Parliamentary Constituencies Bill

Lord Shutt of Greetland Excerpts

Report stage & Report stage (Hansard) & Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 8th October 2020 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Shutt of Greetland]

16: After Clause 6, insert the following new Clause—
“Improving completeness of electoral registers for purposes of boundary reviews etc.
(1) Within a year of this Act coming into force, the Secretary of State must lay before Parliament proposals for improving the completeness of electoral registers for purposes of boundary reviews.(2) The proposals in subsection (1) may include requirements for either—(a) the Department for Work and Pensions to provide every registration officer with the name, address, date of birth and nationality of each individual in their district to whom they issue a National Insurance number ahead of their 16th birthday, and for registration officers to add to the full electoral registers those electors who they are satisfied are eligible for inclusion; or(b) the Department for Work and Pensions to notify individuals of the criteria for eligibility to vote and of the process for making an application to join the register when they are issued with a new National Insurance number.”Member’s explanatory statement
16 and 17 year olds are added to electoral registers for the purposes of boundary reviews, but many of them are not known to the registration officers. The amendment would require the Secretary of State to make proposals for improving the completeness of electoral registers and suggests two possible ways in which the issue of a National Insurance number could trigger the inclusion of 16 and 17 year olds.

[Lord Shutt of Greetland (LD)]

My Lords, I beg to move Amendment 16 as an important enhancement of the Bill, which would improve the accuracy and completeness of the electoral registers for future reviews.

The amendment has at its core the work of the Select Committee on the Electoral Registration and Administration Act, which I chaired and which reported in July. We learned, in our extensive deliberations, that though electoral registers are primarily prepared for use at elections for voting purposes, they have other uses, such as enabling juries to be enlisted and providing proof of residence by credit agencies. Importantly, they are also used as a series of building blocks for constituencies and their boundaries.

Sadly, registers are far from perfect, but it must be right to get them as accurate and complete as possible. The committee made a series of proposals for improvement. The most glaring omission from registers is that 75% of young people known as attainers—people aged 16 or 17 who may be added to the register so that they are able to vote when they attain the age of 18—are not registered. They are very relevant to this Bill—hence the reason for this amendment. I am delighted that four Members subscribing to the amendment are former members of the Select Committee and cover the four corners of the House of Lords.

There is, too, precedence for this action, in that it follows on from the work of the House three years ago in its consideration of the Higher Education and Research Bill in 2017. The House approved an amendment, moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, to enable higher education students to be easily registered, through collaboration between the Office for Students and electoral registration officers. A Department for Education guidance leaflet on facilitating registration shows that in one university, De Montfort in Leicester, of those students qualified to register, 98.5% provided details for registration. The amendment seeks to put all young people in the position of the De Montfort students, so that the present 25% registration rate comes more into line with that of their elders. The Electoral Commission paper, Completeness in Great Britain, indicates that the highest rate for completeness is for the over 65s, at 94%, whereas the lowest level is that of attainers—the 16 to 17 year-olds—which has declined from 45% in 2015 to 25% in 2019.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall) (Lab)]

My Lords, I have received no request to speak after the Minister, so I call the noble Lord, Lord Shutt.

[Lord Shutt of Greetland (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lords who spoke in favour of this amendment, which is everybody bar the Minister. It is important that this is an all-party affair and that registration is seen as beyond party. I am very disappointed in the Minister’s response, but not surprised. I do not understand how registration is a voluntary act, yet you can be fined if you do not register. That is a very strange form of volunteering.

The Minister has said a great deal about what the Government are doing. We heard about it in Committee and it is all commendable stuff. However, she has not said, for example, how it can be that in 2015 45% of attainers were on the registers and it is now down to 25%. That seems to me failure; it is not success.

I do not think this is good enough. It is not good enough for our young people, so I would like to test the opinion of the House.

Parliamentary Constituencies Bill

Lord Shutt of Greetland Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 10th September 2020 Grand Committee

If my noble friend the Minister decides to stick with plus or minus 5%—which is not a new innovation, of course—I hope that he will at least take into account my view that he should perhaps be thinking about plus or minus 2.5%. If I have helped to make him look reasonable, as the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, suggested, then I am proud of doing so because I know of no one more reasonable than the noble Lord, Lord True.

