Jack Straw
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(14 years, 6 months ago)
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Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)
I beg to move an amendment, at the end of the Question to add:
“but, whilst welcoming the progress made by the previous administration to reform and improve the constitutional arrangements of the United Kingdom, respectfully believe that such changes should be made wherever possible on the basis of a strong cross-party consensus; therefore call for active discussions by your Government on proposals for an elected House of Lords, a referendum on the alternative vote, recall of hon. Members, the period of any fixed-term Parliament, party funding, changes to the number of hon. Members, the drawing of electoral boundaries, and individual voter registration; consider as wholly unacceptable and undemocratic proposals to require any special majority to remove a Government and require an early general election, or to alter the number of hon. Members or the boundary rules in an arbitrary and partisan way; strongly endorse the measures which led to an overall reduction in crime of over a third, and of violent crime of 41 per cent., since 1997; oppose any measures to cut the number of police officers and police community support officers, to restrict the use of the DNA database in accordance with the Crime and Security Act 2010, to extend anonymity in rape cases to defendants, or to politicise constabularies through the introduction of elected commissioners; and urge your Government to reconsider the introduction of a pre-determined cap on skilled immigrants and to maintain the flexibility and effectiveness of the current points-based system.”
I begin by welcoming the Deputy Prime Minister to the Treasury Bench and to the Government Dispatch Box on what I believe is his speaking debut in that role in the House. He takes over from me wide responsibilities for the Government’s constitutional agenda. As my colleagues and I were, he and his ministerial colleagues will be responsible for what is put before the House and the country, but in making his decisions and recommendations he will be blessed, as I was, by having officials of the highest quality, diligence and—certainly with myself—patience. I should like to place on record my thanks to them and to all the officials with whom I worked, and to wish the right hon. Gentleman well in his endeavours.
“Constitutional agenda” is an abstract term that can have the effect of emptying a room quickly, and not just when I am the one making a speech. However abstract, though, it describes something of profound importance to the effective running of any society and its political system, namely the architecture of power—the rules that set down who can make decisions and who can hold in check those who exercise power. In most systems, those rules are enshrined in what the Germans call “black letter law” and are normally subject to special procedures of entrenchment to make it more difficult for those with the power of government to misuse it to change the fundamental rules of the constitution for narrow partisan ends.
We in the United Kingdom do not have a single text, a written constitution or any protective entrenched procedures. Although I believe that over time we should develop a single text, I do not propose or support entrenchment or special procedures for constitutional change. However, the absence of entrenchment places a special responsibility on those in government not to misuse their power, and wherever possible actively to seek and achieve consensus across the House, or to ensure that the final decision is made directly by the people in a referendum.
Of course, the Government must have the power of initiative. When we took office in 1997, there had been no successful proposals for constitutional change for decades. In contrast, the new Labour Administration had a very large agenda: devolution to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland; an elected Mayor and assembly for London; data protection; freedom of information; the Human Rights Bill; phased reform of the Lords; independence for national statistics; reform of party funding; and a new system for elections to the European Parliament. All but one of those measures, however controversial they may have been at the beginning of their legislative journeys, were in the end either approved by consensus across the House or endorsed by the people in a referendum, and they are all the better for that.
Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)
My right hon. Friend is right that a great deal of constitutional change has occurred over the past 13 years, but I am not clear why he does not want to go an extra step now and have a written constitution—a Bill of Rights. Surely that would be an important way of entrenching and making absolutely clear the rights of our citizens.
Mr Straw
As I said a moment ago, I believe that there is a case for bringing together our constitutional arrangements in a single text, and we were working on achieving exactly that. However, the process will take a long time. Entrenchment—in other words, the sovereignty of this House being modified by some super-legislative procedure and by a constitutional court overseeing that—is a bridge too far for me and I do not support it. However, I do not believe that the two have to go hand in hand, and the case for a single text is strong.
However controversial the proposals that we introduced may have been at the beginning—I think particularly of the Human Rights Bill and the Freedom of Information Bill—in the end, we were able to achieve consensus across the House. That may have been a subject of regret later for the Conservative Opposition, but consensus was achieved. There was one exception, which I regret and, in a sense, it makes the point that I am putting to the House—the closed list system for European elections.
Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr Straw
I welcome the hon. Lady to the Chamber—I am glad to see her return to the House, albeit, through no fault of hers, a little late. I shall give way in a second.
The European elections system was very controversial. It was subject, unusually, to the Parliament Acts. In my view, it is not a good system and will almost certainly have to be changed in due course. However, no one could have said—no one did say—that it was introduced for partisan advantage. Such advantage has palpably not happened.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
The amendment tabled by the Leader of the Opposition mentions the special majority that is required to dissolve Parliament and hold a general election. Having failed to get any sort of answer out of the Government, does my right hon. Friend have any theory about why they arrived at the figure of 55%?
Miss McIntosh
I am delighted to be returned to represent the new constituency of Thirsk and Malton, and I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his comments. He referred to the new electoral system for the European Parliament. Does he accept that, in each European election since the new election procedures were introduced, turnout has dramatically reduced. What would he have proposed had he remained in government to increase the turnout for those elections?
