic, the independence of the Electoral Commission on this issue of electoral reform was brought up. I am not saying I agree with that, but it was brought up—it was mentioned in a submission to the Constitution Committee by a well respected academic. When bodies exist on a permanent basis, such as the Electoral Reform Society, what constitutes routine non-campaign expenditure for them and what has to count as an item of spending in the campaign? At what point does academic and educational activity become a form of campaigning covered by the PPERA? I am afraid that these rules are full of holes and really quite impractical.
Lord Rennard
Does the Minister agree that the referendums for setting up the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly were conducted within five months of the general election in 1997 and that no such problems occurred during the course of those campaigns? Furthermore, since the Political Parties, Election and Referendums Act 2000 has been in place, we conducted the referendum for the north-east regional assembly, again without any of these problems occurring. Noble Lords in the party opposite introduced these rules in 2000. They have survived to 2010 without there being any attempt to change them. The evidence of the north-east regional assembly referendum campaign is that no such problems arose.
Baroness Liddell of Coatdyke
Will the noble Lord also take into account the fact that a general election was not held on the same day?
Lord Lamont of Lerwick
But does the Minister remember that the leaflet that was published had a map of the United Kingdom on the front that left Orkney and Shetland off, which were the only areas to vote against continuing our membership of the EEC?
Lord Rennard
My Lords, could I invite the Minister and other noble Lords to confine their arguments more to Amendment 39B, which deals with civil sanctions, and perhaps make other arguments when we are dealing with other relevant parts of the Bill?
Lord McNally
I am only glad that my noble and learned friend Lord Wallace was not here to hear of that dreadful omission from the 1975 leaflet.
Lord Rennard
I wonder whether the noble Lord is trying to make it difficult for the referendum to be held on 5 May, in contrast to the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, who said specifically that he was arguing in his amendment that the referendum could be held on 5 May or at a later date if that was more convenient. Is the position of the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, not wholly different from that advanced by the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, who is trying to make it difficult to have the referendum on the day that the other place has voted for it to be held on?
Lord McAvoy
I do not want to raise the temperature again, but nevertheless this point has to be made: does that intervention from the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, not indicate clearly that there is no filibustering going on, there is no organisation and what is happening here is genuine scrutiny?
Lord Rennard
In terms of simplicity for the counting areas, does the noble and learned Lord not accept that in Scotland the proposal of the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, would make things rather more complicated? His amendment suggests that the voting areas should be based on Westminster parliamentary constituencies. If the referendum is held on 5 May next year, as is envisaged as a possibility even under the amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, and if you are counting the votes on the basis of Scottish parliamentary constituencies rather than on the quite different boundaries of the Westminster parliamentary constituencies, it is impractical to have one set of counting areas for the referendum and a different set for the elections to Scottish parliamentary constituencies. Therefore, the reason for the amendment is to try to make it impossible, or at least very difficult, for the referendum to take place on 5 May, and is not in the interests of simplicity, as the noble and learned Lord suggests.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
I take the point in relation to Scotland. That is probably the only place where one can see some logic in the proposals. However, one cannot see any logic in relation to the rest of the UK. Therefore, maybe the answer—and if the noble Lord were to make proposals on this I might support him—is for us to stick with the Scottish constituencies, but leave everything else to be done on the basis of Westminster constituencies. There needs to be some explanation for why this extraordinary procedure has been adopted.
In addition to the points about practicality, there are two others. First, we have to do this without the benefit of the Electoral Commission’s views, because, as the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, said, the commission has said that that would simply delay the referendum. Sadly, the commission has not given this House the benefit of its views on whether this proposal is more practical than the one in the Bill. Secondly, there is a real force in the argument which states that if we are talking about parliamentary constituencies and how they vote in the future, there is a logic and a force in saying, “Let’s see how individual parliamentary constituencies voted”, because, for the life of me, I cannot see the logic in saying, “We’ll disclose how a London borough or the whole of Northern Ireland voted, but we won’t tell you how individual constituencies voted”.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
Lord Rennard Excerpts(13 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord McNally
No, my Lords, I cannot make that commitment. The legislation is specific to this referendum. When the Government have a Statement to make on prisoner voting, there will be time to discuss this and many other matters.