[Lord Shutt of Greetland (LD)]

My Lords, the amendments in this group are mainly to do with promoting constituencies that are genuine, from a community standpoint, rather than percentage purity. Percentages are useful, but they are a tool; community and geography should trump them. The Committee just heard from the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, on his amendment, which would make the job of the Boundary Commissions even more difficult than the Government have. The House of Commons Library tells us that the quota is likely to be in the area of 72,600, so 2.5% either side of that would mean a flexibility of no more than 1,800 either way—that is people, not percentages. This would be far less than most local government wards and would lead to the splitting of both wards and polling districts in all but the smallest of rural wards. That amendment would make a poor Bill worse.

The other three amendments all attempt to improve the lot of the Boundary Commission in, hopefully, getting cohesive constituencies based on genuine communities. The flexibility offered by the 5% tolerance from the quota gives 3,600 people—not percentages—either side of it. Amendment 15 would move that up to 5,400. Amendment 16 would move it up to 5,800, or 7,260 in certain cases. Amendment 17 would shift the figure to exactly 7,200. An amendment being tabled next week would move it up to 10,900 in Wales. I trust that we can manage to consolidate these amendments at a later stage.

One of the fallacies of being in the grip of percentages is that the 5% used in the 2018 proposals for the 600-seat House of Commons—which are now well behind us—gave a tolerance of 3,900. These present proposals would reduce that further, as the noble Lord, Lord Lennie, alluded to earlier.

I often try and look at the other fellow’s viewpoint. We can learn a little of Her Majesty’s Government’s thinking by going back in history. Over the years, the inner-city constituencies lost population and the suburbs increased. Conservative politicians thought that meant that their constituencies were disadvantaged. Perhaps the breaking down of the “red wall” might change that a bit.

I am pretty certain that greater flexibility will assist principally in giving, let us say, a modest-sized town its own seat, rather than having to lose a bit of it to another seat or having to take in a small part of a rural area just to make up the numbers. It is of course far easier to use the building blocks of wards and polling districts to build constituencies in large cities. Small towns and large seats in rural areas are the ones that will really benefit if we can change this business of percentage purity. I hope that we can do something to make the geography and community sense of our constituencies real for people to absolutely understand.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Bates) (Con)]

With the consent of the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, I call the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, next.

Parliamentary Constituencies Bill

Lord Shutt of Greetland Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 8th September 2020 Grand Committee

[Lord Lennie (Lab)]

My Lords, we were about to find out during the adjournment what my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours will say about this amendment, but he quite rightly got cut short by the clerk. The amendment calls for the now rather beleaguered Boundary Commission to conduct another independent review of all the consequences of automatic registration, from improved numbers of electors, to absence of democratic participation and everything in between.

This issue has gone to and fro for some time between the major parties without any party being able to point to conclusive proof that theirs is the right position. I am particularly grateful to the Select Committee on the Electoral Registration and Administration Act 2013, which produced a report on this issue and in broad terms supported automatic registration. It said in its second key recommendation:

“The Government should pursue further modernisation of registers, including piloting automatic registration for attainers and introducing assisted registration to prompt eligible voters to register when accessing other public services.”


We are talking about up to 9 million people—more than 100 constituencies-worth of voters—who are currently unregistered. They are mainly in rented accommodation, from the BAME community, from poorer households, students or vulnerable community members—people whose votes matter and who should take issues to their constituency MP and have them looked at, but do not participate in democracy. When they are surveyed, they all say that they want to participate in the democratic process, register to vote and vote, but they do not take the action to do so. It seems that this is pushing at an open door.

I think that the Conservative Party generally feels that this conflicts with their policy of individual registration, which has been around for a few years now. I do not think that individual registration has increased democratic participation in our country. Therefore, something is missing in attracting people into democratic participation. It is our view that it should be reviewed and looked at. We should look at all the evidence. People should come to give their views. The Boundary Commission would not hold an opinion on this, but it would hold the review. At the end of the review, we can take a decision, one way or another, about whether automatic registration should apply or be piloted throughout the land. However, we would need to have the evidence before us to make up our minds on automatic registration. I beg to move.

