Parliamentary Constituencies Bill

Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 10th September 2020 Grand Committee

[Baroness Humphreys (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I begin by apologising for not being able to take part at Second Reading. I thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, for tabling this important amendment. As the Committee heard in debates on other amendments on Tuesday, the Bill removes the present power of Parliament to approve the Boundary Commission’s proposals at the end of the process of reviewing boundaries in the UK. As it stands, the process allows MPs only to ratify or block the commission’s proposals, not to amend them. Even this can still be viewed as politicians being able to influence the final decision, as happened in, for example, 1969 and 2001. However much we deplore these situations and others like them, that is what current legislation allows. However, the removal of this power from parliamentarians and, therefore, the introduction of automatic review implementations, has been described by MPs as a “power grab” by the Executive from the legislature and a constitutional outrage. It is seen by many as another attempt to silence or sideline Parliament.

The UK’s four Boundary Commissions pride themselves on the impartiality of their reviews, as they work within the parameters set by various Acts of Parliament. However, up to now that impartiality has ended when the review arrives in Parliament for approval, as history has shown. It is therefore probably right that the UK follow in the footsteps of countries such as Canada, Australia and New Zealand in removing politicians from the process. After all, during the process of a review, politicians and political parties have the ability to express their views in the submissions they make to the commissions, and those submissions are given due regard.

However, this is the most unequal of changes. The Bill takes away the rights of parliamentarians, but the right of the Executive to appoint members to the Boundary Commission remains intact, leaving the impartiality balance skewed in favour of the Government. This is a situation I do not wish to see in Wales—a future Welsh Boundary Commission, influenced by the UK Executive, could hardly claim to be impartial. If the system is to be seen as fair and impartial, all political influence must be avoided. The noble and learned Lord’s amendment achieves just that. If the Government are reluctant to accept it, the accusations of a power grab by the Executive over the legislature will be seen to have substance. On these Benches, we support measures to ensure the independence and impartiality of the Boundary Commission.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab) [V]]

Diolch yn fawr. It is very nice to have so many Welsh people speaking in this debate. I think it would be a brave Minister who rejected the advice contained in this amendment from a former and very eminent Lord Chief Justice—and one, I might add, whose term of office coincided, I think, with that of Chris Grayling as the Secretary of State for Justice, although why I should make that particular point I cannot think at the moment .

It is clear that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, knows a thing or two about the relationship between a Secretary of State and our independent judiciary and legal system. He has no doubt seen at close quarters how decisions are made or influenced and is able to draw on this experience in his advice to the Committee and in the amendment that he has moved today.

The amendment covers two points. First, and crucially, it effectively takes the appointment of commission members out of the hands of an elected politician—indeed, a member of the Cabinet—and places oversight in the hands of the Speaker and the Lord Chief Justice. Secondly, it makes the appointments non-renewable to ensure that Boundary Commission members can carry out their function with absolutely no glance over their shoulder at the possible renewal of their mandate. As the noble and learned Lord says, this fits in well with the Constitution Committee’s view that if we are to move to automatic implementation of Boundary Commission recommendations, this will protect against undue political influence only if the commissioners themselves are genuinely impartial and completely independent of political influence, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris, also said .

In particular, the Constitution Committee recommended that commissioners should be appointed for a single, non-renewable term; the Secretary of State should appoint only from names recommended by the selection panel; and the deputy chair of each commission should sit on the selection panel.

The issue of independence was similarly stressed in a useful briefing note by Dr Alan Renwick and Professor Robert Hazell of the UCL Constitution Unit in their submission to the Commons Bill Committee, where they stressed the need to:

“Protect the Boundary Commissions from Government Interference”—


where, as they say,

“automatic implementation is clearly appropriate only if the review process itself is genuinely independent of any improper interference. If that condition is not met—if, for example, government ministers can unduly influence the appointment of Boundary Commission members or the conduct of reviews—then the independence requirement is violated again.”

The view of those two eminent academics is also that this amendment meets their benchmark for independence.

I would have hoped that we would not need to write such obvious safeguards into the law, but the recent effective removal of those whose advice does not gel with the Government gives one cause for concern. As was discussed earlier in the Chamber today, Tuesday’s news, on the very day of Sir Mark Sedwill’s departure, of the resignation of the head of the Government’s legal department, Sir Jonathan Jones, over his concerns about a threatened breach of the Northern Ireland Protocol, makes him the sixth senior Whitehall civil servant to resign this year. It sounds as if, “If you don’t say the right thing, you don’t stay.”

