House of Lords Reform Bill

Debate between Jack Straw and Mark Harper

Tuesday 10th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr Mark Harper)]

I was very pleased that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer joined us because he is, along with many other Conservative members of this Government, one of the sponsors of this coalition Bill to reform the House of Lords.

I made it clear in 2007 that I thought that the most important relationship was between the Executive and Parliament, and that the Executive were too powerful. I am happy to reaffirm that now as a member of the Executive, as the right hon. Member for South Shields (David Miliband) also said. I still believe that, and I believe that what we are about here is making Parliament stronger to keep the Executive under control.

This coalition Government have made important reforms to strengthen this House of Commons. We implemented the Wright reforms, we have elected Select Committee Chairmen and we have introduced the Backbench Business Committee—not always a comfortable experience for the Government, but the right thing to do. This Session, we will introduce a House business Committee. Now it is time to get on to reform the other place, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Mr Dorrell) set out clearly in his speech and in his article in The Guardian exactly why we should do so—to make sure that a stronger Commons will make life more difficult for Ministers and make Ministers think harder about legislating. That was an argument that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House set out clearly, as well.

We have heard from many members of the Joint Committee. The hon. Member for Stockport (Ann Coffey) reminded us in an excellent speech that we should pay attention to the views of our constituents. In a recent YouGov poll, 39% of the public said that the way peers are elected to—I mean get to—the House of Lords [Interruption.] I would be very happy to elect them. The public say that they do not like the way in which peers are currently selected. That is the top thing they do not like about our political system. Whenever people are asked in polls, the overwhelming majority want to elect a significant number of Members of the other place.

[Mr Straw]

rose—

[Mr Harper]

No, the right hon. Gentleman did not leave me any time to take interventions, so I am afraid I am not giving way to him. He spoke for far too long.

The right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson) set out clearly in his excellent speech the trends over the last decade whereby this Government have built on the work done by others, including the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw). His White Paper of 2008 was similar to the proposals we have set out, which is why Labour Members will, I hope, support the Bill on Second Reading.

The proposal in the Bill is very simple—that those who make the laws should be elected. I thought that my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) demonstrated beyond doubt in his example that Members of the other place influence and make the law. He and I, however, draw opposite conclusions from that. He draws the conclusion that we should keep an appointed House; I draw the conclusion that those Members make the laws, so they should be elected.

We have adopted a consensual approach. We established a cross-party Committee chaired by my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister, and when we finished that process, there were only three areas of disagreement with the Labour party. Labour Members wanted a referendum—we were very clear about that—they wanted 100% and not 80% of Members to be elected, and they preferred a list system to the single transferable vote. We have moved on the latter in a spirit of consensus, which I hope will be reflected.

[Mr Straw]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Harper]

No, I will not.

We then established a Joint Committee which considered our draft Bill for nine months, giving it exhaustive scrutiny. The Committee agreed with its central propositions, but recommended a number of changes, more than half of which we adopted. One of its most important recommendations was that the reformed second Chamber should have an electoral mandate. In a Division that was won by 13 votes to nine, nine Members of the House of Commons voted for an elected second Chamber and only one did not. That was a very clear result, and I think that we should accept it. [Interruption.] We will have a debate about the referendum in Committee. [Interruption.] My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House will set out the next steps for the timing of the Committee debates—which will take place when the House returns in the autumn—during business questions on Thursday in the usual way, following what I hope will be a very clear and decisive vote in support of Second Reading tonight.

Let me now touch briefly on the proposed alternatives. Many Members have mentioned a Bill presented by Lord Steel. That Bill would achieve only two things. It would allow peers to retire, but even Lord Steel recognises that significant numbers are unlikely to do so without what he called a bronze handshake and what I call redundancy pay. I am afraid that, given the current financial times, our constituents would not understand it if we spent public money on rewarding some of the better-off members of society for leaving the other place, and without such payments the Bill would not achieve its objectives. It would also not remove any of those in the other place who have been convicted of criminal offences. On the basis of the two propositions that it advances, it will fail.

Finally, let me say something about the way in which we will proceed. The Leader of the Opposition said that he wanted the Bill to be out of the House of Commons in sufficient time for it to be debated seriously by the other place. The programme motion that we placed on the Order Paper, which will not be moved, would have meant our debating the Bill in the House of Commons until November. If the Opposition want the Bill to leave this House and go to the other place, they need to agree on a sensible number of days for debate. The only alternative is for Members to be willing to sit during the summer, or overnight, or for the House to do nothing but debate this Bill. That is not the right way in which to proceed. The hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) approached the matter in a constructive way by tabling an amendment. She did the right thing: she engaged in the debate.

