Electoral Registration and Administration Bill

Jonathan Edwards Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)]

I want to use the opportunity this afternoon to repeat the concerns that I first raised in January in an Opposition day debate on the subject.

First, I am concerned that, although the proposals have a worthy goal, we are ignoring the difficulties posed by the dual aims of ensuring the highest number of registrations on the electoral roll, while at the same time solving the problem of electoral fraud. Secondly, and especially given the experience of an 11% drop in electoral registration in Northern Ireland in the immediate aftermath of the introduction of IER, I am concerned that the proposals are being introduced at the same time as other major changes, such as the equalisation of constituency sizes, based on the electoral roll. There is surely consensus that the preferred outcome is that all adults who should be registered on the electoral roll are registered, and that they participate in elections. Everybody should be on the electoral roll and have the opportunity to cast their vote.

The principle of individual electoral registration is positive, in that electors should take upon themselves the responsibility to register to vote in their own right, rather than its being done under the aegis of a household. All relevant people should be willing and able to register, and have the same opportunity to do so. However, there may be a disconnect between the equality of opportunity to register, where all relevant people may do so, and the equality of outcome, where all relevant people do so.

The Electoral Commission reported in December 2010 that 6 million people were not registered across the UK, with register completion rates of between 85% to 87%. It is unclear to me how IER, which creates a greater barrier to registration, will ensure that as many people as possible are on the electoral roll. While accepting that it is always a worry, the number of cases of electoral fraud that have been uncovered are minimal compared with the need to get those 6 million people on to the electoral register. We therefore welcome the decision to drop the idea of voluntary registration, which was raised in the White Paper, and to maintain the civic duty.

Electoral registration has a greater relevance than ever following the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011, which will create constituencies that are designed to have a number of voters within 5% of a UK constituency mean, predicated on the number of electors on the electoral roll, rather than the actual adult population.

Many people are particularly concerned about registration among certain socio-economic and age groups, including more transient populations, such as young people, who move house frequently, and those who are already disconnected from civic society, and may not make the effort to register.

When IER was first introduced in the north of Ireland, the number on the roll dropped initially by 11% and has only gradually been rebuilt over time, in part, one might say, because of the strong community links that exist in the Six Counties. We must avoid that drop in registration occurring in the first place.

The Government have already announced a process of data-matching pilots and we shall watch their progress keenly. We welcome the moving of the autumn 2013 canvass back to spring 2014 to prevent significant deterioration of the registers before the introduction of IER, although that will presumably mean an 18-month gap and deterioration in the registers from this year’s canvass until spring 2014. How will that affect EROs and preparation of registers for the European elections of June 2014, and the Scottish independence referendum, which is due to be held later that year?

The effects of the Bill moved a little closer to home for me this week, with the publication of a Green Paper on future electoral arrangements for the National Assembly for Wales by the Secretary of State for Wales. I do not intend to discuss that very interesting Green Paper in detail during the debate, but in short the Secretary of State highlighted options for constituency size in Wales, based on the same principle as that for equalisation of numbers on the electoral roll for Westminster constituencies: whether we have 30 or 40 Assembly constituency seats. That means that the concerns I have raised about the effect of electoral registration matter regardless. Members will know that during the progress of that 2011 Act, I consistently criticised the principle of ignoring community, historical and geographical links in the formation of new constituencies. Non-registration therefore becomes crucial in both Assembly and Westminster elections. Not only is a non-registered person unable to vote and disfranchised, but the population of the constituency decreases, because those “non-people” are not counted.

Of similar importance is the length of time for which registration is carried forward under IER as we move to the new system. The Minister can correct me if I have misunderstood this, but it is generally considered that most people who are moved forward will be registered in 2015 for the Westminster elections, but will not be carried forward for a second year, which would take us up to the National Assembly for Wales elections in 2016. The Electoral Commission makes specific reference to those with postal or proxy votes and the possibility of adverse impacts on participation after the introduction of IER. It will be a tragedy if, owing to administrative changes, electors in Wales find themselves unable to vote in their national elections. I hope that, in his winding-up speech, the Minister outlines how he will prevent that nightmare scenario.

Clause 14 repeals section 16 of the Representation of the People Act 1985, which is on holding community council elections in Wales. Will the Minister confirm the process by which that decision was reached in respect of Wales, and whether the power to determine election dates for such elections lies with the UK Government or the Welsh Government?

I conclude by repeating my key argument. The main aim of electoral registration is to ensure the completion and accuracy of the register. With so much change taking place in electoral administration as a result of the 2011 Act, I am concerned that we might inadvertently end up disfranchising electors and skewing the electoral system.

Individual Voter Registration

Jonathan Edwards Excerpts

Monday 16th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

The reason for the carry-forward was to ensure that people who had been registered to vote but had not registered once under the new system did not suddenly discover that they were not able to vote at the general election. The carry-forward was a check. In an ideal world, one would introduce a new system and not bother having the carry-forward. It was a safety net.

As I said to my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg), although postal voters provide identifiers, those do not provide any confidence or evidence that the voter is a real person. They provide confidence that the person casting the postal vote is the person who applied for the postal vote, but they do not get around the problem of people being able to create fictional identities and carry out postal vote fraud. We therefore did not think that it was sensible to extend the carry-forward to postal votes. There will still be carry-forward on the register, so people will still be able to vote, but we will not carry forward people’s absent vote. We do not think that that is likely to cause an enormous problem. The hon. Member for Caerphilly should wait for us to respond to the report of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee in the not-too-distant future, because I think he will be reassured by our answers.

As I made clear to the House in my statement last September, we are focused as much on completeness as accuracy. We instigated and funded the independent research by the Electoral Commission to see what state the current registration system was in. That should make us pause to reflect. When we have discussed this matter previously, there has been a complacent view that everything is fine, that there are not many problems, and that we are at risk of tampering with the system and causing a problem. The fact is that the current system is not as good as people thought it was.

I made the point that in Northern Ireland, where individual registration was introduced and where it now has a number of continuous registration mechanisms, such as putting back the carry-forward and using data matching, the system is now as complete as and more accurate than that in the rest of the United Kingdom. That demonstrates that if we do this well, learning the lessons from Northern Ireland, looking at things such as data matching and carrying out the proposal sensibly by having pre-legislative scrutiny and listening to what people have to say, we will not damage the registration system, as the hon. Member for Vale of Clwyd said, but have a more accurate and complete register over time than the one we have today.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)]

For people such as me who are unaware of events in Northern Ireland, will the Minister inform the House how long equalisation took to take place?

[Mr Harper]

What the research has shown about the drop in the register in Northern Ireland is interesting. Some of the drop was expected because, after all, part of the point of introducing the system early in Northern Ireland was that it was understood that a number of people on the register there did not exist and we wanted to get rid of them. However, it is not clear that the drop in Northern Ireland was any larger than that in the rest of the United Kingdom. Therefore, there may well have been a drop in those who were eligible to vote because they did not go through the slightly increased bureaucracy. However, most of that seems to have been fixed by reintroducing the carry-forward, so that people who did not register the first time around are not penalised. We have learned from that. Having had Northern Ireland go first and having learned the lessons from what it has done, we can be reasonably confident that we will not run into the same problems.

I am also pleased that, as the right hon. Member for Tooting said, we have gone about this in a conciliatory way. We published a White Paper last year. We then published draft legislation, consulted on it and asked the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee to do full pre-legislative scrutiny on it. The Committee has taken evidence from a wide range of stakeholders, including me. It has raised a number of concerns, some of which the right hon. Gentleman mentioned. The Government will respond shortly to the Committee’s report. I urge all hon. Members, particularly those who are interested in this subject, to look at our response because it will address a number of the issues that were raised. Hon. Members can be confident that we will not run into those difficulties. For example, we have already mentioned the carry-forward, and we will not require people to re-register all their details every year if they do not move house. They will simply have to confirm that they have not moved. In Northern Ireland, people have to go through the whole process every year.

