Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Touhig Excerpts

Monday 10th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lipsey]

I made my criticisms of Part 1 during its passage. We have another chance to consider it on Report. I think it can be improved but I am broadly in favour of everything about it except the referendum date. That is my broad position. It is also my position that Part 2 needs much more improvement than Part 1. I am grateful to my noble friend for giving me the chance to make that point.

Without absorbing too much of the Committee’s time with interventions, perhaps I may be forgiven if I take one example of the kind of issue drawn from the long and comprehensive list in my noble friend’s amendment on which really considered inquiry and judgment is needed. That is the number of MPs. The figure was snatched out of the air. Half the time Ministers admit that. It should not have been snatched out of the air. There are lots of facts that are relevant. It is true that since 1950 the number of MPs has grown by 3 per cent. It is also true that the electorate have grown in the same period by 25 per cent. That is to say that every MP has 22 per cent more constituents to service. On the servicing of constituents, I have never been in another place but I did work for a Member of another place, Anthony Crosland, in 1972, and if we received 30 constituency letters per week we were astonished. They were dealt with by his constituency secretary and his local party without difficulty. Now I am told that 300 letters is the average and there is much more communication in other ways.

The research think tank, Democratic Audit, has produced some other facts that should be weighed. For example, it turns out not to be true, as the Government have argued, that we have vastly more representatives than other countries. We have barely more than France and practically the same as Italy. But other countries benefit from having far more local elected representatives to deal with a great many other things that our Members of Parliament have to deal with themselves. Whether we should go down that road is another matter but that is what was concluded. Then there is the question that has been raised briefly in this debate about the danger of cutting the number of MPs but keeping the number of Ministers precisely as it is. The Executive become even more dominant in our politics and in our political culture and even more able to get their way with the minimum amount of criticism and fuss.

I do not say that these arguments are conclusive and that the number of MPs should stay as it is, be reduced or increased. I understand the populist wave of emotion that causes people to think that the number of MPs should be decreased. It may be that an objective inquiry concludes that that is right. I do not express any opinion on those matters at this stage. All I say to the Committee is that it is surely reasonable that arguments and facts such as these should be independently weighed and considered before a final verdict is reached and before legislation making it the law of the land is forced through Parliament.

[Lord Touhig]

The Committee should be grateful to my noble friend Lord Wills for his amendment because it gives it and the coalition partners the chance to take stock and reflect on this seventh day in Committee on the Bill. If they were to adopt the proposals in the amendment that my noble friend has moved perhaps we would start to move towards some consensus on major constitutional change. That would be the common-sense approach, although I well remember as a teenager, my mother used to say to me, “Son, in life you’ll find that sense isn’t that common”.

My brief remarks all relate to subsection (2)(b) of the proposed new clause, which says that this inquiry would take,

“into account the need to maintain the Union”.

This is a matter I referred to at Second Reading because I believe that the Bill as constructed is a threat to this precious thing we have: the union of the nations in these islands. The noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, briefly referred to the Bill’s impact on Wales, where it would reduce the number of Members of Parliament by 25 per cent. If the Parliament of the United Kingdom treats Wales in this way, it will have an adverse effect on the view, Wales takes of the Union.

Welsh is the first language of the majority of people in five parliamentary seats in Wales—Ynys Môn, Arfon, Dwyfor Meirionnydd, Ceredigion, and Carmarthen East and Dinefwr. Wales is the only part of the Union where a substantial number of people—some 20 per cent of the population—speak two languages. If my noble friend’s amendment were accepted, it would at least give an opportunity to look at the impact that this legislation has on the representation of people whose first language is Welsh in this Parliament of the United Kingdom. Only Wales has a big linguistic issue so far as the rest of the union is concerned.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Touhig]

I endorse the point made by the noble Lord. As part of the structure of our unwritten constitution—thank God we do not have a written constitution—it is important that we recognise that elements of the Union have to be taken into account. I made the point at Second Reading that in California, tens of millions of people send two senators to the United States’ Senate as does a state like Wyoming which has fewer than half a million people. That needs to be taken into account. If my noble friend’s proposals were accepted, the Government would then have a chance to reflect more sensibly on how we should proceed with these major reforms.

