Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Wills Excerpts

Tuesday 1st February 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grocott]

No, I do not see any real prospect of that happening on any big scale at all and that should be a real concern to all of us. As someone who will be as active as I possibly can be in the no campaign, I am aware of the big disadvantage that the no campaign has, which is that everyone in the country at least knows something about first past the post but next to no one can answer serious questions about the mechanism of this particular form of the alternative vote system. That is why any impartial leaflet trying to tell the public about a system for which there is no evidence they know a great deal about must include the information as to where this is used. If it was not used anywhere in the world, presumably that is a valid factual piece of information to give to the electorate.

I am aware of the time, but I want to spell a point out and get a grievance off my shoulder. One must not bear a grudge, but I am still smarting under the advice that the Electoral Commission gave indirectly to the House, as it went to all Members of the House, when it was commenting on the various amendments as they were going through. The House may not remember Amendment 40B in my name but I do. It was a very simple amendment to allow the results of the referendum to be published constituency by constituency. It was a very simple proposal and I am sorry to say the House rejected it. I am not going to go into the merits of it but I simply want to make this point: in advance of the vote, the Electoral Commission, whose job it is under this legislation to provide information, made a mistake—believe me, the Electoral Commission can make mistakes —in respect of the advice it gave on my amendment.

As I said, my amendment was about publishing the constituency results. The commission said:

“We do not support this amendment … making such a significant change to the rules for the referendum this close to 5 May”.

In other words, it was assuming that the referendum had to be held on 5 May, which is a contentious piece of information to begin with. That is a date chosen by the Government, and the Electoral Commission is not necessarily obliged to give information which helps the Government to achieve this contentious advice as to when the date should be held. More seriously, and perhaps more factually, this piece of information came to the House after the amendment of my noble friend Lord Rooker, giving flexibility as to the date, had been approved by the House. So the referendum, according to the Bill as it then stood, did not have to take place on 5 May; in fact, it could take place any time between 5 May and some time in October, and that is the Bill as it stands.

I do not dispute for a minute the good intentions of the Electoral Commission but it was at the least a contentious piece of advice to Members taking part in that debate. If on a fairly straightforward, simple proposal like that it could be contentious then I would suggest that, for anything that tried to explain how various electoral systems worked and the merits thereof, it would be almost impossible to get a non-contentious document out to the voters.

[Lord Wills]

Now that my noble friend has got this particular grievance off his chest, may I say he is right to raise the central importance of the information given to the public on this crucial vote that they are going to be faced with in a very short space of time? What role does he expect public service broadcasting organisations, notably the BBC, to play in providing the public with this information, bound as they are by considerations of fairness and impartiality and trusted as they are, particularly the BBC, by the great mass of the British public to be fair and impartial? What role does he think they will play? I would also be grateful if he could inform the House what role he thinks they should play.

[Lord Grocott]

I find it easier to answer the second question than the first because, although we all complain about the media from time to time, believability tests are regularly conducted about different forms of media outlets—in other words, what the public trust in terms of the information they receive from the various media outlets. Always near the bottom in believability tests, I fear, are party political broadcasts. Somewhere near the top are always programmes such as “Crimewatch”; people believe what they hear when someone in uniform tells them. That is the scale. The broadcast media always come out better than the print media. My short answer to my noble friend is that broadcasters have an enormous responsibility to provide the information because the public trust the information that they get from broadcasters more than that which they get from newspapers.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, that is why I hope that the noble Lord will look at the website. If he does, he will find that the Electoral Commission has already made that point in its draft. He will be immensely reassured, as will the noble Lord, Lord Rooker.

I will respond to a couple of other issues raised by the amendments in this group. We very much agree with the intention of the noble Lord to ensure that leaflets are written in plain English. The noble Lord, Lord Rooker, my noble friend Lord Newton and others can be assured that the Electoral Commission is seeking the advice of language experts and working with the Plain English Campaign to produce its material. Nothing in the Bill prevents this, and the commission is doing it anyway, so I hope that the noble Lord will agree that that part of the amendment is unnecessary.

I am sorry to have dealt with these matters quite fully, but, as the noble Lord, Lord Bach, said, they are important issues. I hope that I have put the Committee's mind at rest that these matters have been thought about.

[Lord Wills]

Before the noble Lord concludes his remarks, perhaps I might ask him to address the issue that I asked my noble friend Lord Grocott to address, namely the role that public service broadcasting organisations in particular should play in the debate. It is perfectly possible that they will think that this is an arcane and abstruse issue that deserves 10 minutes on “Newsnight”, and that will be that. Does he think that that would be an acceptable discharge of their public service obligations, or would he expect them to play a fuller role in fully, fairly and impartially examining all the issues on both sides of the debate?

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, I am convinced that the broadcasters will see it as part of their remit to involve themselves in these debates. It is up to them to decide how they do so and is not at the direction of the Government, however desirable those of us in government might think that that would be.