I have referred a few times to data matching. We have examined other public databases in a number of local authorities to see how successful we can be in finding people who are not registered to vote. We are in the process of finalising our assessment of that programme, and the Electoral Commission will also be doing so having worked closely with us. I am confident that it will demonstrate that we can use those extra data, as happens in Northern Ireland, to improve the register.

Younger people have been mentioned, and we want to ensure that we allow people to register online in a secure way, which will particularly help younger people. To pick up on a point made by the hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Dame Anne Begg), it will potentially also help people who are disabled and find it easier to use electronic methods. I absolutely agree with her that people with learning disabilities are entitled to register to vote and to cast their vote. From my experience of working with Scope and attending its reception immediately after the election, and of talking to people with learning disabilities, particularly younger people, I know that they are just as able as anybody else to understand the issues involved and make decisions, and nobody should tell them that they should not. I wanted to put that on the record in strong support of what the hon. Lady said.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)]

I want to raise two specific concerns, the first of which is that although some of the changes are welcome, they are characteristic of a Government who are too frequently looking through the wrong end of the microscope and thus finding the wrong solutions to the wrong problems. The second concern is about making major changes to electoral registration while substantial changes are to take place as a result of boundary reorganisation. No part of the UK will be hit worse by this than my country, Wales.

There is surely consensus that the preferred outcome is that all adults who are entitled to vote should be registered. Everyone should be on the electoral roll and have the opportunity to cast their vote at elections. The principle of individual electoral registration is positive—that electors should take upon themselves the responsibility to register to vote in their own right rather than under the aegis of a household. All relevant people should be willing and able to register and should have the same opportunity to do so. However, there might be a disconnect between equality of opportunity and equality of outcome in that although relevant people may register, they might not all actually do so. The Minister said that the Government hoped to learn lessons from Northern Ireland, and I look forward to seeing some of the resulting changes in the Bill. However, I believe that when the changes were introduced in Northern Ireland in 2002—the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) might wish to correct me—there was a fall of 11% in registered electors, and it has taken more than 10 years to rebuild the figures.

According to the White Paper, an estimated 3.5 million people of voting age across England and Wales were not on the electoral roll at the most recent estimate. The Electoral Commission reported in December 2010 that 6 million people were not registered across the UK. It is unclear to me how IER, which creates a greater barrier to registration, will achieve a closer parity to ensure that as many people as possible are on the electoral roll.

If the White Paper is to be believed, then fear of electoral fraud is the major reason for a change to individual electoral registration and for this happening before the next Westminster election. The White Paper refers to the findings of an Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe report regarding the recommendation of an identification requirement to safeguard against fraudulent registration. However, the OSCE was informed of that problem by representatives of political parties when they gave evidence, so this is a circular argument. We tell the OSCE there is a problem, it writes a report saying that we have identified a problem and then we use its report to justify action. That is not evidence-based decision making.

From the testimony provided in the White Paper, it seems that fear of fraud rather than actual fraud is the problem. The attitudinal survey quoted in the White Paper is evidence not that the current system is not working but merely that media stories have raised awareness of the possibility of fraud. Those are two very different things. Perhaps for my party more than anything else I am concerned that the proposals, which aim to tackle what appears to be limited electoral fraud, might lead to unintended consequences.

Electoral registration has greater relevance than ever following the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011, which the Minister drove through last year. The Act will create constituencies designed to have voter numbers within 5% of a UK constituency mean that is predicated upon the number of electors on the electoral roll rather than in the actual adult population. That is the key point. As we have consistently said in our criticisms, the formation of these new constituencies ignores community, historical and geographical links. We saw that last week in Wales, where some of the proposed constituencies are not very practical.

We are also worried by the size of some of the proposed mega-constituencies in Wales of more than 1,500 square miles, which is an incredible size. Apart from that, to be fair, the Boundary Commission for Wales has done a good job, especially in Carmarthenshire. My point, though, is that non-registration becomes crucial because not only are non-registered people disfranchised and unable to vote but their non-registration increases the actual population of the constituency. Full registration must therefore be the principal aim of any change in registration, and it is very unclear from the Government’s proposals to date how the changes will bring that about.

The same is true of suggestions that a voluntary registration scheme should be introduced. The Electoral Commission estimates that a voluntary registration scheme, as suggested in paragraph 74 of the White Paper, may see a significant drop in the number of relevant adults on the electoral register, from around 90% to as low as 65%. That would clearly not assist in full registration, and given the introduction of the new population link for constituency boundaries, the impact of the change would be significant and would require the electoral map to be wholly redrawn once again to reflect the changes and ignore those we might describe as the non-people, as well as potentially disfranchising more than a third of our adult population. As we already know, electoral participation is skewed towards particular parts of society and to lose the participation of those who are more transitory or migratory, and less interested in politics, would have a strong impact on our society and our politics.

I have been very good by butchering my speech to keep it within eight minutes. I conclude by noting that I hold deep reservations that the measures proposed in the White Paper will not assist in increasing the number of adults on the electoral register, and may have negative unintended consequences on voter registration and constituencies. Electoral registration is an issue that must have cross-party consensus and I hope that that can be achieved before any changes are introduced.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jonathan Edwards Excerpts

Wednesday 12th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Jones]

In all pithiness, I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Alun Cairns) that enterprise zones are key to economic development, and I regret that the Welsh Assembly Government have still not clarified their intentions in that regard.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)]

Lloyds TSB’s Wales business activity index for September reported the sharpest decrease in private sector employment for 27 months. What specific countervailing measures is the Minister arguing for with the Treasury to give the Welsh economy a competitive edge?

[Mr Jones]

I am sure that, like me, the hon. Gentleman will welcome today’s announcement of sector-based work academies. That will apply to the whole United Kingdom, including Wales. It will give young jobseekers the tools that they need to find employment more easily.

Phone Hacking

Jonathan Edwards Excerpts

Wednesday 13th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

This is an independent public inquiry led by a judge, with evidence being taken under oath and being held in public. That is the whole point. Obviously, if it suddenly decided it was inquiring into deep national security issues it might have to have a different session, but it is a public inquiry.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)]

The Prime Minister says that he wants a cross-party approach to this issue, so when will he meet the leaders of the Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish parties in the House? In 2006, the Information Commissioner reported up to 3,000 breaches of privacy. Will the inquiry that the Prime Minister is announcing today look into those cases?

[The Prime Minister]

I hope the inquiry will look at what happened with the Information Commissioner’s report, because that was one of the wake-up calls when, frankly, the politicians did not wake up. In terms of taking into account the views of the other parties in the House, I am going to discuss that with my right hon. Friend the Culture Secretary and see what is the best way forward.

Public Bodies Bill [Lords]

Jonathan Edwards Excerpts

Tuesday 12th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)]

I want to concentrate on the very worrying impact that the Bill will have on S4C, an institution of paramount importance to my country. I regret to say that I have a slightly different opinion from the hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Alun Cairns). There is no doubt that the UK Government have dealt with the issue in a haphazard manner. They clearly failed to understand the importance of S4C to Wales. Twenty-four bodies from Welsh civil society have written to the UK Government, asking them to change their plans; thousands of people have protested on the streets; and hon. Members from Wales have had countless pieces of correspondence from concerned constituents.

The position of my party is that S4C should not be included in the Bill at all, and that the arrangements should be dealt with in a future broadcasting Bill, following an independent review. That was the position of all four political parties in the National Assembly for Wales, including the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats. Even at this late stage, that would be our preferred outcome. However, we are where we are, and I will endeavour to attempt to improve the Bill before us, as will my hon. Friend the Member for Arfon (Hywel Williams) in Committee.

Ministers will be aware that the Select Committee on Welsh Affairs undertook a detailed investigation into S4C. It is right and proper that I pay tribute to the Chair of the Committee, the hon. Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies), who managed to produce a report on which there is substantial consensus across all four parties on the Committee. We await the Department’s reply, but I would like to concentrate on the issues that are of critical importance. S4C will face substantial cuts to its budget over the spending review period. If my sums are correct, the Department has managed to reduce its liability by more than 90%.