In a similar manner, recent appointments suggest that a certain push from No. 10 has magically seen Conservatives appointed to a range of positions: the aforementioned Chris Grayling to the National Portrait Gallery; and our own noble Baroness, Lady Harding, appointed as the effective chair of the National Institute for Health Protection, without any advertisement or selection process, and despite being neither a doctor nor a public health professional.

Angela Bray, a former Conservative MP, was suddenly appointed to VisitBritain as a board member. Sir Patrick McLoughlin, a former Conservative Party chair, is now to chair the British Tourist Authority. Nick de Bois will chair VisitEngland and David Ross, a major donor to the Conservative Party and to Boris Johnson’s leadership campaign, is now chair of the Royal Opera House. Political friends have been recently appointed to so-called independent departmental non-executive directorships.

It may well be that all these Conservatives were simply the absolute best, most experienced, most dynamic applicants for these various posts, and that such skills can never be found among Labour or Lib Dem activists, but it does feel as if appointments to important positions may be being handed out on a less than non-political basis. It is therefore crucial, if the Boundary Commission is to have the final say—unchallengeable in Parliament—that we have absolute confidence in the integrity and independence of its members and recommendations and in the appointment of those members.

I say again that I regret that we feel the need to legislate for this. I would have thought that our way of doing government would normally not need this to be written into legislation, but I believe we have to do it. I look forward, therefore, to the Minister’s response to this particular suggestion, and I hope very much that the Government will adopt the amendment and put it forward themselves on Report.

[The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Lord True) (Con)]

My Lords, I start by thanking the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, for the detailed thought that he has put into drafting his amendment and to the fact that he has drawn the Committee’s attention to this very important topic. I am also grateful to him for the time that he gave to have a private conversation on this matter. I am certainly open to have further conversations with him in the days and weeks ahead. I am grateful to all those who have spoken on this topic today.

I must in preface take up what I thought was a very strikingly polemical political utterance from the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, in which she purported to impugn the overall integrity of the public appointments system—an implication which was also left in a much more acceptable but similar fashion by the noble Lord, Lord Janvrin. I will come back to that, because I believe that the integrity of the public appointments system is absolutely fundamental and I am concerned that these kinds of generalised political charges should surface in the manner that we heard from the noble Baroness. I will not trade time in your Lordships’ Committee or at a later stage on Report by listing the names of other people of other parties who have taken up political and public appointments.

For my own part, I do not believe that the desire to give public service as a Member of Parliament or as a humble leaflet deliverer for any political party which is represented in Parliament means that that person should be automatically excluded or regarded as suspect if they are appointed to a public body. I believe that the course of politics—the vocation of politics—and public service through politics are honourable vocations, and that ought to be borne in mind as we address this subject.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab) [V]]

The Minister and I obviously have our political differences, but he probably knows that I would very rarely make a claim that was not accurate. I was speaking quite quickly, so he probably did not quite catch what I said, because my quote from the report of the Constitution Committee, which I have in front of me, was absolutely accurate. What I said was—and this was my opinion—that the amendment fits well the Constitution Committee’s view, which I quoted, that

“automatic implementation … will only protect against undue political influence if they are themselves genuinely independent.”

I then quoted the committee’s recommendation that

“the Commissioners should be appointed for a single, non-renewable term … the appointing minister should be required to appoint only from the names recommended by the selection panel; and … the deputy chair of each commission should sit on the selection panel.”

I was not claiming that the Constitution Committee endorsed the whole of this; my quote was absolutely from the Constitution Committee, and it was on those lines. I realise that I may have been gabbling and the Minister may not have heard me accurately, because I am sure that he would not have made the error otherwise.

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, perhaps I might be permitted to reply to that. I always try to be gracious and I enjoy the challenge that comes from the noble Baroness. The cut and thrust of politics makes it worth while being a Member of your Lordships’ House, and let us have more of it. I accept what the noble Baroness says: that she was simply referring to paragraph 6 of the report, which I also have before me. I accept that she was not saying that those were specific recommendations by the Constitution Committee. I hope that she and I, and the whole Committee, will agree that we should consider, as we are doing “what safeguards are required”—which was the recommendation—

“to ensure the independence and impartiality of the Boundary Commissions.”

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, has put forward some proposals. I have argued that the system currently satisfies that objective. But, as I have said, I am open to having further discussions on this matter.