I hope that, following the lead given by the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen), the Chairman of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, there will be proper negotiations between the usual channels, and we have allowed time for that to happen. I also hope that every Member who votes for the Bill’s Second Reading tonight and agrees to its principle will ensure that we can get it out of the House and into the other place and achieve reform, because I believe that there is a consensus in favour of that reform. We will test the opinion of the House tonight, and I am confident of the result. I commend the Bill to the House.

Question put, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Jack Straw and Mark Harper

Tuesday 15th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

The hon. Gentleman is right. One of the most convincing arguments was heard in our previous debates in this House, which is that a turnout threshold effectively makes every abstention a no vote. People abstain from voting in referendums for any number of reasons, but treating all those who abstain as effectively expressing a preference is not the right thing to do. A turnout threshold would give those in favour of a no vote a positive incentive to stay at home. As I said in our earlier debate, we should, as democrats, encourage people to go out there and vote yes or no. The important thing is that people take part, and a turnout threshold would encourage some of them to stay at home.

Such a barrier would also create some very strange mathematical scenarios. For example, if 39% of the electorate turned out, the result would not be binding, even if 75% of those votes were in favour of change. So, even if the public had expressed a clear preference, it would not count. On the other hand, a result in which 41% of the public had turned out, even if it were a narrow 51%:49% result, would count. There is no logic to that proposal; it makes no sense.

[Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)]

This whole argument is against a motion that was not passed in the other place. It is against one that was defeated where there was a threshold that amounted to a veto on the result if the turnout were below that threshold. Does the Minister not accept that this Lords amendment is completely different in character? All it does—although it is a very important “all”—is to ensure that if there is a turnout of less than 40% in total, the matter will come back to this House. To pick up the Minister’s example, if, say, there were a 39% turnout and 75% of that 39% had voted in favour of a change in the voting system, I cannot conceive that this House would fail to endorse it. On the other hand, if there were a 25% turnout and if it were approved by only—

[Mr Straw]

In those other circumstances, the House would surely think again. Is that not a very sensible way of proceeding?

[Mr Harper]

No, I do not agree with the right hon. Gentleman. The Government are simply trying to ensure that the public get the choice. If we insert a threshold—even the one put forward by the noble Lord Rooker, which was supported in the other place by a majority of only one—it effectively means that we are saying to the public that even where there was a clear decision, it would not be binding and the matter would come back to this House. If we were to agree with it, there would be no point; if we were to overturn it, it would be outrageous. Thresholds are not part of the traditions and practice in this country. We have discussed the one example of where it was used, and we found that it was not a very good precedent.

Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Debate between Jack Straw and Mark Harper

Wednesday 24th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr Mark Harper)]

This is not a fancy tactic—I would not know one if I saw one, although if I did I am sure I would have learned it from the right hon. Gentleman. It is very straightforward. We decided that if there were a general view in the House that there should be an early election, the House should have the power to cause one.

The right hon. Gentleman gave the example of Germany. The reason why the Government there engineered a vote of confidence was because there was no other mechanism for an early election. If we were to remove our provision, then if there were a general view in the political classes and in the country that there should be an early election, the only way of having one would be for the Government to engineer a vote of no confidence. That would not be very sensible or very honest.

[Mr Straw]

We need to speak about possibilities in the real world. The only example in recent times that I can think of when a Prime Minister has wanted to call an election of choice, without any necessity due to his parliamentary majority, is that of Edward Heath in January 1974. There was no way he would have got a two-thirds majority in favour of a Dissolution. In my view, the country as a whole and the Conservative party would have been saved a great deal if there had not been an early Dissolution at that point. I simply say that if we are to have fixed-term Parliaments, which is a good idea but will have consequences, we must ensure that a Government can get booted out only if a motion of no confidence is passed.

