Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Chris Ruane Excerpts

Monday 25th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)]

Resign!

[Mr Harper]

If resignations were based on that level of accuracy, there would not have been any members of the previous Government in post for longer than about a week, so we will have no more of that.

[Chris Ruane]

I thank the Minister for giving way. Right, here we go: what would happen in Wales if an elector were registered for a postal vote at European elections, not for a postal vote at parliamentary elections, for a postal vote at Welsh Assembly Government elections, and for a postal vote at local government elections? Whatever the Minister says, will the public understand it?

[Mr Harper]

If such a voter had elected to register for a permanent postal vote for every possible election except a Westminster parliamentary one, they would clearly have had a good reason for doing that, so our proposal that the UK parliamentary franchise be used makes sense. I do not think the hon. Gentleman makes a sensible point.

[Chris Ruane]

I left out town council elections.

[Mr Harper]

I think my answer stills stands.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Bryant]

rose—

[Chris Ruane]

Go on Chris, convolute it.

[Chris Bryant]

It does not need to be convoluted; it is pretty straightforward. I presume that the Minister will agree with me that the law on combination of polls in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales next Monday will be precisely the same as it is today, so we will not be able to debate amendments to anything other than speculative legislation that will not have been carried by then and will therefore not be the law.

[Chris Bryant]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving us some of the detail on the amendments, although he has not given all of it, which is significant. I would like to start by picking up where he finished—on the due process that needs to be followed in relation to anything when it reflects the representation of the people, constitutional matters, or the constitutional relationship between Westminster and the devolved Administrations, but which has not, I believe, been followed in this case.

Of course, there should first be pre-legislative scrutiny, but, as we have heard, the Bill has had absolutely none. It is true that the Government published the Bill, but it exists not because of some grand constitutional principle but because of some naked partisan gerrymandering of a Bill. I am sure that if it had been published in pre-legislative form, so that a Committee of this House or a Joint Committee of both Houses had been able to consider it, that Committee would have said, right at the beginning, “You shouldn’t be spatchcocking together these two elements of the Bill”—[Interruption.] Or, “You shouldn’t be kebabbing the legislation in this way.” The Parliamentary Secretary helps me. It is not really spatchcocking; it is more kebabbing. It requires more of an inner-city image than a rural image; he is quite right.

[Chris Ruane]

Why does my hon. Friend think there has been such undue haste in rushing the Bill, or Bills, through the House?

[Chris Bryant]

This is entirely speculative, but it might be something to do with the Bill acting as the Araldite that holds the coalition together. The fact is, however, that the Deputy Prime Minister—or Sandie Shaw, as we normally know her, or him, now—is so Araldited to the Prime Minister that there is probably no need for the Bill to be introduced in precisely this way.

There should have been pre-legislative scrutiny of the Bill. I am sure that a Joint Committee would have said that it should not have been constituted in this way, and that it was inappropriate to try to foist combined polls on Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland when they had expressly said that they did not want a combination of a referendum and their own elections, especially in Northern Ireland, where on the same day there will be local elections as well as Assembly elections. I am pretty certain that such a Committee would have found that inappropriate.

Indeed, we can be pretty confident of that because the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, which is chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen), made it absolutely clear that it believed that it had not had enough time to consider the Bill before it suddenly had its Second Reading. The Select Committee had only five days in which to read the Bill and to get constitutional experts to talk to its members and provide evidence. Those witnesses themselves thought that it was inappropriate that such haste was being adopted.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim McGovern]

rose—

[Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)]

rose—

[Chris Bryant]

I will give way to Scotland, and then to Wales.

[Chris Ruane]

Scottish female or Scottish male?

[Chris Bryant]

Scottish female.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Bryant]

The Government came to power arguing that coalition politics were somehow better for Britain. Whatever we may think of that proposition, if they are then not prepared to extend the courtesy beyond the internal dynamics of the coalition to others who are engaged in the political endeavour, they have let down their own basic first principles.

Of course the wish to foist a referendum on the same day as elections elsewhere is extraordinary, especially given that the people who now sit on the Government Benches are the people who criticised the Labour party most for the way in which the last combination of elections took place in Scotland.

[Chris Ruane]

rose—

[Jim McGovern]

rose—

[Chris Bryant]

I will give way to a Welsh man, and then to a Scottish man.

[Chris Ruane]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the way in which the current Administration have dealt with the devolved Administrations in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales—

[Mark Tami]

What about the respect agenda?

[Chris Ruane]

This is my intervention, if my hon. Friend does not mind!

Are not the Secretaries of State for Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales behaving more like governors-general than Secretaries of State?

[Chris Bryant]

To be honest, I think that they are behaving more like satraps.

I think it extraordinary that there has not been proper consultation, and I do not understand why the referendum has to be held in May next year. It is pretty clear that in the respective Governments, Assemblies and Parliaments there is a firm view that it should not take place at the same time as the elections. Although most people in Wales do not view a Welsh Assembly election in quite the same way as a general election for the whole United Kingdom, many will refer to it as a Welsh general election. That is why it is so extraordinary that the people of Wales and Scotland and Northern Ireland have not been shown the same degree of respect as would have been extended to anyone else. That, I think, slightly betrays the rather London-centric view of the Government. I suspect that if there were a free vote on the Bill, many fewer Conservatives and Liberal Democrats would vote for it than will go through the Lobby later today. In particular, I should be surprised if a single Welsh Member voted for it.

I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) wants to intervene. Oh no, I am sorry—I am giving way to a Scottish man next.