Constitution and Home Affairs

Gordon Marsden Excerpts

Monday 7th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)]

Thus far, today’s debate has been elegantly poised between rhetoric and reality. The reality we all face is the economic situation, which has been mentioned, and some Members—even among those of us who are not born-again cynics—might wonder whether some of the rhetoric coming from the coalition Government is intended to mask some of the reality of the pain they are currently proposing. I felt that somewhat when I heard the Deputy Prime Minister’s speech, with its silken strangulation of the public sector: “I feel your pain.”

Let me turn, however, to some of the specific issues, especially voter registration, electoral reform and equal boundaries. We have heard in contributions from both sides of the House about the disadvantages of sweeping away all consideration of natural and constituency boundaries, and I very much welcome and admire the remarks of the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso) about getting the balance right, but we all draw on our own circumstances, and I want to say tonight that behind the rhetoric of individual registration and equal constituencies lies the reality of the existing situation in constituencies such as mine where there is under-registration. There has been talk about the need to have equalised constituencies, but not so much emphasis has been placed on equalised registration. In Blackpool and many other seaside towns, and many urban centres as well, the issues of transience and of areas of higher deprivation are key, too. If we are truly concerned about that process, we need to heed what the Electoral Commission has said about the matter. If we are truly concerned about connecting with people in a practical way in addressing voting reform, we ought to return to the issue of weekend voting, which has gone around this place like a miasma, although nobody has ever actually focused on it.

Despite the elegant attempts of some Liberal Democrat Members to defend the indefensible, I must say that they have been sold a pup. They have been given a referendum on the alternative vote, which the Prime Minister and most of the Conservative party, and, sadly—I say that as a supporter of AV—a significant proportion of my party, will campaign against. Its prospects of getting through in a referendum are therefore relatively small. In return for this, there will be a gerrymandered system that will hit hardest at the Liberal Democrats. The Prime Minister gets the gain, and the Liberal Democrats get all the pain.

There were two interesting quotations when the 55% agreement emerged—I think that is the best way to describe them. The Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Andrew Stunell), was a leading participant in the Liberal Democrat discussions that led to the creation of the coalition, and he said on Radio 4 on 14 May:

“It was a small matter for us to say we accept”

the Conservative party’s “concerns” and agree to this. The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, who was serving on the Conservative team, had a different take, however. He said it was a “considered constitutional innovation”. Clearly, he had not been in the same early-hours cabal as the Under-Secretary. It has been said that the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills made his reputation by referring to the former Prime Minister as having gone from Stalin to Mr Bean. I say that the hon. Member for Hazel Grove went from Mr Bean to Stalin in an instant.

Whether we have, for good or ill, an unwritten constitution, we have it, and custom, practice and precedent are weighty matters. In that constitution, prerogative issues and the fact that the House cannot bind itself because of parliamentary sovereignty to future things, the fact that the 55% figure would insulate the Executive against Parliament and the unease that the convention of dissolution would be eroded are all significant issues. That is why there has been a chorus of protest and concern in Parliament and outside.

I shall quote a few examples. Peter Hennessy, a leading academic and constitutional expert, has said:

“It looks as if you are priming the pitch, doctoring it a bit. Not good. It’s meant to be a different politics, new politics.”

We have heard today of the reservations of the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), and the hon. Members for Croydon South (Richard Ottaway) and for Broxbourne (Mr Walker), and there is a degree of sublime humbug about a Conservative leader who hammered away week after week in a general election campaign about the effect on markets of the uncertainty of a hung Parliament, but who now as Prime Minister blithely proposes to impose a system that, if it led to a lame-duck Government under the 55% rule, would create weeks of turmoil in the markets.

The Scottish issue has already been discussed in that respect. There is a pattern here in respect of the Prime Minister, of course. He said on 14 May:

“I’m the first Prime Minister in British history to give up the right…for a dissolution of Parliament…Others have talked about it, people have written pamphlets and made speeches…I have made that change.”

It is, however, very much the 21st-century equivalent of Louis XIV’s “I am the state”—he is, of course, the monarch who was associated with the story of the emperor’s new clothes. We should not take forward the innovation-on-the-hoof that this Prime Minister is proposing, and the naivety of the Deputy Prime Minister in that respect in talking about verdict first, trial afterwards, because he had not worked out the details in the debate today, is a telling observation for all of us.

I do not have the time to talk about the broader issues, but they were touched on by my right hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears). If we do not look at the broader issues of connecting with people, which would require reforming local government, bringing in the third sector and so forth, we will lose the plot. Substituting the coalition’s rhetoric for the hard practice of what connecting with local people actually means is a big issue.