Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Lord Soley and Lord Martin of Springburn

Monday 10th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Soley]

I most certainly can. What is more, I can go a bit further. At our meetings to discuss how to handle the Bill, there was a clear view that we should not filibuster. I say that categorically and give my word of honour. There was not one occasion when anybody supported the idea of filibustering. What we have seen this afternoon, sadly, is the reverse of a filibuster. A government party—or two parties—refused to take part in a serious debate about the constitutional matter of a Government taking on themselves the power to change the size of Parliament. That is a major issue. I do not want to make it directly relevant to this debate, which is becoming slightly off-side. I will simply say—and I will leave it on this point—that in a situation where a Government are allowed to change the size of a Parliament, you cannot deny that it is a major constitutional issue. The voting system is not. The voting system and even registration are not major constitutional issues. They are very important but they are not constitutional issues in the sense that changing the size of Parliament is.

[Lord Martin of Springburn]

Compared to the noble Lord, I am still an apprentice in the procedures of this House, but should we not be talking about the amendment before us? That might be the best thing to do.

[Lord Soley]

My noble friend still thinks that he is in his previous role. If he was in that role here, he would have ruled me out of order, which would be quite right. However, we do not have that system.

[Lord Martin of Springburn]

The noble Lord was the chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party. He would never have allowed any Minister in the Labour Party to tell Members not to speak. That would have been an invitation for them to speak.

[Lord Soley]

I am not sure that I wholly agree with that. I certainly would not encourage people to speak, but let us be clear. Whips at all times have said, “If you speak on this from the other side, you will be here very late tonight. Alternatively, we won’t get the Bill passed in time”. What matters to the Government, on this Bill more than any other, is time. That is what this is about. We need to be very clear about it, which is why I say that what happened earlier was a filibuster in reverse. It was a silent filibuster, if you like. That does not alter the fact that, on this issue, my reason for arguing and the reason why we diverted is precisely that the registration of citizens is important in the voting process. In the context of a Bill that is incredibly important constitutionally because of the power to alter the size of Parliament, you cannot argue that this is irrelevant. It is an important part of it.

The Government need to show some willingness to move on these issues. If we agree that registration is not as good as it ought to be in this country and accept that at the moment the Electoral Commission does not have as much power and authority as one would like it to have to instruct local authorities, there is a duty on the Government to do more to make sure that representation on the electoral roll is as good as it can be. I would expect leadership from the Government on that. I would expect them to stand up and say, “Yes, we will do this and we will discuss with other political parties how to deliver it”. That is the sort of statement on which we need to get some cross-party agreement for a very important Bill.