Lord Rennard
My Lords, perhaps I may ask the Minister whether the Electoral Commission has been able to confirm that such an amendment would be practical if it were approved. It seems that it would involve a change to the franchise and a change to the electoral register process, as well as consideration about how campaigning could take place and how voting mechanisms could be established. I am in favour of such changes being made in future, where appropriate, but it seems that it would be very difficult to do this in time for a vote on 5 May next year.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
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Baroness Henig
My Lords, in rising to speak on day 2 of the Bill, first, I express my personal gratitude to the business managers of the House for finding myself speaking at this relatively civilised hour rather than, as the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, had to do yesterday evening, trying to hold the House’s attention at half an hour past midnight.
The debate so far has been wide-ranging and thoughtful, with noble Lords on all sides showing their passion for and commitment to our constitution and its future evolution. I do not propose to comment on Part 1 of the Bill, about which many noble Lords spoke so eloquently last night, but I want to express my strong agreement with the proposition that, in practice, we have two distinct Bills before us, which should have been considered separately and sequentially. While I appreciate the desire to hold an early referendum on the parliamentary voting system, there is far less justification for rushing through the proposals in Part 2 on the proposed reduction in the number of MPs and the mathematical equalisation of the numbers in each constituency—or at least of those names included on electoral registers.
Few speakers last night dissented from the proposition that this Bill—certainly Part 2—should have been subject to pre-legislative scrutiny, when many of the questions that Ministers have been struggling to answer could have been considered at greater length. We were reminded yesterday that the Leader of the House strongly favours pre-legislative scrutiny, but not apparently for this important constitutional Bill because, as he explained rather lamely, it has come forward too early in the parliamentary Session. Of course, had there been two Bills, with one following the other, this would not have been a problem at all. The indecent rush to redraw 600 constituency boundaries in the next three years has created the problem.
We are further led to believe that action has to be taken urgently to create greater equality. Cynics among us have rather seen the strong temptation of political gain. There is nothing new in promoting constitutional change in the hope of political gain. Indeed, 19th century historians can point to many precedents for that, but they would also agree with last night’s sage observation from the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, that constitutional change to secure party advantage often fails to deliver what was anticipated because the unexpected has a habit of happening instead.
Noble Lords opposite claim to want more transparency in policy-making, greater accountability and the transfer of power to local communities. These are all noble sentiments and admirable principles, but the Bills that are coming before this House do not reflect them very noticeably—indeed, quite the contrary in Part 2 of this Bill. The Government have decided on a rigid methodology to divide up the country into parliamentary constituencies and local people will lose the opportunity they have hitherto enjoyed to make representations in person to Boundary Commission public inquiries, to which they could put their views on where boundaries should be drawn and which local wards should be included or left out.
The noble Lord, Lord Baker, who is not in his place, yesterday welcomed the proposal to drop local inquiries, but I have to tell the House that I deplore that proposal. We know from the Boundary Commission’s report of 2007 that about two-thirds of local inquiries led to changes to the original recommendations of the Boundary Commission and that it saw great value in those challenges. Yes, it is true that, in the Deputy Prime Minister’s words, the review process is “lengthy and time consuming”, but it fulfils a vital local function. What is at stake here is local identity and the need for local communities to feel that the different layers of district, county and parliamentary representation have some organic connection. There needs to be some sense to such boundaries to enable people to access services and advice at the appropriate level. Individuals and organisations will still be able to make representations in writing but not face to face with members of the Boundary Commission.
I have to tell the House that in my part of north Lancashire, where parliamentary boundaries have changed quite a bit over the past 20 years, there have been a number of high profile public inquiries during which feelings ran very high. Not everyone secured the changes that they wanted—indeed, few people did—but the debates strengthened local democracy and spread political awareness. At a time when turnout at parliamentary elections is not that high, especially among younger voters, we should be combating political apathy and alienation rather than closing the door to legitimate local debate about topics on which people have strong opinions. I am worried that this proposal is reinforcing a view that people at grass-roots level are being excluded from important decision-making and that their input is not welcomed. I do not believe that we should be putting out such a message in the present political climate.