Welsh representation in Parliament goes back to the 16th century, although there is evidence that in 1322 and 1327—700 years ago—Wales was invited to send 24 Members of Parliament to the House of Commons. The Bill as proposed would give Wales just 30 MPs. The regular reviews of parliamentary constituencies have their origins in the House of Commons (Redistribution of Seats) Act 1944. The Act instructed the Boundary Commission for Wales to look initially at abnormally large constituencies but also to conduct a review of all seats with a view to keeping them under constant review. The rules for redistribution for the initial review stated that Wales should have not fewer than 35 seats and that rule remained in place for the first periodical review published in 1954. The second periodical review in 1958 stated that Wales should have not fewer than 35 seats. The fourth and fifth periodical reviews did much the same.

We shall perhaps get into this wider debate as we progress this Bill through Committee. I believe strongly that to treat Wales in this way is a threat to the Union. We will have a referendum in the spring on more powers for the Welsh Assembly. Whatever people’s views—they are entitled to them and I am sure they will express them—it is putting the cart before the horse to say that Wales will have fewer seats whether or not the people of Wales decide to transfer more powers to the Assembly in Cardiff. It is also offensive to people in Wales whose first language is Welsh to say that it does not matter if the Welsh language is well represented in the House of Commons. The point was made in evidence given to the Welsh Affairs Committee in the other place that this would adversely impact upon Welsh-speaking areas.

I urge the Government to take great consideration of my noble friend’s amendment. It would give us a chance to reflect and gain some consensus. I say to the Government that I think that the people of Wales will take offence at being treated in a way in which no other part of the union is being treated. If the Bill is enacted in its present form, one in four Members of Parliament from Wales would cease to go to the other place. That is disgraceful and, I believe, would be injurious to the Union.

Both the Conservative and Unionist Party, which once prided itself on being the party of the union, and the Liberal Democrats, which is the party of Lloyd George—Lloyd George would be turning in his grave at what is being proposed—need time to reflect on the issue. If they would take on board those points in the way that my noble friend’s amendment would allow, we could perhaps reach some consensus. I say to the Government: “Do not be so offensive to the Welsh people”.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

I support Amendment 54ZA, in the name of my noble friend Lord Wills, because it would give us an opportunity to put together the bigger picture of constitutional reform, in the absence of such a picture from the Government. The amendment would help the Government greatly if it offered us an insight into their thinking across the range of constitutional reform proposals and how all the measures that we are debating might fit together. Indeed, the amendment would allow that picture to be put together in such a way that no one would even voice a suspicion that the measures were being put together in any kind of partisan political interest.

For such significant constitutional reforms, I believe that it would be in the interests of the country for us to start by setting out the roles and responsibilities—as mentioned in subsection (2)(b) of the new clause that Amendment 54ZA would insert—of all our representative bodies, starting with Parliament. Starting with the relationship between the legislative and executive functions in both Chambers and taking into account the representative function of the other place, we could then go on to examine, in the language of subsection (2)(b) of the proposed new clause,

“the proper role of MPs in their constituencies and in Parliament”.

Having established that point and having had some consultation and agreement on those very basic issues around how Parliament and our democracy should work, we could then work through the issue of Parliament’s relationship with other Parliaments and Assemblies, including the European Parliament, as mentioned by my noble friend Lady Hayter, and the Welsh Assembly and Scottish Parliament, as mentioned by my noble friend Lord Touhig and others. The role of local authorities could also be considered, as my noble friend Lord Beecham set out.

Once we had established those sorts of relationships, we could then discuss what a sensible fixed term for Parliament might be. Instead, we are to consider in due course the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill in isolation. Such a piecemeal approach to legislation does not enable us to see the bigger picture.