Prisoners’ Right to Vote

Debate between Jack Straw and Mark Harper

Tuesday 2nd November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

My hon. Friend will know that 60 years ago Britain signed up to the European convention. [Interruption.] The shadow Justice Secretary is yelling again; he clearly needs telling again, so I will tell him again. Because Britain signed up to the European convention 60 years ago, it binds us legally. The Government must act in accordance with the law, as the previous Government accepted. The danger is that compensation payments will be awarded against us to prisoners. As I said earlier, the only thing worse than giving prisoners the vote would be giving them the vote and then having to give them compensation on top of that.

[Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)]

Before the Minister gets away with this nonsense that we did nothing—in fact, we held not one but two consultations on the issue—will he tell us on what occasion during those five years either he or any other member of his Front Bench, or Conservative Opposition Back Bencher, did anything other than call for us not to make any decisions about prisoner voting rights?

[Mr Harper]

The right hon. Gentleman has proved the point that I made: he says that the Government consulted on doing something but failed to do anything. Five years passed after the judgment, and the right hon. Gentleman and the Government of whom he was a senior member did nothing in terms of implementing the judgment.

Individual Electoral Registration

Debate between Jack Straw and Mark Harper

Wednesday 15th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr Mark Harper)]

With permission, I should like to make a statement on the Government’s plans for the implementation of individual electoral registration in Great Britain—Northern Ireland having introduced such a system in 2002.

It is widely recognised on both sides of the House that the current arrangements for electoral registration need to change. At present, there is no requirement for people to provide any evidence of their identity to register to vote, which leaves the system vulnerable to fraud. Household registration harks back to a time when registration was the responsibility of the head of the household. Access to a right as fundamental as voting should not be dependent on someone else. We need a better system of keeping up with people who move house or who need to update their registration for other reasons. Individual registration provides an opportunity to move forward to a system centred around the individual citizen.

I am sure that Members on both sides of the House are concerned when they read of allegations of electoral fraud, including those alleged to have taken place at elections this year. Although proven electoral fraud is relatively rare, we should be concerned about the impact that such cases have on the public’s confidence in the electoral system. The most recent survey, which was taken after the general election in May, found that one third of people think that electoral fraud is a problem. We can be confident that any allegations will be properly investigated by the authorities, but it is right that we take steps to make the system less vulnerable to fraud, because tackling that perception is an important part of rebuilding trust in our democracy, which is why this Government are committed to speeding up the implementation of individual registration.

Individual registration will require each person to register themselves and to provide personal identifiers—date of birth, signature and national insurance number—which will allow registration officers to cross-check the information provided before a person is added to the register, which should tackle the problem of fraudulent or ineligible registrations.

However, I want to make it absolutely clear that there will be no new databases. The Government’s commitment to rolling back the surveillance state will be demonstrated clearly later today when the House debates the remaining stages of the Identity Documents Bill. Electoral registration officers will check the information they receive from people applying to be registered with the Department for Work and Pensions to ensure that the applicant is genuine. People seeking to access public services are already subject to various similar authentication processes, for example when applying for benefits, and I do not believe such a check, which will help to eliminate electoral fraud, is disproportionate or that it represents an invasion of privacy. Naturally, we will ensure that robust arrangements are put in place to ensure that personal data are securely held and processed by electoral registration officers. Personal identifiers will not be published in the electoral register.

The Political Parties and Elections Act 2009 was passed in the previous Parliament with all-party support. At this point, it is worth paying tribute to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) and my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing), who worked tirelessly on promoting that. The Act gave us a framework for moving to individual registration. Introduction was to be on a voluntary basis before a further decision by Parliament—on the recommendation of the Electoral Commission—on whether to make it compulsory from later in 2015 at the earliest, but it is our judgment that that is a slow and very expensive way of doing things.

I am announcing today that we will legislate to implement individual registration in 2014. We will drop the previous Government’s plans for a voluntary phase, which would have cost about £74 million over the Parliament. I believe that there is a far more cost-effective way to familiarise people with the new requirements for registration and—importantly—avoid any temporary drop in registration rates.

We propose that individual registration will be made compulsory in 2014, but that no one will be removed from the electoral register who fails to register individually until after the 2015 general election, giving people at least 12 months to comply with the new requirements, and ensuring as complete a register as possible for the election. From 2014 onwards any new registrations will need to be carried out under the new system, including last-minute registrations. We will also make individual registration a requirement for anyone wishing to cast a postal or proxy vote. That will tackle immediately the main areas of concern on electoral fraud, but it will ensure that people already on the register can vote at the next election and will have more than one opportunity to register individually.

