Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill

Debate between Chris Bryant and Angus Brendan MacNeil

Consideration of Lords message
Tuesday 21st May 2024 Commons Chamber

[Sir Chris Bryant]

I ask the hon. Gentleman to let me make a little progress. I am still on the first sentence of my speech.

Over the years, Members have repeatedly given evidence that the secondary ticket market is not working: with tickets advertised with no declaration as to whether they are real, or of their face value; websites that only declare the face value of a ticket at the very last stage, with a clock ticking away and the fan already hooked; fake tickets being sold, leaving consumers out of pocket and completely in the lurch; tickets sold without evidence of proof of purchase, or of the seller’s title to the tickets; and websites circumventing artists and venues’ policies on the resale of tickets.

Taylor Swift tickets with a face value of £75 are presently selling on Viagogo for £6,840. If a Foo Fighters fan from the Rhondda wanted to buy a ticket to see them at Cardiff’s Principality Stadium, it would have cost them £95 direct from that stadium; on Viagogo today, that exact same ticket would cost them £395. If a child from the Rhondda who loves space and hopes to one day become an aeronautical engineer wanted to see “Tim Peake: Astronauts - The Quest to Explore Space” at Swansea Arena, they would have paid £48.75 face value; on Viagogo, they would have to find £134. This is about much more than just price gouging and ripping people off from their hard-earned money: it is robbing children of their chance to be inspired, to spark a creative idea, to see a career in our growing creative industries, or to learn from an expert. That is why I wish the Government were adopting the measure passed by the House of Lords.

Fans, the people who really create the value, are being excluded from live concerts. The UK’s secondary ticketing market is estimated to be worth £1 billion annually, but it is rife with fraud and scamming, which affects people every single day. I would not even mind if just some of the inflated price money went into the creative industries, and into training young people and providing them with a creative education, but not a single penny of it does. It is set to get worse, too: ticketing security expert Reg Walker has reported “a massive escalation” of harvesting using software. People who have long used bots to bulk-buy items such as iPhones are now turning to ticket touting because it is more profitable, and according to Reg Walker, there is a new generation of young, tech-savvy armchair touts

“smashing ticket systems to bits”.

It is a market that simply does not work, and Labour will fix it.

The Lords have given us a perfectly sensible measure. Their amendment establishes a legal requirement that secondary ticketing facilities must not permit a trade or business to list tickets without evidence of proof of purchase or evidence of title, a matter not mentioned by the Minister. It forbids a reseller from selling more tickets to an event than they can legally purchase on the primary market. It requires the face value of any ticket listed for resale, and the trader or business’s name and trading address, to be clearly visible in full on the first page on which a purchaser can view the ticket—I have had a bit of debate with the Minister about that proposal, so I will come on to the specifics later. It also requires the Government to lay before Parliament the outcomes of a review of the effect of these measures on the secondary ticketing market within nine months of Royal Assent. I cannot understand why any sane person would oppose such a measure, unless it was purely and simply for ideological reasons.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

On such ideological reasons, the Conservative party claims to be the party of Adam Smith, but if we read “The Wealth of Nations”, we see that the behaviour of the rentier class is not exactly praised by Adam Smith, and this is pure rent seeking. As the hon. Gentleman said, this is taking a ticket at £75, charging 90 times that and doing nothing to add any value at all. This is rent seeking, and ideologically it should be opposed by the Conservative party.

[Sir Chris Bryant]

The hon. Member makes a very good point. Indeed, in the main the market is a good thing—it can operate to produce good and efficient outcomes in society—but in this case the market is not working, and where the market does not work, the state has to intervene.

I cannot understand why any sane person should oppose such a measure, but unfortunately the Government have. Their amendment (a) in lieu is a weak sock puppet of a concession. It does not strengthen the rules; it simply leaves them in place. It does not prevent tickets from being sold without evidence of proof of purchase or the seller’s title to the tickets. It does not limit the quantity of resale tickets to the original number limited by the seller or artist. It leaves in place the current system for showing the face value of a ticket, despite the fact that section 90(8) of the Consumer Rights Act 2015, in my view and in the view of everybody who has spoken to Members about this, is very opaque and open to interpretation—or, I would argue, open to deliberate misinterpretation by the secondary ticketing market.

For instance, Viagogo does not say “face value”, but has a little box that says “FV”, which is not explained anywhere on the website, and people have to click on that. If Viagogo genuinely wanted to be open and transparent, it would say “face value”, and put the price at the very beginning. StubHub is similarly advertising tickets for Taylor Swift on 21 June at £711, but nowhere on the first page does it give the face value. I note that, if someone goes on to the second page, it says $75 there, but I am told that that is not the actual cost of the ticket. Seatsnet has tickets for Murrayfield—for Taylor Swift again—selling at £1,294.79 or £1,092.15 each, and nowhere does it give the face value of the tickets. Interestingly, AEG Presents and AXS, which are managing the tickets for the concerts at Murrayfield, say that tickets are strictly not to be resold:

“Any tickets found to be purchased via re-sale on the non-official secondary market will not be valid for entry into the concerts.”

In other words, it is completely in doubt whether the tickets being sold at £711 or £1,294 are tickets that will actually gain admittance for an individual.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Chris Bryant]

The secondary ticket market is the spivs: it is precisely the same set of people scamming the system and the public. They are taking advantage of people’s desire to get tickets, and thereby making the market simply not work in the interests of the creators of the art, the fans, or the stadiums and venues themselves. That is why we want to take action.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

The hon. Gentleman is quite right about the market not working. The point that has been missed hugely by Conservative Members is that a finite number of tickets are going on sale, and this finite number is being gobbled up by the spivs, speculators and whoever online. He mentions the guys outside a venue, but they can only hold so many tickets. It is the scale of this, as I heard the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) say from a sedentary position. Without the Lords amendment that has been proposed, this is being allowed on an industrial scale. Why are the Government and the Conservative party willing to see people ripped off? It is just unbelievable.

[Sir Chris Bryant]

I rather agree with the idea that some Conservative Members actually want people to be ripped off, and maybe that is what we have seen for the last 14 years when we have seen taxes rise, but what we get for the taxes has diminished.

The Minister says that he wants to give more powers to the CMA to be able to enforce the action. The problem with that is that the CMA itself gave evidence that, when it tried to take Viagogo to court, it came up against inherent weaknesses in the existing consumer protection toolkit, and the Government are not adding anything to that consumer protection toolkit whatsoever. Indeed, they are deliberately voting down precisely what they said they wanted.

HMY Iolaire

Debate between Chris Bryant and Angus Brendan MacNeil

Wednesday 12th December 2018 Westminster Hall

[Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the 100th anniversary of the HMY Iolaire disaster.

It is a great privilege to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer.

I am grateful to the House authorities for this opportunity to speak about the Iolaire and to pay our respects to the many men who lost their lives while they were returning to their home island of Lewis and Harris on Hogmanay 1918. Tragically, in the early hours of 1919, they lost their lives just a stone’s throw from their native island. I am also grateful to Poppyscotland for the creation of a badge that a number of us are wearing in Westminster Hall today: it has a poppy to mark the war and a bell to mark the Iolaire.