Public inquiries are being abolished to save time so that boundary changes can be rushed through in the next three years. The resulting upheaval and administrative change will be profoundly disruptive. Everyone agrees on that. The review will leave few, if any, constituencies unaltered, it will cut across long-established local communities and it will divide wards and create patchwork constituencies with little common identity. I listened with interest yesterday to noble Lords from Cornwall spelling out how Cornish people would never willingly be joined with those from Devon across the River Tamar. I noted the contribution of the noble Lord opposite explaining why the Isle of Wight should not have its identity diluted in any way. I tell the House that those examples pale into insignificance beside the situation in my part of the world, where Lancastrians will be dragged kicking and screaming into predominantly Yorkshire constituencies, and where protesting Yorkshire minorities will find themselves imprisoned in Lancashire citadels. People in east Lancashire are still fighting county boundary battles of many decades, if not centuries ago. Are we seriously suggesting that we are now going to unleash a 21st century war of the roses?
Lord Rennard
Will the noble Baroness accept that that already happens in the case of Saddleworth, which we know is part of Yorkshire but is attached to Oldham? Under the Bill, the Boundary Commission will be expected to follow as a guideline the European parliamentary regional constituencies, which by and large would prevent Yorkshire and Lancashire constituencies being brought together.
Baroness Henig
I understand that, given that numerical considerations will be paramount in the Boundary Commission’s decisions, what I am describing is very possible. I fear that we will create more anomalies, not reduce them.
All sides of the House have agreed that to proceed at such break-neck speed, and to compound that by insisting that a tolerance of only 5 per cent greater or smaller than the average constituency size should take precedence over all other factors to be considered, is to court disaster. The proposals will cut links between MPs and their constituencies and further alienate voters. I was struck by the evidence that the Political and Constitutional Reform Select Committee in the other place received from Democratic Audit, which argued that, if the figure of 10 per cent had been adopted, county boundaries, community identity and the practicality of representation could all have been taken into account. Indeed, the previous constituency review found that nearly 90 per cent of constituencies were within 10 per cent of what they should be. That caused the electoral systems expert Lewis Baston to ask whether it was worth the disruption that the adoption of 5 per cent would assuredly produce. That is exactly the sort of question that pre-legislative scrutiny would have explored in a very helpful way. I hope that the figure will be the subject of an amendment in Committee.
Just as the 5 per cent figure is arbitrary, so is the figure of 600 constituencies. Where has that come from? Such a figure is not in the election manifesto of either coalition party but is, as the Leader of the House told us yesterday, “a nice, round figure”. I can see that response being analysed and dissected to destruction in the future by constitutional historians puzzling over the motivation for this proposal.
One thing that I do know is that the burden of work on MPs has grown enormously over the past 40 to 50 years, while the number of MPs has scarcely grown—up by 3 per cent at most—over the same period. Whereas each MP had around 66,000 constituents at the end of the last war, each MP now has close to 96,000 constituents and informed estimates suggest that the number will increase to 105,000 by 2015. I know how hard the average MP works. I know how difficult it is for MPs to keep up with the ever-increasing flow, or tide, of e-mails, calls, letters and surgeries. To increase that burden yet further by cutting the number of constituencies without reviewing the workload or role of MPs—while at the same time increasing the size of the House of Lords to more than 800 Members—reveals pretty blatantly to me that there are no great constitutional principles involved in the Bill. As far as I can discern, there are only the rather basic political calculations that some noble Lords referred to yesterday.
Some apologists for the coalition have deployed the argument that other countries have fewer elected representatives, but such an argument considers only the national level, which is only one part of the picture. Countries such as France, Germany and the United States have many more elected representatives at local or town level and at regional or state level than we have in the United Kingdom. If you look at our councillor numbers and the number of MPs relative to population, we lag far behind other comparable democracies. Cutting the number of MPs to 600 would make the disparity worse.