Individual registration also provides us with an opportunity to tackle concerns about people missing from the electoral register, which are held on both sides of the House. But it is important to put this into perspective: the UK registration rate at 91% to 92% compares well internationally, including with some countries where voting is compulsory.

There is a significant number of people who are eligible to vote but not on the register. There is a variety of reasons for this and the move to individual registration provides us with an opportunity to do something about it. Whether a person chooses to register or not should be their individual choice. But we should do everything we can to ensure that people are not prevented from registering because the system is difficult to use or through ignorance of their rights. For example, research carried out by the Electoral Commission revealed that 31% of people believed that they would be automatically registered if they paid council tax. Many of those people may not therefore actually take the trouble to register to vote. As part of introducing individual registration, as well as improving the accuracy of the register, we will therefore take steps to improve its completeness.

I can also announce today that we will be trialling data-matching during 2011—comparing the electoral register with other public databases to find the people who are eligible to vote but who are missing from the register. The aim is to tackle under-registration among specific groups in our society and ensure that every opportunity is available to those currently not on the electoral register. These pilots will enable us to see how effective data-matching is and to see which data sets are of most use in improving the accuracy and completeness of the electoral register. If they are effective, we will roll them out more widely across local authorities on a permanent basis to help ensure that our register is as complete as possible. The Electoral Commission will also play a key role in assessing and reporting on the pilots.

I will be writing to all local authorities responsible for electoral registration to invite them to put themselves forward to take part in these trials and I strongly encourage them to work in partnership with the Government on this important matter. Much work is already done by electoral registration officers to raise awareness and encourage people to register, but I will be considering further how local authorities, Members of Parliament and the Government might work together to develop an approach that will make a positive impact on the level of electoral registration.

Registration should be a simple process. We will also be considering how electoral registration can be integrated into people’s day-to-day transactions with Government— for example when they move house, or visit the post office, or apply for a passport or driving licence.

Our proposals will improve both the completeness and accuracy of the register. We will therefore seek to bring forward a draft Bill for pre-legislative scrutiny in the current Session followed by a Bill to introduce individual registration from 2014. The need to improve the accuracy and completeness of electoral registers is an issue on which there is cross-party consensus. As we move forward, it will be important for us to maintain consensus and we will be seeking to work closely on implementation with political parties across the House.

The steps that I am announcing today will achieve change over the lifetime of this Parliament that will safeguard the integrity of our electoral system and improve registration levels. They are an important part of rebuilding people’s faith in our democracy and I commend this statement to the House.

[Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)]

I’m back again.

I am grateful to the Minister for his statement, but not—I am afraid—for most of its content. Will he accept that his announcement today of the speeding up of individual registration, but without safeguards or any additional funding, could undermine the integrity of our democracy and lead to a repeat on the mainland of the Northern Ireland experience, in which the introduction of individual registration led to a 10% drop in registrations and many eligible voters effectively being disfranchised?

The hon. Gentleman referred to the Political Parties and Elections Act 2009, which was passed with all-party support, and he paid a fulsome tribute—entirely deserved, if I may so—to the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) and the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing), but why did he not go on to acknowledge the reasons the Conservative Front-Bench team endorsed wholly and specifically the detailed timetable in the 2009 Act and the special safeguards and the role for the Electoral Commission, which was spelt out in that Act? Has he forgotten what his own hon. Friend, the hon. Member for Epping Forest, said in the House and has repeated since the general election? She said that

“it is right to take this matter forward carefully and step by step. None of us wants to see a system introduced that would in any way undermine the integrity of our democratic system.”—[Official Report, 13 July 2009; Vol. 496, c. 108.]

And is he not also aware of the endorsement of the details in the 2009 Act by the then Liberal Democrat spokesman, David Howarth? He said:

“I do not think that anybody was suggesting that the timetable be artificially shortened”—

exactly what the Minister is now proposing—

“or that any risk be taken with the comprehensiveness of the register.”—[Official Report, 13 July 2009; Vol. 496, c. 112.]

The Minister seeks to justify his announcement today principally by referring to electoral fraud. We all share concerns about electoral fraud, which pollutes and undermines the democratic process, and the last Government, not least in the Electoral Administration Act 2006, took active measures that are working to protect us better against fraud. However, that was not the principal reason for individual registration. That was about giving people rights as individual citizens just as these days people have rights to individual taxation. What is the evidence that initial registration is the principal point at which fraud takes place? In my experience, the principal problems have come not from that, but from personation at the polls of someone lawfully and properly on the register, or from misconduct over postal votes, where the 2006 Act provisions are working, but where further protection could easily be provided by the simple arrangement of banning the publication of the absent voters list in the immediate run-up to, and during, the election.