The Iolaire was the worst peacetime disaster at sea for the UK since the sinking of the Titanic and the worst peacetime loss in Scottish or British waters in all the 20th century; only the loss of the Herald of Free Enterprise in 1987 and the Piper Alpha oilrig disaster a year later come close in scale to what happened with the Iolaire. What compounded the tragedy was that the appalling loss of life fell almost exclusively on the one small, defined population of Lewis and Harris, as John MacLeod noted in his excellent book, “When I Heard the Bell: The Loss of the Iolaire”, which was published in 2009.

About 284 men sailed on the Iolaire and it now seems that 201 of them were lost, following research for the excellent book by Malcolm Macdonald, “The Darkest Dawn”, which was published this year; the public inquiry of February 1919 had recorded 205 deaths. Regardless of the actual number, about 70% of the passengers and crew lost their lives that night, 20 yards from shore. Many bodies were never recovered and only 79 men survived.

Of course, what adds to the feelings of injustice, grief, annoyance and poignancy, in the mix of emotions that the Iolaire still conjures to this day, was that many of the men on board had already been through the grimmest of years in the grimmest of global conflicts. Indeed, only a year earlier one man on the Iolaire had survived the Halifax bay explosion in Nova Scotia. He came out of the war, only to lose his life at the doorstep of his own island. The 201 men who lost their lives had been fortunate to escape the horror of world war one, but tragically they lost their lives as they arrived home.

Lewis and Harris had already suffered badly in the war, losing many of its sons, fathers and husbands. Of a population of 29,000, 6,172 were in the service of the Crown: 3,500 were in the Royal Navy; and, interestingly, about 560 men from Lewis were serving the Crown in the forces of Canada.

The loyal Lewis roll of honour described the catastrophe as the crowning sorrow for Lewis from world war one. Reprinted on that roll of honour is the following:

“At 1.55am on 1st January 1919, a naval yacht carrying sailors home on leave ran aground on rocks near the village of Holm, a mere 20 yards from the shore of the Isle of Lewis and less than a mile from the safe harbour of Stornoway. HMY Iolaire was crowded with 280 men, mostly naval reservists returning to the safety and comfort of their homes after the horrors of the Great War. On this dark night of winter, a force ten gale was blowing from the south, hard onto the shore, and there was a heavy sea running. Men drowned as they jumped or slid into the sea from the pitching decks, were flung back into the angry foam from lifeboats awash and overloaded, were dashed against jagged rocks, or managed to swim and crawl ashore, only to die before they could reach shelter or aid. By the time the first New Year’s Day of peacetime dawned, 201 men had lost their lives, 181 of them on the very shores of the island they called home.

No one now alive in Lewis can ever forget the 1st of January 1919, and future generations will speak of it as the blackest day in the history of the island, for on it 200 of our bravest and best perished on the very threshold of their home under the most tragic of circumstances. The terrible disaster at Holm on New Years morning has plunged every home and every heart in Lewis into grief unutterable.”

I will come on to that unutterableness later. The roll continues:

“Language cannot express the desolation, the despair which this awful catastrophe has inflicted. One thinks of the wide circle of blood relations affected by the loss of even one of these gallant lads, and imagination sees these circles multiplied by the number of the dead, overlapping and overlapping each other till the whole island—every hearth and home in it—is shrouded in deepest gloom. All the island’s war losses in the past four cruel years—although these number fully four times the death roll of New Year’s Day morning—are not comparable to this unspeakable calamity. The black tragedy has not a redeeming feature.”

That was written by William Grant, the founder of the Stornoway Gazette, in January 1919, when the memory was of course very alive to the tragedy and its magnitude.

The Iolaire had come over specially from Stornoway to Kyle of Lochalsh to take men home for New Year. The admiralty had given English and Welsh servicemen a break for Christmas, and the Scots the new year, as was the developed custom and, indeed, the want at the time. The admiralty had known that there would be a bottleneck problem at Kyle to get the men across the Minch to Stornoway. The merchant seaman, Captain Colin Cameron, master of the MacBrayne mailboat, Sheila, knew that it could not accommodate all the extra naval reservists along with soldiers and passengers safely across the Minch, and he pressed, quite correctly, for a way to relieve the pressure of sheer numbers on the Sheila, and hence the Admiralty sent the Iolaire to Kyle. It was not a great start. When she arrived in Kyle at 4 pm, a miscalculation between the bridge and the engine room meant she hit the pier and sustained damage to 10 feet of her gunnel. That was a very inauspicious start.

For those who were to board that night, the journey to Kyle of Lochalsh involved crowded and slow railway journeys from Glasgow, first north to Inverness and then west through Dingwall to Kyle, with stoppages. The Glasgow to Kyle journey took about 13 and a half hours, arriving at Kyle at 6.15 pm on Hogmanay 1918. Many of those on board the Iolaire that night had travelled up from the south of England and had come through London before they went up to Glasgow and onwards with their cousins, neighbours, comrades and fellow islanders.

The second part of the train that had taken 13 and a half hours arrived at 7 o’clock, 45 minutes later, and the Iolaire set sail at 7.30 pm, with naval personnel from Lewis. Soldiers from Lewis who wanted to get on the Iolaire had been ordered off. They wanted to get on because friends, cousins and neighbours had been on it. It is worth pointing out, on the circle of overlap mentioned in the 1919 writing, that those who were the friends, cousins and neighbours could be the same person, such is the nice interlinked happenstance that islands tend to have. That is true to this day and it was certainly true in 1919.

As I have noted, at 1.55 am on New Year’s Day 1919, the Iolaire ran aground on the rocks at Holm—the Beasts of Holm. The weather had been blowing force eight to 10 on the shore, when she struck the rocks and listed to starboard at a 35° angle. Many of those on board thought she had hit a mine and about 50 to 60 jumped off or slid into the sea. From then on, she was hit by waves, strongly and regularly. Concern about the Iolaire’s course had been spotted by a nearby fishing boat that was sailing the route as well, the Spider. Given the time of year, alcohol was of course suspected, and disputed. What is not in dispute is the loss of life. There is so much to say and it is impossible to do it justice, other than to remember, be aware and think well of those people who lost their lives 100 years ago.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

We are all delighted that the hon. Gentleman has secured this debate. Another thing that is not disputed is that John Macleod, who was my great-grand-uncle, swam ashore with a rope and probably managed to save 40 people’s lives. The real sadness is that so many people who got ashore never managed to get to a home, because nobody was expecting the ship to arrive. The misery for the families the next day—finding dead bodies on the beach—was just so total.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

I am grateful for that intervention. I was just going to come on to John Finlay Macleod; I had not realised he was the great-grand-uncle of the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), and I thank him for pointing that out.

Those who lost their lives might be people we may meet ourselves someday, depending on what happens after this life. Of the 79 who survived, as the hon. Gentleman pointed out, 40 owe their lives to fellow crewman and passenger, experienced seaman and Royal Naval reservist, John Finlay MacLeod, from Port of Ness, who swam ashore with a rope after a couple of attempts. He was swept out at one point. Four followed behind him on the small rope he swam with, the heaving line, but they had the presence of mind to use that line to pull a six-inch hawser, and a further 35 were able to follow. The actions of the hon. Gentleman’s great-grand-uncle saved 40 of the 79 who survived. It was quite a remarkable achievement, although it is sad to note that some were swept off the rope or sucked off the rope by the swell, and lost their lives.