[Alun Cairns]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Jonathan Edwards]

I will answer the hon. Gentleman’s question before he asks it: S4C’s funding will fall from around £100 million this year to £83 million by 2014-15; £76 million of that will come from the BBC, and £7 million from the Department.

[Alun Cairns]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way, but does he not accept that the outcome leaves S4C in a pretty strong position, financially? It will receive a 6% cut over each of the next four years, which is a much lesser cut than those to most spending Departments across Government. Furthermore, independent television producers have welcomed the outcome, saying that the cuts are certainly achievable, within the sums in question.

[Jonathan Edwards]

I am grateful for that intervention, and the hon. Gentleman leads me on to my next point, which is about one of the key recommendations of the Welsh Affairs Committee report. I would like the Government, as part of the Bill—and the future funding formula for S4C, which was announced yesterday—to state clearly that cuts will be comparable to those for other public service broadcasters. That would appease many in Wales.

The Select Committee report also called on the UK Government to safeguard the funding for the channel beyond 2014-15. We argued that without long-term certainty of funding, the channel would not be able to plan its future commissioning strategy. We called for a long-term funding formula enacted in primary legislation. I therefore welcome the written statement yesterday as a positive step forward. The devil will be in the detail, but my colleagues and I look forward to working constructively to build on yesterday’s announcement, which in our view would have to be based on some sort of calculation inflation.

As a party we have major concerns that S4C will mostly be dependent on funding via the licence fee. Our preference would be for a direct funding stream. If the Department is intent on funding S4C via the BBC, the licence fee should be top-sliced. As my right hon. friend Lord Wigley said during the passage of the Bill in the other place:

“He who pays the piper calls the tune.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 28 March 2011; Vol. 726, c. 1005.]

If S4C does not have total control over its own budget, its financial independence will be shot to pieces.

Ministers might be aware that the Broadcasting Entertainment Cinematograph and Theatre Union, the National Union of Journalists, the Writers Guild of Great Britain, Equity, the Musicians Union, and Cymdeithas yr laith Gymraeg have all jointly called for the resources available to S4C to be increased by raising a levy on private broadcasters, drawing on best practice in other countries.

[Guto Bebb (Aberconwy) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman mentions the need for funding to be raised from other broadcasters. Does he accept that the Select Committee report indicated that the Welsh Assembly could play a part? The Welsh Assembly claims that it wants the channel to be accountable to it, yet it is not willing to put any money into the pot.

[Jonathan Edwards]

I am grateful for that intervention and I look forward to the day when broadcasting is devolved to the Welsh Government. In light of events of recent weeks, I expected support from across the House for the innovative idea of a levy on private broadcasters to support public service broadcasting in the UK. I hope Ministers are actively pursuing the idea.

That brings me to operational independence. The Committee called for assurances that operationally there would be no role for the BBC in the day-to-day management of S4C. I for one cannot see how anyone can claim that S4C is an independent broadcaster if it has personnel from another channel running its day-to-day affairs. I hope the Department will make a clear statement on the issue as the Bill progresses.

The ability of a public service broadcaster to hold Government to account is essential if it is to retain the confidence of its audience. Therefore we view the inclusion of S4C in schedule 3 as particularly worrying. The schedule enables the Department to make significant changes to the management and organisation of S4C without recourse to primary legislation.

I shall deal briefly with other consequences of the Bill for Wales. Much of the rest of the Bill refers to powers over environmental bodies being devolved to Wales. These bodies are listed in clause 13 as being the Welsh devolved functions of the Countryside Council for Wales, the Environment Agency, the Forestry Commissioners and Welsh flood and coastal committees. I seek clarification of clause 18 and the requirement of consent from UK Ministers. How is this to be operated, and in what situations do Ministers expect this to take place? I am also confused by the reference to the Secretary of State in clause 20(11). Does this mean that any order made by Welsh Ministers will be subject to a veto by the Houses of Parliament? That would clearly go against the result of the referendum in March. We will test these clauses in greater detail in Committee.

Finally, on consumer advocacy in Wales, the Bill proposes that Consumer Focus be abolished and its functions transferred to Citizens Advice in Wales and England. There is broad support for distinct consumer advocacy for Wales. There seems to be strong support among key stakeholders for advice and advocacy in Wales being brought under one body. I am glad that the UK Government have stated that they are open to making different provisions for Wales and Scotland following discussions with the devolved Administrations. I understand that current consumer bodies such as the CAB movement in Wales are adapting their governance structures in light of anticipated changes, and I urge the Department to work closely with Welsh Government Ministers and stakeholders to develop a solution that is client focused and best able to respond to the needs of the Welsh people.

Review of Parliamentary Standards Act 2009

Jonathan Edwards Excerpts

Thursday 12th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Adam Afriyie]

My interest in this issue has been on the public record for many years, and I would be very happy to play a part in any Committee established for this purpose, but naturally such a Committee should have no special privileges. I hope that it would be set up in the same way as other Committees are established, but of course I am interested in this issue and would like to do my best to try to assist Parliament and hon. Members of all persuasions in doing their jobs without unnecessary obstacles being placed in the way.

Let me make some quick observations on some of the stresses and strains. I make these observations not necessarily to make judgments at this moment but simply to flag up some of the areas that cause concern, and which any future review might wish to consider. The first such area is cost. One of the mandates for the Committee is that it must have due regard to the need for value for money for the taxpayer. The budget for IPSA seems quite high, and was certainly significantly higher in the first year than that for the previous year’s arrangements. That is something we need to look at. Those costs might be appropriately high; it might be right that it is very expensive to operate what should be a relatively simple system, but any review must look into that.

Secondly, we have to consider the impact that the 2009 Act is having on the time that MPs have available to perform their duties. There is no doubt, from my own experience and that of hon. Members who were here before 2010, that the level and work load associated with the expenses systems and such matters have escalated enormously. Literally days are taken away from constituents as the time of Members and their staff is taken up. There is an enormous level of stress associated with the IPSA system, and we need to take a calm look at the impact that is having on our democracy and on Members’ ability to represent their constituents.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)]

The hon. Gentleman is making a very thoughtful speech. Like many Members in Wales, I have joint offices with Assembly Members and I recognise the hon. Gentleman’s point about stress. The stress for staff of dealing with expenses for Westminster is far higher than the stress of dealing with expenses for the devolved Administrations. Does he think IPSA should look at the systems in Scotland and Wales and see whether we could adopt a similar system?

Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Jonathan Edwards Excerpts

Tuesday 18th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

Yes, I am aware of that and I completely agree with the thrust of what the hon. Gentleman is saying. The Government cannot just pull at individual strings of the constitutional settlement, because we will just end up unravelling the whole jumper: that is the law of unintended consequences, which we are in danger of having thrust upon us.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman that four years seems to be the normal cycle. Does he agree that if the Government are intent on pushing ahead with a five-year fixed term, the natural thing to do would be to do the same thing with the cycle for the National Assembly for Wales, and change its term to five years?

[Chris Bryant]

I suppose it would, but I am not in favour of five-year terms. Political events change at a dramatic pace these days and a five-year term would not meet that requirement. I suspect that such an arrangement would mean that Governments both here and in the devolved Administrations would more regularly be at the fag-end of their sense of having a mandate, and a four-year provision would be much better. I am sure that we shall return to this matter on Third Reading.

I have no desire to delay the House, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I think that I have made my point. In essence, it is that we believe it would be better to have a four-year fixed-term Parliament, because that would help us to avoid the elections for the devolved Administrations coinciding with the general election. We need change only one other measure to make sure that that never happens; we need to provide that we do not start the clock again when there has been an early general election. The Government’s intention is to try to make us fall into the rhythm of fixed-term Parliaments and not have lots of early general elections, and such a provision would give people an added incentive not to seek an early general election because they would know that they would then have only a short Parliament before the next general election, which would fall on the previously arranged date. Without any further do, I shall conclude and I look forward to hearing from the Minister.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Harper]

Yes, I have discussed this with my right hon. Friend and he intends, as we have discussed in Committee and announced to the House, to consider the experience from this year. We want to work with all the parties in Northern Ireland, just as I have written to all the party leaders in the Welsh Assembly and the Scottish Parliament, to reach some agreement on what works well, what does not work and what needs to change. That will be very much on a cross-party basis.