[Lord Shutt of Greetland (LD)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 24, which is in the same territory as that which has just been moved by the noble Lord, Lord Lennie, but this is not tickling the Boundary Commission’s fancy; it would require government action. It is particularly influenced by my serving as chairman of the Select Committee on the Electoral Registration and Administration Act 2013, on which a dozen Peers served and toiled over several months to produce its report. As an interesting point, I looked up today that between us we had contested at least 47 parliamentary elections and I do not know how many local government elections.

The decision to introduce individual electoral registration in place of head-of-household registration was the major feature of the Act that we were looking at. This is not the time to have a fulsome debate on that report: that is for another day. The report was published on 8 July and the Government have got until today to respond; they have less than six hours. Bearing in mind what we have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, there is a chance that we might get something at 9 o’clock tonight—is there not—depending on who is responsible for this. We look forward to that, and that debate on another occasion.

The concern of the Committee on the state of the accuracy and completeness of electoral registers was our number one item of our six key recommendations. The polling district and ward registers affect constituency electoral boundaries: they are the building blocks. Our recommendations include: piloting automatic registration for attainers—that is young people over 16; introducing assisted voter registration—we heard a little about that in the earlier amendment; greater use of data matching; civic engagement and public engagement, particularly in respect of young people and under-represented groups. The UK looks closely at international experience, where other countries have a far greater percentage of the population registered to vote. It was good to hear the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, speak earlier today commending overseas experience. We should not be frightened of it.

We were surprised to learn that the completeness of registers is no better under IER than under the old system. It cannot be right that only 85% of the eligible population is registered, while in Canada it is 96%. In Northern Ireland, where IER was introduced much earlier, back in 2002, completeness was reported to us as being only 74% in a 2018 survey. You would think that having had the experience of that for 16 years, we would be getting a more complete register there. It is evident that IER has not enhanced completeness.

The IER system has led to much event-led registration. On the cusp of an election we heard that 3.85 million people applied to register to vote between the MPs voting for an election on 29 October 2019 and the last date when it was possible to register, 26 November. Only half were subsequently added to the register, as half of them were already registered. Nevertheless, 2 million people were added to the register in that brief period. It cannot be right that our hard-working electoral officers—we met several of them—have to cope with all these registration events alongside the plethora of activity in organising an election and the increasing multitude of postal votes.

This late registration has meant that the registers immediately after the December 2019 election are perhaps as good as it gets under the old registration that we now have. It is in line with the committee’s view that the Government have agreed that it is the register of 2 March 2020 that is to be used for the electorate for the 2023 review. This amendment is to make certain that, as well as endeavouring to maximise the register so that everyone entitled is able to vote, henceforth the constituency boundaries will be based as near as possible to 100% of the eligible population rather than the 85% or so that it is at present.

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I have refrained from speaking on other amendments so as to concentrate my remarks on Amendment 24. I was a member of the ad hoc electoral registration Select Committee, brilliantly chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Shutt of Greetland. I express my gratitude to Professor Maria Sobolewska and Dr Stuart Wilks-Heeg, who were the brilliant advisers to our committee. Equally, it was a pleasure to work with members of that committee from different political persuasions without rancour. Our only real division was, and remains, over ID cards and their use in polling booths. As I keep repeating, their day will come but we kept that division under wraps.

Parliamentary Constituencies Bill

Lord Shutt of Greetland Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 27th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shutt of Greetland (LD) [V]]

My Lords, this Bill is about the appropriate use of the various building blocks of our democracy. The first building block is the electoral register. I have been privileged to serve as chairman of your Lordships’ Select Committee on the Electoral Registration and Administration Act 2013. Committee members are very much aware that the register itself is the first building block, and we have been very concerned by its lack of completeness. The register is perhaps 80% to 85% complete, comparing very unfavourably with 96.4% in Canada. Completeness must be improved.

We are pleased that, following the rush to get on the register for the 2019 election, two-thirds of a million people registered on the last day. However, the extra registrations from those who just missed the deadline mean that March 2020 is the most accurate date for which we have numbers, and shows the radical reform that is much needed in register-making needs. In my view, the Bill’s requirement for all constituencies to be within 5% of a quota—somewhere in the region of 73,000 people—is too tight to achieve constituencies that have clear and understandably linked communities.

