Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Soley Excerpts

Wednesday 26th January 2011 Lords Chamber

Ministers acknowledge the issue; they recognise that there is a problem that will be exacerbated by this legislation as it is. However, they are vague about the remedy, and I do not think we can rely on the weak assurances that we have so far been given. There is legislation to limit the number of paid Ministers; there also needs to be legislation to limit the number of unpaid members of the payroll vote. I support the amendment in the name of my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer, and I am also tempted to support the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth. The House is always happy to sit at the feet of the noble Lord, Lord Norton, and be instructed by him. In fact, we have gone into seminar mode since we had dinner, with the very significant and interesting amendment spoken to by my noble friend Lady McDonagh. It would be useful from time to time if we were to suspend our Committee proceedings and enjoy a seminar taught by my noble friend Lady McDonagh and the noble Lord, Lord Rennard—because they both really understand what happens in elections and in Parliament—and by the noble Lord, Lord Norton. I hope very much that one or the other of these amendments will find favour with the House.

[Lord Soley]

I rise not only to support my noble friend with or without the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Norton—I think there is an interesting debate to be had there—but to say above all that I regard this as a very important proposed new clause, which I hope and expect the Government to indicate some degree of willingness to move on. The reality is that, like the figure of 600, this discussion takes us back quite a few years. That discussion, as I have said in previous debates, has been around at least since 2004, when Andrew Tyrie MP wrote about it in his pamphlet, but it goes further back than that. Some noble Lords may have heard the noble Lord, Lord Baker, on the Conservative side, and me saying that we had discussed the reduction in the size of the House of Commons in the 1980s or possibly the early 1990s. We always said—this was said on both sides of the House by people who took this view—that if you reduced the size of the House of Commons, two things had to be at the forefront of our minds. First, it should be by all-party agreement; and, secondly, there must be a reduction in the number of Ministers in the House of Commons.

There were two reasons for that predominantly. One has been well spelled out. I shall not dwell on it in great detail, but it is glaringly obvious that if you keep the same number of Ministers and the payroll vote is exactly the same, you reduce the number of MPs, give greater power and influence to the Executive, and reduce the power and influence of the legislature. That is why this is so important.

I had not thought of the other reason until I heard Professor King of Essex University explain it. He is right that if you reduce what he calls the gene pool from which Ministers are pulled—the Back-Benchers—the gene pool that is available for new Ministers will be reduced. That is important, too. The noble Lord, Lord Norton, talked about the importance of the quality of Ministers. If you do not reduce the number of Ministers but simply reduce the number of Back-Benchers, that will inevitably affect the quality as well as the quantity available to a Prime Minister from which to draw.

As I say, the argument goes back many years. I am frustrated and angry about our current position because we have been crying out for these reforms for some years, but they can be done only in a consensual and thoughtful manner. The Bill leaves bits out, rushes things and tries to do it without all-party agreement, which makes it difficult. Many on the Conservative Front Bench, when in opposition or in government, have said that they recognise the importance of dealing with the number of Ministers. The noble Lord, Lord Tyler, and others have said, “We must wait for House of Lords reform”, but that is a very dangerous philosophy. Reform of the House of Lords will not be easy, not least because of strong feelings on the government Benches. Even if they think it will be easier than I do, the chances of getting this through at the same time will not necessarily be good. There will be that sort of battle all the time. This is so important that it ought to be linked in a Bill with the reduction in the size of the House of Commons. I do not know anyone either in the House of Commons in the past 20 years or in this House who has not recognised that if you reduce the size of the House of Commons, you ought to reduce the number of Ministers. I do not see how you can argue against that. If you are going to do it you should do it together, and in the same Bill.

[Lord Goldsmith]

I wonder whether my noble friend with his great experience in the other place can help the House. I have been puzzling about the intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, since he made it. I do not understand how changes in this House will increase the ability of Back-Benchers in the other place to hold the Government to account. Can my noble friend tell us whether it has anything at all to do with holding the Government to account in the democratically elected House of Commons?

[Lord Soley]

My noble and learned friend anticipates me to some extent. He is exactly right. I recognise the political reality that the two parties—the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives—have formed a coalition and have to agree to somehow stitch the Bill together. Of course, things get left out or it is difficult to change it. However, even the Liberal Democrats were arguing—and arguing strongly as I understand it—for a reduction in the number of Ministers, which makes it very hard to understand why it is not in this Bill now. It is not impossible. Instead, it is somehow being left to a change in the House of Lords; you get the feeling that one party or the other in the coalition is hoping that this will not happen or that will not happen and that then maybe they can get another part of the deal, and so on. If the coalition is that unstable, it is not going to last. My advice would be to try and get this in the Bill now or get a very strong commitment from the Government that it will be brought forward in another form before the House of Commons is reduced.

I want to go back to something that has already been said which is also very important. We tend to look at this simply in terms of the number of people on the government Front Bench. My noble friend Lord Howarth made the very important point that you have Front Benches in the other parties. All the other parties have Front-Bench speakers. All of them are thinking to their future to some extent. Inevitably, again, this reduces the power of the legislature to hold the Executive to account.

It will probably alarm some of my friends, but I considered at one stage that there was quite a strong case for having Ministers drawn from outside the House who could be brought into the House and cross-examined and questioned. That would really put the cat among the pigeons—an almost presidential system. You can make a number of interesting innovations with our constitution, although I certainly would not go too far down this road right now. I want to say and emphasise as strongly as I can that to reduce the size of the House of Commons without simultaneously reducing the size of the Government is an invitation to the Government to increase their power at the expense of the legislature. Whatever the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, thinks, there is no guarantee that he will get what he spoke about at a later stage when the House of Lords is changed, as my noble and learned friend Lord Goldsmith indicated in his intervention.