[Jonathan Edwards]

I understand that the Deputy First Minister in Wales would prefer a five-year cycle for the National Assembly for Wales. Is that on the table for the Government?

Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Jonathan Edwards Excerpts

Tuesday 16th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)]

I beg to move amendment 11, page 1, line 5, leave out ‘7 May 2015’ and insert ‘1 May 2014’.

[The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Mr Nigel Evans)]

With this, it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment 7, page 1, line 5, leave out ‘2015’ and insert ‘2013’.

Amendment 8, page 1, line 7, leave out ‘fifth’ and insert ‘third’.

Amendment 12, page 1, line 7, leave out ‘fifth’ and insert ‘fourth’.

Amendment 32, page 1, line 9, leave out subsection (4) and insert—

‘(4) In determining the polling day for a parliamentary general election under subsection (3) above, no account shall be taken of any early parliamentary general election the polling day for which was appointed under section 2.’.

Amendment 13, page 1, line 13, leave out ‘“fifth” there were substituted “fourth”’ and insert ‘“fourth” there were substituted “third”’.

Amendment 9, page 1, line 13, leave out ‘fifth’ and insert ‘third’.

Amendment 10, page 1, line 13, leave out ‘“fourth”’ and insert ‘“second”’.

New clause 4—Devolved legislature elections—

‘(1) A devolved legislature election may not take place on the same day as a United Kingdom parliamentary general election.

(2) If a devolved legislature election is scheduled to take place on the same day as a United Kingdom parliamentary general election, then the date of the poll for the devolved legislature general election must vary by—

(a) not less than two months, and

(b) not more than twelve months and one week before or after the United Kingdom parliamentary general election date.

(3) The appropriate authority shall make provision by order to vary the date of the devolved legislature general election, subject to agreement by the relevant devolved legislature.

(4) The following election to that devolved legislature will take place on the first Thursday in May in the fourth calendar year following the polling day for the previous election.

(5) A devolved legislature election is an election to the Scottish Parliament, the National Assembly for Wales or the Northern Ireland Assembly.’.

New clause 5—Varying of elections by the National Assembly for Wales—

‘(1) Section 4 of the Government of Wales Act 2006 (“Power to vary date of ordinary general election”) is amended as follows.

(2) In subsection (1) after “May”, insert “, subject to subsections (1A) and (1B)”.

(4) After subsection (1) insert—

“(1A) If the scheduled date for a National Assembly for Wales ordinary general election is the same date as for a United Kingdom parliamentary general election, the National Assembly of Wales general election must be held—

(a) not less than two months, and

(b) not more than twelve months and one week before or after the United Kingdom parliamentary general election.

(1B) The Secretary of State for Wales shall by order provide for the date of the poll of the National Assembly for Wales ordinary general election, with the agreement of the National Assembly for Wales, subject to subsection (1A).”.’.

Clause stand part.

[Jonathan Edwards]

I wish to speak also to amendments 12 and 13 in my name and those of my hon. Friend the Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil), the Leader of the Opposition and his hon. Friends, as well as new clauses 4 and 5. The amendments go to the crux of the Bill—the establishment of a specific period between elections and the date on which we hold the next UK parliamentary elections.

My party is in favour of fixed-term Parliaments, for many of the reasons outlined on Second Reading. A fixed-term Parliament removes a Prime Minister’s ability to seek the dissolution of Parliament for pure political gain, taking away that significant incumbency advantage—more of which later in my speech. It would end speculation about the timing of the next election and a near-obsession with opinion polls and psephologists about when an election might be called. It provides stability for the political programme, as we have found with the One Wales agreement in Wales, a four-year term, where parties understand what can and cannot be achieved within the required legislative time frame—even in our case where the byzantine workings of legislative competence orders have held up the progress of our law-making, denying us prompt action to solve our problems. By providing a settled timetable, fixed-term Parliaments provide a firm basis for electoral administration, taking away the shock of a snap election and giving a more generous timetable to ensure participation in the voting process.

However, I cannot understand the Government’s reasoning behind the insistence on a five-year legislative term, either in this parliamentary term or in the future. To be perfectly honest, there does not seem to be any reason. The Conservative-Liberal Democrat Government have consistently failed to provide a good reason why the next election should be held in May 2015, not in May 2014. On Second Reading, the Deputy Prime Minister, with bizarre Liberal Democrat logic, presumably taken from a “Focus” leaflet bar graph, claimed that a five-year Parliament would probably amount in practice to a legislative working term of four years. As many hon. Members will already know, the five-year maximum term was implemented in 1911, but even that was introduced with the expectation that the working parliamentary period would probably be four years—a period in which, as Lord Asquith said at the time, a Government had either the political mandate from the previous election or the unwillingness to commit to unpopular decisions ahead of the next election.

Four years—the length of time between elections for the National Assembly for Wales, the Scottish Parliament, the Northern Ireland Assembly, the London Assembly, the London mayoral elections and local authority, community and even parish council elections in all four parts of the UK—is quite clearly and obviously the norm for the electoral cycle in the nation states.

[Tristram Hunt (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab)]

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that, internationally, the four-year term is pretty much the norm, particularly in Westminster Parliaments? Is he further aware of the academic opinion from Robert Hazell at University College London’s constitution unit to Professor Blackburn, who consistently say that five years is too long and smells like a political fix?

[Jonathan Edwards]

The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point. For every legislature where the Executive is decided from the legislature, the average is four years rather than five.

The only elections that break that cycle in the UK are the European elections. The elections held and the terms that we expect are the same for elections at all levels, so why are the UK Government seeking to introduce a term that is different from all meaningful precedents?

[Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that France has a different length, as does Australia? What is so special about four years?

[Jonathan Edwards]

I shall try to address those points later in my speech. I think that I addressed some of them in my answer to an earlier intervention.

If four years is good enough for a local councillor, why should an MP be given any longer without once again putting themselves up for election to secure a democratic mandate? The argument has been made that, because the current system allows for up to five years between elections, that should be set in stone as the new norm, but that hardly seems proportionate or common sense. When there is a range of options, it is not normal to go for the most extreme, because more moderate measures make greater common sense and attract greater consensus, especially in this Chamber. Let us be honest: amid the rushed and hasty constitutional changes that the Con-Dem Government have been steamrollering through, consensus, consultation and a genuine attempt to reach cross-party agreement have, unfortunately, been greatly lacking.

A fairer litmus test of how long a fixed-term Parliament might be is the average length of time between elections. As the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), who I am glad to say will break with tradition tonight and, I hope, vote for an amendment in the name of Plaid Cymru and the Scottish National party, noted on Second Reading,

“the average length of a peacetime Parliament”—

going all the way back to the Great Reform Act of 1832—

has been three years and eight months.”—[Official Report, 13 September 2010; Vol. 515, c. 625.]

That is a very important point.

Similarly, as Robert Hazell of University college London’s constitution unit noted in his written evidence to the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, although the balance of Parliaments has been between four and five years, those that went the whole term were those governed by Prime Ministers who did not believe that they would win an election after four years. A five-year parliamentary term, as we saw between 1992 and 1997 and 2005 and 2010 in particular, is often therefore a result of the unpopularity of the governing party. It seems ironic that this Con-Dem Government, one of whose parties is already highly unpopular in Wales—with just 5% support, according to the most recent poll, in north Wales—should opt for the length of time that is associated with the failure to govern successfully and to govern with public support. Perhaps that is just an expectation of things to come.

Why should this Parliament be for five years and not four? Why should we hold the election on 7 May 2015 and not on 1 May 2014? After all, when John Major and when the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) stayed in power for five years, they were accused of holding on to power. Is the same accusation not true of the current Government? There appears to be no great reason why five years should be the chosen length of the new fixed-term Parliament.