John Finlay MacLeod was said to be a very daring man and, for the lives he saved, many were glad he was. There were many other heroes that night, and it is impossible in the time available to do them any measure of justice. It is worth pondering the effects of the Iolaire on the island of Lewis and Harris, the third largest of the British Isles after the island of Britain and the island of Ireland. The excellent book by Malcolm Macdonald breaks it down into areas of Lewis, because it is a big island. In the parish of Barvas, Ness lost 23 men. It is striking as we look through the names that there are still people—friends of mine—who have much the same names, from those areas: John MacDonald, Murdo Campbell, John MacLeod, Angus MacDonald, Angus Morrison, Donald Morrison, Donald MacLeod, John Murray and Roderick Morrison. These names are as familiar today as they were then in that area.

The parish of Barvas—Borve to Shawbost—lost 28 men. Uig parish in the east lost nine men; in Uig parish in the west, 14 were lost. In Stornoway parish, North Tolsta, 11 men were lost; in Stornoway parish, Back to Tong, nine men were lost. In Lochs parish, North Lochs, 21 men were lost; in Lochs parish, Kinloch, four men were lost; in Lochs parish, Pairc, eight men were lost. In Stornoway parish, Point, 39 men were lost. In Stornoway borough and district, eight men were lost. On the Isle of Harris, four men were lost; and on the Isle of Scalpay, one man was lost—Finlay Morrison, Fionnlagh Dhomhnaill Fhionnlaigh. One of the things that should be noted in the excellent book is the patronymics of these people, which help people reading it today to know who their relations were. Finally, in the rest of the United Kingdom, 18 men were lost; they were the crew of the Iolaire, who perished.

Exiting the EU: Sectoral Impact Assessments

Debate between Chris Bryant and Angus Brendan MacNeil

Wednesday 1st November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

rose—

[Chris Bryant]

rose—

Standing Orders (Public Business)

Debate between Chris Bryant and Angus Brendan MacNeil

Thursday 22nd October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

Right. I am not giving way—

[Mr MacNeil]

rose—

[Chris Bryant]

I am not giving way for a while.

These measures will also not deliver the Government’s declared aim. The Library has examined every Division since 2001—some 3,000 Divisions in all. Library staff looked at what would happen if no Scottish MPs had voted in any of those Divisions. They found just a tiny proportion where that would have changed the vote— 25 in all. Yes, I admit that perhaps I could understand the Government if all the measures that we are debating this afternoon were intended to deal with those 25 cases, but of the 25, nine were on UK-wide or England, Wales and Scotland legislation, such as anti-terrorism legislation, so not affected; 10 were on non-legislative motions, such as whether the screen should be installed, so also not affected; three were on private Members’ Bills and, to answer the question from the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford) earlier, would not have been affected by the measures under consideration this afternoon; and one would have been tied and would therefore have fallen.

The most contentious subject, which the Leader of the House rather inadvertently deceptively mentioned in the previous debate, was on 27 January 2004, when the Higher Education Bill was given a Second Reading by five votes when 46 Scottish MPs had voted in favour and 15 against. Interestingly, the Tories voted against it then, but a few years later trebled tuition fees. However, that vote would not have been changed by today’s proposals, as I hope the Leader of the House acknowledges. It would not have been changed, would it? He need only nod. It would not have been changed, would it? [Interruption.] Oh, he thinks it would. No. The vote was on Second Reading, and Second Reading is not covered, a point that he has made several times. He does not understand his own provisions which he introduced this afternoon. [Interruption.] No, it was not. There is no point in the Leader of the House intervening again if he does not understand his own proposals.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Bryant]

I am not going anywhere near the hon. Gentleman.

I say to the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman) that it is right that there should be line-by-line consideration by an England-only Committee. There should be a voice, but not a veto.

[Mr MacNeil]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. He correctly identifies a problem. It is a minor problem and he goes back to 2004 to identify it. The problem is very different. When the Scotland Bill came through this Parliament this year, when 95% of Scottish MPs, the Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament backed amendments, they were blocked by English and Welsh Members, despite Scotland wanting its power. That is where the problem is for this Parliament. It is not English votes for English laws.

[Chris Bryant]

I am sympathetic to some of what the hon. Gentleman says, except that when we are discussing a constitutional measure, that is a matter for the whole House. Today’s proposals are also a constitutional matter, the biggest constitutional change for some considerable time, which is being introduced through one House without a constitutional convention, which would have been a better way of doing it. Why on earth did the Government refuse to reply to the Lords’ request for a Joint Committee to consider the constitutional implications first?

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Bryant]

I have already given way to the hon. Gentleman. Much as I enjoy what he has to say, there are others who need to speak.

The honest truth is that this is not a conservative set of measures. It is quite a dangerous set of measures. It is a bureaucratic nightmare and hon. Members will regret it. As Lord Forsyth said last night in the House of Lords, it is like an Uber driver without a sat-nav. It is not a unionist set of measures, either. It is as if the Prime Minister had decided to fashion a new grievance for Scotland—God knows the Scots have never needed a new grievance—because he wanted to antagonise them.

[Mr MacNeil]

If I understand the hon. Gentleman correctly, he is suggesting that 95% of Scottish Members looking for powers to be devolved to Scotland but being blocked by other Members is not a cause for grievance. If that is not a cause for grievance, what is?

[Chris Bryant]

I have just said that there are grievances, and there are English grievances too. I believe that we need to come to a proper constitutional settlement in this House—and across the whole of Parliament—that delivers an elected House of Lords so that the whole country is represented and so that we do not have the anomaly of a baron who was born in Scotland, lives in Scotland and claims expenses for travelling from Scotland to Westminster—[Interruption.]

Succession to the Crown Bill

Debate between Chris Bryant and Angus Brendan MacNeil

Tuesday 22nd January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

Yes, but that does not change the fact that when somebody becomes monarch, they have to make an accession oath on the Church of Scotland. That is my only point. We have a suite of legislation and once we start pulling at one of the elements of it there is a danger we will unpack the whole lot.

[Mr MacNeil]

rose—

[Chris Bryant]

I will not give way to the hon. Gentleman, as I have given way rather too often already.

I would quite like to change things as I think there are many different ways of being an established Church. I do not want to disestablish the Church of England, but I think that it could be established in a different way.

Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Debate between Chris Bryant and Angus Brendan MacNeil

Wednesday 13th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr MacNeil]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Chris Bryant]

If the hon. Gentleman does not mind, I will not, as I am keen to conclude my remarks.