Mr Straw
One suggestion—I might even have made it—was that the new system might increase turnout. Even Homer nodded, and that has not been the case, although I think that turnout has gone up a little recently. I am in favour of either an open list, or what is called the semi-open list, which is one of the proposals for the new, reformed House of Lords. I am happy to discuss that further with the hon. Lady in or outside the House.
I have set out the importance of constitutional change being made, whenever possible, by consensus. I therefore greatly hope that the Deputy Prime Minister will resist calls from his side to use the Government’s majority to ram through change for party advantage. That would be wrong—[Laughter.] I say to those who are obviously tempted by that that, with one exception, which was never to my party’s advantage, we worked hard to achieve cross-party consensus because the constitution should not be a partisan weapon in the hands of any party.
Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)
Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr Straw
Let me consider the key elements of the new Government’s proposals in turn, and then, of course, I will give way to the hon. Gentleman.
First, let us consider the House of Lords. Next year will be the centenary of the first Parliament Act. The preamble of the 1911 Act spells out that it was introduced as a temporary measure, stating that
“it is intended to substitute for the House of Lords as it at present exists a Second Chamber constituted on a popular instead of hereditary basis, but such substitution cannot be immediately brought into operation”
and therefore the Parliament Act was introduced as a poor substitute. It is 99 years since that historic Act and it is probably now time to complete the original proposals of that great Lib-Lab Government in 1911.
Two reforms followed the 1911 Act: the Parliament Act 1949 and the Life Peerages Act 1958, but there was no further change until 1999, when all but 92 hereditary peers were removed and clear conventions about party balance were established. The consequence has been to make the other place a less supine and more assertive Chamber. That is sometimes inconvenient to government, as I witnessed in taking through very many items of legislation, but it was rare indeed for legislation to be amended in the other place but not improved, as I have often put on the record.
I therefore hope that the Deputy Prime Minister will resist the temptation of some on the Government side, as we have read in some newspapers, to pack the other place with up to 200 Conservative and Liberal Democrat Lords to ensure that the previous convention of no one party having a majority, which has worked well, is retained—[Interruption.] I am not clear why there is such objection to that. When Labour was in government, it was absolutely fine for one third of its legislation to be subject to amendments in the House of Lords. If the proposition is that when the Conservative party is in power, with support from the Liberal Democrats, it is fine for them to have an absolute majority in the House of Lords, let that be put on the record.
Mr Ellwood
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. To take him back to his phrase, “ramming through change for political advantage,” may I remind the House that Labour rammed through changes to the Lisbon treaty, denying this country an opportunity to vote on it? That is taking political advantage. I hope he now regrets that decision.
Mr Straw
I think the hon. Gentleman protests a little too much on that. He needs to explain, as does the Conservative element of the Government, why the Conservative party abandoned its pledge to withdraw from the Lisbon treaty. Perhaps he would like to have a discussion on that with the Liberal Democrats who support the Government.
Mr Straw
I will make a little more progress before giving way to the hon. Gentleman.
For seven years after the 1999 change, the absence of any clear consensus blocked further reform. It will be recalled that in early 2003, this House voted against every single one of seven alternative propositions put before it, ranging from an all-appointed to an all-elected House of Lords. I took over responsibility for Lords reform, in that time-honoured passage from Foreign Secretary to Leader of the House, and duly established a cross-party group. Its key conclusions, which worked very well, were set out in a February 2007 Green Paper.
Thankfully, in March 2007 this House voted emphatically in favour of two consistent propositions—an 80% or 100% elected House of Lords—and against all other choices. That proposition for a wholly or mainly elected House has been the foundation for progress since. The cross-party group re-met for 15 months and did a great deal of detailed work on how an elected Lords might operate, and its conclusions were contained in the July 2008 White Paper.
At the most recent general election—for the first time—all three parties were clearly committed to action to secure an elected House of Lords. Further work to ensure that should be straightforward: a great deal has already been done, including, as the Deputy Prime Minister knows, the drafting of many of the key clauses to form the central part of any Bill. I pledge that my party will work constructively on that with him and his Administration, and with luck, we may be able to mark the centenary of the first Parliament Act with legislation finally to meet its long-term goal.
The proposal for a referendum on voting reform is another long-running issue in British politics. It took the expenses scandal for broad agreement to emerge that at the very least the British people should be given the opportunity to decide whether they wish to continue with the existing first-past-the-post system or to move to the alternative vote system. Legislation for an AV referendum was agreed earlier this year by the House by a very substantial majority of 365 to 187. That would have become law by the general election but for the refusal of the Conservative party to allow it to go through in the so-called wash-up. I am glad that the rather spurious objections that the Conservatives raised then have now dissolved. We shall, of course, support clauses on AV if they are put before the House in a similar form to last time.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
Will the right hon. Gentleman confirm that in the course of the competitive negotiations with the Liberal Democrats as to which side was going to form a Government, his party offered the Liberal Democrats a deal whereby AV would be rammed through this House without a referendum?
Mr Straw
The answer is no. I would also say to the hon. Gentleman that a very significant proportion of Labour Members, including myself, would never have accepted such a proposition had it been put forward—let us be absolutely clear about that.
We support proposals for recall, which we proposed before the election, although the detail will have to be carefully thought through.