It is also important to note that although wards make significant building-blocks, they vary significantly in number. In North Yorkshire, there are wards of under 1,000 electors, but there are over 70,000 electors in both Leeds and Sheffield. Polling districts will often make better building-blocks in urban areas.

Let me give the House an example. In the borough of Calderdale, where I live, both constituencies, using the 2019 numbers, are near the quota: the Halifax constituency is about 3% under it, which is within the suggested 5%, but the Calder Valley is about 6% over it, and therefore outside the tolerance figure. The splitting of a ward and the transfer of three polling districts—which are themselves distinct communities—would meet the 5% objective. Either way, the Government could get a good result. I suspect that most people would prefer not to change. However, I have to say that, in our area, either of those results would be certainly far more suitable than any of the three ways put forward by the previous Boundary Commission. Happily, these were aborted, as they would have brought in three different areas from Bradford.

Brexit and the EU Budget (EUC Report)

Lord Shutt of Greetland Excerpts

Thursday 6th April 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shutt of Greetland (LD)]

My Lords, I too pay tribute to my noble friend Lady Falkner of Margravine for her leadership and the way in which she has conducted the committee while she has served as our chairman. As she has indicated in her generous comments to me, this is my last contribution as a member of the European Union Financial Affairs Sub-Committee prior to my being rotated off for further service elsewhere. It has been thoroughly brain-taxing work but I have come to the conclusion that perhaps I will miss the weekly thick brown envelope arriving each Saturday morning. Twenty-seven days after the referendum, the sub-committee met and decided to have two inquiries, one into Brexit and financial services and the other on this subject, Brexit and the EU budget. The first one was debated on the last day before the Christmas Recess, and here we are debating this topic on the last day before the Easter Recess. I have a feeling that the business managers take the view that if there are difficult areas with lots of numbers, they should table them on the last day.

I tend to the view that these occasions are not for the members of the sub-committees to speak but for others to speak, and it is not for us to puff up the work. However, on this particular report perhaps it is right for us to speak on this occasion. Four members of the sub-committee have spoken so far and the noble Lord, Lord Haskins, is yet to come. I will try not to repeat too much of what has been said.

The first point is that the EU budget is very complicated. We have looked at the income side and tried to understand it. Three-quarters of the income is based on the gross national income of member states, along with money from customs duties, VAT rebates and corrections. The expenditure side is based on a seven-yearly financial spending plan, the multiannual financial framework, enhanced by an annual budget as amended several times during the course of the year.

One area that we have been trying to get to grips with is where on Brexit the UK’s financial responsibilities would stop, on the basis of a departure in two years’ time. How does that fit with a seven-year budget? Here we are in the seven-year period 2014-20. Certainly before our departure there will be talk of the budget for 2021-27. We have heard about the RAL, which is yet to be paid—in other words, promises. It is committed in 2014-20 but to be paid later, with some of it perhaps coming to the UK. We have even been told that it may be several years beyond 2020 before some of it is actually spent.

The noble Earl, Lord Lindsay, has spoken about pensions. We have discussed that, including the question of whether we are talking about proportions of pensions or entire pensions, and the issue of UK pensioners. We have looked at the share of assets, cash and property loans and what the percentage is that one would put to the UK. I am interested in the Reform Club analogy. I also wonder about the analogy of the building societies, where the clock stopped and the people who were members ran at that point. And what about the inherited wealth of those who started this work in the middle of the century before last? We also looked at the European Investment Bank.

It was trying to tease out what the UK’s liabilities are and seeking legal opinions that led us to what seems to be a very surprising position—or was it in fact surprising that there was this “walk away” option because a deal could not be enforced? We took legal opinion. Three lawyers came before us and then we sought our own legal advice from the legal adviser to our committee here in the House of Lords, which is printed in full. All that evidence was taken on the public record, and other distinguished lawyers who saw that could have come rushing to our committee and said, “We want to give some evidence to you because we think differently”. I do not think that happened. That is what we found, and we would have been criticised if we had said, “We will ignore all that because it doesn’t seem right”. So it is there, it is in the evidence; it had to be.

