Scottish Parliament (Constituencies and Regions) Order 2010

Duke of Montrose Excerpts

Tuesday 26th October 2010 Lords Chamber

[The Duke of Montrose]

My Lords, I am very interested in all that noble Lords have had to say so far, particularly the issues raised by my noble friend Lord Maclennan of Rogart. I do not know whether he was talking more in general terms, but I would be fascinated to know whether the Minister can tell us if the Scotland Act contains powers for amendment. The Explanatory Memorandum, which I, too, found extremely confusing, says that Section 113(5) and (6) are to do with the power to modify secondary legislation but on no account may they modify anything in the Scotland Act or subsidiary legislation under the Scotland Act “unless otherwise stated”. Paragraph 6(1) of Schedule 1 then comes into play, saying that the Secretary of State may make provision for giving effect to the recommendations of the Electoral Commission. That is where the powers to make alterations are.

All this takes us back to the Scottish Parliament (Constituencies) Act 2004. As the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, will remember, a proposal had been put forward to reduce the number of Members in the Scottish Parliament, which was sternly resisted both by Scottish parliamentarians and by the party opposite. I remember being in this Chamber as we passed that Act, but the fact that it had to be a separate Act of Parliament probably means that there are not really powers within the Scotland Act to do much in terms of alteration. There would have to be a totally new Act. It is a puzzle why the Explanatory Memorandum says that any other reading would deprive the 2004 Act of any meaning. Presumably the Act stands on its own. We are proposing amendments to Schedule 1 to that Act and presumably the powers exist for us to do that.

[Baroness Adams of Craigielea]

My Lords, I did not intend to speak tonight but I hope that the Advocate-General will take note of the passion that is felt, particularly on this side of the House, about what is happening in the other place. He started by giving us a list of the people who have been consulted on the order. Unfortunately, those people will not be consulted again on the constituencies that are to be represented in general elections. It will be simply number crunching and a question of what we are about to receive from the other place.

I have given evidence to three Boundary Commission hearings, when my constituency of Paisley North was being thrown from one side of Paisley to the other. As my noble friend Lord McAvoy pointed out, people in local communities are passionate about what they feel about the community they live in and the people who represent them. I was reminded that my noble friend once laid a Bill about Rutherglen in the House of Commons—I was a signatory. Like him, I live in a satellite of Glasgow—Paisley, in my case—and, although we loved our big brother dearly, we did not want to live in his house, so I was happy to support my noble friend then.

I come back to the Boundary Commission hearings. My colleagues mentioned the late John Smith. The last time that I saw him was as he was getting out of a taxi returning from giving evidence to his Boundary Commission hearing and I was getting into the same taxi to go north to give evidence to mine the next day. He felt passionately about it. He had spent all that day doing it and he came back ebullient; he was convinced that he had won agreement to what he had put forward, as, in fact, he had. Fortunately, so did I the next day. But, with what is coming to us, we will never have to do that again, because it will not be a matter for the communities who feel passionately about their area, who know it best and whose children go to the same schools; it will simply be a matter of whether you make up the numbers. It is no wonder that people are uninterested in politics. When they are just part of the numbers game, they will never be interested again.