Many of the other aspects set out in the coalition agreement are non-controversial. I am glad to see the Administration support the proposals of the Wright Committee, and I hope that we will see good progress made on them. I say parenthetically, on a subject that concerned me greatly when I was in government, that I continue to be concerned about how we conduct our Report and Committee stages on the Floor of the House.
There is another unsatisfactory matter, and I hope that the Leader of the House will consider it. Since there is likely to be some element of timetabling, or even if there is not, we need better order when the House is considering legislation clause by clause, not least by allowing the Chair a discretion to set time limits on speeches. One of the most important functions discharged by this House on the Floor of the House is the consideration of legislation. The old system before 1997 led to great frustration, as did the system post-1997. What we have not yet got right is adequate provision to ensure that Back Benchers especially can take part constructively in debates without those debates being undermined either by too hasty Government timetables or, frankly, by some Back Benchers hogging the whole of the time by filibustering.
Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)
On the questions of Lords reform and the legislation for a referendum on voting reform, may we have a clarification from Labour that both will be the subject on the Labour Benches of three-line Whips here and in the House of Lords?
Mr Straw
The hon. Gentleman will have to allow me to say that I consult my colleagues about the whipping arrangements that would apply. [Interruption.] My right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson) is speculating about whether the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) is worried about something. My advice is for him to worry about how he and his party are going to vote and we will worry about how we vote.
Mr Jackson
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way, and I am glad that the sinner is repenting. Does he regret the use of the guillotine on so many important Bills during the last Parliament? In the Housing and Regeneration Bill, for instance, which I was involved in, more than 200 Government clauses were tabled between Second Reading and Report, so Members were not allowed proper analysis and oversight of that important legislation. [Interruption.]
Mr Straw
My hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr Skinner) says that there were no guillotines, as they were programme motions—but they come to the same thing.
Let me say to the hon. Member for Peterborough (Mr Jackson) that I regret the use of guillotines full stop, but sometimes they are necessary. However, I sat in the House in opposition for 18 years, and the first Bill I sat on—the Housing Bill, in early 1980, 30 years ago—was the subject of the most ruthless guillotining, and that on a major measure. There are plenty of other measures of profound importance that were also the subject of guillotining.
My view, both in government and in opposition, has been that the House—certainly over the 30 years in which I have been in it—has not got right the way in which it should deal effectively with legislation on the Floor of the House, and I think that there is a better way. We need to provide for more time, but if we do that, the quid pro quo needs to be limits on speeches, so that people can constructively take part. We also need to look at something that I facilitated on at least one occasion, which is ensuring that when the business is subject to programming or guillotining, some Opposition and Back-Bench amendments can also be the subject of votes. I put those proposals before the House for consideration.
I have set out our view on many of the proposals that are, and will be, the subject of a broad consensus. As I have said, on every proposal that the Deputy Prime Minister brings forward, we shall seek constructively to work with the Government to achieve consensus. However, it seems that consensus was the last thing on the mind of the governing parties, when one turns to some of the elements of the coalition agreement. In his first speech as Deputy Prime Minister, outside the House, the right hon. Gentleman told the nation that he proposed to secure the biggest shake-up of our democracy since the Reform Act of 1832. He described the Reform Act of 1832 as a “landmark”, from
“politicians who refused to sit back and do nothing while huge swathes of the population remained helpless against vested interests. Who stood up for the freedom of the many”—
we have heard that phrase before—
“not the privilege of the few.”
Well, not quite, Mr Speaker, for the truth is that even after the passage of the Great Reform Act of 1832, huge swathes of the population—92% of the population—remained without a vote, helpless in the face of vested interests. The Reform Act of 1832 gave the vote, a limited franchise, to the property-owning class, of whom there were remarkably few, and deliberately ensured that nobody else had the vote—no women, no working men; just 16% of men, and no women whatever.
Let me also say to the right hon. Gentleman that had the Great Reform Act been the landmark in democracy that he suggested—I do not know where he got that from; certainly not even from Wikipedia—none of the agitation of the Chartist movement that followed would have been necessary. Those of us who know a little bit of history will remember that it was the wholly dashed expectations of 1832 that fired up the great Chartist movement. However, the comparison with 1832, if not appropriate, is certainly heavy with unintended irony, for, however limited the effect, the first Reform Act at least extended the franchise. The programme to which the right hon. Gentleman has signed up will reduce the franchise, as I will explain. Some reform!
David T. C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con)
The former Minister is making an interesting speech about equality, but will he confirm that it was actually a Conservative Government, in 1927, who gave full equality to women and the right for them to vote, and that they did so after a Labour Government, under Ramsay MacDonald, had failed in their promise to do so?
Mr Straw
First, that was quite a long time after 1832. Secondly, as the hon. Gentleman might recall, the vote was originally given to women over 30 in 1918, and then extended to those over 21 in 1928.
Let me come to the partisan heart of the Government’s constitutional proposals: the plans to cut parliamentary seats, redraw boundaries and speed up individual registration. If those proposals were implemented, they would disfranchise hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of our citizens, predominantly the young and members of lower-income groups. Seats would be cut and boundaries fundamentally altered by rigid mathematical formulae devised on the basis of the current electoral register.