The one thing I conclude is that Brexit or any other exit was not meant to happen. That is why we are in the pickle that we are. Is it any surprise that no deal is a possibility? No, because unless Article 50 had a substantial annexe detailing how an agreement could be formulated and would be enforceable, how could it be otherwise? With due deference to my noble friend Lord Thomas, Article 50 contains no reference to lawyers or courts. That is amazing, but that is what the document says. As I said, I do not believe it was meant to happen.

Hence, perhaps, Mrs May’s position. On the one hand, she says that she wants a smooth, orderly exit from the EU, but on the other that no deal is better than a bad deal. What is a bad deal in those circumstances? I suspect that she means an expensive one. I do not know, but what other definition would there be? I conclude that no deal and walk away is the bad deal, because to walk away means that the UK could not hold its head high in the international community, nor would it be trusted to honour international agreements ever again. That seems to me a perilous journey.

So the committee is clear: we need to agree. The numbers are not clear: they need to be negotiated. We can see the circumstances in which the numbers may arise in any deal. On page 29, we indicate how we see that, by agreement, the figure could be as low as £15 billion or as high as £60 billion.

In the last brown envelope to come to my house last Saturday morning was a report by a European think tank, Bruegel. Its numbers are more precise. It has done a similar job to our committee. I do not know its methodology in reaching its numbers—perhaps it has just beavered away—but it comes up with figures between £31.7 billion and £35.1 billion, a much narrower position. It took no account of the European Investment Bank, and I believe that UK involvement in that amounts to £10 billion, so in those circumstances it would narrow down to £21.7 billion to £25.1 billion. Of course, all these numbers can change because of financial behaviour in the next two years—particularly, for the UK, whether the expenditure budget moves away from us or there are more benefits to the UK.

In conclusion, I cannot believe that there is any solution other than orderly agreement. However the sequencing should be, unless the financial settlement is sorted, I cannot see there being good will for a future beyond it. Therefore, it is very important.

Northern England: Opportunity and Productivity

Lord Shutt of Greetland Excerpts

Thursday 12th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shutt of Greetland (LD)]

My Lords, I too congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, on securing this timely debate. Of course, the anchor for our debate is the IPPR The State of the North report, which was published on 9 December. It is quite instructive, however, to go back 16 days to 23 November, because that was when Her Majesty’s Government produced a document, the Northern Powerhouse Strategy. It is a 30-page document—well, there are 10 pages blank—with a splendid foreword by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. It helpfully sets out in a table that the north of England has a GDP greater than 22 European Union states. But the document does not tell us about the democratic deficit. It does not tell us that the north of England is on a totally separate footing to Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland or London. There are 20 pages of commentary about the northern powerhouse with barely a reference to the European Union, save for a couple of paragraphs on page 18 indicating a UK government guarantee on certain EU-funded investments signed up to prior to the Autumn Statement last year. There is neither a note of doubt about the issue of Brexit, nor any exuberance about any opportunity—silence.

The IPPR document published 16 days later attempts to plug the gap. It is a wide-ranging report on the north of England economy and its pages set out the Brexit concerns. Its number 1 recommendation is that there should be a northern voice at the Brexit negotiating table. It calls for,

“the formation of a Northern Brexit Negotiating Committee to determine the type of Brexit that would best suit the North, to speak with one voice”.

For me, a further striking point of the IPPR paper was its cover. In showing a map of the north of England, it showed it as what many of us have often thought of as three regions—to come back the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Prescott. If those three regions existed, it would pretty simple for them to co-operate, to talk for the north and to become a power base for the north. The diversity of cash-strapped and debilitated local government, ill-fitting combined authorities, mixed devolution and several LEPs does not easily convert into northern clout.

I want to talk about two further things. Can the Minister provide any further insight into the prospect of devolution in Yorkshire? Yorkshire is an understandable brand; I have lived there all my life—nowhere else. The efforts of the Yorkshire tourist board, the Yorkshire County Cricket Club and the Yorkshire Post make it clear what Yorkshire means. The cricketers say that if you get a strong Yorkshire, you get a strong England. I say that if we get a strong Yorkshire, we will get a stronger north. Does the Minister have something to say on whether he can see daylight with regard to devolution for Yorkshire?