When questioned on Second Reading, the Deputy Prime Minister appeared loth to give a fuller explanation. I hope that we hear a better account this evening, because neither was an explanation more forthcoming from other Government Members. The hon. Member for Ceredigion (Mr Williams) reminded us that his party’s election manifesto was for a four-year fixed-term Parliament, the proposal that my party supports. He said that he did not know when the policy was changed by the coalition agreement between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats.

I have heard much from the Liberal Democrats in recent months about the need for agreement and compromise in coalition, but I am not entirely sure at whom the message was aimed, because my party has been part of a successful coalition in Wales since we signed the One Wales agreement in 2007. The key to success, I can tell the Liberal Democrats, was agreeing the policy programme before signing the deal, not making it up as we went along, which seems to have been the case with the UK Government. Being part of a coalition does not mean that we have to sell our souls; it means that we reach a practical agreement on policies.

[Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

My hon. Friend talks about the merits of coalition Government, but in these islands there is a Government who have only 46 Members but manage to pass their budgets with majorities in the 70s and 80s. Coalition government is not always the way; there is also the minority government model, which is working very successfully in Scotland.

[Jonathan Edwards]

I thank my hon. Friend for that point. I was remiss not to mention it.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

Because it is not true.

[Jonathan Edwards]

We will have that debate later.

A five-year Parliament was not in either governing party’s manifesto, and was not put to a public vote. I often wonder, as I watch the coalition Government’s policies morph before me and see stories about the coalition discussions leak out in books and in the Sunday press, just how much influence Back-Bench Lib Dems had over the policy negotiations. I wonder whether they, like me, wake up and wonder which policy of theirs will be changed today. As we are getting used to saying in Wales, “Another day, another Lib-Dem U-turn.”

So, we are still no closer to understanding why five and not four years is the chosen length for a fixed term of the UK Parliament. Perhaps a wag on the Government Benches—by that I mean a wit, not the more common tabloid usage of the word—was correct when she referred to the next election date as being “ the date of the next election, cementing the coalition”. Others think that this is a response to the economic cycle, and the hope is that by 2015 the worm will have turned and the tremendous gamble with our economy, our livelihoods and our communities that we witnessed in the comprehensive spending review will have paid off, and we will be enjoying the fruits of a hard-won recovery. Either way, it appears to be a decision made from political expediency, and that is not in the best interests of the electorate or democracy.

[Ms Louise Bagshawe (Corby) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister currently has the right to extend this Parliament to 2015 if he wishes, so how is it an aggregation of power for him to give up the right to call an election at the time of his own choosing?

[Jonathan Edwards]

I think that the debate is about whether there is to be five years or four years between elections. I will try to address the hon. Lady’s point as the debate progresses.

Many would say that the decision to run five-year electoral terms is a result of political expediency. I have a fair bit of experience of coalitions, and their policies should not have to be welded together in a back room in the way that those of the Con-Dem coalition have been. There is huge irony in the Deputy Prime Minister’s coming to this House to say that the coalition is taking away the Prime Minister’s right to call an election at the time of his choosing, because it is not. This addresses the point made by the hon. Member for Corby (Ms Bagshawe). The one who is currently in charge can choose the longest possible time to be in charge providing that he can keep his own party happy.

The Political and Constitutional Reform Committee notes that much of the evidence it received was against the idea of a five-year fixed parliamentary term. Neither constitutional experts nor the public are in favour of the new electoral system being set at this length of time. Indeed, some experts saw a note of irony in that by spacing out the time between elections at this maximum length, the active participation of many voters in the electoral system will be reduced rather than increased or improved, as many people, sadly, choose to mark their ballot paper only in a UK general election and do not participate at other levels of democracy. That is another issue that has not been considered properly in the discussions so far.

On Second Reading, many Members, not least my hon. Friend the Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart), drew attention to the most salient concern—that of having the elections on the same day as other elections, specifically those of the devolved Administrations. There is nothing of what Aretha Franklin, or even George Galloway, might describe as “Respect” in the UK Government’s treatment of the devolved Administrations in this affair, which has been notably lacking in meaningful consultation.

[Mr MacNeil]

Is not that point all the more serious with a UK general election, a Scottish election and a Welsh election possibly happening at the same time, lined up with the referendum? We want to avoid that because we know the media cannot handle it. That disservice will be done to Scotland not only this time but yet again in four to five years’ time.

[Jonathan Edwards]

My hon. Friend is correct—it is a double insult. If these plans go through unamended, the next devolved elections in Scotland and Wales will be terribly skewed.

During the debates on the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill, we discussed at length the principle of holding a National Assembly for Wales election on the same day as a referendum on the electoral system for the UK Parliament. Despite the objections of Opposition parties and, perhaps more importantly, those who make up the Welsh and Scottish Governments, that Bill was passed, once again showing up the Con-Dem Government’s disrespect agenda for Wales and the other devolved nations. Ironically, even their best argument—the idea that savings would be made through combining the polls and that electors would not have to traipse to the polling station more than once—means little in the Welsh context, as we will already go to the ballot box in March for a referendum on the transfer of powers to the Welsh Government under part 4 of the Government of Wales Act 2006, and then again in the following May. Of course, the referendum on further powers is far more relevant to the National Assembly elections than the referendum on AV.

I am not here to repeat the arguments we have already had, although they remain equally relevant and valid to the amendment as they did to debates on the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill. That clash of elections will occur once every five terms for the devolved Administrations and once every four terms for Westminster elections. As yet, we have no idea when a reformed House of Lords will be elected. I am a great believer in not underestimating the public, and in publishing the Bill the UK coalition Government are failing to learn from previous practices and errors. Many will remember that the 2007 Scottish Parliament and local elections were held on the same day, with the result that there were an astonishing 147,000 spoilt ballot papers.

[Mr Alan Reid (Argyll and Bute) (LD)]

The hon. Gentleman cannot be allowed to get away with saying that all the spoilt ballot papers were because two elections were held on the same day. The reason was the poor design of the Scottish Parliament election ballot paper. There were two columns, and people had to put a cross in each, but the instructions were not clear. That was the reason for the spoilt ballot papers, not the fact that there were two elections on one day.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jonathan Edwards]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point, but I was about to explain some of the complexities involved.

That was, of course, the first election after a new system was introduced, with the single transferrable vote being used in local elections in Scotland. Fortunately, we in Wales had already learned lessons and decoupled our local authority and Assembly elections by a year.

[Mr MacNeil]

Although it is true that the main problem at the last Scottish election was the design of the ballot paper, covering both the constituency and list votes, the man who looked into the matter, Mr Gould, nevertheless suggested that different elections should not happen on the same day. There was a feeling that that had contributed to the difficulties, even though the main difficulty was the design of the ballot paper.

[Jonathan Edwards]

My hon. Friend makes a more informed contribution than I do, but I was just getting to the Gould report. It was an independent review by the Electoral Commission, and its conclusions and recommendations stated:

“One of the more controversial issues in the 3 May 2007 elections was whether the Scottish parliamentary and the local government elections should have been combined on the same day. We were not surprised by the concerns that were expressed to us about this issue because pursuing combined or separate elections involves a trade-off of different objectives.

If local issues and the visibility of local government candidates are viewed as a primary objective, then separating the…parliamentary from the local government elections is necessary in order to avoid the dominance of campaigns conducted for…parliamentary contests. In addition, separating the two elections would result in minimising the potential for voter confusion.”

[Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman is making some incredibly powerful arguments. Would he like to comment on the fact that not only would Westminster and Scottish parliamentary elections clash every five years, but the exact situation referred to in the Gould report—a clash with Scottish local government elections—would happen every four years? We could have the alternative vote system for Westminster while running the single transferrable vote system for the Scottish local government elections, which, as the Gould report highlighted, would be a disaster.

[Jonathan Edwards]

The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point, and that seems to me a recipe for disaster.