The Minister asked whether both Houses should decide. That goes to the heart of the matter. Yes, we believe that both Houses should decide, but if the Minister had wanted to change that, he could have tabled an amendment in lieu of the Lords amendment, which could have said that just as in the provisions on an early general election, there would be a vote in one House—this House. There could have been a vote in this House on whether it was a fixed-term Parliament. The Government’s response tries to bind a future Parliament in an inappropriate way. I think that is a mistake, so we will support the Lords amendment.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Chris Bryant and Angus Brendan MacNeil

Wednesday 16th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Paul Farrelly (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Lab)]

rose—

[Mr MacNeil]

rose—

[Chris Bryant]

I will give way in a moment. Of course we do not expect there to be only 10% or 15% voting in elections and we do not expect that to be the threshold in elections later this year, but there will be a significant difference between the turnout in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. I say to Government Members who are concerned about how English people view the way in which the House transacts its business that if the votes of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland end up effectively rigging the vote across the whole United Kingdom because they are having other, substantial, national elections on the same day, I think that will bring the decision into disrepute, and that is a problem.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr MacNeil]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Chris Bryant]

I will in a moment. I am still dealing with this question. I know that the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil) is going to make a silly point, and I will let him make it in a couple of moments.

It is suggested that we are advancing a system that guarantees that the vast majority of MPs will have 50% of the vote—some of us already achieve that—but then it is said that that provision should be delivered on perhaps a 30% or 35% vote.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Bryant]

As the right hon. Gentleman knows, I have advocated an elected House of Lords for a very long time, and that is still my position. However, many people, including himself when he was on the Opposition Benches, have argued that the sagacity and wisdom of people down the other end of the building should sometimes be listened to. Whatever system we end up with for the two Chambers, I would simply say that as in most other countries in Europe that have a parliamentary system, there will be a second Chamber with a particular concern for constitutional matters.

If the Bill had made progress as the result of pre-legislative scrutiny, with a Joint Committee considering all of its proposals, or for that matter if there had been two separate Bills, one on the AV referendum and another on parliamentary constituencies, I would agree wholeheartedly with the right hon. Gentleman. However, I believe that the Government have abused every single constitutional convention in driving the Bill forward, so I am afraid I am not with him on this occasion.

[Mr MacNeil]

rose—

[Chris Bryant]

And now for the hon. Gentleman.

[Mr MacNeil]

Surely if a threshold is in place, it is an incentive not to participate. I hope that the Labour Front Benchers do not want to create such an incentive. Surely it is those who care who will vote. Those who are happy either way will probably not vote and will accept whatever those who care deliver. If the threshold that the hon. Gentleman wants were not reached, would that not invalidate both first past the post and AV, not just one of them?

[Chris Bryant]

I knew the hon. Gentleman was going to make a silly point, because he made the same silly point earlier. We have to have elections to this House, and they will either be under the first-past-the-post system or, if the referendum question is carried, under AV. I therefore do not accept his argument. I also point out to him that I believe there will be very different turnouts in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland from that in England. That is why I have never supported holding the referendum on the same day as other elections there.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Chris Bryant and Angus Brendan MacNeil

Tuesday 15th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

No, I am not saying that at all, but that referendum was not an implementing referendum; nor was it held at the same time as other elections. That is a completely different matter therefore, and I think we behaved entirely properly in introducing our legislation for Wales. Incidentally, in the 3 March referendum I shall also be voting in favour.

[Mr MacNeil]

Is the hon. Gentleman really saying, “These are my principles on referendums, but I don’t like them so I’ve got some other ones”? He says one thing on the one hand, and another thing on the other. There is no consistency at all from those on the Labour Front Bench.

[Chris Bryant]

No, that is not true. [Interruption.] Yes, it is interesting to hear an argument for consistency from a Scottish nationalist. That is almost as interesting as hearing that argument from a Liberal Democrat. [Interruption.] I note that the hon. Member for Bristol West (Stephen Williams) was already laughing before I said that.

The Minister cited me, and claimed that I was going to say all sorts of things. Actually, in Committee in this Chamber I said that

“there is no fixed determined policy that we are completely and utterly in all cases implacably opposed to thresholds. Nor, for that matter, is there a belief that we ardently should have thresholds.”—[Official Report, 2 November 2010; Vol. 517, c. 847.]

My point is that there are times when thresholds might be suitable, and there are times when thresholds will not be suitable. Indeed, the Minister quoted a bit of my speech, but I went on to say that

“I fully understand that there are others who say that because of the way in which the Government are pushing forward with this legislation and because it is an implementing referendum, a threshold would be appropriate.”—[Official Report, 2 November 2010; Vol. 517, c. 849.]

Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Debate between Chris Bryant and Angus Brendan MacNeil

Wednesday 24th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. That is true not only of his party but of the Liberal Democrats, who said that they were in favour of a fixed-term Parliament although there was no reference in their election material or manifesto, or in any of the speeches made by the now Deputy Prime Minister, to any provisions for determining when an election might be held or for introducing a super-majority. When their lordships consider this legislation, it is important that they bear in mind the fact that the conventions relating to matters that are adumbrated in a general election manifesto simply do not apply in this case. There is absolutely no electoral mandate for this provision.

The aetiology of clause 2 is pretty straightforward. It comes from the coalition agreement. I know that the hon. Member for Epping Forest is keen, for her own reasons of propriety, to stick to voting for proposals that are in the coalition agreement. However, she has complete freedom in relation to today’s amendments, because these provisions are not mentioned in the agreement. It states:

“We will establish five-year fixed-term Parliaments. We will put a binding motion before the House of Commons stating that the next general election will be held on the first Thursday of May 2015. Following this motion, we will legislate to make provision for fixed-term Parliaments of five years. This legislation will also provide for dissolution if 55% or more of the House votes in favour.”

I completely agree with the articles that were then written by several Members, the most impressive of which was probably that by the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) and published in The Daily Telegraph. In it, he stated:

“The requirement for a 55 per cent majority to dissolve parliament, and thereby dismiss a government, dramatically reduces the ability of Parliament to hold the executive to account.”

If that was true of a 55% requirement, it is even more true of a 67% requirement. Moreover, that requirement would involve 67% of not only those who voted but of all the seats in the House, even those that were vacant at the time and also, presumably, those of the Deputy Speakers and the Speaker, who would presumably not be allowed to vote. Those seats would therefore automatically be included with those who had voted against holding an early general election.

There is absolutely no mandate for the provisions in clause 2. I believe that it will entrench the powers of the Executive, rather than releasing their grip on Parliament. An important point has been made by several hon. Members, not least my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw), the former Home Secretary—I could list all his jobs as he has held almost every job in the Government apart from Prime Minister; perhaps that will come one day. They pointed out that the clause introduces a new super-majority, which is alien to the processes of this House. There has never been a super-majority provision. The provision is introduced by statute rather than through the Standing Orders, so again it is the Executive forcing their will on the House rather than the House taking this forward.

[Mr MacNeil]

Philosophically, this change has come about because of the practice of Prime Ministers choosing to go to the country at a moment that suits them and their political party rather than the country or anybody else. Margaret Thatcher did this and plenty of other Prime Ministers have done it. How does the hon. Gentleman square the circle of getting away from that rotten practice and moving towards a fairer and more equitable practice?