My final point is that the ever-helpful House of Lords Library paper includes copies of the Hansard report from 17 June 2015—19 months ago—when the House discussed transport in the north. We heard a day or two before that of the indefinite delay in the electrification of the trans-Pennine railway, while there was nothing at all about the Calder Valley line, which the noble Baroness, Lady Eaton, referred to and which greatly concerns me. That is the line from Manchester to Leeds and York via Huddersfield. Is there any news of a start date for that?

Voluntary and Charitable Sectors

Lord Shutt of Greetland Excerpts

Thursday 26th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shutt of Greetland (LD)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lady Scott of Needham Market on securing this debate on such a wide-ranging subject, which offers many opportunities. I declare an interest as a trustee of two charitable organisations: Pennine Heritage and X-PERT Health.

However, I want to talk about a specific charitable endeavour that supports the voluntary sector, and that is the community foundation movement. What is a community foundation? In my view, it is an all-purpose charity, growing by endowment and spending its income but retaining its asset base, unless its income is enhanced by flow-through money that has been given specifically to that organisation to spend.

Let me share with noble Lords my experience. A mere 32 years ago, I served as mayor of Calderdale, based in Halifax and the Calder Valley towns, from 1982-83 onwards. I decided to start an all-purpose fund for my mayoral charity, but I did not do too well at it; with 600 other engagements as mayor it was difficult to get going. On standing down the first time as a councillor in 1990, I decided to do the job properly. Particularly during that period as mayor, I had seen the need for an independent source of money to support the voluntary sector in that community. In 1990, I felt that the important thing was to get a very sound trust board together and I put a lot of effort into getting a sound board in which people could have confidence. We managed to launch that in 1992. It was a huge task. I was able to pass that job on in 1999 and I am now a life vice-president. Happily, it is proceeding competently under different hands. I am delighted to say that, from nothing, there are now resources—endowed funds—of about £8 million and a grant spend of £800,000 a year. That is higher than one would expect because of flow-through moneys.

I did not know it at the time, but the first community foundation in the United Kingdom was founded in Swindon in 1975. By the time I was getting involved in launching in Calderdale, in the 1990-92 period, there were perhaps 10 or a dozen community foundations. Now there are 49, covering much of the UK. Those 49 now have an asset base of £350 million and the latest figures show that between them they have annual grant making of £50 million a year. It is interesting that now in 2014 we are celebrating the centenary of the movement, which was started in America in 1914 in Cleveland, Ohio. There are now 1,700 community foundations worldwide.

What, then, are the important features of a community foundation? Clearly, one is the specific geographical area. The foundations are dependent on donors. Of course donors can and do give for general purposes in their community, or they can highlight specific areas of work, such as the elimination of poverty, sport-related work or work on the environment. They may even have ideas of a restricted locality within their community or age restrictions. Indeed, donors may put on a temporary restriction in their lifetime and leave it to the trustees to decide how the income of their gift is dealt with when they are dead and buried.

A community foundation has the opportunity and ability to subsume other charities where trustees have had enough, got fed up or do not find that there is a cause anymore; they are able to hand over their money to that community foundation. Over the years, a community foundation gains expertise in grant making in that specific community.

Incidentally, I have been amazed at how many letters and sheets I have had suggesting what I might say for this take note debate. I am responding to one of those now. There are people who find administration, investment and regulation a difficulty. The community foundation can cover that, so if someone has some money but does not want all that administration investment regulation, they should hand it over to a community foundation, which can look after it. As I indicated earlier, a community foundation can act as a wonderful agent for flow-through moneys, whether that is through national government, regional bodies or whatever.

In my view, community foundations give a great opportunity for localism, community leadership and enhancing community life. I commend them and their enhancement.

Extension of Franchise (House of Lords) Bill [HL]

Lord Shutt of Greetland Excerpts

Friday 5th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shutt of Greetland]

My Lords, I support the Bill. I do so with just a degree of reluctance. Reference has been made already to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Truro, who spoke so clearly at Prayers. I listened, as I always do, and he said to us, “Laying aside all private interests, prejudices and partial affections”. I have to say, I have a partial affection for voting.