The Minister complains now about cost and complexity, but given that our scheme in the 2009 Act was the subject of detailed cross-party consultation by Lord Wills, then my right hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon, why was no such complaint made just six months ago? That system provided a key role for the European—I mean the Electoral—Commission—[Interruption.] I had Prime Minister’s questions on the brain, but happily the European Commission is not involved in this at all. The system provided a key role for the Electoral Commission to certify that full steps had been taken, but the Minister’s provisions seek to bypass the safeguarding role of the Electoral Commission. Why is that?

The arrangement set out in the 2009 Act included a voluntary process that the Minister now derides, but has he forgotten that the hon. Member for Epping Forest specifically endorsed voluntary registration in the first instance, making that subject to certification by the Electoral Commission that it was safe to proceed? The Minister claims that our overall registration rates are similar to those of other countries. They may be, but will he not accept that the overall average disguises the fact that, as the Electoral Commission showed, in many areas, especially in inner-urban areas and seaside towns, and among the young and those on lower incomes, levels of registration are much lower than the average, and less probably than in other countries?

There is no need, as the Minister implied, for further data-matching powers. They are already on the statute book and go back to previous Conservative Administrations, with powers for electoral registration officers strengthened by us, as set out in detail in a parliamentary answer given to my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Clwyd (Chris Ruane). We will work carefully with the Minister to ensure that the data-matching arrangements are effective.

Overall, however, time and again the Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister have accepted that 3.5 million voters are missing from the register. The burden of the Minister’s statement today represents an admission that the 2010 register will disfranchise millions of voters, yet he is planning to use that register for the new fixed boundary arrangements, which will eliminate any local independent public inquiries. Given that, what possible reason is there for rushing the boundary legislation, except the reason now helpfully and publicly put on the record by the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr Field) and the right hon. Friend Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis): that this is being done solely for narrow, party political advantage?

[Mr Harper]

That was a rather grudging welcome, I thought, for our plans.

Let me run through the questions that the right hon. Gentleman asked. His key point, set out at the beginning of his response, was to say that we were planning to speed up individual registration without safeguards, but I do not think that he can have listened to my statement. He specifically referred to the Northern Ireland experience, but what we are doing is entirely because of the Northern Ireland experience, where there was a significant drop in the numbers on the electoral register, albeit one that most people thought was greater than what we could have expected from just removing those who were on the register who should not have been. Clearly we would expect some reduction with individual registration, because there are some people on the register who should not be. However, the Northern Ireland experience is exactly what we are trying to avoid, by not removing people from the register before the next election if they have not registered individually—as I set out right at the beginning of my statement—so I do not think that that issue is valid.

The right hon. Gentleman quoted my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing) as saying that she was clear that we did not want to undermine democracy. The whole point of the safeguards and the data-matching that I have outlined, along with the careful way in which we are going to proceed, is exactly so that we end up with a register that is more accurate and more complete than the one that we have today.

The recorded statistics on electoral fraud, which come from the Association of Chief Police Officers and the Electoral Commission, show that fraudulent registration is one of the principal examples of electoral fraud, and there was cross-party agreement in the previous Parliament that it should be tackled.

As for the Electoral Commission and the safeguard to which the right hon. Gentleman referred, as I made clear in my statement, the Electoral Commission will absolutely be involved in the process, advising us on the data-matching pilots. We have worked closely with the Electoral Commission and yesterday, when the chair, Jenny Watson, gave evidence to the Select Committee on Political and Constitutional Reform, she welcomed individual registration, making it clear that it was an opportunity to give individuals responsibility for their vote. She also said that introducing individual registration would enable focused programmes to improve registration rates and gave some examples of programmes in Northern Ireland to encourage young people to vote. We will continue to work closely with the Electoral Commission, which has set out some important principles that we plan to follow.

