Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Wallace of Tankerness Excerpts

Wednesday 26th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lipsey]

I can be even briefer. My amendment, Amendment 91B, reflects a suggestion made in the British Academy study to which the Minister has referred with great favour on a number of occasions, which is that the Boundary Commission should be bound to publish not just representations but comments. It is a small point, but the leading experts in the academic world regard it as an improvement. I therefore hope that the Minister will accept it.

[The Advocate-General for Scotland (Lord Wallace of Tankerness)]

Amendments 91AA and 91B would change the process of consultation as set out in the Bill. The Government believe that it is important that there should be a good flow of information between the Boundary Commissions and the public so that people can be informed about the review and have their say. That is why we have extended the period for representations to 12 weeks from the four weeks currently provided for.

Amendment 91B, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, would, as he said, require the commissions to take into consideration any comments that they receive on representations made on their recommendations—that is, the ability of the public to make counter-representations to those of other individuals, if that is not too convoluted. He referred to the British Academy study, which made that recommendation.

I reassure the noble Lord that our thoughts are very similar to those during yesterday's debate on the issue of wards—yesterday or the day before; anyway, earlier this week—and their use in making recommendations for constituency boundaries. That is that we are open to considering improvements to the process of public consultation on recommendations for boundary changes that do not compromise the key principles of the Bill. Adding an opportunity for counter-representations would not compromise the key principles, particularly that of dealing with boundaries that are as up to date as possible. We will consider the details of how the process set out in the amendment might function and come forward with our amendments at Report.

The amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, would require the Boundary Commissions to publish all written representations received as part of the consultation process online, in a very environmentally friendly way, within 24 hours of receipt. That is a helpful and useful suggestion which we will certainly want to consider carefully before Report. We question one element. The commissions made extensive use of the internet in the course of the previous general review and, although it is for them to decide, I am confident that they would do likewise this time.

The practical problem with the noble Lord’s amendment is the requirement to publish those representations within 24 hours of receipt. Our experience of consultations is that many people submit their representations very shortly before the deadline. If the commissions have received thousands of representations just before the end of the period, they might find themselves overwhelmed if they are then required to publish them online within 24 hours, especially if a number of representations were received in paper form that had to be turned into a version that was electronically presentable. The secretaries to the respective Boundary Commissions told the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee that they have sufficient resources. I do not doubt that the commissions will act to publish the representations in good time following the end of the consultation period, but I fear that there may be occasions when it would be impractical to do so within 24 hours.

I thank the noble Lords, Lord Lipsey and Lord Kennedy, for highlighting these issues by way of their amendments and reassure them that we will bring our proposals to the House at the next stage of the passage of the Bill through your Lordships' House. On that basis, I invite the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

I thank the noble and learned Lord for his response and look forward to what comes back at Report. If it would be helpful, I am happy to move amendments for a period of 48 hours or 72 hours.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Goldsmith]

I really must object to that comment from the noble Lord, Lord Henley, who, as far as I can see, has been in the Chamber for only the past five minutes. I have been speaking for less than that. That really was an unhelpful comment. He should know better than that.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

My Lords, I thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, for introducing this amendment and for the very helpful and constructive spirit in which he proposed it. I also thank the other noble Lords who made important contributions to this relatively short but important debate.

The amendment seeks to introduce a public inquiry stage into the boundary review process, allowing the Boundary Commissions to hold a public inquiry where representations are received from any interested local authority or from 100 or more interested electors.

As we made clear in our response to the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, in the previous debate, and in our responses on local government ward boundaries and existing parliamentary constituencies, the Government's position has been that we are open to considering reasonable improvements to the process, provided that they do not compromise the fundamental principles of the Bill, and that still remains our position.

It is not a fundamental principle of the Bill that there should be no oral inquiries. The decision to end the process of oral inquiries, which appears in this Bill, was in fact taken on the basis of the evidence before us, when we came to consider the most effective consultation process for boundary reviews, which is what we are all trying to achieve.