According to the Electoral Commission, however, some 3.5 million eligible voters are missing from the register, and that is just in England and Wales. Earlier this year, the commission reported
“under-registration is concentrated among specific social groups, with the registration rates being especially low among young people, private renters and those who have recently moved home. The highest concentrations of under-registration are most likely to be found in metropolitan areas, smaller towns and cities with large student populations, and coastal areas with significant population turnover and high levels of social deprivation.”
The commission’s study established that in Glasgow 100,000 eligible voters might be missing from the register, quite sufficient to raise all Glasgow seats to the electoral average for Great Britain and to provide for one additional constituency.
Cutting seats and redrawing boundaries in that way, without taking account of the missing voters, will produce a profoundly distorted electoral map of Britain. The map will be even further distorted if this boundary review is undertaken, as the Government have proposed, in tandem with the premature roll-out of individual voter registration, because that process will knock many more eligible people off the register—hundreds of thousands of them.
We are in favour of individual registration. Indeed, it was I who, last year, presented proposals for a new law, which received all-party agreement. But as all the parties agreed just nine months ago, to be fair the process will take both time and money.
Mr Straw
I am glad to see the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing) in the Chamber, because she played an important and constructive part in securing individual registration. She also went on record as saying, from the Conservative Front Bench, that any future Conservative Government would never take risks with the democratic process. She agreed that we must wait for the 2012 census. It is unclear whether the Deputy Prime Minister is proposing to do that. She also agreed that there must be ways of testing the accuracy of the system, as our legislation does with the requirement for a report from the Electoral Commission in 2014, and she said in terms that we must ensure that the system was utterly watertight. I hope that she still takes that view.
Mrs Laing
I certainly do still take that view 100%, but the right hon. Gentleman will recall that, when we debated individual voter registration, it was established that the system was intended to increase, not decrease. the accuracy and comprehensiveness of the register. Lessons have been learnt from what happened in Northern Ireland. Under the new system, the register will be more accurate and more comprehensive, and it will be fair to have constituencies that are of equal size, so that every vote has equal value.
Mr Straw
That is the aspiration, and I do not for a second doubt the good faith of the hon. Lady. I am glad to hear her endorse those proposals—now, sadly, from the Back Benches. As she knows, however, because we had detailed and collaborative discussions on the issue, if the process for individual registration is rushed—and the phrase used in the coalition agreement is “speed this up”—the consequence will be not what she and we seek, but what happened in Northern Ireland. As the Electoral Commission spelt out, what happened in Northern Ireland in 2002 was that a sudden change in the system of electoral registration, although there was a centralised system, led to the immediate loss of nearly 120,000 names—nearly 10%—from the register. The commission said:
“The new registration process disproportionately impacted on young people and students, people with learning disabilities, people with disabilities generally and those living in areas of high social deprivation.”
Mr David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)
I am listening to the right hon. Gentleman’s speech with great interest, but a lot of what he is saying is pure speculation. Does he think that the current system, with its vast discrepancies in constituency size, is fair? The Government in which he served did nothing to address that, yet it needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency.
Mr Straw
Nobody argues that it is not important to secure electoral equality in England, Scotland and Wales—where different rules have applied, which is a separate issue—but that must also be subject to other rules involving geography and history, as I shall explain. If the hon. Gentleman looks at the data, he will see that nowadays Labour seats in Scotland and Wales are larger than the few Conservative and Liberal Democrat seats in those two nations. In England, our seats are 3% smaller than the electoral average, and those of the Conservatives are 3% larger. There are also some very large Labour seats these days, however, as well as large Conservative seats. We pursued the same rules as previous Administrations, and the reasons for the recent trends is that there has been more rapid depopulation in areas that are typically Labour, mainly inner cities, although that is now changing.
What is crucial is that these changes are done in a fair way, by agreement between the parties, not in a partisan way. Professor Iain McLean, a lecturer at Oxford university and an elections expert, warned last month that
“to move straight to individual registration risks moving straight to mass disenfranchisement of the young, the urban, the mobile and ethnic minority voters”
and that it
“could make Britain in 2011 like Florida in 2000”.
Mr Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab)
On the question of city seats, is my right hon. Friend aware that the first casualty could be the Deputy Prime Minister in his Hallam seat in the city of Sheffield—unless, of course, they try to manoeuvre the boundaries so as to try to save his neck, which would test the coalition?
Mr Straw
There is no doubt that the biggest net losers under the current proposals in the so-called coalition agreement would be the Liberal Democrats, for reasons that I shall spell out.
On election night, when the Deputy Prime Minister heard that people had been locked out of the polling stations and prevented from casting their ballots, he said:
“I share the bitter dismay of many of my constituents who were not able to exercise their democratic right to vote in this election…That should never, ever happen again in our democracy.”
Yet he now proposes a programme that could have the effect of disfranchising not only some hundreds in his own constituency, but some hundreds of thousands across the United Kingdom. I urge him to think very carefully about what is being proposed.
As for the proposal to cut the number of seats, we need not speculate about the Conservative party’s intentions because they are on the record. Just months before the general election, the Conservative Front-Bench team moved the most detailed amendments to cut the number of seats by 10% and to force the redrawing of the boundaries by rules requiring that arithmetical quotas trump all other considerations. I have a copy of one such amendment before me. It says that the electorate
“shall be as near the electoral quota as is practicable”—
only a 3% margin would be allowed—
“and all other special geographical considerations, including in particular the size, shape and accessibility of a constituency, shall be subordinate to achieving this aim”.
