Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between David Heath and Ian C. Lucas(13 years, 1 month ago)
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Ian Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)
Earlier this week, my excellent Whip informed me that on 20 October the Welsh Grand Committee will be meeting in my constituency. Does the Deputy Leader of the House agree that it was extremely discourteous of the Government not even to have told me about the meeting and for that information to have been conveyed to me by my Whip rather than by somebody acting on behalf of the Government?
Mr Heath
I am sure that no discourtesy was intended. Of course the decisions of Grand Committees to meet are presented to the House, and so the hon. Gentleman would be aware of it by that means. I would have thought that any discourtesy was more than outweighed by the convenience to him of having the Grand Committee meet in his constituency.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
Debate between David Heath and Ian C. Lucas(14 years ago)
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Mr Heath
No, I have got to make progress.
The third reason for abolishing inquiries is that they rarely lead to significant changes in recommendations. The statistics that are often prayed in aid of local inquiries usually group together many different constituencies and include changes solely to the names of constituencies, to inflate the figure of the proportion that lead to change. The truth, as Professor Johnston told the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, is:
“Public inquiries often have no impact.”
The changes are frequently minor. For example, at the time of the fifth general review in England, only 2% of wards in counties where inquiries were held were moved between constituencies as a result.
What the Bill does—[Interruption.] No, let us deal with what the Bill actually does. It improves the process of public consultation, so that the public will be better able to have their say on proposals. That is why we are extending the period for representations on proposals from one month to three. Where a boundary commission revises proposed recommendations, the period of consultation on the revised proposals will be the same.
In making that decision, the Government have considered the approach taken in other nations. We looked at the example of Australia, which has a 28-day consultation period for proposed recommendations, followed by 14 days for comments. The Government propose a longer consultation period of three months.
Mr Heath
I would answer the hon. Gentleman in two ways, and I know that he takes a serious interest in these matters. The second inquiry, as he puts it, does not happen now. Once a boundary commission makes its final conclusions, that is the end of the story—and there has to be an end to the process. In the Bill, we are establishing a longer and more thorough process of consultation, all of which will be in the open, rather than in secret, because it will all be published and available for people to see. That is a fairer way of doing things than having highly paid QCs representing two big parties simply making partisan points in front of an assistant commissioner.
Mr Heath
We did not propose legislation on the Boundary Commission at that point, but we are doing so now, and those are the proposals before the hon. Gentleman. He must look at them and see whether they make sense. I believe that they do.
During our discussions, we have had a flavour of some of the arguments that are put before commissioners in public inquiries. We have had people claiming that constituencies can never cross a river. We have had Members complaining that they cannot have a connection to more than one local authority in their constituency. Those are the sorts of spurious argument that a public inquiry throws out of court every time.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
Debate between David Heath and Ian C. Lucas(14 years ago)
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Mr Heath
On the very last point that the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Gavin Barwell) made, I think I recall that there is a Senator in the Italian Senate who represents Australia, Asia and Africa. That is a sizeable constituency and not one that I would suggest for this House.
This has been an interesting debate in many ways. First, I am glad that we have had the opportunity to have the debate on the clause at all. Had the attempt by the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) to vote down the programme motion yesterday been successful, we would not have had a debate at all. I am also pleased that we have had the extra hours this evening, because had the hon. Gentleman succeeded in voting the motion down, we would not have had them. Unfortunately, he then—again—filled the extra time with the 50 minutes of his speech.
I am also pleased because we have had a number of what I would consider to be doctrinal statements made. We had a doctrine laid out by the hon. Member for Rhondda for a new principle of consideration for constitutional Bills, in which we should allocate one day on the Floor of the House for each clause of a constitutional Bill. I recall the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010, in which I was involved, as were many other hon. Members who were in the House at the time. It had 95 clauses and eight schedules and it had three days in Committee. That was what the Labour party did when they were in Government and it ill behoves them to suggest that the greatly longer time that we have given this Bill is insufficient.
We also had discussion about what the Salisbury-Addison convention might mean. I have a quotation from the former Lord High Chancellor—I do not know whether it is a ex cathedra statement, but it certainly approaches that—about how the House of Lords ought to apply its own judgment on the Salisbury-Addison convention in the context of a coalition. This is what the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) had to say in 2006:
“My own view is that if any coalition or arrangement as in 1977 gains the support of the democratically elected House and is endorsed by a motion of confidence then the programme for which they gain that endorsement should be respected by”
the House of Lords. That is an extremely helpful endorsement that may be noted.
The other place was mentioned several times in the debate on these amendments. It was mentioned first by the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr Field) and then by the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt), who is not in his place at the moment, who suggested that the Government were packing the House of Lords shamefully. For the record, let us say that 56 peers have been created since the election, of whom 29 have been Labour peers created on the proposition of the outgoing Prime Minister. If we are packing the other place, we are doing so remarkably ineffectively by inserting Labour peers.