The words in the Gould report that I quoted make it clear to me, first, that elections should not take place at the same time when there is a trade-off between different objectives, as there clearly would be between a UK Westminster election and an election to the National Assembly for Wales or the other devolved Assemblies. Secondly, they show the problem of the dominance of one election over another. National Assembly for Wales elections are in no way inferior to UK general elections. To many people they mean much more, as they are a way of directly influencing the health and education policies that have an impact on everybody in one form or another.

We must consider the impact of our media, and even the failure of our politicians to understand what is at stake at different levels. Who can forget, for example, the Conservatives using in a UK general election campaign the words of a woman in Wales, Julie from Llandudno, about her concern for education, even though the matter was not even being voted upon in Wales, where education is devolved? Such things have an impact on the perceptions of the electorate.

In the spring, we faced a bizarre, presidential-style contest that was alien to our democracy, in which we elect candidates to Parliament and then usually select the leader of the largest party in the legislature to head up the Executive. There is no doubt that giving three party leaders additional prominence had an impact on an election in which minority party candidates were forced to buck the trend to be elected. Were that to happen at the same time as a Welsh election to the National Assembly, it would cause untold damage to our democracy as Welsh issues, concerns and policies would be steamrollered by the UK media. In Wales, and to a lesser extent in Scotland, we face media that are largely published in England and understandably promote English issues and concerns. When the King report was published two years ago, it was noted that in a month of prime-time reports on health and education, both of which are devolved issues, not once in 134 stories was there any mention of the fact that those policies did not affect Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland. That was a criticism of the BBC—a public service broadcaster.

[Mr MacNeil]

I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman was as appalled as I was by a “Question Time” programme about two weeks ago. The issue of fiscal autonomy or independence, which is of crucial relevance to Scotland and, in a way, the UK, too, was raised by Nicola Sturgeon, but David Dimbleby just did not want to hear about it. Does my hon. Friend not think that that typifies the attitude of the BBC? Although the attitude was writ small in that case, in the event of an election it shows that there would be no interest at all from a London-centric point of view to air and properly discuss issues that affect the people of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

[Jonathan Edwards]

Once again, my hon. Friend makes my point for me. What is important in this context is that the BBC is a public service broadcaster. I hesitate to say that the private sector is worse because it could hardly do much worse than nought out of 134. If this issue affects the BBC, it will certainly affect the private press as well.

The English or the UK-based media, which are, by and large, one and the same thing, have difficulties handling devolution issues. Given its high penetration into Wales, it would undoubtedly skew the National Assembly elections. That is a salient concern and one that the UK Government would be wise to heed before continuing down this route.

The Gould report of 2007 says that although turnout is important, it is not the only or the most important consideration. Its conclusions and recommendations state:

“More important is that they engage with the campaign in a meaningful manner and make a knowledgeable decision on their ballot paper.”

It recommends separating parliamentary and local government elections.

It is quite clear that the recommendations of the Gould report could equally apply to a separation of UK and devolved elections, which involve very different objectives and issues—not least in devolved issues such as health or education where some parties will be giving voters mixed messages due to the different policies that operate in different parts of the UK.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ann Clwyd (Cynon Valley) (Lab)]

Despite the fact that the majority of Welsh MPs asked for a debate in the Welsh Grand Committee, which was set up for such a purpose, the Secretary of State for Wales refused that request. Why does the hon. Gentleman think that is?

[Jonathan Edwards]

The right hon. Lady knows that I am in full agreement with her. It was very important that those issues were discussed. It was a disgrace that the Secretary of State refused that request.

[The First Deputy Chairman]

Order. We are moving on to Bills that have already passed through the House. Please can we focus on the amendments before us?

[Jonathan Edwards]

These changes will have a clear impact as electors find themselves not merely with the added burden of an extra piece of paper to complete, as they will in the clashing elections next May and the alternative vote referendum, but voting for different constituency locations. I am proud to serve on the Welsh Affairs Committee in my first term in Parliament. The Committee received evidence from a number of organisations on these potential problems, and reported on them in our first publication of this Session, entitled “'The implications for Wales of the Government’s proposals on constitutional reform”. We heard, for example, testimony from Lewis Baston, senior research fellow with Democratic Audit. He said that

“the elections for Westminster and the Assembly would be taking place on different systems on the same day, and more complicatedly on two sets of boundaries which will hardly ever correlate with each other.”

Philip Johnson told our Committee that the coincidence of elections could have “horrendous” consequences in 2015.

[Chris Bryant]

I respect Lewis Baston enormously, but he is slightly wrong: there would be three different sets of boundaries in Wales and Scotland, because there are majority elected seats as well as regional seats. There is no guarantee in the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill that UK parliamentary boundaries will respect the boundaries of the regions used for Welsh Assembly and Scottish Parliament elections, so there will be three different boundaries.

[Jonathan Edwards]

I was coming to exactly that point. Electors will have three ballot papers: one for the Westminster constituency, which will be a separate location from the Assembly constituency, and a third paper for Assembly regional candidates. Scotland already has distinct UK and Scottish Parliament boundaries, but they remain fixed in Northern Ireland.

[Ian Murray]

The hon. Gentleman is generous in giving way to me again. If the Scottish parliamentary and UK elections were held on the same day, is it outwith the realms of possibility that my constituents would have to go to two separate polling stations?

[Jonathan Edwards]

The hon. Gentleman highlights the potential for organisational chaos in the 2015 elections. I am concerned about those elections from an organisational viewpoint.

That decoupling might lead to Westminster and the National Assembly for Wales having very different constituencies, and surely to confusion between different candidates, different policy areas and different locations. Just as importantly, there will be confusion because different electoral systems are used and different local authority electoral services will take responsibility for different counts.

[Mr MacNeil]

Further to the point made by the hon. Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray), surely the answer to avoiding the clash of dates is to give the devolved legislature or Government the power to change the date of elections, whether in respect of Cardiff, Holyrood or Belfast. If people foresee a clash with the US presidential election, for example, a Westminster election or—who knows?—the cup final, they could change dates.

[Jonathan Edwards]

I fully agree with my hon. Friend. That is the intention of some of our proposals and I am grateful to him for that important contribution.

[Mr Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman makes the reasonable point that there is a risk of confusion, but will he cast his mind back to the situation that pertained in London in 2004? We had a mayoral election, a Greater London assembly election, which featured a top-up list, and a full European election on the same day. The reality was that there was no sense of any great confusion among Londoners. I am sure that the Welsh electorate is no more stupid than the London electorate, and therefore that it would find a way to make the proposals work.

[Jonathan Edwards]

Obviously, my fears might come to nothing, but I see no reason why democracy should be held hostage to fortune in that way. The complication, of course, is how the media report different elections. That is the big difference between London elections and those for the devolved Administrations.

We are aware of the potential pitfalls, and I see no suitable way of dealing with them except by holding the different elections apart from each other. Of course, those are the known unknowns. As yet, we have no way of knowing the unknown unknowns between now and the next set of elections.

[Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman has not mentioned one problem with holding different elections on the same day. Many who apply for a postal vote for the Westminster election will assume that they will automatically receive a postal vote for every election, but in fact, they will not, because they need to apply separately for a postal vote for the other elections.

[Jonathan Edwards]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point about the potential for organisational chaos in 2015 and about participation in those elections.

From the perspective of candidates, another argument against the five-year fixed-term UK Parliament and the clash with devolved Administration elections is that political parties in those countries will need to find suitably more candidates to contest those elections—probably about 90 in Wales, if the Con-Dem Government have their way with the boundary changes enacted in the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill, and about 180 in Scotland.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman makes a lot of pertinent points about the difficulties in Wales in particular. Can he enlighten us on what consultation has taken place with the devolved Assemblies on these proposals?

[Jonathan Edwards]

I can answer the hon. Gentleman’s point simply: hardly any.

Returning to the point about candidates, I am confident that my party will have no difficulty in finding quality candidates the length and breadth of Wales, although it might be a different matter, of course, for smaller parties, such as the Liberal Democrats. However, ensuring quality coverage, so that the electorate can become familiar with the people, and not only the party, for whom they are voting, will be doubly difficult if they are all fighting for air time.