The scheme, therefore, is that arithmetic will trump all, so that history, geography, mountains, rivers, and even communities and the sea, are to be subordinated to arithmetical rules.
The effects would be extraordinary, especially in Scotland. The Orkney and Shetland electorate is 33,000. Under these proposals—official Conservative proposals—Orkney and Shetland would have to be jammed in with Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross, which has an electorate of 47,000 in order to make a single seat exactly within the electoral average. The Western Isles, with an electorate of 22,000, is the smallest constituency in the United Kingdom. It would have to be jammed in with a vast swathe of the western highlands—of western Scotland, indeed. In England and Wales, too, long-established patterns of democracy would be destroyed in pursuit of the new Conservative formulae. How such changes, defying history and geography and people’s own sense of place, could possibly be said to strengthen our democracy I do not know. Perhaps the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam will be able to tell us whether he is comfortable with this scheme.
Mrs Anne McGuire (Stirling) (Lab)
Sometimes when we talk about geography, we do not appreciate the full extent of the situation. My constituency is about the size of Luxembourg and will not meet the 75,000 threshold. The constituency of Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross, whose Member is here today, is the size of Cyprus; and the Ross, Skye and Lochaber constituency of the former leader of the Liberal Democrats is the size of the Bahamas. It is not just a matter of numbers but of geographical extent, which makes the proposal for a 75,000 threshold ludicrous.
Mr Straw
My right hon. Friend makes a very important point, but the truth is that under the amendment to which I referred—there is no need to speculate because this is what is proposed—all the considerations that she and the whole House are concerned about, along, I dare say, with voters across the highlands and islands of Scotland and in many other places as well, would be swept aside, “subordinate”, as the amendment says, to a simple arithmetical rule.
I have said to the House that we favour a referendum on the alternative vote, but I make it clear that we will not allow that to be used as a Trojan horse for an omnibus Bill that will profoundly harm our democracy. The Liberal Democrats would do well to consider the damage to democracy that will arise from these proposals. If appealing to their sense of democracy is not enough, then I appeal to their sense of self-interest. [Interruption.] That is always best with Liberal Democrats. Why do they and the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam think that the Conservatives are now pursuing this idea? It is not out of any principled concern about the size of the House of Commons. The Prime Minister argued passionately against a reduction in the number of Members of Parliament when he was defending the size of his own constituency before the 2003 inquiry into the boundaries in Oxfordshire. The Liberal Democrats have now apparently been pulled along in the wake of this undemocratic proposal to cut seats, yet the Liberal Democrats in Oxfordshire were not then arguing for the status quo of six seats in Oxfordshire––which, at least the Prime Minister was arguing for––but for seven seats, which would have led to a House of Commons of 700.
We need to understand that a 10% reduction in the number of seats and rigid mathematical formulae will change every single boundary in the United Kingdom. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr Skinner) mentioned, that is where the Liberal Democrats are uniquely vulnerable. Their seats are isolated—tiny dots of orange in seas of red or blue—and they have proportionately twice as many marginal seats as either of the other parties. I hope the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam will accept that this proposal is dangerous—dangerous to his own party, for sure, but to the legitimacy of our democracy, as well. There is to be an argument about reducing the number of seats and the way we conduct boundary reviews, but the better way through, since so many reviews have already been set up, is to have an independent examination of how we conduct boundary reviews. That would be far better than the crude and undemocratic system that is being proposed.
Let me make this last point to the right hon. Gentleman. In the United States—this idea came from there—they have simple, rigid arithmetical rules. As the Electoral Reform Society—no great friend of mine and hard-wired into the Liberal Democrat party––has pointed out, the United States also has the worst gerrymandering in the world.
That brings me to the issue that my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) raised: the proposal for a 55% threshold to secure the dissolution of Parliament. That 55% threshold appeared in no party manifesto. It is a partisan measure stitched up by the coalition partners to protect themselves from each other—nobody else—while retaining their ability to go for an early election if they believe it would be advantageous.
Where does the figure of 55% come from? That is an interesting question. [Interruption.] Well, I am going to give the answer. It comes from the fact that the Liberals and the Conservatives together have—guess what—57% of the seats in the current Parliament. They would, thus, have the power to dissolve this Parliament if the polls and the signs looked encouraging. The Conservatives, on their own, hold 47% of the seats and the rest of the parties hold 53%, so in the event of a Conservative minority Government it would be impossible to reach the 55% threshold required to force an election. If that is not a political fix, I do not know what is.
The Labour party agrees with fixed-term Parliaments, in principle, and our manifesto included a commitment to legislate. However, given that most Parliaments since the war have lasted four years or less, we favour a four-year term.
Mr Ben Wallace (Wyre and Preston North) (Con)
Before entering this House, I was a Member of the Scottish Parliament. Can the right hon. Gentleman tell me why a 66% threshold was chosen in the Scotland Act 1998 when it went through this House? For what reason was that appropriate then, but not now?
Angus Robertson (Moray) (SNP)
Will the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) allow me to deal with that point?
