Recall of MPs Bill

Debate between Lord Tyler and Lord Elystan-Morgan

Wednesday 14th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tyler]

I shall assist my noble friend briefly on this because I think there is a potential anomaly, as the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, says. What it stems from is that the suspension that is handed down from the Chair by the Speaker, the Deputy Speaker or whoever may be in the Chair at that time is, as I understand it, always related to behaviour in the Chamber. A suspension which is recommended to the House by the Standards Committee is, as has been said by a number of noble Lords, on the basis of a commissioner’s investigation of serious wrongdoing. The committee then decides whether that wrongdoing is an appropriate decision and then decides, again on recommendation, what the verdict should be. That is quite distinctly different.

It may be that there have been circumstances—I cannot put my hand on my heart and say—where the Speaker has laid down such a very long suspension. Throwing the Mace around in the Chamber was the big case, was it not? I do not know whether that exceeded 10 days. I think that the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Bolton, is right to say that it would be very exceptional for the Speaker, in circumstances of that sort, to insist on the suspension of a Member in any way that would trigger the 20-day limit—but it might trigger the 10-day limit. That is an additional reason for this House to ask the other House to think again about the number of days’ suspension that should trigger the recall procedure.

I do not know whether I entirely answered the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, but perhaps I have given my noble friend on the Front Bench time to think about it at least.

[Lord Elystan-Morgan]

I shall make a point which I think illustrates the matter raised by the noble Lord, Lord Tyler. Into which category would Tam Dalyell’s case fall? Was it bringing the House in toto into disrepute or was it something in the Chamber? There must be a situation where one category bifurcates the other.

[Lord Tyler]

I do not know whether I am entitled to interrupt myself when I was interrupting my noble friend who has a lot more experience than me, but I think the answer is that at that stage the current procedure did not exist. Previously, the Speaker was the only person who could take that decision. Now, I think such a matter would be referred to the Standards Committee.

[Lord Elystan-Morgan]

That is technically correct.

Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill

Debate between Lord Tyler and Lord Elystan-Morgan

Wednesday 15th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tyler]

My Lords, my name is also on the amendment. I will make a slightly different point from those of other noble Lords who have spoken to it.

Public service in a parliamentary democracy is an honourable activity. I look around the House, and I could say exactly the same thing about the other place, and see a great majority of people who give of their time, talents and careers, and sacrifice their family life, to public service. That is something that we should recognise as being an extremely important part of our civic life.

Yet it is absolutely true, as noble Lords have already said, that it is somehow thought that to be active in politics is less reputable than, for example, supporting a charitable or voluntary organisation; many of us do that as well. That is exaggerated, underlined and repeated every time one of us contributes something to our local church or favourite charity and gets respect from the tax system for so doing, in exactly the way that the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, has described. If politics is an honourable activity, why are we not allowing our fellow citizens to recognise that and, in their own way, be more active participants through the gift aid system?

It is not just because of the way in which politics has been supported in recent years by bigger and bigger cheques from smaller and smaller numbers of people, but also because millions of people feel disenchanted by and disconnected from the business of politics, that we have reached such a low reputation in the public mind. It is far more important to engage and incentivise millions of people than to engage and incentivise millions of pounds. In those circumstances, it is perhaps worth reminding your Lordships’ House, in addition to the points already made by my noble friend Lord Hamilton, that the taxpayer already makes a huge contribution to the business of politics. For example, the Royal Mail free delivery of election addresses for every single party and contestant in the European parliamentary election in May will cost the taxpayer something between £30 million and £40 million. The sums that the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, is referring to are a drop in the ocean compared to that. Yet it is far more likely to engage the individual citizen in the business of politics than the necessity for every single elector to receive a separate delivery from each of the parties.

It is perfectly true that there are already a number of proposals for a wider reform of the funding of political parties. Indeed, last year, I, along with colleagues from two of the other parties, produced a draft Bill that would have incorporated the latest proposals of the Committee on Standards in Public Life on this wider issue. We will not move in that direction between now and the general election but, in this modest way, we could put down a marker that we believe that the actual, practical financial support of our fellow citizens for the business of politics is just as honourable as their support for a charity or a church. It would be a very welcome development.

[Lord Elystan-Morgan]

I feel deeply privileged to belong to such a broad church as is suggested by this amendment. I little thought that I would have the privilege of standing in the same rank as the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, and the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, but I am utterly sincere in the support that I give to the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours. When he very respectably sought to accost me some days ago to support this matter, I had misconceived the situation. I thought he was seeking to place political parties on a charitable basis, which of course would have been utterly improper. The definition of charity, however impractical it may be in the modern period, is well laid down in the statute of Elizabeth I and in the authority of Re Pemsel, which I still remember from my student days.

That is not at all what the amendment is about. It is a question of what fuel there should be available in a democracy to any political movement. That fuel, I suggest, is the united will of millions of people, of government, opposition or a third force, or a fourth, for that matter. That fuel is the desire and hopes of millions of individual people, possibly for tens of thousands of different reasons, but it is the amalgam of that united force that gives politics significance.

