Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Williamson of Horton Excerpts

Monday 20th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wills]

My Lords, I share the concerns that have been raised about the thresholds but with this amendment my noble friend has raised some very important underlying concerns about the nature of the union which have not been fully explored. These are not simple issues; they are complex and they take in the changing shape of devolution in our country. These are very important issues for all of us who care about the maintenance of the union in this country. With this amendment, my noble friend has isolated the folly of rushing ahead with a referendum in this way. These complex issues relating to the nature of our union should be debated and decided by Parliament on the basis of the results of the referendum. It is folly to have a post-legislative referendum. I know that we have debated these matters already but I very much hope that the Government will consider them again. They are profoundly important and they should be debated by Parliament after the referendum—that is inherent in the nature of our representative democracy. I very much hope that the Government will think again and this House will be able to return to the matter on Report.

[Lord Williamson of Horton]

My Lords, it was very late when we last discussed this matter in Committee and some people were wilting. In reality, the amendment relating to a threshold of those eligible to vote, as featured in the amendment put forward by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter of Kentish Town, which I supported, and the remaining amendments in the same vein were discussed and are no longer on the Marshalled List. They all appear on the groupings list as having been already debated, and therefore there is no amendment before us today relating to a threshold of those eligible to vote. Perhaps there will be later, but certainly not today, and that will be very helpful in reducing the length of our discussions—something that I am sure will be welcome to all.

As to the separate issue currently being put forward by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, concerning whether there should be a required majority in each of the countries of the union, I am sorry to tell her that, having supported her earlier, on this occasion I support the view taken by the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, that we should not differentiate in that way.

[Lord Tebbit]

My Lords, first, I should express my gratitude to the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours. I am quite touched at the thought that he noticed that I had not been present in your Lordships’ House very much recently. I am not sure whether he is pleased or less pleased about that but it was very nice of him to have noticed.

Turning to the amendment, I confess that, as an integrationist rather than a devolutionist, I rather take the view that this is not the best way to go about tipping out of its dish this rather unpleasant dog’s dinner of a proposal. I should prefer to do it cleanly, neatly and properly by imposing a 40 per cent turnout requirement. Therefore, I am afraid that I cannot support the noble Baroness on this, much though I have been tempted to do so.

We have heard, of course, that there was no threshold requirement on the referendum on our continuing membership of the European Union. If I may say so, having voted yes in that referendum, I did not realise how wrong I was until some years later. What a pity there was no requirement for a higher turnout.

I really regret I cannot support the noble Baroness but certainly, if and when we come to vote on a proposal to put in a 40 per cent floor requirement, then I will, indeed, be in favour of tipping the dinner out of the dog’s bowl.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Williamson of Horton Excerpts

Wednesday 15th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

I take a lot of responsibility for Chris Bryant. I have known him a long time. I gave him his first job in the Labour Party. That started a beautiful career on his part; he somewhat overtook me somewhere along the line.

I have indeed remonstrated with the said Member of the other place on this matter, but I think—in fact, I am fairly sure—that I have persuaded him that it is right for us to put this modest little measure to this House. There are two points here. First, if we can never put anything that was not put in the other House, what is the purpose of this House? Secondly, the longer we look at the issues of the acceptability of that referendum, whether one is in favour of AV or against it, the more important it seems to all of us that the result, whatever it is, should be endorsed wholeheartedly and that even those who have lost the argument feel that there was a good turnout and it was a good decision. That is important.

The answer is not that we should not have a threshold. It may indeed be a question of my being too modest in my proposal—it is modest—but I am confident that the acceptance of that principle is something that the Committee should agree to and should be written into the Bill. I find it worrying that otherwise we will have a Bill that makes no allowance for a very small turnout. We might then be faced with the question of how we would deal with that.

Being versed in risk management, which is how I spend most of the rest of my life—that is how we manage things in organisations—I know that one tries not to arrive at a situation without having thought about it before, assessed the risk and mitigated it to the extent that it is possible so that you do not have to scrabble around at the last minute, dealing with results that might have been foreseen.

Actually, I am confident that we will get a 25 per cent turnout, but I would much prefer that the amendment was part and parcel of the Bill. It would not necessarily negate the results of that referendum; it would bring them back to the two Houses of Parliament to say, “How do we now deal with this? Do we think that, despite the threshold being small, it was such an overriding result one way or another that we can live with it? Or maybe a slightly different question about a more proportional system than this, which some Members would like, would be better. Or do we do as the Irish did—put it to the people again until they vote the way we want?”. It gives Parliament and the Government the ability to think how to respond to a situation should it be too low a turnout.

I believe strongly that big constitutional changes should not be made without the will of the people, and the will of the people is as much about turning out to vote and expressing that as it is about the way that they cast their vote. I beg to move.