Mr Speaker
Order. We cannot have an intervention upon an intervention; a few words from Mr Straw before we hear from the hon. Gentleman would be helpful.
Mr Straw
I can give the hon. Member for Wyre and Preston North (Mr Wallace) an answer, and it is not a bad one. He ought to read carefully both limbs of section 3 of the 1998 Act. If he had bothered to read it and if those negotiating this coalition agreement had done so—I have the Act before me for the sake of greater accuracy—they would know what it states. Under section 3(1)(a), the presiding officer has to require an “extraordinary general election”—an early general election—for the Scottish Parliament if two thirds of the Parliament vote for that. However, the provision contains an “or”, not an “and”, because section 3(1)(b) states that if there is
“any period during which the Parliament is required under section 46 to nominate one of its members for appointment as First Minister ends without such a nomination being made”,
after 28 days there has to be a general election. That election is triggered by a simple majority, not by a two thirds one. Therefore, we should hear no more rubbish about there being a two thirds lock in the Scottish Parliament, because it is not true.
Angus Robertson
Please can we never again hear this comparison with the situation in the Scottish Parliament on this point, because it is totally spurious? The 66% threshold is required for the immediate dissolution of the Scottish Parliament, but 50% remains the threshold for a confidence vote, as it should remain in this House.
Mr Straw
I should also tell hon. Members that if they were to read section 3 of the 1998 Act, they would find that if, for example, the First Minister is voted out by a simple majority and after 28 days no new First Minister has been voted in, an election has to take place. That is done by a simple majority, so the only effect of this provision is to delay matters by requirements relating to a simple majority and 28 days. There is no parallel, whatsoever, in these arrangements, and the hon. Member for Wyre and Preston North knows it.
Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)
Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Sir Alan Beith
Is the right hon. Gentleman’s real view that the Prime Minister’s unfettered power to call a general election at a time of his choosing should be retained and that we should not have fixed-term Parliaments, or is he proposing an alternative mechanism, be it the Scottish Parliament’s combination of a 66% threshold and a one-month rule or some other mechanism?
Mr Straw
I do not understand. Either this has been done for partisan reasons—[Hon. Members: “Answer the question!”] Of course, I am going to answer the question—I always do—but I am allowed to answer the question in my own way. The right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith) and I have been debating this for long enough. I say to him that either this has been done for the most crude of partisan reasons, or the Government have simply misunderstood how they can establish fixed-term Parliaments and take away the right of the Prime Minister to recommend Dissolution before then. It is very straightforward. We can legislate for fixed-term Parliaments—our view is that we ought to go for four-year, not five-year, Parliaments—and we can also legislate to take away the power of the Prime Minister to recommend Dissolution before then, but what we should not do is legislate to take away the power of the House of Commons to remove a Government. I am afraid that they are doing that on some curious and spurious arithmetic.
In the same speech in which he talked about the 1832 reform Act, about which I have had to correct him, the Deputy Prime Minister also said:
“We are not taking away Parliament's right to throw out Government; we’re taking away Government's right to throw out Parliament.”
That is utter nonsense. It is casuistry in the extreme. We are talking about the Government’s right to throw out Parliament and we are talking about Parliament’s right to throw out the Government.
I remind the House of an excellent article in The Daily Telegraph, inserted by the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), in which he says that the 55%-majority plan will “taint” the “New Politics” and that to
“introduce such a measure in this way is simply wrong.”
He goes on to say:
“The requirement for a 55 per cent majority to dissolve parliament, and thereby dismiss a government, dramatically reduces the ability of Parliament to hold the executive to account. It is a major constitutional change, possibly one of the greatest since 1911.”
He also draws attention to what would have happened in 1979, which some of us will recall, when the Government of the day lost their majority by one vote. The then Leader of the Labour party and the Government said that there would have to be an election—it followed like night follows day. People talk about having a period of looking at a coalition in such a situation, but what do they think was being done in the days leading up to that vote but searching for a coalition? It was precisely because one was not available that the Government ran out of numbers and the vote was lost. In that situation, when there had been a vote of no confidence in the Government, the Labour Government could have carried on—they might no doubt have wished to—until the following October, because the 55% threshold would not have been achieved. If that had happened, they would have been in the ludicrous and wholly undemocratic position—
Mr Straw
We are not wrong. It is interesting that whenever Ministers have sought to explain this, they have tied themselves in knots. In the very first Adjournment debate of this Parliament, on the day of the Queen’s Speech, the poor benighted Deputy Leader of the House got tied in knots not only by Labour Members but by most of the Conservative Members. I ask the Deputy Prime Minister to spell out how this is going to work and, above all, to withdraw this ludicrous and undemocratic proposal. I say to him, in the full hearing of a packed Front Bench, that the Deputy Leader of the House also put it on record that the Bill would not be guillotined, so that we could forget about programme motions, and that it would be dealt with on the Floor of the House, but it might never come out of the House, such is the controversy behind it.
Constitutional reform is fundamental for any democracy that wants to renew itself and make itself responsive to the needs of an ever-evolving electorate. The Opposition are in favour of reform that will strengthen Parliament and the democratic process, and we will work constructively to achieve measures with that objective in mind. As it stands, this package of proposals contains far too many partisan political fixes, and is not so much new politics as an old-fashioned stitch-up between the two oldest parties in the House. We oppose those changes and I commend my amendment to the House.