[Chris Bryant]

The most important element of the Bill as a whole is the introduction of a fixed term. As the hon. Gentleman knows, I would prefer a four-year period, but it is five years in the Bill. The presumption should be in favour of a fixed term. It is absolutely right that the Prime Minister should no longer have the power to dissolve Parliament and that the Dissolution should rest solely with Parliament rather than with the Prime Minister. To achieve such a handing over of power, we also have to change the prerogative power to prorogue Parliament. Otherwise, it would be perfectly simple for a Prime Minister who wanted to ensure an early general election—for whatever set of reasons—to bypass the two thirds majority required in subsection (1), to engineer a vote of no confidence and then to prorogue Parliament immediately so that no vote of confidence in another Government could be called.

[Mr MacNeil]

The hon. Gentleman will be familiar with the workings of this place, whereby a Prime Minister could simply use his Whips to whip his party and secure a simple majority. How is that circle to be squared? We could say that in one sense Parliament has the power, but in another sense it does not if the Prime Minister can use his Whips to dragoon his parliamentary party into having an election. [Interruption.]

[Chris Bryant]

The Deputy Leader of the House is chuntering away. I think he is trying to talk to you, Mr Hoyle, because he keeps on saying that I am out of order and that I am not speaking to the right part of the clause. Perhaps he could have his conversation with you privately.

The hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil) is absolutely right in one sense. We have to achieve a balancing act. This House needs to exert its power through its majority to hold the Government to account and, if necessary, to sack the Government. In most circumstances, that has happened when a political party has splintered or when a leader of a party has proved unable to control his or her troops—his, in most cases—through the Division Lobbies. We have seen that happen with the Irish Home Rule Bill and with the Budget at different times, leading to a collapse of confidence in the Government on the Government side and the subsequent fall of that Government. I think that we should still stick with that process.

In case hon. Members feel that in recent times motions of no confidence—and particularly successful motions of no confidence—have been pretty rare, it is worth pointing out that we should look at a longer period of history than just the last few years if we are to set out constitutional change that will stand the test of time. We have no way of knowing what will happen to the political parties, as presently constituted, in five, 10, 15 or 20 years’ time.

Looking back over the last 150 or so years, we find that no confidence motions have been used quite regularly and have frequently led to the collapse of Governments. Lord North’s Government, for example, fell in 1782. There was also a sustained period in which no confidence motions were common from 1885 onwards; indeed, there were two such motions in 1886, when first Lord Salisbury’s Government and then Gladstone’s Government fell again on the issue of Irish home rule, which divided the Liberal party—

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Bryant]

We will undoubtedly discuss the Speaker’s certificate when we deal with later amendments.

The Government have relied for their provision on calling a general election on the fact that there are similar provisions in the Scotland Act 1998. It is true that that Act provides for an early general election when, and only when, there is a super-majority among those voting. However, as I tried to explain to my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn, the two measures are completely different. The presumption in the Scotland Act was that it would be virtually impossible for any one political party ever to have a majority in the Scottish Parliament. Incidentally, the Act also contains a provision that is entirely different from the provision in clause 1: it provides that the date of the next general election, if there is one in Scotland, will not be changed at all.

Moreover, the provisions in the Scotland Act mean that if there is no First Minister—which is the equivalent of no one being able to gain a motion of confidence on a simple majority—a general election must follow in any event. That, in my view, clearly invalidates the super-majority process, which I think will be used very rarely in the Scottish Parliament.

The problem with the provision in clause 2 relating to a super-majority is that either it is profoundly dangerous because it removes Parliament’s power to hold the Government to account, and to be able to sack the Government or the Prime Minister, or it is otiose, because a Prime Minister who wanted to ensure an early general election at a time of his or her own choosing would simply engineer a motion of no confidence or, for that matter—as there is no determinant for what counts as a motion of no confidence—table a motion of confidence in which the Government then chose not to vote. The Opposition would almost certainly vote against the motion of confidence, and an early general election would follow.

[Mr MacNeil]

The hon. Gentleman mentioned Scotland. An election called by the Scottish Parliament during the period of that Parliament would not necessarily reset the clock. An election would still take place, say, a year or two years later. I understand that here the clock would be reset. There is clearly an incentive to go to the country at different points which does not exist in Scotland.

[Chris Bryant]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for echoing a point that I made three minutes ago. I still agree with the point that I made three minutes ago, and I now agree with the hon. Gentleman, which is great. We are gathering support in the debate, which is very exciting. I hope that he will support the same amendments as me.

My problem with amendment 33 is that it places all the power in the hands of the party leaders. That is a profound problem, as I hope we are moving into a period when Parliament finds more opportunities to take its destiny into its own hands. I hope various measures that have already been introduced will help in that, and will revitalise the role of Back Benchers and therefore make it possible for not everything to be decided by the party leaders. That is an important principle, and it is why we do not support the amendment—although I realise that the hon. Member for Epping Forest will not press it to a Division in any case.

[Chris Bryant]

I wonder whether I can carry the hon. Lady a little further into even greater acts of agreement. Bearing in mind the stricture she has set herself of not opposing anything that is in the coalition agreement, she should feel free to support us in respect of later amendments on the two-thirds majority, unless she has found some other reason not to do so.

We have tabled one amendment to clause 2: amendment 21. The clause provides for the calling of an early general election, but it does not specify what “early” means in that context. It does not state whether the motion that could be moved in the House would say, for instance, “This House calls for a general election in the autumn of next year,” and if so whether that means the general election would be held next autumn or prior to that, as current legislation still allows for the precise date of a general election to be set by royal proclamation, which would obviously be on the basis of advice from the Privy Council, and therefore would in practice come from the Prime Minister.

Therefore, the Bill as currently drafted lacks clarity in this respect. That is why we have suggested that the clause should refer to an “immediate” rather than an “early” general election. That fits with amendments we have tabled to other provisions saying the power to determine the precise date of the general election should not be left to the Prime Minister, and that instead the date should be set.

[Mr MacNeil]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Chris Bryant]

In a moment.

Once the Speaker’s certificate has been certified or provided, the general election should be held on a specified date as provided for in legislation, rather than one decided elsewhere.

[Mr MacNeil]

Will the hon. Gentleman define precisely what he means by “immediate” in this context?

[Chris Bryant]

Again, the hon. Gentleman is catching up with me; I explained that in my last sentence, but he had already sought to intervene. What I was trying to say was that under amendments we have tabled to other parts of the Bill, the election would take place on the sixth Thursday after the day on which the Speaker had issued the certificate, whereas the clause states that the general election will be held on the date provided for by royal proclamation—I presume under the Great Seal—as advised by the Privy Council, and therefore, effectively, determined by the Prime Minister. I presume those measures have been put in place so as to stick with the current timetable for general elections, which is six days after Dissolution for the close of nominations and 11 days after that for the day of poll, but perhaps the Minister will confirm whether that is the case. If we are putting other provisions on to the statute book, there is no reason why we should not be able to provide in statute the precise day on which the general election would take place. That is my definition of “immediate”.

The hon. Member for Stone (Mr Cash) was right in saying that he did not consult the Opposition in tabling his amendment. I have to confess that he got to the Table Office about 20 minutes before we did, so I am afraid that on this occasion we have had to row in behind him. Whereas we disagree on many issues, on this issue we simply agree. Either the provision of a super-majority for the calling of an early general election is dangerous or, like Z, it is the unnecessary letter—it is otiose and is not necessary in legislation. The hon. Gentleman’s amendment would remove the super-majority. It would return us almost exactly to the provisions of the South African constitution and allow for an early election on the basis of a simple majority, even though South Africa has fixed-term Parliaments, which have been pretty much adhered to since 1994.

Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Debate between Chris Bryant and Angus Brendan MacNeil

Tuesday 16th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

No. The hon. Gentleman must not keep giving the Committee misleading arguments. The Bill does not extend the term of this Parliament—this Parliament can run for five years. Members of the devolved Parliament and Assemblies have asked the Government to think about how they can make a decision on whether to move the date—a sensible provision—of elections.

[Mr MacNeil]

rose—

[Chris Bryant]

rose—

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Chris Bryant and Angus Brendan MacNeil

Tuesday 2nd November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

It is surprising that a Government that consists of Conservatives and Liberals is taking a view on the number of seats in Parliament that is different from what was in both parties’ manifestos at the general election. The point is that we should have had time to debate these matters, and we have not had a single moment to debate them. I would merely say that I hope that their lordships will take the opportunity to debate the matters that it has not been possible for us to reach.

Let me swiftly deal with some of the amendments. The Minister is absolutely right that the vast majority of the amendments are relatively technical. However, that does not mean that we should be able to agree them today, because we have not agreed any of the statutory instruments on which they depend—he said “if” the statutory instruments are approved by Parliament. There is an enormous presumption in tabling amendments to meet a piece of legislation that has not yet been agreed. That treats this House with a degree of disrespect that is inappropriate.

Amendment 222, tabled by the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil), is about the costs of running the polls being met by the UK Government. The Minister is right to say that the costs are all met by the Consolidated Fund, but I presume that the hon. Gentleman’s amendment has been tabled to make the point that he thinks that the responsibility for running the Scottish parliamentary elections should be the responsibility of the Scottish Parliament—[Interruption.] He is not nodding; he is looking inscrutable at the moment. That is unusual for him, because he is normally extremely scrutable. Perhaps we will have to wait for his contribution to the debate.

The vast majority of these amendments make changes such as substituting “2010” for “2007”, because of the different statutory instrument that would be referred to. Although I suppose it would in theory be possible for us to vote on all of them, because we think that it would be inappropriate to decide on them until the statutory instruments have been decided on, we will none the less want to press at least one to a vote simply to make the point that the process has not been sensible.

Government amendment 78, however, refers to the abandonment of a poll in Scotland. When the Minister sums up, will he explain precisely why he has moved in that direction? The amendment relates to line 3 of page 226, in schedule 7. The Minister also referred to Government amendment 177, which is, as he says, a quite substantial amendment. It runs to several pages and concerns Northern Ireland. It runs from page 1047 of the amendment paper onwards. Proposed new paragraph 40(2) states:

“The following provisions have effect as if the persons listed in them included persons who would be entitled to be present at the proceedings on the issue or receipt of postal ballot papers in respect of the referendum or a relevant election if those proceedings were taken on their own.”

I wonder why the Minister has chosen that precise wording. Likewise, paragraph 42(2) states:

“Otherwise, the provisions listed in sub-paragraph (3) have effect as if the words before ‘the colour’ were omitted.”

It may be that I am very dim, but I simply do not understand that provision in relation to Northern Ireland; it will be for the House’s convenience if the Minister explains it.

Similarly, paragraph 44, on spoilt postal ballot papers—again in relation to Northern Ireland—states at sub-paragraph (2):

“The spoilt postal ballot paper may not be replaced unless all the postal ballot papers issued to the person are returned.”

I do not understand why, if a voter has been given three ballot papers and has spoilt only one of them and therefore wants a replacement only for that one, they have to return the other two as well. Will the Government explain that? I ask about this because some people believe we should make postal balloting more difficult.

In Northern Ireland there has been a tradition of separate rules and regulations for postal voting, because of concerns about corruption. In case the Government are considering substantially restricting the use of postal voting in England and Wales, I must tell the Minister that the current provisions have made it far easier for a large number of my voters to vote in any election. Previously, people had to get a member of the medical profession to sign them off as ill to get a postal ballot. In many cases, my voters were charged £6 a head for the right to vote in an election by post, which I think is completely wrong. Of course we want to ensure that there is no opportunity for corruption in the use of postal ballots, but my experience is that many elderly and other people, particularly those who cannot predict the precise timing of their work commitments, value the current provisions on postal voting.

Finally, I am deeply grateful to the Minister for sending me an e-mail today about the definition of newspapers and periodicals, but unfortunately the parliamentary system would not let me open the attachment, so I do not have the faintest idea what it says. I would be grateful if he could find some means of letting me know what he was trying to communicate.

[Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

I hear about amendments that are probing, wrecking and reasoned, but amendment 222, in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards), is simply protesting. It is protesting about what could have been achieved with a lot less resistance had the Government been reasonable and not tried to usurp Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland’s day of democracy—a day that was set in stone, in legislation anyway, 12 years ago.

The Deputy Prime Minister has stuck his neck out on this—indeed, I wonder whether he is prepared for the consequences as it will be his neck on the block if things go wrong—and the Government have proceeded at breakneck speed, disregarding people’s feelings and beliefs as well as the important issues that will arise in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales next May. That is not a slight against the two Ministers present—the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) and the Parliamentary Secretary, Office of the Leader of the House of Commons—who have been handling a very sticky wicket quite well indeed.

No time has been taken to consult the devolved Governments on the Bill. However, that was also a mistake of the Labour party in government when it delivered devolution to Scotland and Wales almost in direct correlation to the strengths of the nationalist parties in those countries. [Hon. Members: “Rubbish!”] That is not rubbish: it is absolutely right. We in Scotland got our Parliament because the Scottish National party is stronger than Plaid Cymru, which is why Wales got an Assembly. I often wonder why Scotland does not have even the powers of the Isle of Man—population 100,000.

In the past several weeks we have had five days to discuss the Bill in Committee. When the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) was not speaking, we even had some time to get the odd word in before the guillotine. The debate was cut off at important points and some very interesting and reasonable amendments were put on to the waste heap of parliamentary time. One of the most interesting amendments came from the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George), who tried to ensure that all the Bill’s measures, not only those on the voting system but those on the changes to boundaries and the number of Members, would have depended on gaining a positive result in the referendum.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Bryant]

The hon. Gentleman just slipped in, I hope, a reference to a voting system that will be used only every five years. I hope he will not support a five-year fixed-term Parliament, and that I might be able to entice him towards a four-year fixed-term Parliament, which would be a means of guaranteeing that the UK general election did not fall on the same day as a Scottish or a Welsh general election.

[Mr MacNeil]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. The salient point is not whether the election takes place every four years, five years, three years or whatever, but that the referendum coming up next May is usurping the day of democracy and affecting issues over four years. The Minister said that the UK will be solely responsible for the costs, which implies that the amendment has, in effect, been accepted. I welcome that.

When the referendum comes around, I cannot see parties such as the Scottish National party campaigning very strongly for or against. We will have more important things to do. I would encourage the Liberal Democrats to campaign on the referendum, because we will then go and hoover up their seats. A massive mistake is being made by holding that poll on the same day as the elections in Scotland. That is why I am making the protest, and I hope it is being heard. I do not know what will happen in another place, but it should change the provision.