As for under-registration, I made it clear in my remarks that we think that getting people who are eligible to vote on to the electoral register is as important as dealing with people who should not be on it. That is why we set out the proposal not to get rid of people in the first instance, but to improve data-matching, so that we can put some proactive plans in place to tackle under-registration. However, the boundary review will take place on exactly the same basis as the last one. We will use the existing electoral register, as with the previous boundary review, which took place under the previous Government, but under our proposals there will be more frequent boundary reviews—once a Parliament—so that we use the most up-to-date registration data and seats bear more relation to up-to-date electoral data.

On a positive note, I am grateful for the right hon. Gentleman’s concurrence that he will work with us on the pilots. I shall write to those local authorities this week, and I shall be happy to work with all parties in the House to look at ways of improving electoral registration across the country, so that we have a more complete electoral register.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Jack Straw and Mark Harper

Monday 6th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

I hope that my hon. Friend will forgive me if I do not. I have a great deal to do, and not much time in which to do it.

The Labour party’s position on the referendum on the alternative vote strikes me as ridiculous. Labour supported an AV referendum before the election—it was in the party manifesto—but Labour Members are not supporting it now. They are hiding their opportunism behind the fig leaf that the proposal is contained in a Bill that plans a boundary review to provide more equally sized constituencies and more equal votes.

The right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) has criticised us for not presenting our proposals in a stand-alone Bill. Given that both our measures concern the election of Members of Parliament to the House of Commons, it seems perfectly sensible to link them. I remind him that he presented proposals for an AV referendum in the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010. That was hardly a stand-alone Bill. It also included measures relating to the civil service commission, the civil service code of conduct, the ratification of treaties, amendments to the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, the tax status of Members of Parliament, financial reporting to Parliament, freedom of information, counting of votes and the Act of Settlement.

[Mr Straw]

The difference is that all of those had been subject to extensive pre-legislative scrutiny and were agreed across the House, whereas one part of this is agreed but the other is a wholly partisan measure. The political purpose behind it has been well exposed by the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr Field) in his excellent blog on the ConservativeHome website.

[Mr Harper]

The right hon. Gentleman has just demonstrated that on this issue the Opposition have put opportunism before principle, and it will not get them very far.

The boundaries argument is straightforward. The Government believe seats should be of more equal size so that votes are of more equal value. Indeed, the right hon. Gentleman and his colleague the right hon. Member for Neath (Mr Hain) have both said at different times that they agree with that principle. They say that, in theory, they believe in it; however, they oppose it in practice. That is not, of course, on principle; it is because they believe our proposals correct a bias in favour of them in the current system—another example of opportunism.

Many of my right hon. and hon. Friends spoke powerfully in favour of our proposals, including my hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea and Fulham (Greg Hands) in an excellent speech and my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes South.

The right hon. Member for Blackburn cannot have it both ways. He tried to argue that our boundary proposals were purely arithmetic and did not take anything else into account, and simultaneously that they were about gerrymandering the system to suit us. Those arguments cannot both be true.

A number of Members, including the right hon. Member for Neath, referred to a likely reduction in the number of seats in Wales from 40 to 30, as did the right hon. Member for Torfaen (Paul Murphy) and the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Mr Williams). That simply corrects the fact that at present Wales is over-represented in this House. Once the measures in the Bill come into force, Wales will be treated in exactly the same way as England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. It will be represented in exactly the same way as the rest of the United Kingdom, which, it seems to me, is extremely fair. That is my response to the right hon. Member for Belfast North (Mr Dodds) as well, who made exactly the same point about Northern Ireland. The reduction in the number of seats simply corrects existing over-representation, which also used to exist in Scotland and was largely corrected at the last election, although there is a little more still to do. Every part of this United Kingdom will be treated in the same way, and most voters will think that that is eminently fair.

The right hon. Member for Belfast North and the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) talked about the linkage between Westminster seats and those for the Northern Ireland Assembly. They will both know that the Assembly is under a statutory duty to consider its operation by 2015, including the size of the Assembly. The Government are committed to bringing forward further legislation during this Parliament to reflect the wishes of the Assembly. The Government have no intention of dictating the size of the future Assembly. We will work closely with the devolved Administrations.

Boundaries will continue to be drawn by the independent boundary commissions in each part of the United Kingdom. As the Deputy Prime Minister said, we will replace local inquiries with a much longer period—increased from one month to three months—for local people to be able to make written representations. The academics’ opinion on this is very clear. They have described oral inquiries as

“very largely an exercise in allowing the political parties to seek influence over the Commission’s recommendations—in which their sole goal is to promote their own electoral interests.”