If you interfere with that system from above by the injection of vast amounts of money, you corrupt that system. It was Oliver Goldsmith, in the 18th century, who had these words:

“Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,

Where wealth accumulates, and men decay”.

In this case, wealth will diminish completely the significance of democratic politics. Now, we will say, “That is highly idealistic and immensely impractical”. It may well be, but we are deeply grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, who is a brave, iconoclastic, reforming character and to whom the House owes a great debt.

In America, in the two elections that President Obama has won, it may very well be that there were tactical and highly materialistic reasons why he chose to rely on millions of people rather than on the support of a few wealthy, almighty subjects. Be that as it may, it gave those campaigns impetus and significance. That is exactly what this amendment proposes. It may very well be that the amounts that are mentioned could be debated high and low. That does not matter at all. The significance is that we wish to see politics as an amalgam of millions of people with desires supported, we hope, by the substantial subvention of most of those people.

Parliament: Elected House of Lords

Debate between Lord Tyler and Lord Elystan-Morgan

Monday 16th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Elystan-Morgan]

Does the Minister accept that even if there were to be no formal change in the powers of this House, in practice a wholly or largely elected House would find it very difficult to show the sensitive respect for the primacy of the House of Commons that this Chamber does with, from time to time, a few justifiable aberrations?

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, it is a good point that a wholly elected House may well wish to use the powers of this House in a more assertive way and no doubt that is one of the issues a Joint Committee would wish to look at.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Lord Tyler and Lord Elystan-Morgan

Monday 7th February 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tyler]

My Lords, does the noble Lord accept that in those circumstances an abstention counts as a no vote and so discourages participation in the whole exercise?

[Lord Elystan-Morgan]

I readily accept that an abstention can count as a no vote. Whether it would in most cases, with great respect to the noble Lord, I do not think anybody can say. I am quite certain that it is wrong to assume that an abstention is always equivalent to a no vote. That is my proposition. I do not think that I have anything useful to add to the matter, save to say that what is at issue is the credibility of the parliamentary system—credibility that would be greatly damaged if some provision of this nature were not resorted to.

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

My Lords, this is an important amendment, which goes to the legitimacy of any change to the voting system. First, I do not believe that the stages in the argument are substantially in dispute. The referendum deals with an important constitutional issue and I have not heard anyone say that we should not have a referendum. There are people who object to referendums but, by and large, if our country is having referendums, this is an issue to have one on because it changes the voting system.

Secondly, this is an unusual Bill in so far as a referendum is concerned because it provides for a compulsory referendum, not an advisory one. By that I mean that if the vote is passed, the consequence is not that Parliament would then produce another Act of Parliament, as it did with the Scotland Act and the Wales Act, but that there is automaticity in that the Minister is required to bring forward an order that would automatically, in the light of the vote, give effect to the change in the voting system.

Thirdly, the effect of the provisions is that if, for example, there was a turnout of 25 per cent in the referendum, which no one regards as an outlandish percentage, you could end up with what is regarded by all as a major constitutional change being produced by 12.5 per cent of the country supporting it.

Fourthly, the reason why a referendum is required is that in constitutional change of this importance—and no one disputes its importance—it should be harder rather than easier than normal to effect such a change.

Fifthly, this is a change that has the support of the Liberal Democrats, while the Labour Party is divided on it and the Conservatives are against it. The effect is that it is almost certain that unlike with, for example, the Scotland Bill, the Wales Bill and the European common market in the early 1970s, Parliament would vote in favour of these changes. That means that, if there is no threshold, you have a situation where, far from it being harder to bring about this constitutional change, it may well be easier than it would have been with a normal Act of Parliament.

The noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, said that if you ended up in a situation where the referendum was passed by 12.5 per cent of the electorate, which would be the position, the legitimacy of the change would be considerably in doubt. I agree with that. It would—I quote the noble Lord—“eat like acid” at its legitimacy and put our voting system in play for whoever next forms the Government. There needs to be some protection to ensure that a major constitutional change such as this is not easier to make than through a normal Act of Parliament.

I am aware of the history of this matter, which is coloured by the threshold that was inserted in the 1978 Bill in the House of Commons. At the Committee stage, there was an interesting debate on that, during which George Cunningham, then the Member of Parliament for Islington South and Finsbury, in a very powerful speech persuaded Parliament that it would be wrong to make such a major change without there being a threshold.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Lord Tyler and Lord Elystan-Morgan

Monday 24th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tyler]

It does not do that; it provides completely new criteria, which would presumably change over time. That is not clear from the amendment. The amendment is defective, even in the terms in which the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, has proposed it.

[Lord Elystan-Morgan]

My Lords, this amendment is not confined to Brecon and Radnorshire, as I accept. It removes a colossal and monstrous injustice as far as the whole concept of a constituency is concerned. What is a constituency? What should a constituency be? I suggest that it should be, first and foremost, a community of interest that is acceptable in relation to the division of the United Kingdom into various parliamentary constituencies. Sometimes this will mean that one has to draw rather artificial lines on a map. In many cases, it will mean that one must respect ancient communities that have been there for a very long time. If you can superimpose your model on to those ancient communities, you should do so. That is what parliamentary representation is about.