The Deputy Prime Minister
I have already explained, and the hon. Gentleman must accept, that, clearly, there needs to be a different figure for the motion of no confidence, which stands, and the figure for dissolution—a new right for Parliament.
I have also explained that, when we table the legislation, we will of course ensure that no Government can fall between those two things—a motion of no confidence and a vote of dissolution. We will, as is the case in many other parliamentary systems, set out how we can avoid a limbo in which a Government do not enjoy the confidence of the House yet a vote has not taken place, or cannot take place, to dissolve Government. That is what we will do. Instead of constantly seeking to see plots around every single corner, driven by a touch of party paranoia, I ask the hon. Gentleman to relax and wait until he has seen the legislation. Then we can have the debate.
Mr Straw
Frankly, if these proposals are formed already, the Deputy Prime Minister needs, if I may say so, better to spell out how they would operate. Will he please, for the benefit of the House, explain what would happen following a vote of no confidence? Let us take as an example what happened in ’79—the vote of no confidence. Everybody knew that that would trigger a general election. If there had been a 55% threshold, there could not have been a general election; there would have been limbo. What is his proposal for filling that gap?
The Deputy Prime Minister
The Government are three weeks old. The right hon. Gentleman has rightly pointed out that these are very important matters. We want to get them right. I have indicated today, quite clearly, that this is not just a matter of the vote of no confidence and a threshold for a vote for dissolution, and that we need to fill in the details of the legislation to prevent what I think he is rightly concerned about, which is a Government not enjoying the confidence of the House, yet a vote of dissolution—
The Deputy Prime Minister
We believe, as did the previous Government, that we need to introduce individual voter registration. I agree with the right hon. Member for Blackburn that that should be pursued, particularly if it is accelerated, with great care. It is a resource-intensive thing to do. We need to get it right.
The current legislation, which the right hon. Gentleman and others introduced, allows for voluntary individual voter registration to start now, with a view to moving towards a compulsory system by 2015, if I am correct. There is now an issue about whether we want to accelerate that process, but we can all agree that if we do so it must be properly resourced and organised.
I should now like to address the issue that the right hon. Gentleman raised at quite some length: the redrawing of Britain’s unfair electoral boundaries. I completely agree with the right hon. Gentleman that that must be done with care, but he must agree with me that the need for care is not a reason not to act at all. The most recent boundary review in England began in 2000 and took six years to report. By the time the new constituencies were used in the general election last month, the population of one in five constituencies in England was more than 10% above or below that review’s target figure of 69,900. In the most extreme case, we have one constituency that is five times the size of another. That is simply not right. It is the ultimate postcode lottery, whereby the weight of one’s vote depends on where one lives, so I ask the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues to engage fully with the process as, over the coming months, Parliament has its say on an overall but modest reduction in the number of House of Commons seats.
Mr Straw
The right hon. Gentleman refers to the contrast between the Western Isles, with 22,000 people, and the Isle of Wight, with more than 100,000. I do not argue that the Isle of Wight be represented by only one Member, but does he suggest that the separate considerations that have been made for island communities, including separate seats for the Western Isles, for Orkney and for Shetland, be abandoned in favour of a strict electoral quota, as the Conservatives proposed before the election?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I am not saying that there will be a rigid, arithmetical formula which—[Interruption.] No, there will be—[Interruption.] Let me finish. There will be a consistent approach towards the equalisation of constituencies throughout the nation, but of course that approach will need to accommodate some of the specific characteristics and features of the nations and regions of this country. We are now working on how we do that, and of course we will come forward with proposals.
However, I again ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he seriously thinks it acceptable that one fifth of constituencies in England are now 10% above or below the target population figure that was set when those boundaries were last reviewed? Surely he must accept that that issue requires another look, and that it is not wrong to aspire to such a House of Commons, which, in terms of the total number of MPs, is already far, far larger than was originally envisaged.
The Deputy Prime Minister
I give way first to the right hon. Member for Blackburn.
Mr Straw
First, on the size of the House, the right hon. Gentleman will know that the number of MPs has gone down a little since 2005, and that, although the size of the House has increased by 3% in the past 50 years, the electorate for which we are responsible has increased by 25% and our work load has shot up dramatically. I regard as completely spurious his argument that there would be some net saving by reducing the total number of MPs, unless our constituents are to receive a far less good service than they receive at the moment.
Secondly, of course we will examine proposals for ensuring that the system can be speeded up, but does the right hon. Gentleman accept that, if future reviews are to be sensible and fair—[Interruption.] If future reviews are to be sensible and fair, they must take account of not only registered electors, but the 3.5 million people who, the Electoral Commission says, are eligible to vote but not on the register.
The Deputy Prime Minister
That is a problem, and that is exactly why the acceleration of the individual voter registration system must be done in a way that successfully addresses that problem, rather than exacerbates it.
The right hon. Gentleman and all his colleagues basically have a choice about the issue of a referendum on the alternative vote and the linked issue of a boundary review. Either he tries to see the issue—slightly neurotically—through the prism of pure party interest, whereby all he wants to do is to adopt a defensive position to protect his own party’s arithmetical standing in this House, or he and his colleagues should in my view be prepared to engage with the serious issue at hand, which is that constituencies are unequal, the weight of people’s votes is unequal and that that is simply not an acceptable position at a time when we have this great opportunity to renew our democracy from top to toe. That is a choice that he should make.