[Lord Williamson of Horton]

My Lords, noble Lords cannot imagine how pleased I am to see the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter of Kentish Town, moving this amendment. That is so for two reasons: first, because I am interested in the amendment and I support it; and, secondly, because I have sat through almost five days of discussion in the Committee and have heard a large number of extremely important interventions. Some of them did not interest me very much, I have to say, but I have been here and heard them all. I fully accept noble Lords’ right to raise points, but they have done so a large number of times.

Now we come to an amendment that I am interested in because I share the view that it is reasonable, in a situation where we continually tell ourselves that we are dealing with a constitutional issue, that we should have some threshold, as is the case in a good number of democracies in the world. It is true that there are some disadvantages. It is claimed that it could confuse the electorate, though I do not accept that argument myself. I think that the electorate will understand perfectly clearly that they were voting on a certain issue and that they had given their opinion only above a specific threshold. There is also the possibility that quite a lot of people who abstain would consider that they would have given a no vote. However, once again, I do not think that we should attribute to the electorate ideas that they might not have. They might feel quite confident that they will cast their vote and that it is perfectly reasonable that it should be laid down in the procedure that a reasonable percentage of the electorate should vote on an important issue.

Therefore, in principle, it is a good idea to have a threshold. We could have an argument about whether it should be 25 per cent—we have two more amendments here which have a different percentage—but I am very keen that the issue should be raised, as it has been by the noble Baroness. It would be a serious dereliction of duty if we went into a constitutional amendment and had not properly discussed whether or not there should be a threshold. It is an important point and we know that in a good number of other countries there is a threshold in constitutional issue referendums or votes, either in the procedure for initiating a referendum or in the threshold required to validate the vote, which is what we are talking about in this case. This is a subject that ought to be debated in this House. I support the procedure. I accept that 25 per cent is pretty low but we have to launch the debate and see what views are taken in relation to a threshold in the constitutional referendum.

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick]

My Lords, I raised the question of thresholds at Second Reading and the noble Lord, Lord McNally, replied by saying, “Bring it on! Put it down and we will vote it down”, so he can hardly be surprised that the amendment has arrived. I hope that he will be a bit more flexible than he indicated on that occasion. The amendment that the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, has put forward is—as has already been said—an extremely modest one. There are other amendments, with successively higher thresholds, which the House might or might not wish to examine and divide on. The principle of some sort of threshold is extremely strong.

There are two sorts of thresholds. There are thresholds that relate to the outcome of the referendum that demand that that there should be a minimum percentage of those voting yes as a hurdle. That is an outcome referendum as in the 1979 referendum on Scottish devolution. Then there are quite different thresholds—like all the amendments tonight—that are purely based on turnouts. Looking at other countries is very interesting. There, the logic of the argument is that constitutional change should occur only when there is a clearly expressed and significant majority for it.

In the United States, for example, in order to change the constitution, a two-thirds majority of both houses of Congress is required. Those changes then have to be ratified by three-quarters of the state legislatures. In Germany two-thirds of the members of the Bundestag and the Bundesrat have to vote for constitutional changes. In New Zealand and Austria it has to be a two-thirds majority of votes cast, in Norway two-thirds of members of the Storting, and in Belgium two-thirds of the votes in both houses of parliament. In Denmark there is a 40 per cent threshold for constitutional changes, and in Italy a 50 per cent threshold. I believe there are also thresholds in Spain and Switzerland. The principle is very clearly accepted in many countries and the logic of it is very powerful: that constitutional change can be extremely important and has to be endorsed by the electorate by a significant majority indicating that that is the will of the people.

European Council

Lord Williamson of Horton Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Strathclyde]

I think that the whole House will agree—and if not, they should do—that he spoke with tremendous good sense in support of the Statement and of the Prime Minister. Of course, there are others in this House—in both Houses—who have a division of view between Euro-enthusiasts and Eurosceptics. However, that need not divide us on the broad direction that we should remain part of the European Union and that we should argue for change internally, which is what we have been doing in the past week in laying out a very clear framework for budgetary change over the next 10 years. We will be at the forefront of making those arguments. Following on from what my noble friend said, we are not alone in this or isolated in Europe in wanting a proper budgetary discipline. The noble Lords opposite had an opportunity, over the past 10 years, to get this right and spectacularly failed to do so.

[Lord Williamson of Horton]

My Lords, on the EU budget for 2011, I thank the noble Lord the Leader of the House for making it clear in the Statement not only that the European Council will not accept more than 2.9 per cent but that if the Parliament and the Council do not agree, there will be no increase at all. I think that would apply not only to EU policies but to the expense rates, travel allowances and things of that kind in the European institutions. Under the provisional twelfths regime, money at this year’s level—but no more—will be available on a month-by-month basis. In view of this, will the noble Lord the Leader of the House keep the House informed on the discussions between the Council and the European Parliament so that we know whether, from 1 January, there will be an increase of 2.9 per cent or a zero increase?