Once we had established all those matters, we might then be able to think about what the appropriate size of each Chamber in Parliament should be. Having established the appropriate size of each Chamber, as referred to in subsection (2)(c) of the new clause proposed by Amendment 54ZA—indeed, we will discuss later tonight if we are lucky, or on Wednesday otherwise, my Amendment 63YA that also deals with the relationship between the size of the membership of this place and that of the other place—we could then discuss, in the context of the committee of inquiry that my noble friend Lord Wills proposes, the size and composition of each House and how each House would get there. Unfortunately, Part 1 of the Bill, which we have already debated, anticipates the need to ask the question about the alternative vote through a referendum, but that is a piecemeal approach. We should be doing this as part of a much wider picture that we could all understand, so that we can all make judgments accordingly.

Of course, in thinking about the composition of both Chambers, we could then get into some of the more interesting and thorny issues, such as that which came up in Questions today on whether a reformed Second Chamber should include a place for the Lords spiritual and what value is provided by having the voice of independent expertise of the Cross-Benchers, whom we all know and respect. In a radio programme that was broadcast last night, I was fortunate enough to be able to discuss these matters with the noble Lord, Lord Norton, and the noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, and all three of us agreed that there is an absence of that bigger picture at the moment. We are having to discuss and debate—at great length, I am afraid—these issues in isolation. If we had a more coherent vision of where things are going on constitutional reform, perhaps that would save time. The phrase “more haste, less speed” comes to mind in the context of the Government’s approach to these matters.

I have one or two things to say about the phrase,

“the proper role of MPs in their constituencies”,

in subsection (2)(b) of the proposed new clause, because there has been some debate from some on this side—they would be on this side, as there has not been much debate from anywhere else, except for an important pair of contributions from the Cross Benches—about the characteristics of different constituencies for Members of Parliament. For two Parliaments, I was fortunate enough to represent the constituency of South Dorset, which has both very urban areas, some of which were quite deprived, and very rural areas. It was notable to me that the characteristics of the caseload that I had in the different parts of my constituency were profoundly different.

When I was holding surgeries in the borough of Weymouth and Portland, I predominantly had housing cases. I also had a fair amount of immigration cases and a fair amount relating to problems with the tax credit system and the child support system. I had far fewer of those sorts of cases over in the Purbeck end of my constituency, where things such as planning would come up much more regularly along with fundamental issues about the rurality and isolation of that part of the country, including the islands that I represented. Brownsea and one or two others were a real struggle for me to get to because I had to go through several constituencies to catch the ferry to visit my constituents.

That leads me to make some final comments about subsection (2)(g) of this proposed new clause, on examining,

“the arguments surrounding the statistical basis on which electoral areas are … constructed”.

I could seek to detain the Committee by talking through some of the excellent arguments in the Electoral Commission document that I referred to earlier when I intervened on my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours, but I will save that. Suffice it to say that in my own experience, having represented that seat of South Dorset for two Parliaments, drawing boundaries in such a way that they do not take account of such basic things as the ability of people to get around creates problems.

For me to visit Brownsea, which I was able to do on only a few occasions during the time I represented that constituency given that it had only about six electors on it, I had to travel about an hour and a half from my home at one end of the constituency to get a ferry. The ferry would go every now and then and ultimately I would get there. It took all day to meet one or two constituents who might have issues that they wanted me to address. Thank goodness for the telephone, and in this case for e-mail, although some of the comments that we have had about the amount of correspondence that Members of Parliament have show how much is generated by e-mail now. It is quite astonishing.

Equally, the main industrial estate where the vast majority of my constituents in Weymouth worked was not in my constituency but in the neighbouring constituency of West Dorset, because it sat just the wrong side of the local authority boundary. I certainly welcome some of the freedom that the Bill might offer the Boundary Commission to cut across local authority boundaries. Brownsea Island is in Dorset and Poole is in Poole. That is why Brownsea Island was lumped into South Dorset. Making some sense of all of that would certainly be welcome, but to have some kind of very crude system that is based only on numbers and not on constituencies of interest would be very retrograde.