On everything from this matter to the 55% threshold, I would say two things. First, it is a political choice for Labour Members as to whether they want to leap straight from government, having failed to move on all these things, to outright oppositionism driven by the slightly paranoid sense that everything is targeted at them and no one else, or engage seriously in what I believe is a promising moment in our political history to reform things, and reform things for good.
The Deputy Prime Minister
Clearly the job of being an MP in sparsely populated and very large rural constituencies is a great challenge, which my hon. Friend knows more about than most. That is exactly the kind of thing that we will need to take into consideration as we progress with this measure.
I should like to turn to reform of the other place, which we all agree must now happen. It should be up to the British people to elect their second Chamber—a second Chamber that must be much more representative of them, their communities and their neighbourhoods. To that end, I should like to announce the following measures. First, I have set up a committee, which I will chair, to take forward this reform, composed of Members from all three major political parties, as well as from both Houses. Secondly, the committee will be explicitly charged with producing a draft Bill by no later than the end of this year—the first time that legislation for an elected second Chamber will ever have been published. Thirdly, the draft Bill will then be subject to pre-legislative scrutiny by a Joint Committee of both Houses during which there will of course be ample opportunity for all voices to be heard.
Make no mistake: we are not starting this process from scratch. There is already significant shared ground between the parties that will be taken as our starting point. I am not going to hide my impatience for reforms that are more than 100 years overdue. Subject to the legitimate scrutiny that the Bill will deserve, this Government are determined to push through the necessary reforms to the other place. People have been talking about Lords reform for more than a century. The time for talk is over. People must be allowed to elect those who make the laws of the land. Change must begin now.
The Deputy Prime Minister
Let me just confirm that the committee will hold its first meeting as early as next week, and that its members will be the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), who is the Minister with responsibility for political and constitutional reform; the Leader of the House of Lords; the Deputy Leader of the Lords; the shadow Leader of the Lords, the Leader of the House of Commons; the Deputy Leader of the Commons; the shadow Leader of the Commons; and, of course, the shadow Justice Secretary, to whom I give way.
Mrs Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest) (Con)
It is a pleasure to speak after the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears). I am sure that she means what she says; I am sure that she wants to see the changes of which she spoke, in her constituency and throughout the country. It is just a great pity that the Government of whom she was a member for 13 years spent all the money. She says that we have ideas for the big society, but the money is not there to do it. She is right. The money is not there because of the mismanagement of her colleagues for the past decade and a bit, and the country must remember that.
I want to make three brief points about constitutional reform. The first concerns the electoral system itself. As the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw)—I am so used to calling him the Lord Chancellor—rightly said, some good and worthwhile changes are already in the pipeline. Individual voter registration is a very important change, because it will improve the integrity and the comprehensiveness of the electoral register. It will also improve the accuracy of the ballot. However, other matters also need to be dealt with.
We need a total overhaul of the electoral system, as we discovered during the debacle about the timing of counts at general elections. I am glad to say that once again the right hon. Gentleman and I are in complete agreement on that: I tried, and he succeeded, in changing the law on it just before the general election. We discovered that there is no clear line of accountability for returning officers. That is wrong. We also discovered at the general election the disgrace of people being denied the vote as the polls closed at 10 pm. That occurred partly because many returning officers think they are a law unto themselves. Under the current system, it is impossible to ensure consistency. This matter requires attention, and when the Government bring forward proposals on it—as I am sure they will—they will have support from both sides of the House.
Mr Straw
I rise just to put it on record that, yes, it was I who legislated for early counts wherever possible, but that that was on the basis of amendments that the hon. Lady had moved and it would not have happened without them. I entirely accept what she says about the lack of accountability of electoral registration officers and returning officers and the need for change, but does she accept that ring-fencing of the funding for electoral administration would inevitably go with that—that is a conclusion that I reluctantly came to—and that whatever other arguments there might be about ring-fencing, we have to see this as part of a national system?
Mrs Laing
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his point, and it gives me great pleasure to be able to say for the first time in a long time what I actually personally think, because as a Back Bencher I am bound by no collective responsibility. I agree with him entirely. I personally believe that those funds will have to be ring-fenced and not simply put into the local government pot, because some local authorities, such as Epping Forest district council, handle these matters extremely well, whereas others do not do so quite so well. I therefore agree with the right hon. Gentleman that the funds will have to be ring-fenced, and also that that review of the electoral system must be undertaken as a matter of urgency.
The issue of a fair electoral system is also important. There has been much talk this afternoon about the alternative vote or AV, but there is a far more glaring anomaly, because as the right hon. Gentleman mentioned in his remarks—I think I mean my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister, although that is also quite difficult to say—constituencies should, of course, be of the same size. Every vote cast in a general election should be of equal weight and value. Some Opposition Members talked about the size of certain constituencies in terms of square miles, yet we are elected to represent not pieces of land but people. What matters is the number of people in a constituency, not its geographical size. Every vote should be of equal value, but the argument over the alternative vote is a red herring—