I am aware that there was a debate in the other place about whether ministerial posts should be reduced along with the number of MPs because, otherwise, the effect of the Bill would be to reduce the influence of Parliament in holding the Executive to account. That is clearly very worrying. However, I do not want to comment further on that aspect of the proposed changes, because my final point relates to the large number of people—estimated at more than 3 million—whose names will not be on this year’s electoral register. We know that many young people, in particular those between the ages of 18 to 25, are missing from the register because they move fairly frequently around the country. That is certainly a big issue in my part of the world. To ignore that factor and to press ahead on the basis of registers that are, in some areas, seriously incomplete is, to my mind, totally unsatisfactory. Why not wait until a much clearer picture of population distribution after next year’s census enables the Boundary Commission to do a more thorough and accurate job? That would be a principled approach, but I suppose that it would not meet the political objectives of the coalition.
In conclusion, this is a bad Bill that will have profound constitutional effects. I would like to believe that the Bill will be thoroughly revised as a result of the renowned detailed scrutiny of noble Lords in this Chamber. The Bill certainly deserves to be revised in a number of important respects. However, I fear that the operation of the coalition Government in this Chamber may seriously undermine the capacity of this House to operate as an effective revising Chamber. I very much hope that I am wrong and that my fears in this regard will prove to be unfounded.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
My Lords, it is late so I will make just four points. First, I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, who sat through most of the debate, is not here. I want to take up something that he mentioned—a threshold for the referendum. That has also been mentioned by my noble friend Lord Howarth of Newport. This, as has been said, is an implementing, not an advisory, referendum. However, it will turn on a single moment of thought. There will be no Second Reading, no Third Reading in both Houses on the issue, and no time for ifs and buts—just a sudden death play-off between two sides and only two sides. Can we really think it is a great idea to change decades or centuries of voting habits on a turnout of, perhaps, 15 per cent and a majority of, perhaps, 1,000, in a single moment of thought? That moment, incidentally, might reflect delight with or contempt for the Government of the day, rather than a real verdict on the issue on which the noble Lord has just spoken.
Lord Rennard
On the issue of turnout, there were referendums in Scotland and Wales, introduced by the Labour Government in 1997, and proposals by the Labour Government possibly to consider referendums on the European constitution and the single currency. Indeed, in the last Labour manifesto, there were proposals for a referendum on the alternative vote. Where was the mention, at any point in any of these referendums, of a threshold being applied?
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
At that stage I would also have argued for a threshold. George Cunningham remains a friend of mine; he reminds me frequently of the importance of a threshold. However, there is a difference in that this is an implementing referendum, rather than what they would have been.
I ask another question. There is the threshold issue, but is a majority of one across the whole nation enough? In a way, I look forward to our debates on the equivalent of the hanging chad. Will there be spoilt ballot papers and people outside polling stations unable to get in? Will Peers or EU citizens perhaps be forbidden to vote in the referendum—one correctly and one incorrectly? That should tie up the electoral court for many a long night. What if Wales votes one way and England another? Have we considered having different voting systems in these two different countries?
Secondly, I turn to the question of numbers. I enjoyed the grasping at the air of the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, yesterday on where he thought the number 600 came from. My noble friend Lady Liddell said yesterday that she hoped the Minister would explain this lovely round number when he replied. We look forward to that later this evening. The Constitution Select Committee concluded that this number was chosen without consideration of the role or functions of MPs and, as has been said many times in this debate, that it unbalanced the relationship between government and Parliament with no reduction in the payroll vote, boosting the power of the Executive rather than the power of the legislature. What do the Government have against Wales that they have decided to drop a quarter of its seats? Perhaps that was vengeance for Wales not voting Tory often enough. That step certainly does not show an understanding of the very special geography, history, culture and language of my original home.