That is why the Government are being offered a fantastic opportunity to accept this amendment from my noble friend Lord Wills, which has clearly been thought through in some detail, as demonstrated by its length. It gives them the opportunity to allow us, as a country, to think about these constitutional reforms in their entirety and not to see individual measures rushed through which I am sure we would all live to regret.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Touhig Excerpts

Monday 20th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lipsey]

I entirely agree with my noble friend. Indeed it is not just the poll tax; there are a number of factors the whole time that cause people to avoid anything that identifies them as individuals and which they think the authorities could catch up with. It may be for bad reasons: they may perhaps be illegally in the country or fear they are here illegally; or good reasons: that they fall for some of the liberal myths about the nature of the modern state and think that they may all end up in prison if they are identified. I do not take it by any means for granted that the improvement in the electoral register will continue over time.

It is rather like opinion polls. Opinion polls measure less and less because fewer and fewer people are willing to answer the questions because they are frightened that they may be held to task for the answers they give. There is therefore a serious risk of the deterioration of the electoral registers, which makes it all the more wrong that this Bill should have the exact number on the electoral register and the exact number of people in each constituency as its target and also makes it right that, in so far as we can improve these things at all, the amendment moved by my noble friend should be adopted to make them as good as they can be. But that will never be very good.

[Lord Touhig]

My Lords, I should like to share with noble Lords my own experience of the problems of electoral registration. Prior to the 2005 general election, when I was in the other place, my honourable friend Wayne David, my neighbouring colleague and MP for Caerphilly, and I were absolutely staggered to find that the new register had come out and our electorates had dropped by thousands—I think more than 8,000. We had a meeting with the electoral returning officer who was an official of his association and he explained to us that across the country electoral registration officers were pursuing different approaches to compiling the electoral register. Some were doing canvasses, some were sending out letters, some were sending out post cards and so on and so forth. The real top and tail of it was this: the council was simply not providing sufficient money for the electoral registration officer to carry out an annual canvass.

With the best will in the world, rolling registers have helped but they are more of a convenience. I do not think there is a great deal of evidence to show that many more people have actually registered. I am a bit concerned about individual registration—

[Lord Rennard]

The noble Lord suggests that perhaps few people have taken advantage of the rolling register. Does he not recall that in April—the month of the general election campaign—many hundreds of thousands of people, particularly young people, used this rolling register facility to register to vote in the general election? All the reasons why people do not wish to be on the register may apply in the future, while this year, because of the general election, many more people applied for inclusion on it. That is why 1 December might be a very good date on which to base the boundary review.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

Before my noble friend responds, will he consider what those young people, many of them probably students, will think, having got on to the register and possibly having voted Liberal Democrat, possibly because of tuition fees; and how they may now feel about being added to the register?

[Lord Touhig]

Somewhat disappointed. Taking up the point of the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, I am sure large numbers of people—large numbers of young people—registered. At the time of a general election, for reasons that could be national or local, people always speed up their registration. However, I am not entirely convinced that a rolling register will improve the total number of people registered. As I say, I am a little concerned that individual registration might deter people from registering. If it is to be done by a canvass but the whole family is not in the house, what will the canvasser do? Should he or she just take the names of one or two people and register them, while the other three—perhaps grown-up children—do not get registered?

My point, coming back to my own experience, is that this simply will not improve registration. I appreciate that our economy and our country are in a difficult financial situation at present. However, registration will not improve unless central government provides the funding and directs local authorities to carry out an annual door-to-door canvass. In the past when we had such door-to-door canvasses, registration was, I believe, much higher. Unless we go back to that and provide the resources for it, it will not happen. My noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours made the point that the resources are lacking. My experience with my local council is simply that, with the best will in the world, it was not going to put in the resources necessary for an individual annual canvass. Unless we grasp that nettle, we will not improve the total number of people on the register.