Among the many contributions that we have heard not just this evening but over a number of Committee sittings, the case has been made tonight that local inquiries are an important safety valve because they allow everyone, as we might put it, to have their day in court. The noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe, made that very point. It allows people to have their say. My view is that this is perhaps the only objective of local inquiries: for which any credible argument can be mounted in their favour. Evidence and academic opinion indicate that local inquiries are perhaps far more effective in principle than in practice.

Local inquiries do not as a rule consist of the general public having their say on boundary proposals. Professor Ron Johnston—whose namechecks in these debates are now getting quite considerable; the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer quoted him—and his colleagues have concluded that the public inquiry process is “dominated by political parties”, describing the process as,

“very largely an exercise in allowing the political parties to seek influence over the Commission's recommendations—in which their sole goal is to promote their own electoral interests”.

Of course, he is perfectly right; political parties play a vital role in our democracy, and there is nothing wrong with parties contributing fully to the boundary review process. It is inevitable that they are going to do that, but if we are considering what would be gained by the noble and learned Lord’s amendment, which would restore oral inquiries in some form, we should not imagine that we would necessarily be giving the public a better chance to have their say. We would be looking to restore a potentially long process to which parties will send Queen's Counsel in their attempts to secure the most favourable outcome for their electoral prospects, certainly if history is anything to go by. It may be that the quasi-judicial nature of the local inquiry process could act as a disincentive to public participation by ordinary people who hope to have their say.

Our intention is that a written consultation process, with the existing period for representations extended from one month to three, will actually amount to a much more effective way to allow a level playing field for the general public who wish to have their say. Whatever the merits of the cases that are made for exceptions in this Bill—for example, for the Isle of Wight—I do not think that anyone could doubt that the people involved were very successful in making their voices heard through petitions, campaigns and websites.

There is little evidence, too, that local inquiries bring to light evidence that would not otherwise be considered. In an earlier debate in Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Snape, gave us an example of when a public inquiry had changed the boundary of the West Bromwich East constituency to reflect local geography, using a dual carriageway in place of a defunct railway line as a point of orientation. I am sure that that was a sensible change, and I wholeheartedly agree with the noble Lord that local knowledge is immensely important in these matters, but I do not see why that could not have been raised as part of an extended consultation period, as proposed by this Bill.

That is why changes that are made following local inquiries are often minor. At the fifth general review in England, for example, only 2 per cent of wards in English counties where inquiries were held were moved between constituencies as a result. Robin Gray, a former boundary commissioner already quoted by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, told the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee that Professor Ron Johnston was,

“absolutely right about the impact that public inquiries had on the Commission’s initial recommendations. In a lot of cases there was no change”.

The evidence given by the Boundary Commission for Wales to the Welsh Affairs Committee is also instructive on this point. In evidence to the Welsh Affairs Committee, the secretary of the Welsh commission said that,

“during the fifth general review, there were four issues that the Commission changed its mind on as a result of the consultation process. Perhaps I should say that, while these issues were raised in the local inquiries they were also raised beforehand in the written representations. In one sense, the Commission, before the local inquiries, had in its mind that modifications were required in the draft proposals”.

That brings me to the evidence of Ron Johnston before the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, which was quoted by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer. Professor Johnston, as we have acknowledged, has been much quoted in these debates. I think that anyone reading his evidence and his previous work will reach the same conclusion that the committee reached in its report that the result of Professor Johnston’s extensive research into the topic, and oral inquiries in particular, led him to,

“generally welcome the abolition of public inquiries”.

I stress that, not because somehow Professor Johnston’s view is the only one that counts, but because it dispels the theory that only we on the government Benches somehow hold the view that oral inquiries are not necessarily the best way to achieve the objective that we all want, which is a robust consultation process at which everyone, including those who are not able to appoint legal counsel on their behalf, can have their say on a commission’s proposals.