Like the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, I do not want to overegg this pudding, but there are three features to this issue. First, there have been 10 general elections that I have been able to vote in, between 1964 and 1997, and I voted in them all—I voted for myself in half of them. There have been three general elections since then that I have not been able to vote in. Many of us in this House get thoroughly involved in elections. In our campaigning, we come across many people who say that they will not waste their time by voting because it does no good—all that sort of thing. It really goes against the grain that those folk have this precious vote and will not use it but we are denied that opportunity.

Secondly, I could have seen the point 102 years ago that perhaps we should not have the vote. But, of course, before 1911, the House had the full panoply of powers. Therefore, it could have been argued that, if you were in Parliament, you should not have a vote because you were there of right. But then in 1911, those who served before us were stopped and we have continued not having influence on money Bills—and we know how cross people in this House get when they cannot take part in debates on money Bills. Therefore, the very serious point is that we should be able to influence those who are able to take part in money Bills, which we are not able so to do.

Thirdly and finally, if this Bill were passed, there would be a good dividend, because I think that the 739 Peers who would get the vote in addition to the Bishops would use it. Therefore, the Bill would be well worth passing and I thoroughly support it.

Civil Service Reform

Lord Shutt of Greetland Excerpts

Tuesday 19th June 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I can promise the noble Baroness that there is a constant dialogue with all the unions. I am sorry that the PCS feels it has not been consulted sufficiently but I am well aware that the dialogue goes on. I am also well aware that people in all sectors of society have contact with the public service. If the noble Baroness has read the Times today she will know that there are some rich people who prefer not to hear from HMRC, but HMRC is indeed determined that they should hear from it.

[Lord Shutt of Greetland]

My Lords, it is true that managing change and driving though radical policies can prove difficult. It is also true that there are areas where the private sector can and does deliver good-quality public services at competitive costs. We should not be opposed to moving the boundaries between public and private sector delivery of public services where it can be justified or in testing payment by results as a way of promoting greater efficiency and value for money for the taxpayer. However, for the past 140 years we have benefited from a public service selected on merit and political neutrality. As someone who stood down from government last month, I can say that I found civil servants civil, hard-working and helpful. Does the Minister agree that we should not approach public sector reform with a mindset of “public sector bad, private sector good”?

I do not think there is evidence that the public sector yet has in place the kind of legal, contractual and commissioning expertise to make sure that the taxpayer is going to be properly protected or the quality of service required guaranteed. Does the Minister agree that it is essential that the reforms have built into them full and proper systems of parliamentary accountability? We must ensure that, in commissioning externally sourced policy-making, we do not fall into the habit of commissioning external consultancy almost as an alternative to ministerial decision-making.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, as we all know, a number of processes are under way. This Government are also committed to decentralisation as far as possible, and one reason why the central Civil Service will shrink is that more decisions and areas of policy delivery are being put down to the local level. Some of this will be carried out through local authorities; some of it will be carried out through mutual and other agencies. The division between the public and private sectors is not entirely a binary one; there is also, as we all know, the third sector or voluntary sector. I think we all agree that, together with the decentralisation of the delivery of public services, some services are better delivered as a partnership between the public sector and the third or voluntary sector. All those processes are under way. Put together with the technological revolution that is pushing us towards a much greater dependence on digital services, this is part of the revolution we are facing.

On the question of parliamentary accountability, there is less in this plan on the details of accountability than there might otherwise be because there has been a deliberate decision to await the study of the House of Lords Constitution Committee on that very area. That will feed into further consultations on how we strengthen accountability to Parliament. However, noble Lords will be aware that the role of Commons parliamentary committees in particular in relation to the Civil Service has strengthened over the years. I was reading the Osmotherley Rules earlier today and began to look at how they may need to change further as part of this. That is the sort of thing that the Constitution Committee will be considering.

House of Lords Reform Bill [HL]

Lord Shutt of Greetland Excerpts

Friday 10th February 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Selsdon]

I therefore feel slightly confused by the Long Title as regards where it says “hereditary peerage” and we still have the election process in place. If it is correct, I have no objection.

[Lord Shutt of Greetland]

Is the noble Lord moving an amendment?

[Lord Selsdon]

Yes, I was moving an amendment but I was asking for clarification. I apologise for that. Can anyone in the House give me some clarification?