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Williamson, brings a wealth of experience to the House and real knowledge of the workings of the European Commission and European Parliament. What he outlined is entirely correct; if there is no agreement to the 2.9 per cent then there is agreement on no increase at all. The current spending pattern would be rolled over to next year and it would be paid on a monthly basis—it would be divided by 12 and paid out on those terms. It also includes all expenditure: expenses, allowances, salaries and so forth. We would greatly welcome that result and it would be very nice to hear from the noble Lords opposite whether they would welcome it too.

House of Lords: Allowances

Lord Williamson of Horton Excerpts

Tuesday 20th July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Harris of Richmond]

My Lords, it may be appropriate at this juncture to speak to the amendment in my name to which we will come later. In doing so, I declare an interest as one who travels weekly to your Lordships’ House. I am also a recipient of a senior railcard.

My amendment refers to paragraph 30 on page 8 of the report and I shall speak to it for two specific reasons. First, like the noble Lord, Lord Tomlinson, I believe that it discriminates against those of us who travel from the far reaches of the United Kingdom to participate in the work of your Lordships’ House. For those of us who are old enough to use a senior railcard it is possible to purchase a first-class flexible ticket for just below the cost of a walk-on standard fare. That is fine for those who have a senior railcard. However, for younger Members of this House who live in the far reaches of this country and who do not have the advantage of age, the difference between the cost of the two tickets is enormous.

That is unfair and ageist. It takes no account of those younger Members who might have disabilities so it is discriminatory. The House Travel Office advises me that anyone without a railcard who wishes to purchase a first-class ticket would have to book well in advance and keep to that date and time to be within the guidelines. As your Lordships know, it is impossible to say when the House will finish its business, so it would be extremely difficult to book ahead. Other Members may wish to address that issue. If, for instance there is a difficulty on the day of travel, for whatever reason, and a pre-booked advance ticket has been purchased that ticket will be invalid if it is not used and the new ticket will have to be purchased at the cost of the full walk-on standard fare. It will then be a battle to try to persuade IPSA to refund the original fare. That moves me on to my second point.

I was perturbed that it was IPSA’s solution to travel for Members of the House of Commons that prevailed with the House Committee for your Lordships' House. I had understood that this House generally accepted the SSRB rulings, not those of IPSA, which was set up to deal with arrangements in another place. Indeed, on page 7 of the report, it is the SSRB which advises on all other parts of our travel expenses, and the House Committee concurs with its proposals in those parts of the report. I find it strange, therefore, that we should suddenly find it introducing IPSA into the mix. Paragraph 30 is the only part of the report in which IPSA appears. I find it invidious that its proposals are preferred to those of the SSRB. That creates a two-tier membership of the House.

I thought long and hard about seeking the House’s endorsement for my amendment. In the almost 11 very happy years that I have spent working in this House, I have never once challenged the will of the House Committee, and I do so today with great sadness. I know that many hours of work went into the report, the main conclusions of which I am very happy to endorse—except paragraph 30. It is that simple but important change that I wish to revisit, and I sincerely hope that the House Committee will feel able to do so.

[Lord Williamson of Horton]

My Lords, I was a member of the ad hoc group appointed to consider and consult on issues in the SSRB report and to advise on their implementation. Although there were moments when I felt that membership of the group was a cruel and unnatural punishment, on the whole, I concluded that the work was well worth while and contributed to the improvement of the arrangements for the financial support of Members. I shall say a very few words about the group's report, in so far as it is still relevant to the Motions before the House today, and then comment on the recommendations of the House Committee and the Motions on the Order Paper.

Although events have moved on since the ad hoc group’s work and report, it is still worth noting that, first, the group consulted widely, and the many references to the views of Members are well based. We received 89 written submissions from Members and held a whole series of consultative meetings, with members of the group present, to take views. We also produced a survey on overnight accommodation, to which 473 Members replied. Our report is therefore well informed.

Secondly, the SSRB was rightly concerned that the proposals should ensure that no Member was prevented from attending and playing a full part because of lack of financial resources, and that the diversity of the House should be maintained. The group considered that to be an important principle, and it is obviously relevant to our consideration today. It would make no sense to accumulate so much political experience and other expertise in this House and then to reduce its efficiency, particularly since its Members receive no salary or pension and, to that extent, work for nothing.

Thirdly—my last point about the group’s report—we sought to avoid an excessive administrative burden and to ensure that the cost to taxpayers of the financial support to Members was held down to reasonable limits. It was for that reason that we proposed an optional and interim alternative of £100 a night for the overnight allowance. We noted in the report that that would be considerably cheaper and simpler to administer than the current arrangements. Indeed, we estimated that the combined effect of the SSRB proposals and the £100 a night interim allowance would reduce the current cost to the taxpayer by about £2 million.