We have to bite on this bullet. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, recognises the importance of this argument because, when I was talking about where the figure of 600 came from in the previous debates about this, he indicated that we would come to this under this proposed new clause. I am waiting with anticipation for him to say, “Yes, you’re all right, I’ll accept it”. There is no reason why ideally he could not accept the proposed new clause or redraft it in some way, maybe coming back to the House with some variation which we would all look at, and there is absolutely no reason why he should not stand up and say, “I guarantee that we will bring in a reduction in the number of Ministers in the House of Commons before the figure of 600 is imposed on the House of Commons”. That is what this House is waiting to hear. It is what, as other people have said, has been promised all along about reducing the power of the Executive and so on, and it will not be delivered without a very strong commitment that the number of Ministers will be reduced before the figure of 600 is brought into the House of Commons.

I have been saying for some time that the two reasons given by a number of people from the Conservative Party over the years for the reduction to 600 has been, first, saving money and, secondly, the belief that the Labour Party gets too many seats in Parliament and the Conservative Party would get more. This is in a number of speeches, press statements and booklets written by Conservative Members which I quoted the other week. Andrew Tyrie wrote a good document back in 2004 for the Conservative Party—although, as I say, I did not agree with his statistics—saying that the figure should be reduced to either 600 or 550 over a period of five to 10 years. He had the good grace—as did most of the Conservative commentators—to say that this should be done in co-operation with the Labour Party, although the phrase I would prefer to see used is “after all-party agreement”, probably in a Speaker’s Conference. However, Andrew Tyrie also made the point, as have other Members on the Conservative side as well as the Labour side, that any reduction in the size of the House of Commons had to be matched by a reduction in the size of the payroll vote. In our new-found spirit of co-operation, I hope that the Minister—we have not quite got round to the negotiations yet, but I know that he is thinking about it—will indicate very strongly that everybody wants this measure really. To put it off until some hopeful date when the House of Lords is reformed is, frankly, at best the triumph of hope over experience and at worst disruptive and will not achieve the aim that most of us want.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Strathclyde]

I am glad to have got that right.

What about the ramifications of all of this? For example, it might seem an odd consequence if we were to reduce the number of Ministers in one House by increasing the number in the other, which is this House. That is the point that my noble friend Lord Tyler made and was right to make. He put it extremely well. In fact, there was an echo of what the noble Lord, Lord Myners, said about his experience in Government. Currently, of course, there are far fewer Ministers in the House of Lords than in the Commons but we ought to think carefully about how the distribution of Ministers might be affected by any changes to the size of the second Chamber or by the introduction of elected Members. That is something which the Government, in conjunction with the Opposition, are putting their mind to at the moment. There is also an argument about the separation of powers but I shall not make a case for that now.

It is possible that arguments might then be made for a smaller ministerial presence in the second Chamber, to allow for more Back-Bench voices. Equally, it is possible that arguments might be made for a greater ministerial presence to help the House to hold the Executive to account. Both arguments can be made—or neither—and we should wait for another opportunity before coming to a firm view on all of this. Ultimately, we want to be governed by the principle that the number of Ministers must be a function of need.

[Lord Soley]

The Minister has set the alarm bells ringing in my mind with his earlier phrase that we might not need to legislate at all. He then started talking about other options. He must know, from all his long experience, that the longer a Government are in power, the more the Prime Minister and that Government rely on the payroll vote because there are more disaffected people on the Back Benches. If he leaves this, it will not happen; we all know that. We need either to legislate on this or to give a very firm commitment that it is going to happen before the 600 figure is reached.

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, I would not necessarily compare all Governments with the standard of the previous one. My noble friend has made the case for a reduction in Ministers from the current number. It is most interesting but not one that we find entirely convincing. However, we do find it convincing to reduce the size of the Executive when we get to 600.

We should not forget the purpose of a ministerial presence in Parliament. We need sufficient Ministers to support the essential business of both Houses, to make Statements and answer Questions in both Houses, to introduce Bills and to contribute to debates. In fact, my noble friend Lord Norton made an interesting point when he said that no study has been made of whether there has been an increased workload for Ministers. In fact, the noble Lord, Lord Myners, spoke rather well about how unnecessary many of the things that Ministers do actually are. Perhaps there should be a study. I look to my noble friend Lord Norton for that. He will know the kind of people who ought to be able to make that study. I am sure the noble and learned Lord would not wish to rush to legislate until we had at least seen a little evidence from such a report.

There are some entertaining examples in all of this and it is amusing to look at the role of Ministers in each House. But there is a very serious underlying point and that is the fear that the proportion of the Executive will increase as the number of Members of Parliament falls. I understand that there is an impatience in this Committee to know how the Government will address that fact. I am trying to be as helpful as I can but there is a limit to the helpfulness. We have said that we will address this issue and we will, but there is plenty of time to legislate before 2015 if we need to. The Minister for Political and Constitutional Reform told the Constitution Committee, of which my noble friend and the noble and learned Lord are members, that we will bring forward proposals during this Parliament. That is in good time as the reduction in the size of the other place will not yet have taken effect. I hope that is a sufficient reassurance, repeated here, and that it will satisfy the noble and learned Lord enough to feel able to withdraw the amendment.