Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Alan Reid Excerpts

Tuesday 16th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Edwards]

My hon. Friend is correct—it is a double insult. If these plans go through unamended, the next devolved elections in Scotland and Wales will be terribly skewed.

During the debates on the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill, we discussed at length the principle of holding a National Assembly for Wales election on the same day as a referendum on the electoral system for the UK Parliament. Despite the objections of Opposition parties and, perhaps more importantly, those who make up the Welsh and Scottish Governments, that Bill was passed, once again showing up the Con-Dem Government’s disrespect agenda for Wales and the other devolved nations. Ironically, even their best argument—the idea that savings would be made through combining the polls and that electors would not have to traipse to the polling station more than once—means little in the Welsh context, as we will already go to the ballot box in March for a referendum on the transfer of powers to the Welsh Government under part 4 of the Government of Wales Act 2006, and then again in the following May. Of course, the referendum on further powers is far more relevant to the National Assembly elections than the referendum on AV.

I am not here to repeat the arguments we have already had, although they remain equally relevant and valid to the amendment as they did to debates on the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill. That clash of elections will occur once every five terms for the devolved Administrations and once every four terms for Westminster elections. As yet, we have no idea when a reformed House of Lords will be elected. I am a great believer in not underestimating the public, and in publishing the Bill the UK coalition Government are failing to learn from previous practices and errors. Many will remember that the 2007 Scottish Parliament and local elections were held on the same day, with the result that there were an astonishing 147,000 spoilt ballot papers.

[Mr Alan Reid (Argyll and Bute) (LD)]

The hon. Gentleman cannot be allowed to get away with saying that all the spoilt ballot papers were because two elections were held on the same day. The reason was the poor design of the Scottish Parliament election ballot paper. There were two columns, and people had to put a cross in each, but the instructions were not clear. That was the reason for the spoilt ballot papers, not the fact that there were two elections on one day.

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[Jonathan Edwards]

My hon. Friend makes an important contribution. Obviously, if there had been changes since Second Reading, I would not have had to make this speech or table these amendments.

[Mr Reid]

The hon. Gentleman does not seem to be arguing that the right length of time for this Parliament is four years. His whole case seems to be that there will be a clash of elections every 20 years. I agree that it would be a bad idea for both elections to be on the same day, so were the Government to give the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly the power to alter the date of their elections, would he withdraw his new clause?

[Jonathan Edwards]

I made it clear earlier that my preference is for four years and, as the hon. Member for Rhondda has said, the norm has been three years and eight months. Why go to five years, therefore, if the norm over the past 200 years has been three years and eight months? That seems tried and tested.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Alan Reid Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Sadiq Khan]

If my hon. Friend thinks that the Deputy Prime Minister—the great reformer—has read the report of the Welsh Affairs Committee, I am afraid that he is mistaken. The Deputy Prime Minister has not even read Ron Gould’s report or been present in the Chamber since 6 September, so the idea that the Government will take into account any of the evidence is nonsense.

[Mr Alan Reid (Argyll and Bute) (LD)]

The right hon. Gentleman mentions the Gould report. The problems in the Scottish elections in 2007 were caused because the Labour Government decided to have a ballot paper on which people had to put two crosses in two separate columns. If he had read the Gould report, he would know that that was what caused the problem. In this case, there will be three ballot papers and people will have to put an X on each of them. That is far simpler. Clearly he has not read the Gould report.

[Sadiq Khan]

The hon. Gentleman is making the same mistake that the Deputy Prime Minister made, which is not to have heard the comments made just an hour ago by my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) on the same point. What the hon. Gentleman has described is not the reason why we object to the referendum and the elections being held on the same day. He really must do a service to his constituents, bearing in mind that they will suffer huge consequences, by listening to the evidence and listening to the debate. The other problem with having a referendum on the same day as national elections and council elections outside London is the differential turnout. Irrespective of the result on 5 May 2011, and whichever way the vote goes, there will be questions about the legitimacy of that vote because of differential turnouts. Who is to blame for this? The Deputy Prime Minister, the great reformer.

Labour supports a referendum on AV and agrees with the principle of creating more equal seats, but this Bill is a bad means of delivering both objectives. It is too inflexible and too hasty, and it will lead to great and ongoing political instability. This House has failed to improve the Bill because it has not been allowed to do so. To our shame, that task now falls to unelected peers in the other place, whom we must now rely on to inject some democratic principles into what, to date, has been an inglorious episode in recent parliamentary history.

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[Mr Alan Reid (Argyll and Bute) (LD)]

The Bill is a compromise brought about by the coalition agreement and it contains two different parts: the AV part, which I wholeheartedly support; and the part about reducing the number of MPs and imposing the 5% straitjacket. I am perfectly supportive of reducing the number of MPs, but I have difficulties with the 5% straitjacket.

