Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Tyler Excerpts

Wednesday 16th February 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick]

My Lords, I voted for the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, the first time, and I intend to vote for it again today. It is true that there was a significant majority in the Commons yesterday, but the result disguised the fact that 20 Conservatives voted for the amendment and 25 abstained. The large majority was accounted for to a considerable extent by the nationalists voting in support of the Government.

I was shocked by the brevity and paucity of the debate. Very few Back-Benchers were able to get in. One point that was made—as it was in this House—was that we have not had thresholds in referendums before, with the exception of the first referendum on Scottish devolution. Of course, we have had very few referendums in this country. Although the first was as long ago as the first referendum on Scottish devolution, they are still something of an innovation. I was struck by the argument made by one Conservative Back-Bencher yesterday that perhaps there should always be a threshold in constitutional referendums, as there is in so many countries of the world. My noble friend Lord Strathclyde mentioned that France does not have this threshold, but it is about the only country in Europe that does not. All other major countries do and, as my noble friend Lord Lawson said, the United States has a different sort of threshold via representatives and state legislatures.

The Minister in the Commons—and my noble and learned friend today—said that a threshold would give people an incentive to vote no. First, that cannot be asserted with absolute clarity. One can argue it both ways. A threshold gives a very positive incentive for people to vote yes if they are worried about the turnout. Secondly, somebody who is really against the proposition would have to worry that the threshold might be met; he would have to know what the turnout would have to be if he was really certain about the situation.

Leaving that aside, it is not unjustified or unfair that if there is great apathy, the proposition should fall. That seems common sense and reasonable. The proposition has been put a number of times that there might be a 38:1 vote that falls just short of the 40 per cent threshold. In Germany, there was a referendum with a majority of 10:1, but because the turnout was only 10 per cent the proposition was rejected—and quite right, too. Constitutional change affects us all; it lays down the rules of the game by which politics is conducted and by which we representatives live; and it should be made only when it is clearly the wish of the people that it should happen. There are great dangers in making major constitutional changes which have uncertain consequences. People who are in favour of AV argue that its effects would be this or that, but the truth is that what would happen is highly unpredictable. I do not believe that we should take this leap into the dark unless there is a proven desire for change supported by the British people giving it their full-hearted consent.

[Lord Tyler]

My Lords, I am not sure whether the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, intends to speak on this. I hope that he does because it would be very important for your Lordships’ House to hear precisely what the attitude of Her Majesty’s Opposition is. He and I have enjoyed each other’s company over many long hours throughout the passage of this Bill. I am not going to give him my views but I should like him to comment on the views of his colleagues. In the other place, Mr Christopher Bryant said:

“I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman about thresholds in referendums because, broadly, they are not a good idea”.—[Official Report, Commons, 2/11/10; col. 846.]

There is nothing there about indicative referendums or definitive referendums but all referendums or referenda. I am disappointed not to see the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, in his place, because all of us who attended the long hours of Committee and Report very much respect the work that he has done on the Bill. He said just last week on Report,

“I do not support a threshold”,

and, again, there is no definition of what the threshold might be. He went on to say:

“Thresholds are arbitrary, they introduce bias, they distort debate and they have absurd consequences”.—[Official Report, 7/2/11; col. 106.]

Amen to every single one of those. He then argued his point in detail. I very much hope that if the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, is going to respond to this debate, he will explain why he completely disagrees with his noble friend Lord Lipsey, who, as I think he will agree, has studied this Bill more than any of us.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

My Lords, I do not wish to detain the House but I agree with every word that the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, said. I do not think that in all the years we have engaged in exchanges I have ever been able to say that before, but I certainly agree with him now. He offers a warning to this House. I am not sure whether noble Lords will have had a chance to read the debate in the House of Commons. The Minister’s speech was extraordinary because it did not address the substance of the amendment before him. It addressed the idea of having a drop-dead threshold. In fact, he made exactly the same speech as Mr Bill Cash made on his own amendment, which would have introduced a 40 per cent cut-off point. If it did not reach 40 per cent, that would be the end of it.

With reference to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, I am very conscious that I am not elected and therefore I do not want to challenge the elected House, the House of Commons. However, this amendment has the effect of leaving it to the House of Commons to decide, and therefore it is very difficult to say that this House should not cajole the other House into putting itself in the driving seat on a major constitutional change.

I find it very difficult to understand why my coalition colleagues have not accepted this amendment. I shall not embarrass them by naming them but they have suggested to me that this is because of the coalition agreement. My noble friends Lord Lawson and Lord Lamont have dealt with that point. This amendment does not in any way threaten the coalition agreement, and I think we have had confirmation from the Front Bench that an amendment of this kind is not contrary to the coalition agreement. When I raised this matter with senior colleagues, they said, “Yes, it’s not in the agreement but it’s what we have agreed with the Liberals”. If we are to have agreements, they have to be transparent, and if our parliamentary democracy is to function, people need to know what agreements have been made behind closed doors and they need to look at the arguments.

I asked another senior Liberal strategist—again, I shall not name them in order to avoid embarrassing them—what they thought the turnout might be in London, where there are no elections. All the pressure on the Bill has been focused on having the referendum at the same time as the Scottish parliamentary elections and the local government elections, and I think that that is a bit dodgy. It is an attempt to try to get a higher turnout. That suggests to me that people are worried about the turnout. As my noble friend Lord Lawson said, if you do not know what you think about something complicated, the wise advice is not to participate in it—not to express a view. We are 10 weeks away from this referendum. Have we seen any of the arguments? Do we believe that the electorate have had a chance to consider all the arguments, or that that is likely to happen with Easter intervening?