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

I am sure that my hon. Friend is looking forward, like I am, with great anticipation to finding out how the Minister will reply to this debate. On Second Reading, the Deputy Prime Minister said that he was minded to move the date of the election. Is my hon. Friend aware of any Government amendments dealing with this matter, or is this yet another Liberal broken promise?

[Jonathan Edwards]

My hon. Friend makes an important contribution. Obviously, if there had been changes since Second Reading, I would not have had to make this speech or table these amendments.

[Mr Reid]

The hon. Gentleman does not seem to be arguing that the right length of time for this Parliament is four years. His whole case seems to be that there will be a clash of elections every 20 years. I agree that it would be a bad idea for both elections to be on the same day, so were the Government to give the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly the power to alter the date of their elections, would he withdraw his new clause?

[Jonathan Edwards]

I made it clear earlier that my preference is for four years and, as the hon. Member for Rhondda has said, the norm has been three years and eight months. Why go to five years, therefore, if the norm over the past 200 years has been three years and eight months? That seems tried and tested.

[Pete Wishart]

Why on earth should it not be this House that moves its dates? When this Bill was introduced, the Government knew there was to be a Scottish parliamentary election in 2015? Is it not the ultimate disrespect that this place expects the Scottish Parliament to move on its behalf?

[Jonathan Edwards]

Once again, my hon. Friend makes an important point.

[Chris Bryant]

The hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) is being a little unfair to the Liberal Democrats. So far it is not a broken promise, but just a promise. It might become a broken promise, but at the moment it is just a promise.

[Jonathan Edwards]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that correction.

On Second Reading, the Deputy Prime Minister appeared somewhat surprised that having elections on the same day might cause problems. In fact, he seemed slightly perplexed, as if he had not previously considered the possibility. In response to my hon. Friend the Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd), who noted that there was provision in the various devolution Acts for those legislatures to vary elections by up to four weeks only, the Deputy Prime Minister said:

“That is exactly…why we need to consider whether the existing provisions are sufficient.”—[Official Report, 13 September 2010; Vol. 515, c. 627.]

That was commented on shortly after by the hon. Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle), who, quite understandably, wondered why, if the Deputy Prime Minister was already aware of the potential for problems, no provision had been made in the Bill to counter them. Admissions of that sort show up this Bill as having been flung together, rather than considered and properly scrutinised.

[Mr MacNeil]

Would it not be a great sign of maturity from the Government if they could accept new clause 4 and accept that various legislatures—be they in Westminster, Holyrood or wherever—have the right to pick their own window for an election in order to avoid clashes with another legislature and to allow the media the time to communicate properly with the populations? The latter will be difficult, as BBC “Question Time” the other week proved.

[Jonathan Edwards]

That would certainly further the respect agenda that we have heard so much about from the UK Government since their inception.

I am afraid that admissions of the sort that we heard from the Deputy Prime Minister show this legislation up as having been flung together rather than considered properly. The UK Government told us on Second Reading:

“We take these issues seriously and are not just paying lip service to them.”—[Official Report, 13 September 2010; Vol. 515, c. 702.]

However, we have no new amendments on the issue to discuss in Committee, and no answers have been given to the questions posed about how the Government plan to deal with those concerns. I hope that we will hear more from the UK Government on the issue today, as requested by the Select Committee on Welsh Affairs in our first report. Nobody in Wales has any confidence that their voice is being heard for as long as the UK Government continue to steamroller their policies through without time for due consideration and scrutiny.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

If the Northern Ireland Assembly were to say that it wanted its elections to run alongside the Westminster elections, would the hon. Gentleman accept that that should be able to happen? Or is he saying in his amendment that that should not happen?

[Jonathan Edwards]

In our view, the decision should be made at the appropriate level.

There are four-year electoral terms for the National Assembly for Wales, the Scottish Parliament, the Northern Ireland Assembly and all other devolved bodies and councils. The arrangements should be the same for the UK Parliament. We do not yet know when we will be voting for the House of Lords, a principle whose implementation we have been awaiting for quite some time, or for our police commissioners—an idea that excites no one save those on the Government Benches. The five-year terms of the European Parliament are an aberration from our electoral norm. The proposals in the Bill would also be an aberration.

A four-year Parliament beginning in 2014 would have the advantage of avoiding the problems associated with clashes between UK general elections and those of the devolved legislatures, which are many. The Bill has been presented to Parliament as a fait accompli, with no good reason as to why the next election must be in 2015 and why there must be five-year Parliaments. Political expediency is not the best principle on which to base good law-making. I fully support the concept of fixed-term Parliaments, but I cannot support a five-year fixed-term Parliament that will have strongly negative effects on democracy. I hope that the UK Government will see sense on this matter and respond positively to this suggestion, rather than putting their head in the sand and trying to brazen through a five-year parliamentary term without consensus in this House or among the other Parliaments in the UK. We shall be pressing amendments 11 and 12 to a vote, and we will not support clause 1 if it remains in its present format.

[Mr Richard Shepherd (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)]

I shall support all those amendments that propose a four-year fixed-term Parliament, and in so doing I shall invoke someone who when I was growing up was considered a great Liberal. Mr Asquith spoke in the Chamber that preceded this one, and, in a recent debate on 21 February 1911 on the Parliament Bill which was to change the Septennial Act 1715, he said:

“In the first place we propose to shorten the legal duration of Parliament from seven years to five years, which will probably amount in practice to an actual legislative working term of four years. That will secure that your House of Commons for the time being, is always either fresh from the polls which gave it authority, or—and this is an equally effective check upon acting in defiance of the popular will—it is looking forward to the polls at which it will have to render an account of its stewardship.”—[Official Report, 21 February 1911; Vol. XXI, c. 1749.]

Asquith’s reasons have been borne out in all the years since then. The average length of a Parliament is not far off four years, and his points relate to the electorate. None of the constitutional proposals of the Deputy Prime Minister—who I again note is not following his own Bill on the Floor of the House of Commons—strengthens the position of the electorate versus the Crown as represented by the Government. The proposals are therefore abandoning the principle that a Government have the authority to govern but must be mindful that there is a time after which the electorate should make a judgment on the actions, activities and success of that Government. That is all being cast out for what I believe to be a profoundly cynical purpose: the entrenchment, or attempted entrenchment, of a particular Parliament for five years. That requires a Bill. I do not know whether it is possible to present clause stand part arguments on the basis of parliamentary privilege and the series of very serious arguments that lie behind what we are discussing.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Laing]

I thank my hon. Friend very much for those statistics. He is absolutely correct, and talking about averages is neither here nor there. We should be looking at the number of Parliaments that have run for five years, almost five years or very much less. We cannot count the war years, and it is irrelevant to count unusual times. There is no norm of four-year Parliaments. The Bill does not extend anything; it merely enshrines the current situation.

[Jonathan Edwards]

On UK norms, is it not true that where institutions are fixed, whether in Wales, Scotland, or Northern Ireland, or in local authorities and town, community and parish councils, the norm is four years? The norm in the UK is four years, and that is the whole point of the amendment.

[Mrs Laing]

The norm for district, county and parish councils is four years, but they are not Parliament. We are talking about Parliament, the duties undertaken by which are different and have a different time span from those undertaken by local authorities.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mark Durkan]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way.

[Jonathan Edwards]

Is he your friend?

[Mark Durkan]

I confess.

My hon. Friend makes the point about the number of amendments in this group, and they aim to ensure not just that the term is fixed at four years, but that the cycle of fixed terms does not clash with the cycle of fixed terms for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland elections. This Chamber has already imposed a UK referendum on those elections next year, and now, under this Bill, the Government want to impose a UK general election on the devolved elections in 2015 as well.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Harper]

There are two issues there. First, we recognise that the existing legal position and structure of politics in Northern Ireland are different, which is why we have adopted this different approach. There will therefore be extensive consultation with Northern Ireland Ministers and all the parties in Northern Ireland.

The hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) hit on a second point though. Changing the cycles and adopting four-year terms for both this Parliament and the devolved legislatures would not solve the problem, because there can be early elections—if, for example, there is a vote of no confidence. If we had four-year cycles for everything and one early election, we could end up with the cycles coinciding not once every 20 years, as under our proposals, but at every general and devolved election, which would make the problem worse not better. Under our proposals, the coincidence will happen only once every 20 years, not more frequently.

[Jonathan Edwards]

In the light of the Minister’s concessions this evening, which we welcome, will he hold back Report to allow us to table further amendments?

[Mr Harper]

The hon. Gentleman, who has been following the Bill’s progress very closely, will know that we have allocated the second day in Committee for next Wednesday, but we have not announced a day on Report, so there is not a date to hold back. We have not been rushing through the Bill’s proceedings at great pace.

There was great discussion about the Gould report.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Bryant]

I am grateful to you, Mr Hoyle. I want to speak only because the Minister made some announcements in his speech that are obviously significant. [Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman says, in a rather self-righteous tone, that he made them to Parliament, and we are delighted that he has done so—I presume that that is a criticism of his colleagues, not of anybody else in the Chamber. However, he has made some important announcements. He excoriated my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore) for referring to the Government position before we had heard what it was, but as the Government chose not to make their position known until the very end of the debate, it is hardly her fault. As he knew that he was going to make his announcement this evening, he could perfectly well have written to all parties concerned to make it clear that he wanted to consult on the issue. I suggest that that would have shown slightly more respect to the Committee and to the various political parties involved.

The Minister is proposing a change, but I note that so far he has not been prepared to say whether, if he intends to table further amendments, he will do so in this House. I wholly respect the powers and intelligence of the House of Lords to make sensible amendments, and I hope that it will do so to several pieces of legislation. However, I believe that amendments to legislation that affects elections should be debated and made in the elected House, not in the unelected Chamber. That is why I hope that at some point the Minister will make good his suggestions, that he will guarantee to debate those amendments in this House first, and that we will not have Report stage until such time as those amendments have been made in this House.

[Jonathan Edwards]

Diolch, Mr Hoyle. We have had an interesting and informative debate. I shall quickly run through some of the contributions. As ever, the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr Shepherd) made some passionate and honest points. He is always respected throughout the House. The hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Austin Mitchell) argued coherently and in detail. I cannot support his amendments, but I am glad that he will support ours this evening. The hon. Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) made excellent points about the need to ensure that UK general elections are held separately, and I am glad that the Minister accepted those points. The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) made pertinent points about the Bill essentially entrenching the coalition rather than being concerned with democracy. I can only apologise to him for getting to the Table Office before him.

With her usual eloquence, the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing) highlighted the views of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, and I thank her for her comments. The right hon. Member for Stirling (Mrs McGuire) spoke passionately about the political motives behind the Bill. The hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty) gave an insightful historical lesson on the US constitution and relevant comparisons. The hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore) reminded us of the 147,000 spoiled ballots in Scotland in 2007 due to the coupling of the local government elections and the Scottish Parliament elections on the same day.

The hon. Member for Ealing North (Stephen Pound), as ever, made a compelling and entertaining speech, and I only wish that I had his oratorical talents.

[Stephen Pound]

My wife is Welsh.

[Jonathan Edwards]

That is important. It must be the Maesteg blood.

The Minister made the Government’s case, which was also made on Second Reading. I welcome his comments on consulting the devolved Administrations about changing their dates by six months. That is a significant step forward. If he were able to promise that he would legislate following the consultation on the National Assembly elections—in the case of Wales it would not be the Secretary of State who would determine that matter but the Assembly, as the sovereign body—I would press only amendment 12 to the vote tonight on the point of principle that the Committee should decide whether we should have a four-year or a five-year cycle. Diolch.

Question put, That the amendment be made.

Departmental Business Plans

Jonathan Edwards Excerpts

Monday 8th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Letwin]

Yes, my hon. Friend is of course absolutely right. Part of the purpose of these plans is to ensure that we hold ourselves to fulfilling that vision. We recognise that there will be all sorts of pressures on the Government to recentralise, to re-control and to lunge for immediate interventions that will ostensibly achieve a particular result, and we know that we need to be kept to the straight and narrow of the vision of the transfer of power in this country from the centre out to the people.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)]

Does the Minister not agree that today’s trumpeting of the transparency agenda will ring hollow in Wales considering the actions of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport on S4C? The decision to fund the channel in future via the BBC was made without informing the S4C authority, the Welsh Government or even the Secretary of State for Wales on the eve of the comprehensive spending review.

[Mr Letwin]

No, I do not accept that at all. This set of departmental plans will enable people to see on the face of it what we are going to do and when we are going to do it. Of course, there will be times when there are decisions involved in those plans that particular hon. Members do not like and there will be debate. We welcome that, we accept that and we are providing the means for people to have such debates.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Jonathan Edwards Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

I do recall my hon. Friend raising the matter of “The Wrong Trousers” and Wallace and Gromit, but I think his metaphor does not work in this case. Gromit was laying down pieces of track ahead of him, whereas the Government are laying down pieces of track behind them—pieces of track that they have not been over; this is putting the horse before the cart before the horse before the cart. There is a real problem in the process that the Government have adopted, and I very much hope that their lordships will want to examine it carefully.

What is also wrong is that because the Government have tabled 28 pages of amendments that we have to debate on Report, they have had to set aside a chunk of time for us to do so. That has been done not because the House wanted it, or to bring about greater consensus on the Bill, but to meet the Government’s own business needs, and as a result of their own haste. The fact that we have not had a single moment’s debate about the decoupling of seats in the Welsh Assembly and their coterminosity with Westminster seats is a disgrace. If, as we had requested, a knife had not been put in yesterday night’s proceedings, it would have been possible for us to have debated that matter now, rather than the measures that we have to debate at this point.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree when a clause is specific to a constituent part of the United Kingdom, there should be allotted time to debate that clause?

[Chris Bryant]

I am afraid that I sort of disagree with the hon. Gentleman. It is important that there should be time to debate such a clause. We tabled an amendment yesterday that a clause should be deleted from the Bill, just so that we could have that debate. On Report there is no other way of having that debate—but I am not sure that it is always right to put in knives, because that leads to some complexities in the management of time. That is why we argued that we should not have knives.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr MacNeil]

The hon. Lady is right. I wish that the status that the Scottish Government, the Welsh Assembly Government and the Northern Ireland Government should have were enshrined in legislation.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for speaking to the amendment. On the respect agenda, can he explain to me, because I do not understand, why the UK Government are against holding a referendum on further powers for Wales on the same day as the Welsh Assembly elections, yet are in favour of the referendum on AV? Obviously the referendum on further powers is far more relevant in terms of the Welsh Assembly elections.

[Mr MacNeil]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point, because that is an example of a lack of joined-up thinking, and, if the Government were to undertake this process again, they would not start from here, as it were. They find themselves where they are and have to employ the best arguments, regardless of how sticky the wicket might be.

This Bill, like the spending cuts, has moved fast, and had some respect been shown, we might have supported it to a far greater extent than we have been able to. I shall not push my amendment to a vote, because I am sure that the Government have heard my point. Indeed, I think that the Minister has confirmed that the relevant costs will be the sole responsibility of the UK Government, and that makes me very pleased. However, it is my sincere hope that, until Scotland gains its independence, the Government will give us the respect that we truly deserve—the respect that was shown today to France and on other days to Norway.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jonathan Edwards]

Does the hon. Lady recognise that historically there has always been a weighting in favour of the Celtic nations to ensure that we do not have an England-dominated Parliament?

[Mrs Laing]

No, I certainly do not. The hon. Gentleman’s point has no validity whatever. This is the Parliament of the United Kingdom—of the whole United Kingdom—and every constituency in this United Kingdom should be of equal size and should have an equal number of voters. Every Member who is elected to this Parliament should come here with an equal weight of electorate behind them.