Thirdly, as many noble Lords have said, it is important that boundaries take account of more than numbers. They should take account especially of geography, whether of Anglesey—where I used to live—across the Menai Bridge; that of Cornwall, across the Tamar; or that of the Isle of Wight across the Solent. They should also take account of the geography of valleys—coming from Wales, I know about those—and of rivers. I now live in London, where almost my biggest decision in life was to move from Battersea Bridge Road, just by the river, across the river to the north bank. I have only just got over that and that was 26 years ago. The Scottish boundary is sacrosanct but other boundaries, such as the river in London, are not recognised, and will not be recognised in the drawing-up of boundaries. In the days of the Empire when we were carving up the colonies, people with pencils drew lines across countries to which they had never been. I have visions of that happening here, with the same bad results, because we should not take into account simply physical geography—important though I think that is—but travel-to-work zones, hospital and school catchment areas, transport hubs, even football supporters and where they come from. These are also important issues for community, as my noble friend Lady McDonagh said. Local government, especially education authorities, has to work very closely with its populations. Education authorities must ensure that there are adequate junior school places, and senior school places for pupils to feed into subsequently. This is something about which parents feel very strongly and on which they frequently lobby their MPs, but how can MPs understand the issues involved if they are dealing with two or even three local authorities and MPs’ boundaries shift every five years, just when they have got to know the characteristics of their local schools, local communities and the travel and local hubs?
Furthermore, it is not simply voters who contact their MP, as all those in the House who have been MPs will know much better than me. Hospital staff, the police, businesses and school heads also contact their MPs and may well have views on how their community can best be represented in Parliament. However, they will have no say in decisions on boundaries taken by the commission. Such groups and individuals should be able to make representations to the boundary commissions on constituencies other than the one in which they live. Businesses, which rely heavily on local and transport services, may find themselves dealing with a number of different MPs for no other reason than that this Government prefer tidy numbers to the true representation of local interests.
The proposal that constituency numbers are based solely on registered voters does serious disservice—indeed, disrespect—to the role of MPs, whose workload, responsibilities and pastoral concern extend to, and are generated by, the whole population of their constituency, as many of your Lordships have said. We therefore need a greater margin than the simple plus or minus 5 per cent to allow for these vital attributes. As Andrew George—I believe that he is not a Labour MP—has said in another place:
“The Boundary Commission should be given the discretion to recognise identity, culture, tradition, history, geography … so that places with strong identities, historic communities”,—[Official Report, Commons, 1/11/10; col. 680.]
are not divided up to satisfy statistical equalisation.
Perhaps the most fundamental issue comprises boundary reviews. Only written submissions are to be permitted. Let me think who that might favour. Will it favour those with money who can employ clever specialists and PR advisers; those well used to the written word as their weapon of choice; and those with access to computers, design facilities, photocopiers and postage? Let me think who they might be. Would they be shop workers, local parents, hospital patients, tenants’ groups or youngsters? No, they would not have access to such facilities or the ability to undertake such a campaign, but hitherto they have had the right to hear, see and comment on the submissions of others. The process will become the equivalent of the sealed bid process, with substantial documents being received on the closing day from well heeled vested interests. It will be much harder for local groups—the big society, on which our Prime Minister is so keen—to make their voices heard.
I contend that this point is particularly important in view of the fact that the first major redistribution exercise will affect every seat—sorry, every seat bar two—in the country. This redrawing will disrupt and destabilise community identity and voters’ identification with their existing MPs. Worse, it will then continue in each Parliament, thus damaging the ongoing pastoral role of MPs, which depends on working relationships not only with their population and its representatives—whether that is local tenants’ groups, parents’ groups or local business communities—but with the relevant decision-makers, who might be local authorities, hospital trusts, water, gas and electricity suppliers, PCTs, GP commissioners or the police. Those relationships really matter if an MP is to do his or her work properly and effectively on behalf of their electorate. Constituencies need community identity in order to function as part of our democracy and local people are best able to explain that, including the relevance of a constituency’s name, which might be the biggest issue that the boundary commissions have to face. There need to be public hearings for this matter to be debated and to enable the community to become involved in it.
If the Government truly believe in the big society, they will want that community involvement. The old Liberal Democrats—how we miss them—favoured public involvement and democratic scrutiny of the Executive, but they now seem to be afraid of public hearings about these proposals. I wonder why.
Lord Davies of Oldham
My Lords, as the 53rd contributor to this debate, I could readily succumb to the temptation of the old days and seek to summarise the main arguments that have been presented. However, I see that time is moving on and it might be thought highly improper if I were to make a two and a half hour speech, or even a 25-minute one, at this stage. In any case, I am of course leaving to my noble friend Lord Bach the task of summarising the debate from the perspective of these Benches and to the Minister the job of wrestling with the fact that the vast majority of contributors to this debate have been immensely critical of the Bill. Even the contributions from purportedly his own side have registered enormous and significant reservations about parts of the Bill, so the noble Lord, Lord McNally, has his work cut out.