In relation to Brecon and Radnorshire, it is one of the clear absurdities of a situation where one looks at the whole question of representation through the wrong end of the telescope. This piece of legislation says that you should look at representation from the viewpoint of the Member of Parliament and the number of constituents that he has. No, my Lords: you should look at it from the other end of the telescope—from the end of the ordinary constituent, who asks himself, “How accessible is my Member of Parliament to me?”. If you ask that question, you are likely to get a more reasonable and just result.

The whole question of how Wales is to be dealt with in this situation will, perhaps, have to wait for another day or two as far as this debate is concerned, but I lay down a marker. Do you think it right that Wales should lose 25 per cent of its seats, when the United Kingdom, by reduction from 650 to 600 seats, loses 7.7 per cent? Wales is not a region; it is a national community. We shall come back to that question again and again. I repeat: the whole issue, essentially, is looked at not from the viewpoint of the Member of Parliament vis-à-vis his constituents, but from the viewpoint of the individual constituent vis-à-vis the Member of Parliament.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Lord Tyler and Lord Elystan-Morgan

Monday 6th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tyler]

I can answer the noble Lord, as it happens, because I have very good brief. That Bill started its progress through the House of Commons on 28 October 1997 and was not completed until well into 1998, so it is a very similar situation to the present one. I go a step further, which is why I hope we are going to get a contribution from the opposition Front Bench. Amendment 12 specifies that this referendum should take place on the same day as the mayoral and Assembly elections in London in 2012. What is right for the goose is surely right for the gander. How can we possibly argue, as Members opposite did for hours the other night—it seemed interminable—that somehow the Scots are not capable of taking this decision on the same day when London has done so in the past, and there is a proposal, which has been supported by at least some Members opposite, to do so again in 2012? I stand up for the Scots as a fellow Celt. I think they are quite capable of taking this decision on the same day, and I hope your Lordships’ House will take the same view.

[Lord Elystan-Morgan]

My Lords, there is a fallacy in the argument of the noble Lord, Lord Tyler. There are certainly many arguments for holding these elections on the same day as elections in Scotland, Wales and England, and there are many arguments against. My point is limited to this issue. Why did Her Majesty’s Government think for a moment that it was right to come to a final determination on this matter without consulting the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly? It seems to me, looking at it either with naivety or with remorseless logic, that it was either a case of negligence or a studied discourtesy. Which was it?

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Lord Tyler and Lord Elystan-Morgan

Monday 15th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Elystan-Morgan]

I am much obliged to the noble Lord. The fifth point of William Lovett’s charter was equal-sized constituencies. Whether he meant it literally is another matter; he was applying his mind to the question of Old Sarum having, I think, seven people living in it and one Member of Parliament while Manchester had two MPs. At the same time, of course, along the same avenue of thought—trying to make Members more answerable to the public—the noble Lord will remember what the sixth point was: annual general elections. Thank God it never came to that.

[Lord Tyler]

My Lords, I should not have gone so far into the issue of the Chartists; the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, is an expert on everything that can be taken literally. I do not wish to pursue him down that course. Perhaps I should say, though, that I represented North Cornwall, and one of the rotten boroughs in that constituency was Bossiney, of which Sir Francis Drake was the rotten borough Member. I think that here were only two electors, one of whom might have been himself.

We in this House would be incredibly unwise to subscribe to the hubris in the other House about alleged gerrymandering, led ad nauseam—I have followed this both in print and in person—by Mr Chris Bryant. At best this was misplaced and, at worst, deliberately misleading. At present, Mr Bryant has 51,554 constituents. I had over 87,000 constituents when I represented North Cornwall. If ever there was a gerrymander, that is it. That is something to which we must surely attach a principle, and it is justifiable to do so.

Since the Bill is about voters and their relationship with Members of Parliament, though, we need to look in detail at how Part 2 will be implemented. There must be a vital role in your Lordships’ House for revising that. Having represented Cornish constituencies for some 14 years, I know that special connection between MPs and their constituents. For years people campaign in an area, helping constituents or putative constituents and hoping to earn their trust. We must be careful that the Bill ensures that those links, those distinct local ties, are enabled to stay in place. The Deputy Prime Minister clearly wants that. I carefully examined the statements that he gave to the Constitution Committee, and he said that he is seeking only to give primacy to the electoral numbers in each seat, not to completely override the other factors, which he—not I—lists as follows: community relations, community cohesion, history, the character of an area and the disruption that might be caused. So the issue of disruption to existing constituencies and communities is, at the moment, a serious question under the Bill and we will have to look at it carefully. I think that there are Members on all sides of the House who have formally performed that important constituency role and will agree with me that that is a proper role for us to undertake.

The Bill could lead to an electoral map drawn from scratch, with all the ties that constituents and campaigners have made with one another severed at a stroke. However, I do not believe that that is what Ministers or indeed your Lordships want, and we have a vital role in addressing that problem. I look forward to hearing the Minister.