[Tristram Hunt]

rose—

[Mr Reid]

The Deputy Speaker has asked for short speeches, so I will give way only once.

[Tristram Hunt]

Will the hon. Gentleman explain the rationale behind the choice of 600 Members, given that the Liberal Democrat manifesto proposed 500 and the Tory manifesto proposed 585? What was the thinking process involved in getting to 600?

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[Mr Reid]

The Liberal Democrat manifesto’s proposal for 500 Members was based on the assumption that the single transferable vote system would be used—our proposal was combined with that. Coalition involves compromise, and I was not present at Chequers when the Deputy Prime Minister and the Prime Minister negotiated the fine points of this Bill. The coalition agreement said that there would be

“fewer and more equal sized constituencies.”

So there was no need to go for this 5% straitjacket.

This country is fortunate in having an independent Boundary Commission, which in the past has always acted truly independently and has never been subject to political influence. We should be grateful for that and we should give more powers for flexibility to our independent boundary commissions. In the Bill, the 5% straitjacket is not an absolute principle because, as has been pointed out, there are some exceptions. There is an exception for islands, and I support that. It is perfectly right that Orkney and Shetland and Na h-Eileanan an Iar should have their own constituencies. However, I also draw the Government’s attention to the fact that other constituencies contain islands, for example, the Isle of Wight and Anglesey. My constituency contains 13 islands that can be accessed only by ferry or air, which compares with the three in the Western Isles. My constituency has four times as many islands as the Western Isles, twice the land area and three times the size of electorate, so I would hope that we could have some more flexibility.

Elsewhere, on the highland mainland, the Government have introduced the 13,000 square kilometre rule. It will not result in the creation of any constituency that is more than 5% under the quota. What it will do is create three strange constituencies, because in order to get both within the quota and under the 13,000 square kilometre rule the Boundary Commission will have to create three strange constituencies, each containing a part of Inverness. One will comprise one part of Inverness and will go all the way up to Cape Wrath. Another will contain a part of Inverness and will go all the way west to Skye. A third will contain a part of Inverness and will go south and east. Those will be three strange constituencies and there is little community interest for them. We are supposed to be representing communities, but there is very little community link between somebody on the north-west of Sutherland and somebody in Inverness. I hope that this part of the Bill will be re-examined in the House of Lords and the Government will be amenable to accepting amendments that will give the Boundary Commission a bit more discretion. We are fortunate in having an independent Boundary Commission, and we should give it more discretion.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Alan Reid Excerpts

Monday 25th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

I presume that they must, because that is why we are now going to have all three of these things on the same day in Northern Ireland, despite the experiences in Scotland, which were aggressively excoriated by the Liberal Democrats when they were on the Opposition Benches—although they seem to have forgotten all the speeches that they made then.

[Mr Alan Reid (Argyll and Bute) (LD)]

As I am sure the hon. Gentleman is aware, the difference is that the Scottish council elections are held under the single transferable vote, so the voter has to number the ballot paper with their first, second and third preferences. In this case, all ballot papers will be marked with a single cross, so the possibility of confusion does not arise as it would if we were having two elections on the same day under different electoral systems.

[Chris Bryant]

The hon. Gentleman is a Liberal Democrat, and I am sure that he knows all about confusion, especially at the moment. I think that he is trying to quibble to end up with a position that he can proudly defend. In 2007, he would probably have been saying that the elections should not have been held at the same time, so he should be advancing the same argument now. However, I leave that for him and his conscience.

The Welsh Affairs Committee cited Lewis Baston, the senior research fellow with Democratic Audit, who argued that the coincidence in 2015—if the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill goes through in the way that the Government intend—of a general election with Assembly elections in Wales and parliamentary elections in Scotland is even more troubling because

“the elections for Westminster and the Assembly would be taking place on different systems”—

precisely the point made by the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Mr Reid)—

“on the same day and, more complicatedly, on two sets of boundaries which will hardly ever correlate with each other.”

I am absolutely certain that because the hon. Gentleman is a very honourable gentleman who is always consistent with his arguments, he will therefore vote against provisions in the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill whereby elections in Scotland and Wales are to be held on the same day as the general election. I can see from his smile that I already have his vote in relation to any such amendments.

I am sorry that I have been unable to deal with all the other amendments that we tabled on Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, but some of them merely repeat the other amendments to new schedule 2 as regards England. I hope that we will have an opportunity to vote on quite a number of these proposals.

Superannuation Bill

Alan Reid Excerpts

Tuesday 7th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Maude]

My hon. Friend is exactly right and puts his finger on an important point. Because it is so disproportionately expensive under the current scheme to make redundant long-serving and high-paid civil servants, instead of one civil servant who earns 10 times the average—there are some—losing their job, 10 or more lower-paid civil servants might lose their jobs to save the same amount of money. We are seeking to address exactly that issue.