I assure the House that I shall restrict myself to three points and a short speech. Those three points are, first, the alternative vote issue; secondly, the question of the inquiries into the way in which the Boundary Commission will work in the future; and, thirdly, the size of the legislature.
The problem with this legislation is that it lacks coherence and is a reflection of the political dynamic. That is why the alternative vote is spatchcocked on to the Bill. Who believes in it? The Prime Minister is going to campaign against it. The Liberal Democrats have indicated that it is merely preparatory ground for what they regard as the pristine and pure version—that is, proportional representation—as if the country would ever either understand what the Liberal Democrats were advocating in those terms or vote for it. We in the Labour Party are in favour of a consultative referendum but this involves a mandatory referendum that obliges a Minister to act the moment the Bill becomes law.
So who is in favour of the proposals in the Bill? The answer, as everyone has indicated, is that it is a compromise between the two political parties in the coalition. It has nothing to do with principle; it has nothing to do with the advancement of democracy; it has no appeal to the popular support of the nation. It is a fix, which is part of the cement that is keeping the coalition together. That is a pretty poor prospectus on significant reform to put before the nation, and it reflects the fact that the Bill is so ill thought out. We surely have the right to expect constitutional change to be subject to consultation and considered thought. After all, not even the coalition can believe that it will go on for ever. It is part of a constitution of which we are all part. That is why it is essential that there should be a modicum of agreement on how to go forward. It is on the basis of that agreement that we protect the political stability of our nation, ensure the respect in which our institutions are held and increase the respect of our individual Members of Parliament.
We all regret and know of the terrible costs of the past 18 months to two years of the expenses issue. It is still overwhelmingly the case that Parliament may be subject to challenge at certain times. Why should it not as it never delivers all that the nation wants? Political parties are open to challenge, and Members of Parliament within their political parties are often criticised. But I maintain, even at this stage—it has certainly been true over the decades—that the individual Member serving his constituency is held in high regard. That is so in Britain because of the relationship of MPs to their constituency and because the job that they do is recognised as valuable. Most of all, they are representatives of that area, which is why this issue of constituency boundaries is of such importance. You trample over local loyalties at your cost if there is no serious attempt to ensure that the political building blocks of wards and local authorities are crucial to constituencies. You are setting at nought the crucial role of the Member of Parliament.
My speech was preceded by that of my noble friend Lord Graham. At one stage we both represented Enfield constituencies. Let me say that those three Enfield constituencies—of course, it would take time for the electorate to be enumerated—will fall just outside the 5 per cent tolerance. It was clear in the borough that irrespective of who was in control of the local authority, it could get its case across to the three Members of Parliament irrespective of whether the MPs were all of one party. In fact, they never were of one party, as I recall—there was always at least one Conservative and one Labour representative in the borough—but because they would fall short of the tolerance level imposed by the Bill, the Boundary Commission may have to spatchcock on to them an additional group of electors either from another London borough or from Hertfordshire. How will that community in the locality of the borough of Enfield be represented by such a spatchcock addition? How is a Member of Parliament meant to relate effectively?
Lord Rennard
Does the noble Lord accept that that already happens with the crossing of London borough boundaries? For example, the constituency of Richmond Park is part of the London Borough of Richmond and part of the London Borough of Kingston. The city of Liverpool, where I come from, crosses the Liverpool city boundary and the Knowsley boundary.
Lord Davies of Oldham
Of course it does. The noble Lord, Lord Rennard, is probably the best placed of anyone in this House, given his intense interest and commitment to these issues, to know that the Boundary Commission listens to representations and that these are cut to the minimum. The Bill sets it at nought. It merely sets a figure that has to be complied with; no other considerations will count for the boundary commissioners. The noble Lord, Lord Rennard, talked about my objections, although I have in fact maintained a series of principles that have had to be abrogated in certain instances in the past. Those principles are set at nought in the Bill. The question of locality becomes of very limited significance indeed and this is one reason I intend to oppose this part of the Bill.