However, in the same session, Robin Gray stated that he believed public inquiries added value because they provided assurance that the,

“issues have been looked at and debated”—

perhaps an echo of the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Brooke.

One charge that cannot be laid against oral inquiries in the past is that they were anything less than thorough in this regard. This lengthy process, however, goes to the heart of one of the key principles in the Bill, which was identified by the noble and learned Lord when he moved his amendment. If no action is taken the boundaries in force at the next general election will be 15 years out of date, if we do not proceed to get a boundary review and report by October 2013, as set out in the Bill. We believe that it is simply not fair to electors—most notably all those who have come on to the register in the past 15 years. I believe that noble Lords opposite share our concern about this. Indeed, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, made that very point. I readily acknowledge that the amendment attempts to address it by limiting the triggers for inquiries and placing a limit on their duration, and I very much welcome how that has been presented by the noble and learned Lord.

It is also important that we listen carefully and reflect on what was said by the noble and learned Lords, Lord Woolf and Lord Goldsmith, not least on the question of judicial review—judicial review if you do not have oral inquiries and judicial review if you do have oral inquiries. There is an argument that the proposal in the amendment to give the Boundary Commission the decision on whether to hold an inquiry in each constituency where the requirements in the amendment are met would also lead to a risk of judicial reviews of the Boundary Commission’s decisions on that point.

Important issues have been raised. I have indicated not just in this debate but in others that the principle should be that reviews must be conducted more quickly so that the pattern of representation in the other place represents the reality of where electors live now, not of history. That goes to the heart of fairer and more equally weighted votes throughout the United Kingdom, which is a core objective of the Bill. We will obviously want to consider the noble and learned Lord’s concerns on the issue of judicial reviews—as I have said, if you have them or if you do not have them. Subject to meeting the key principle, which I have indicated, I am content to take the noble and learned Lord’s amendment and consider the thinking behind it to see whether it offers a way in which the advantage that I acknowledge an inquiry can provide—a sense of “a day in court”—can be retained. On that basis, I urge the noble and learned Lord to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

I am very grateful for a very positive response. I shall deal with a few points so that people can read them in Hansard.

First, the noble and learned Lord is right to say that Professor Johnston, who is an expert in this field, has expressed scepticism from time to time about the public inquiries in some contexts, but he has said that the scale of the proposed changes in the first boundary review is an argument for having public inquiries this time because you are drawing a totally new map. Without being unfair, or selecting out of context, Professor Johnston is in favour in this context. He also referred to Robin Gray, the former chairman of a Boundary Commission, who has a rounded view of public inquiries and recognises problems with them. Robin Gray says:

“Particularly with this first round I can see there is a real need for public inquiries”.

Therefore, the two witnesses that the noble and learned Lord cites both unequivocally favour public inquiries in this context.

Secondly, the way that this amendment is put is not as an alternative to written submissions, because it accepts that in the appropriate case written submissions would be sufficient. I draw attention to subsection (3) in the amendment, which says that the Boundary Commission can say no to a public inquiry if it raises no substantive issue that might benefit from further comment or representation from other interested parties or individuals. So the Boundary Commission would have to decide that there is some specific benefit in an inquiry. In relation to the timing, we have dealt with that already.

It is, with respect to the noble and learned Lord, difficult to see—and I am not going to press this too hard—why an inquiry should not be in the armoury in the appropriate case. He mentioned the fact that it is often about political parties vying in their own political interest. I am sure that is true. One of the things that we have often discovered in our system is that hearing two competing parties often produces the right result more easily through oral representations than through any other process. It is the process—without in any way saying that this should be exactly the same as a court process—that many of our courts have found the most effective way to come to the right answer.

I very much hope that when the noble and learned Lord considers it, he will come back and either suggest how it might be improved or accept the amendment. On the basis of the helpful and constructive commitment to consider the amendment, I beg leave to withdraw it.