[Mr Alan Reid (Argyll and Bute) (LD)]

I, too, was pleased to hear the Minister say that the Government want a scheme that will be better for the lower-paid, but the Bill does not differentiate the lower and higher paid. Will the Government seek to amend it to allow better compensation for the lower-paid?

[Mr Maude]

It is not my intention to propose amendments of that nature, because in our view such arrangements are difficult to engineer—this is tricky stuff—and are not amenable to incorporation in primary legislation. Such matters should be negotiated. It is precisely for that reason that we are engaged in a parallel process of negotiation with the Council of Civil Service Unions, which I shall talk a little about in a moment, because we are seeking to achieve two things.

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[Paul Goggins (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)]

We have had a good and thorough debate, with some thoughtful and powerful contributions from Members on both sides of the House, including my hon. Friends the Members for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore), for Glenrothes (Lindsay Roy), for Derby North (Chris Williamson) and for North Ayrshire and Arran (Katy Clark), as well as the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas).

The difficulty that we face as we prepare to vote on this issue is that the words we have heard from the Dispatch Box are very different from those that are written in the Bill. On 14 July, the Minister for the Cabinet Office set out his approach to the reform of the civil service compensation scheme. He said:

“I want to engage with the unions quickly to develop a scheme that protects the lowest paid…we need to negotiate”.

When I pressed the Minister to take the previous Government’s reform package as the starting point for those negotiations, he accepted, as he did again at the Dispatch Box this afternoon, that had

“that scheme been in existence when the coalition Government came into office, a pressing case would have been made to leave it as it was and work on that basis.”—[Official Report, 14 July 2010; Vol. 513, c. 932.]

It was a good beginning, with an acknowledgement of the merits of the previous Government’s reform package, set out in February, and a clear undertaking to protect the lowest-paid.

Unfortunately, our hopes were dimmed when this draconian Bill was published just 24 hours later, with no prior consultation with staff or the trade unions. The Minister was open and transparent about the purpose of the Bill. He said that it is not the final word. Indeed, in a phrase echoed by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey), the Minister described the Bill as a “blunt instrument”. It contains a sunset clause and powers to repeal at any stage. In no sense is it a reformed scheme: it simply places a cap on the existing unreformed scheme. It means, typically, that a civil servant earning £21,000 a year who is made compulsorily redundant and who would get £63,000 under the existing scheme—and would have got £60,000 under the February 2010 scheme—will get just £21,000. Someone earning £18,000 who would have got £54,000 under the existing scheme or the February 2010 scheme, will get just £18,000.

The truth, which has been freely acknowledged by Ministers, is that the Bill is a negotiating device to ensure drastic cuts in the civil service compensation scheme. But as legislators we have to ask what will happen if those negotiations do not succeed. The Chair of the Public Administration Committee, in a thoughtful speech, warned about the dangers that might lie ahead in terms of legal challenge and delay. It is good to know that he and his Committee will keep a watchful eye on this legislation and other matters.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), who chairs the PCS parliamentary group, has described this Bill as a landmine Bill, and he set out his definition of that. Whether that is true or not, there are real dangers if this Bill passes through Parliament while parallel negotiations go on outside that remain uncertain and, if unsuccessful, could create real resentment among those whom they affect.

There is no argument from my party about the need for reform. Indeed, we engaged in considerable detail in those reforms before the election. The focus of our reform was the vast majority of civil servants who do vital work on the front line of our public services. They include those who work in jobcentres trying to reconnect unemployed people with work; those who work in our prisons dealing with difficult and dangerous offenders and ensuring that our communities are safe places to live; and those who deal with tax credit claimants, ensuring that families have at least a decent minimum income on which to live. Most of those people, as we have heard from many hon. Members, work for modest rewards. Indeed, the Minister has said on several occasions that half of all civil servants earn £21,000 a year or less.

I genuinely want to give the right hon. Gentleman the benefit of the doubt—that is my starting point. I want it to be true when he keeps repeating the claim he makes in the Chamber and the media that he wants to protect the lowest-paid, but at some point those words have to turn into action, and he has to put flesh on the bones. My real concern this afternoon is that his comments have raised expectations above anything that his Government are likely or willing to deliver.

In particular, I urge the right hon. Gentleman and his ministerial colleague, the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (Mr Hurd), to look again at the proposal that the previous Government agreed with five of the six trade unions, and which even now could provide a realistic, practical starting point for negotiation with all six of the unions—namely, that any civil servant on a salary of less than £20,000 a year who is made redundant would be entitled not to 12 months’ or 15 months’ salary, but to three years’ salary. Labour Members will be tabling an amendment to that effect in Committee, and I encourage the Minister to indicate this evening that he and his colleagues will, when that moment comes, show that they mean what they say when they talk about protecting the low-paid and support that amendment. At the very least, that would be a clear indication, in their discussions and negotiations with the trade unions, that they are acting in good faith and mean it when they say that they want to protect the lowest-paid.

