Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Earl Ferrers Excerpts

Wednesday 19th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lipsey]

My Lords, I am most grateful to the Minister for his reply. I am sure that he will want to be present at the meeting that I am to have with his officials, which we will now reorganise for the time at which Blackpool kick off on Saturday.

It is good to see that Members of another place have come to observe proceedings in the House this evening. They will be able to return to the other end after doing so with two assurances. First, this House is indeed conducting detailed scrutiny of this Bill in good humour and in good order and with reasonable dispatch. Secondly, the reading skills of Ministers in this House far surpass those of Ministers in another place.

I have put forward two successive tentative amendments, and it is just worth saying—

[Earl Ferrers]

I am sure that the noble Lord wishes to adopt the courtesies of the House. It is incorrect to refer to people below the Bar.

[Lord Lipsey]

I apologise to the noble Earl, who has been here so much longer than I have.

I shall resume my thread on the debate on the Bill, as we are all anxious to proceed with it as rapidly as possible. We have just had two tentative debates on what I hope are interesting points of validity, which any Government in setting policy on these matters would have considered. It would have been so much better if we had had a consultative document before this Bill was brought forward that set out these alternatives and explained the pluses and minuses of each. It might have been unnecessary to debate these amendments this evening, and we could certainly have done so in a more informed way. So it does illustrate a defect of process.

To sum up the debate, there was an understanding that population is a relevant factor in determining the workload of MPs and therefore in all these matters, but at the same time there was no support for the proposition that I tentatively floated—that population should replace electorates as a basis for drawing constituencies. I accept that, but I shall make another tentative suggestion, which the Minister might like to think about. In Rule 5 in Clause 11, in the new rules that the Boundary Commission observes, there is a set of things that it may take into consideration, including special geographical circumstances. It might be worth considering adding to that list of things that it can take into consideration—at the moment within the 5 per cent limit—something relating to population, so that in cases where population is very large in relation to electorates it can explicitly make some sort of allowance for that in drawing up their final recommendations within the limits, which are 5 per cent each way at present. I leave that suggestion with the Committee and, on that basis, beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Earl Ferrers]

Does my noble friend not realise that he is now making the same mistake in referring to people who are below the Bar and are not in the Chamber?

[Lord McNally]

Again, I hope that people read Hansard as I deliberately did not make that mistake but I understand the noble Earl’s sensitivity on this. The other point was that not only does this amendment have another of those amazing fractions in it but, in my brief, there is the Gaelic name for the Western Isles. I was happy to notice that the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, did not try the Gaelic name, so I will be excused as well.

The noble Lord, Lord Rooker, gave me some wise advice. In fact, I was trying to encourage him to be my adviser for the rest of the Bill but he wanted to protect his amateur status as an adviser to the Government. However, he said that you should not be afraid to take decisions at the Dispatch Box. The noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, is making a very valid point: the final calculation of exclusions may not be what is in the Bill. On the other hand, they may be, because the other place will have to look at what we send back to it. This is not an empty gesture; I really would like to take this back with the intention of bringing something back on Report.