The issue about the future of the House of Lords is an important one in the context of this Bill, as it is within the whole constitutional settlement. We are committed not only to an elected second Chamber but to a smaller second Chamber. It is precisely that work that is now being taken on in earnest for the first time in 100 years. The previous Liberal Government said very clearly in the preamble to the Parliament Act 1911 that they wished to see an elected House of Lords. That has been taken on by the Deputy Prime Minister with the all-party talks and we expect to introduce legislation early next year to bring that into effect.
Mr Heath
Because this is a Bill about the House of Commons. The House of Lords will be dealt with in different legislation, which the hon. Gentleman will see in due course. His right hon. Friend the Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan) is involved in the discussions. The hon. Gentleman will have to wait. One of the lessons that we should have learned by now is that if we wait for every constitutional change to be made at once, nothing happens. That is what has prevailed for the last 100 years. We are going to change that.
The arguments that I hear about the future of the House of Lords have been strangely echoed in the arguments I heard this evening about this place. An argument that is regularly heard in the House of Lords is that any system that managed to appoint a peer as fine as the person who is speaking must be an exceedingly good system that does not require further change. We heard a bit of that this evening. We heard that any system that elected the current Members of the House must be an exceedingly good system and does not need to be changed. Various hon. Members explained how the numbers that precisely apply to their constituency are evidently the right numbers and should not be changed.
We have had the NIMPO—not in my period of office—argument, with Members saying, “Of course, we all want to see the House brought to a smaller size, but not while I’m still here. Wait until I’ve retired and then you can do it.”
We have also had the impossibility argument, with Members saying, “It is quite impossible to reduce the House from 650 to 600 Members because the electoral quota that would be in place, with 76,000 electors, would make it quite impossible for Members to do their work”, completely ignoring the fact that one third of current Members have constituencies of 76,000, or within a margin of 5% of that. The hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Austin Mitchell) said that it is impossible because there would not be enough time to do all the jobs that a Member of Parliament has to do. I would be more persuaded by that argument if I felt sure that every Member was a full-time Member of Parliament and did not find other employment—some excessively so. Such Members have contributed to the debate. Apparently, the shift from a constituency of 60,000 to 76,000 would make the job impossible.
We heard from the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) that the job is impossible to do if one represents a constituency that crosses a local authority boundary, but how many Members have constituencies that do that? Apparently, it would be impossible under the quota that we are suggesting.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
Debate between David Heath and Ian C. Lucas(14 years ago)
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Mr Heath
I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman, because he has completely demolished whatever case the hon. Member for Rhondda had for saying that the Boundary Commission’s resources were inadequate for its job.
Hon. Members who listened to the debate might also have felt that the hon. Member for Rhondda had tabled a second amendment of which they knew little. They certainly would not have heard that he wished to make the implementation of equal votes across the constituencies of the UK dependent on the referendum on the powers of the National Assembly for Wales. But his amendment would provide that nothing could change until after that referendum. Our difficulty with that is that these provisions have nothing to do with the devolved powers of the National Assembly for Wales: they are about putting the electors of Wales on the same basis as the electors of England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. It is a question of fairness.
Ian Lucas
Does the Parliamentary Secretary recognise that there are four different constitutional settlements within the United Kingdom and that those issues are central to the question of the constitutional arrangements relating to this House? Why is he presenting a Bill that is constitutionally illiterate?
Mr Heath
I know of no constitutional principle that says that voters in Wales should have twice the value of voters in Somerset. I do not understand that as a constitutional concept, and it is not one that I support. Why should Wales continue to be over-represented? Why should it be placed in that constitutional setting in eternity? Perhaps he can tell us.
Ian Lucas
The Parliamentary Secretary should recognise that the relationship between Wales and England is an historic one that depends closely on the managed constitutional relations between the two countries. The reality is that Wales is a small country that has a long and strong relationship with England, a much larger country. Wales has a distinct identity, and when he was on the Opposition Benches he recognised that through devolution. Why is he now jettisoning the distinct identity of Wales and treating the people of Wales in this way?
Business of the House
Debate between David Heath and Ian C. Lucas(14 years, 4 months ago)
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Mr Heath
Obviously, it is a serious matter whenever we hear about job losses of this kind, and the hon. Gentleman is right to raise it in the Chamber. I am not sure that I can find an opportunity for a debate on the subject in the next two weeks, but he makes a very good point about the future of regulation in financial services. That is, of course, under active consideration in the relevant Departments.
Ian Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)
May we have an urgent debate on sentencing policy and the construction of new prisons? There is real confusion in north Wales about whether a new prison is to be built. The Secretary of State for Wales says that she wants one, but the Secretary of State for Justice is not telling. I am still waiting for a meeting to ask a straight question. Is not it about time that this House was shown the respect of being given a statement on sentencing policy, as the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) requested?