My hon. Friend the Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Mr McCann) was among a number of Members on both sides of the House who reminded us that this debate and these proposals come before us in the context of deficit reduction, so it is important to remind the House, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Tessa Jowell) made clear, that our reform package would have saved £500 million over three years. The Government have pledged that, however tough life becomes as a result of the cuts that they introduce, fairness will be the watchword. How many times have we heard that from the Government Front-Bench team? But what is fair about the regressive provisions in the Bill that mean that maximum redundancy payments mirror exactly what an individual earns? If someone earns £100,000 a year, under the terms of the Bill their payment would be £100,000. If someone earns £50,000, the payment would be £50,000. And if someone earns £20,000, it would be £20,000, not the £60,000 promised in the reform package that we negotiated and set out in February.

What is fair about a set of negotiations carried out against the backdrop of a Bill that threatens severe cuts if the trade unions do not agree to a new scheme that dramatically reduces the provisions in the civil service compensation scheme? And what can be fair, as the hon. Member for Southport (Dr Pugh) asked pointedly, about unilaterally rewriting a contract with staff, either from a moral or even perhaps a legal standpoint?

[Mr Reid]

I agree with much of what the right hon. Gentleman is saying, but surely the Labour party believes in reforming the present system, so should it not be supporting the Bill on Second Reading, moving its amendment and then voting against it on Third Reading only if that amendment fails?

[Paul Goggins]

Absolutely not. Our starting point is, and the Government’s starting point should be, the February 2010 proposals agreed by the then Government with five of the six trade unions, not this miserable backstop provision in the Bill.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Alan Reid Excerpts

Monday 6th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr McCann]

We are happy to resolve that problem. All the Government need to do is decouple the measures. We will vote for the AV referendum separately, and against the constituency measure. It is in the Government’s —the hon. Gentleman’s people’s—hands to resolve the matter. However, I will vote against the Bill.

Liberal Democrat voters will still harbour some disappointment about going into coalition with the Conservatives, but nobody should be under any illusions about the duplicity of Liberal Democrats in the affair. Before the election, we had to listen to the nauseating lectures of the Deputy Prime Minister, who told us that his was the only party that had in no way been tainted by the troubles of the previous Parliament. That was not the case—it is factually incorrect—but we were led to believe that the Deputy Prime Minister would arrive on his white steed and there would no longer be any dirty deeds or skulduggery in politics because the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr Clegg) would save us all. That stomach-churning hypocrisy pales into insignificance when we consider the Bill.

The Boundary Commission will be given the task of making arithmetical calculations and equalisations, and placing seats of 76,000 first, second, third, fourth and fifth in their deliberations, except in constituencies that have an area that exceeds 12,000 square kilometres, and except for the Shetland islands and the Western Isles. When I saw the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) after the details of the Bill were released, the smile could not have been taken off his face with a blowtorch because he will get that free run at the next general election.

The primary beneficiaries of all the exceptions are the Liberal Democrats. We should remember that the Deputy Prime Minister said in a speech on political reform on 7 April 2010 that only the Liberal Democrats could be trusted on political reform.

[Mr Alan Reid (Argyll and Bute) (LD)]

The hon. Gentleman is wrong. He should read the analysis of the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Mr Doran). If there were no exceptions, the Highlands council area and the islands councils areas would have three seats, all Liberal Democrat. The exceptions mean that the area will have fours seats—three Liberal Democrat and one Scottish National party. The one beneficiary from the exceptions is therefore the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil).

[Mr McCann]

That was an opportune intervention, because I was about to cover that point. We cannot base the new rules on the distribution of seats on arithmetic alone and then seek to introduce measures to protect certain seats. In that way, the Government are simply protecting certain communities against others. It is simply not possible for things to be a little bit equal.

The Bill includes other measures that would be detrimental to our parliamentary system, including the arbitrary reduction of the number of constituencies and the permanent revolution resulting from the boundary changes before each Parliament. Trotsky would indeed be proud of the Bill on that basis alone. However, just in case anyone develops the mistaken and untrue impression that only Members of the House are concerned, I also have a correspondence with Keep Cornwall Whole, which demonstrates that people outside the House believe that the Bill is wrong and that it should not proceed.

The AV referendum, however meritorious in its own right, is being abused by the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats as a cover for their proposals to break up and gerrymander constituencies. I ask right hon. and hon. Members on the Government Benches, particularly those who have spoken passionately on the Bill, to back the AV referendum and ditch the proposed constitutional reform of our constituencies proposed in it.