Gate-crashing Scotland’s day of democracy shows a lack of respect on the part of the Government. They say that they would have respected the devolved Administrations, but when pressed they tell us that the opinions of the governing parties of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland do not matter—a case of words and actions diverging greatly.

The Government need our input. They need all our voices. We need to present issues to the Government and make sure that they do the right thing.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Chris Bryant and Angus Brendan MacNeil

Monday 25th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

Sorry, S4C, not Channel 4. S4C is going to be part of the BBC in the near future. I presume that subsection (b), which might be presumed at a later date to transfer to other referendums, would not be disturbed by the congruence of the two organisations, I think in 2013-14.

Subsection (b) also uses the term “broadcast”, a word that, in legislation, specifically refers to broadcasting from one to many points. That is to say, the broadcaster does not determine the precise number of people who receive a programme, network or channel, as opposed to cable, which has never before been referred to as broadcasting, because it is point-to-point. That is to say, the cable organisation knows exactly where the programme is going, because there is a direct connection between A and B, as opposed to what happens in terrestrial broadcasting, whether digital or otherwise. That is why the Communications Act 2003 has separate provisions for broadcasting and cable. I would be grateful if the Minister could clarify that when he says “broadcast” he does not just mean broadcasting, but includes cable and the provision of any such programme via any other means.

I ask that because subsection (c) refers explicitly to

“a programme included in any service licensed under Part 1 or 3 of the Broadcasting Act 1990 or Part 1 or 2 of the Broadcasting Act 1996”.

I do not understand why subsection (b) refers to a broadcast—as opposed to either a programme provided by the two organisations listed or one included in any service provided by them—and it contrasts with how subsection (c) has been constructed. In addition, there is an issue relating to the provision of party political broadcasts, because there will be a different level of provision of party election broadcasts in Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland, as a result of the elections being held there, from that provided in England during the run-up to the referendum and the short campaign for those elections. I suppose that any of the political parties in those areas could decide that it wanted to major on the alternative vote provisions and the referendum in its party election broadcast, and therefore might be considered to be in conflict with the provisions under the terms of the 2000 Act or the Broadcasting Act 1990.

[Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

A party might indeed consider doing that, but would the hon. Gentleman concede that the political reality of the situation is that most parties and combatants in the Scottish and Welsh elections will have better things to do than consider the AV referendum? That further underlines the folly of holding the referendum on the same day as those elections, thereby not giving the issue its proper space in those territories.

[Chris Bryant]

Indeed. Many of the provisions that we will talk about in the main debate this afternoon relate to the combining of polls, but this is the only point in the debate on the Bill when there can be any discussion about party election broadcasts, because this is the only point in the Bill that they are referred to. All the other elements—how many registers of electors there should be, what colour the ballot papers should be, how many polling cards there should be and so on—are referred to in the new schedules that we will come to a little later, but not broadcasting, which is a reserved responsibility.

The Broadcasting Act 1990 makes it clear that

“any regional Channel 3 licence or licence to provide Channel 4 or 5 shall include—

(a) conditions requiring the licence holder to include party political broadcasts in the licensed service; and

(b) conditions requiring the licence holder to observe such rules with respect to party political broadcasts as the Commission may determine.”

In addition, we specified in section 127 of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 that

“(1) A broadcaster shall not include in its broadcasting services any referendum campaign broadcast made on behalf of any person or body other than one designated in respect of the referendum in question under section 108.

(2) In this section, ‘referendum campaign broadcast’ means any broadcast whose purpose (or main purpose) is or may reasonably be assumed to be—

(a) to further any campaign conducted with a view to promoting or procuring a particular outcome in relation to any question asked in a referendum to which this Part applies, or

(b) otherwise to promote or procure any such outcome.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Bryant]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on her splendid speech. I had not realised that she was going to end so swiftly.

We have had excellent contributions. The hon. Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker) said that he lacked ambition. That is clear, I suppose. That has been underlined with three lines from the Whips, but I praise the motion that he tabled. It puts into a new clause the question that I asked the Deputy Prime Minister some few months ago: if the Government plan to cut the number of seats in the House of Commons and do not plan to cut the number of Ministers, surely that will increase the influence of the Government—the Executive—over Parliament. I wholeheartedly support the argument that the hon. Member for Broxbourne made this evening.

[Mr MacNeil]

May I charitably suggest that although the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker) might lack personal ambition, he certainly does not lack ambition for the House and its wider membership, which will have been noted on both sides of the House?

[Chris Bryant]

Of course; I did not mean to be ungenerous to the hon. Member for Broxbourne, as I think he well knows. I was praising his ambition, which need not be for the greasy pole—it might be for other things in life.

The right hon. Member for Louth and Horncastle (Sir Peter Tapsell)—

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Chris Bryant and Angus Brendan MacNeil

Wednesday 20th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

My hon. Friend is right to correct me. I accept the admonition that three seats are being created in this way. I do not think it inappropriate for those seats to exist. But the logic of the Government’s argument—that there should be complete mathematical purity—leads one to suppose that they can only think that they are creating three rotten boroughs.

[Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

I detected a form of back-pedalling in the hon. Gentleman’s answer to the hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mark Tami). I assume that he is not saying that Labour’s policy is that the islands of Scotland are rotten in some way.

[Chris Bryant]

No. The hon. Gentleman knows that personally I have a great affection for the islands; indeed, many of my ancestors came from Lewis. But that is not the point. I am not trying to say that Scotland is in any shape rotten; I am merely trying to say that there is an illogicality in the argument that the Government are presenting. They are trying to say that we should have mathematical purity everywhere—except where we should not have it. I am trying to say that we should strive towards broad equality of representation in each of the seats. However, other considerations need to be brought to mind, and that should apply not only to the seats that I mentioned, but to some others as well.

[Mr MacNeil]

I want some clarification. Does the hon. Gentleman agree with the sensible exceptions that have been made for Na h-Eileanan an Iar and Orkney and Shetland? Yes or no?

[Chris Bryant]

Yes, I do. As the hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well, we have tabled amendments that would include his seat, but also include others. He is a sage man and I know that he would want to pursue the logic of the creation of his own seat so as to make exactly the same exemptions in some other cases where there are overriding concerns—in the Isle of Wight, for instance. That is the nature of the amendment that we have tabled elsewhere.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Chris Bryant and Angus Brendan MacNeil

Tuesday 19th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

There are a lot of misconceptions in relation to the supposed benefits or otherwise of the system to the Labour party. For instance, I heard frequently during the general election—this is before Cleggmania rose and fell—that the system was unfair because the Conservatives would need to be 10 points ahead to gain a majority. That is not precisely the hon. Gentleman’s point, which I will come to in a moment, but many people forget that the difference between winning an election and winning a majority is significant in our system. However the boundaries are drawn, the moment a party gets over the 40% mark in a majoritarian system such as ours, it tends to do rather better than its share of the vote would suggest.

[Mr MacNeil]

The reason why parties or people do well in a majoritarian system when they get more than 40% of the vote is that the first-past-the-post-system was really designed for two players. A third or fourth player complicates first past the post and renders it idiotic, but for chaos theory.

