Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Lord Renton of Mount Harry and Lord Kinnock

Tuesday 8th February 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Renton of Mount Harry]

I would like to pick up on one or two of the comments made by the noble Lords, Lord Lipsey and Lord Foulkes. I serve on the Constitution Committee, to which the Deputy Chairman and the Deputy Leader of the House of Commons came and told us, perfectly truly, as others have said, that there was no big explanation of why the figure was going down from 650 to 600. That has to be said. However, after listening to the debate—and particularly to the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, whom I knew for many years in the other place—I do not believe that it has been made clear that during the time that the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, and I were in the House of Commons the amount of expenses went up hugely.

I well remember that when I became a Member of Parliament in 1974—I know that to talk about one’s past in the House of Commons is not on in this debate—I had only sufficient expenses to employ a secretary for three days a week. Now we all know that Members of Parliament have expenses which, I have heard, enable them to have five or six people in their offices. It is not for me to say the precise figure or the precise number.

Certainly an awful lot of the work that I and other working MPs such as the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, did in our constituencies is now done by members of the office—and quite right, too. The prime job of a Member of Parliament is surely to be in Parliament, debating and making points there. However, the support that Members of Parliament now receive through their expenses is of very great value to them.

I do not know the precise reason for 600 rather than 650, but I can understand the view that there should now be fewer Members of Parliament because they have got so much support in their offices and in dealing with their constituencies. This takes away from them many of the jobs that burdened us. I see that the noble Lord, Lord Kinnock, is about to say something. Under those circumstances, having been 25 years a Member of Parliament, I do not find the move down to 600 from 650 odd or extraordinary. I support it.

[Lord Kinnock]

My Lords, I have been tempted to enter the debate, to some extent, by the noble Lord, Lord Renton.

A couple of fundamental points need to be made in the context of the amendment of my noble friend Lord Lipsey. First, it is well known to those Members of the House who have been following this part of the debate that, since 1950, the electorate has gone up by 25 per cent and the number of Members of Parliament has gone up by 4 per cent, and we are speaking now against a background of a guaranteed further rise in the population and, therefore, a rise in the electorate. At the same time, there is to be a radical reduction of 50 seats in the other place and an equalisation of the number of constituents in the remaining seats. The only deduction that can be taken from that is that, all other things being equal, the workload of Members of Parliament will continue to increase—and increase additionally because of the reduction in their number, the point made by my noble friend Lord Lipsey.

As the noble Lord, Lord Renton, rightly said, the workload and the character of the work typically undertaken by Members of Parliament have changed substantially over the years. I was a Member of the House of Commons for 25 years and the noble Lord for 30 years, and in those long periods of time the character and the size of the case load changed radically. Like him, in the 1970s I could afford a secretary for three or three and a half days a week, which, given our individual efforts, was sufficient to ensure that the casework of our constituents was adequately covered. There was a period early in my parliamentary career when I found the time and opportunity to go to employment tribunals, with some success. I always wanted to continue doing so but the remainder of the workload made that impossible. Now, of course, I might have a caseworker in my constituency, and with a suitably qualified person I could perhaps make extra inroads into the areas of particular concern to constituents.

In any event, as the noble Lord, Lord Renton, said, accompanying the increase and change in the nature of the workload has been an increase, to some extent, in the staff support for Members of Parliament. That is welcome. However, it is far from the number that he guesses at. Typically it will be three: usually a qualified researcher, a secretary in Parliament and a caseworker in the constituency, sometimes with part-time secretarial support. That is the size of it. Some Members of Parliament, in order to guarantee the quality of service, will go into their own resources and add to the amount officially made available for staff expenditure. I used to do that and, knowing the noble Lord, Lord Renton, I guess that he would do exactly the same.

However, in this situation, no one is proposing a guaranteed increase in staffing to run in parallel with, or as a consequence of, the guaranteed increase in the workload of Members of Parliament as a result of the arbitrary reduction in their numbers. Even without that guarantee, as my noble friend Lord Lipsey suggests, if Members of the other place take account of their increased workload and put it to whatever Government of the day that their workloads have demonstrably increased, there will be additional staff. In those circumstances, any assumed savings from the reduced number of Members of Parliament will evaporate. The picture that I paint is one of a massively increased workload, a change in the quality as well as the quantity of work undertaken and a welcome increase in staff establishing a benevolent trend which will guarantee, not too far ahead in years, a further increase in staff. All that my noble friend was pleading for was the absolute dismissal of any assumed financial advantage for the public purse arising from the change in the Bill. I suggest that the House accepts the wisdom of my noble friend’s words.