Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Wills Excerpts

Wednesday 12th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grocott]

That is a question for the government Front Bench. I think I know the answer. It has something to do with five days in May, but we can wait for those on the Front Bench to answer that. If they want to look after their own Back-Benchers, let alone the Back-Benchers of any other party, my advice to the Government is that to have parliamentary boundary reviews every five years is not such a good idea as they thought when it was first put on the drawing board.

[Lord Wills]

I support all the amendments to this clause, but I incline most to the amendment to which my noble friend Lord Grocott has just spoken. They all speak to the folly of the unmerited speed of what the Government are doing with these boundary reviews. The risks of their approach are manifold, and we have heard some of them already rehearsed this afternoon. I focus on one: the statistical inadequacy of conducting reviews on the basis of what is universally acknowledged to be a flawed electoral register. The best estimate that we have is that 3.5 million people are eligible to vote but are missing for one reason or another from the electoral register. How on earth can the Government propose to rush through a boundary review on the basis of such a flawed register?

The Government must be aware that the Labour Government took significant measures and passed legislation to ensure that the flawed electoral register was repaired. It gave the duty to the Electoral Commission of ensuring that by 2015 the electoral register was comprehensive and accurate, and gave it significant powers to achieve that end—powers that I see the Deputy Prime Minister is now claiming as his motivation and responsibility. Actually, the previous Government passed the legislation that gave the Electoral Commission those powers.

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[Lord Wills]

I agree with the powerful case that my noble friend is making, but does he agree that another factor militating against the equalisation of constituencies that the Government want to see—I think most of us want to see it—is the fact that this boundary review will be taken on the basis of a flawed register? Many constituencies will have nearly 100 per cent registration of all those who are eligible to vote, but others will have barely half that. How can constituencies possibly be equalised on that statistical basis?

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

My noble friend developed his argument compellingly in his speech just now. Just as differential turnout matters very much, so do differential levels of registration. These are all factors tending, unfortunately, to produce votes of unequal value. Moreover, within the alternative vote system, we know that the votes of the supporters of the minority parties that continue to be totted up and distributed will themselves carry more power in the ultimate decision than other votes will.

One is left puzzled about what the Government’s motivation can be in rushing this through, unless it is to secure political advantage for the Conservative Party as part of the deal between the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives. The Liberal Democrats do not even get the reformed electoral system that they really want, but the Tories get their opportunity to reduce the number of seats by 50, which, it has been calculated, if not by them—although I think they might be aware of the calculation—will advantage them and disadvantage the Labour Party.

The truth is that, while pursuing this pretty cynical policy, the Government risk causing the redistribution of constituencies to be botched. If it is botched and there is widespread public dissatisfaction with it, that can serve only to alienate sentiment and to alienate our citizens further from our democratic processes in this country. If there is a case for reform, and I believe that there is a case for significant reform in a number of aspects of our constitutional arrangements, then the benefits of reform will be dissipated and lost if the public feel angry that their legitimate entitlement to make their contribution to this process through public inquiries has been stamped upon by a Government who are in a hurry to effect change to suit their own political interest.

My noble friend Lord Dixon made a speech of profound importance, and I hope that Ministers and noble Lords opposite will think very carefully about what he said. He spoke with passion about the community of which he has been a member all his life. The Government’s formula of insisting on rigid numerical equality between constituencies risks violating community, ignoring history and causing profound offence to the people of this country. If indeed there is to be a rigid numerical formula, with a difference of no more than plus or minus 5 per cent from the norm of 76,000 voters, it is all the more important that the Boundary Commission should be allowed to have the time to take care to be sensitive to these other very important factors. If the Government rush in seeking to create numerically equal constituencies and do not pay attention to what people have to say about community, history, geography and the importance of the alignment of parliamentary constituencies with local government, they will make the process even more offensive than I fear it will inevitably be in any case.

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

My Lords, the Bill would require the Boundary Commission to report by October 2013. The amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, would change this to October 2015. The amendment in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady McDonagh, and the noble Lord, Lord Snape, would make it October 2016, and Amendment 56A, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, would make it October 2017. As I indicated on more than one occasion on Monday, the Government’s approach has been simple: to ensure that constituency boundaries are as up to date as possible. That point is worth repeating. The boundaries in effect in England at the general election fought last May were drawn up based on data that were 10 years old. If the House were to accept any of the amendments, the election in May 2015 would be fought on data that were 15 years old.

I mentioned on Monday, in answer to the noble Lord, Lord Wills, the 3.5 million people who are eligible to vote but who are not on the register. What I cannot fathom—and I have thought about this time and again in case I was missing something—is the point that somehow one does a service to these 3.5 million people by using electoral data from 2000. What service does that do to those who have come on to the electoral register between 2000 and December 2010?

[Lord Wills]

Perhaps I may answer that question. Under legislation, the Electoral Commission is tasked with repairing this grievous fault in our electoral register by 2015. Why can the Government not wait two more years? I understand the frustration and the point that the Minister is making about data being ridiculously out of date. Of course he is right, but why not wait just a few months more for the Electoral Commission, an independent body with new powers, to bring those 3.5 million people on to the register, and then do this comprehensive review?

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

I shall answer the noble Lord’s second point directly.

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[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

As I have said, we are committed to undertaking the pilot schemes and, if they have proved their worth, rolling them out. I would not make that commitment unless we believed that the resources were there to do that.

[Lord Wills]

I ask the noble and learned Lord to clarify the point that he has made several times already. Is he really saying that the injustice that he sees in people already on the electoral register being misallocated to a constituency—about which, as we have heard, there is considerable controversy—outweighs the injustice of proceeding to this wholesale boundary revision that will exclude 3.5 million people who are eligible to vote but who are not on the register? Does he really think that one outweighs the other?

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

I am saying that I think it is more unjust to have the 2015 general election fought on the basis of data that were collected in 2000, not data that were collected in 2010. That would be the injustice. There are the people, to whom the noble Baroness referred, who signed up to the register during the last general election campaign. If we go into the next election on the basis of constituencies in which the electoral registration data for the year 2000 apply, we will miss out those people. There is also the completely different but related issue of trying to improve electoral registration, which we are very much committed to.