[Chris Bryant]

I enjoyed the hon. Gentleman’s pronunciation of the word “renders”, but other than that, I am not sure I agree with his point. It is true that in elections in the previous century, the Conservative and Labour parties secured something like 95% or 96% of the vote and that in the last election, we secured considerably less than that. That is one reason why we ended up with a hung Parliament. However, I do not see how that bears on my point, which is that in a majoritarian system, once a party gets more than 40% of the vote—many think that this is the great benefit of that system—it tends to find it rather easy to get not just a majority, but a fairly hefty one.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Chris Bryant and Angus Brendan MacNeil

Monday 18th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

The hon. Gentleman is sitting next to the hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale West—a man who just described himself as an eternal optimist. They are both so optimistic that they are still referring to me as a Minister, which is a delight. Of course, the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker) knows perfectly well that that is not the argument I am making; I know that because he did that little shrivel-up of his nose that he sometimes does when he is about to make a mischievous contribution in debate.

The basis of my argument is that the bonds of the Commonwealth are important, and I have given a couple of instances of that. We have significant numbers of people from these various communities in the UK. Many of them have been resident for some time, pay taxes and contribute to British political life, and I would like them to be able to remain in the same situation. The situation is not broken, and so, to use an old Conservative principle, I do not see the need to fix it. Particularly in relation to the Republic of Ireland, it would be a step completely in the wrong direction to try to unpick the relationship that we have managed to maintain over the past few years.

Another issue that has been touched on only slightly relates to the overseas territories. We should consider, not directly in relation to this referendum, but certainly in relation to the future, how overseas territories are represented in the context of the British Government. There is an degree to which we still decide matters for the overseas territories. For instance, in recent weeks the Government have decided to overturn the decision on borrowing in the Cayman Islands and allowed the Cayman Islands to remain as a tax haven. I believe that that is entirely a mistake, and that the finances of Cayman are unsustainable. It is therefore important that we find some means of ensuring that the overseas territories have some form of representation.

I want to ask the Minister a couple of other questions about why the Government have introduced the clause precisely as it is. I presume that we will not have a clause stand part debate, so I will mention these points now, if that is all right, Ms Primarolo. I do not understand why peers should be allowed to vote in a referendum on elections to the House of Commons. That seems slightly odd, because all the other provisions relate to those who are able to vote in elections to the House of Commons. Perhaps the Minister will be able to enlighten us. In particular—this may be down to my personal stupidity and inability to read legislation—[Interruption.] Undoubtedly it is, yes. I see that the hon. Member for Worthing West (Peter Bottomley) has swapped sides and decided to join the ranks of the Labour party: he is very welcome.

I asked the Minister about clause 2(2) earlier, so by now he might have had some inspiration from the officials. No, I see that he is not going to get any inspiration from them because they are all shaking their heads furiously. The clause makes provision for peers whose only right to vote will be by virtue of being able to do so through the City of London—for instance, as an alderman—and therefore not by virtue of their residence. Precisely how many people does he think that that catches?

Can the Minister tell us about the position of the bishops? As he will know, some bishops arrive in the House of Lords automatically and some arrive on a sort of episcopal escalator that takes them up there once they are among the longest-standing bishops of the Church of England, as long as they are diocesan, not suffragan or area bishops. What happens to bishops once they are no longer taking their ex officio seat? Will they be allowed to vote? What provisions does he think should be made for the future?

[Mr MacNeil]

How close does the hon. Gentleman think that this referendum might be?

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Bryant]

I beg to move amendment 352, page 37, line 26, after ‘contrary’, insert

‘including any validly registered voter who presents himself to the polling station before 10 pm but, because of a queue, is not immediately able to vote’.

The amendment seeks to rectify the situation that we saw in the general election this year, when, as hon. Members will know, in several constituencies around the land people turned up to vote at 9.40 pm, 9.45 pm, 9.50 pm or 9.55 pm, but could not cast their ballots. Indeed, they were not provided with ballot papers because they could not get through the doors, as there were queues of people wanting to vote. I hope that all hon. Members thought it a bit of a scandal that although people have historically said that England is the mother of all Parliaments, and although we pride ourselves enormously on our historical past, we were not able to run—

[Mr MacNeil]

England?

[Chris Bryant]

Unfortunately it was a Liberal who first said that England was the mother of all Parliaments, so I can only excuse him. However, if the hon. Gentleman wanted to point out that the first Parliament was not on these isles at all, he would be absolutely right: it was the Althing, the Parliament of Iceland, which has sat since 929.

My point is that on election night we were deeply embarrassed by the fact that so many people were unable to vote in so many parliamentary constituencies. The Deputy Prime Minister himself said that the situation was simply unacceptable in a democracy:

“It is not right that hundreds later found themselves unable to exercise their vote when the polls closed. That should never, ever happen again in our democracy”.

In fact, the situation in his own constituency was among the worst in the land. The returning officer, John Mothersole—a name I have not come across before—apologised to voters who were turned away, saying that the council had “got things wrong.” He said that the turnout had been phenomenal, probably the highest in 30 years. That was not quite right—it was not the highest turnout in 30 years—but the fact that some 200 people were turned away in Ranmoor in Sheffield, Hallam and the police had to deal with an angry crowd of about 100 would-be voters is a clear indication that there is a significant issue to consider.

[Chris Bryant]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is true that some people vote some days before the election when they vote by post, but for many people—those doing shift work, for example—it is vital to keep the polling stations open right up to 10 pm; otherwise, they would not be able to meet their work obligations as well as their voting duties.

[Mr MacNeil]

I saw how what the amendment proposes can work in practice in Venezuela, where I was once asked to be an international election monitor. When the time to close came, the polls stayed open until the queue of people had finished voting. It worked with no problem at all; it functioned very well in Venezuela.

[Chris Bryant]

Some people have had doubts about some of the Venezuelan elections, and I am not sure that we want to base what we do entirely on comrade Chavez’s elections. When I was the Minister with responsibility for Latin America, I was shown a hospital in Venezuela and on one occasion I saw the same woman in three different wards—to prove that the hospital was being used.

[Mr MacNeil]

Serious questions are often raised before elections, but that happens in this country, too. I do not want to leave people with the impression that there is anything specifically wrong with Venezuelan democracy. From what I have seen of that democracy, I know that both the opposition and the Government of that country were very happy with the process.

[Chris Bryant]

Perhaps we should stick to elections in this country, rather than worry about Venezuela. The point is that the amendment is designed to allow someone who has presented themselves to the polling station before 10 o’clock to enter it, receive their ballot paper and vote after 10’clock, even though there was a queue that prevented them from being dealt with by the officials immediately. This will be even more important if we end up with combined polls next year. In many areas in the Rhonda, there tends to be a fairly quiet period between 8 pm and 9.30 pm, but then there is a sudden surge of voters. If Assembly elections as well as the referendum are happening in the same polling station, with people having to approach two desks to provide the information necessary to get their ballot papers, the delay might well be increased. If local authorities are worried about whether the number of staff is sufficient to fulfil all the functions properly, that provides all the more reason to make special and specific provision for people to be able to vote, even though they are not in the polling station until after 10 o’clock.