They also say that

“it would be a major error to assume that the consultation process largely involves the general public having its say on the recommendations.”

That is not a convincing argument, therefore.

Electoral registration was raised by a number of Members, including the hon. Member for Vale of Clwyd (Chris Ruane)—who, I know from the number of written questions of his that I have answered, takes a great interest in the subject. He will know that the registration rate in the UK is about 91 or 92%, which is broadly in line with that of comparable countries. The boundary review will use the electoral register, as it always has in the past. As the Deputy Prime Minister acknowledged, there are issues with the registration system. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that when we announce our plans for speeding up individual registration he will find that the fears that he expressed this afternoon are misplaced. The Government have no intention of worsening the situation—quite the reverse; we plan, by the measures that we will introduce, to reduce the number of people who are not registered to vote and to improve the system.

A number of hon. Members raised the issue about the number of Ministers that will be in the House of Commons after the size of the House has been reduced, and they will know that the Public Administration Committee produced a report on the issue before the general election. That Committee, which is chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex, is undertaking another inquiry to examine what Ministers do. When it reports, the Government and my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister will look closely at it to see whether the Government want to take forward any of the proposals about the number of Ministers in this House.

The hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) talked about foreign nationals and EU nationals not being able to vote in parliamentary elections and therefore not counting for these purposes. That is not a change introduced by the Bill; that is the existing position. It is perfectly normal in most countries that in order for someone to be able to vote for the national Parliament they have to be a citizen of the country concerned. That is a perfectly normal process and we are not changing it in this Bill. It is the existing system and I feel sure that Mrs Clegg will cope with it perfectly well.

My hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Turner) spoke powerfully on behalf of his constituents. I know that he received a reply to his letter before today’s Second Reading debate, although I accept that it was unacceptably delayed. An apology has been made to him for that, and I can assure him that either the Deputy Prime Minister or I will visit the Isle of Wight to listen to the concerns of his constituents in person.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jack Straw and Mark Harper

Tuesday 27th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

If he has looked at the Bill, my hon. Friend will know that the boundary commissions are able to take into account local ties, but only to the extent that we can still have equal-sized constituencies. They are able to look at those things, but we think that the principle of equal-sized seats is most important and should take priority.

[Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)]

Will the Minister confirm that under the Bill, local boundaries, including county boundaries, can be completely ignored and that the only boundaries required to be observed are the national boundaries? Will he also confirm that under the Bill the Boundary Commission will be required, by law, to begin the process of redrawing the boundaries for the whole of the United Kingdom in the Isle of Wight—to transfer 35,000 voters in that constituency across the Solent into Hampshire, and then to work up the United Kingdom in an equally arbitrary way, with no public inquiries?

I heard the Minister’s waffle about extra consultation, but that is no substitute whatever for independent public inquiries, which the Government are abolishing because they are scared of the results. How does what is in the Bill fit with any idea of the practice of localism and greater transparency that the Deputy Prime Minister has just promised?

[Mr Harper]

There were so many questions in there that it is not clear which one to answer. First, we are not proposing to move anybody who currently lives on the Isle of Wight; I think that they will continue to live where they are. The right hon. Gentleman is talking nonsense. We do not lay down a prescriptive method for the boundary commissions to draw the boundaries; they are independent, and they will continue to draw the boundaries. Frankly, the hyperbole that he has come out with today and in his reasoned amendment to the Bill bears no relation to the proposals that we published last week.

[Mr Straw]

rose—

[Mr Straw]

The Minister has obviously not read his own Bill. If community cohesion is good enough for separate seats on the outer isles of Scotland and for the invention of an entirely artificial rule to protect the seat of a former leader of the Liberal Democrats, why is it not good enough for the rest of the United Kingdom?

[Mr Harper]

The right hon. Gentleman knows that there are two exceptions, which are the two Scottish seats that have unique geography. There is not an exception for the seat of the former leader of the Liberal Democrats; it is simply a rule to prevent the Boundary Commission from drawing an extraordinarily large seat, and his boundaries are able to be redrawn in the same way as anybody’s else’s. All this bluster simply highlights the fact that Labour Members do not believe in seats of equal size and votes counting equally across the whole of the United Kingdom.

Constitution and Home Affairs

Debate between Jack Straw and Mark Harper

Monday 7th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[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—

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr Mark Harper)]

You’re wrong.

[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.