Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Kevin Brennan Excerpts

Monday 25th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

Well, the hon. Gentleman did not make that point earlier, but if he now agrees with the Government that must be because a Whip has spoken to him—or somehow or other. Anyway, he agrees with the Government, and I am sure that the Minister will be absolutely delighted about that.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

The hon. Member for Damascus.

[Chris Bryant]

As my hon. Friend says, the hon. Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Jake Berry) has obviously become the hon. Member for Damascus. There are quite a lot of them in the Liberal Democrat party as well, so I am sure he and his friends will feel very much at home.

We have also tabled some consequential amendments, such as amendment (h), and that brings us to amendment (i) to new schedule 2, which is entitled, “Combination of Polls: England”. The amendment relates to who is able to attend the count. I accept that I have not consulted widely with returning officers on this matter, because my experience is that different returning officers—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mr Timpson) mouths at me, “What page?” Amendment (i) is on page 790 of the amendment paper, and it reads:

“Paragraph 40, at the end of sub-paragraph (3) insert ‘or

(c) the person is a Member of Parliament.’.”

The amendment would merely allow Members, as of right, to attend the count on the AV referendum. We have not been able to word the amendment, “the person is the Member of Parliament for that constituency”, because thus far we have not won the argument with the Minister about making the count happen at a Westminster parliamentary constituency level, but the amendment would allow Members to attend the count.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Harper]

No, not at all, because the local elections were also held in June, because of the foot and mouth outbreak. Both sets of elections were moved, and they were on the same day, so it is the hon. Gentleman who should resign. I remember that very well, because my constituency was badly hit by the foot and mouth outbreak and the shambolic way in which it was handled by the Labour Government. That was one good reason why I was elected in 2005, and re-elected this year.

[Kevin Brennan]

On pre-legislative scrutiny, if we are going back to 2001, I will mention that the first Bill that I served on in that Parliament, the Adoption and Children Bill, went through a Special Standing Committee procedure. We had some evidence sessions before the Bill was considered in Committee. It would have been perfectly possible for that to happen with this Bill. Would not the opportunity to take evidence for a few days before Committee stage started—rightly, on the Floor of the House—have made the Bill stronger, and its passage through Parliament better informed?

[Mr Harper]

I have said both today and on earlier days that notwithstanding the short time available to it, the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee did a sterling job of taking evidence and producing a comprehensive report on the Bill. We have examined what it said with great care, even though we do not necessarily agree with it.

The other point that I would make on that subject is that at business questions last week, when some hon. Members were complaining about the amount of time available, an Opposition Member who speaks for her party from the Front Bench complained that we were allowing too much time. She said that it was not very helpful that the House was sitting late, and asked what we were going to do to make the hours of the House more “predictable and family-friendly”. I can only observe that there is a balance to be struck. Some Members think we should sit all night, but when we allow more time, others criticise us for making the House less family-friendly. Opposition Front Benchers cannot have it both ways.

I wish to pick up some of the points that the hon. Member for Rhondda made. He alluded to what I said about combining elections in Northern Ireland, and said that there was not currently any provision to do so. There is provision to combine local elections in Northern Ireland with UK parliamentary elections, and that already takes place, but there is no power in existing legislation to combine Northern Ireland Assembly elections with Northern Ireland local elections. If we did not have such provision in the Bill, they could not be combined and would have to be run separately.

The hon. Gentleman’s amendments seeking to remove the provision for combining elections would not prevent elections from happening on the same day. They would just make it impossible to combine them. They would have to be run completely separately, which would incur extra cost and more complexity. Returning officers and counting officers could not ensure that the arrangements for those elections were brought together to work more sensibly. Those proposals would therefore not take us any further forward. We would still have the elections, but there would be more cost and complexity. He does us no favours by suggesting that.

I made a point about poll cards earlier, but I shall repeat it, because it came up in the contributions of the hon. Gentleman and a number of other hon. Members. Poll cards will confirm the voting arrangements that will apply to particular electors. When they get their cards, electors will know whether they have a postal vote in place, which of the elections they are entitled to vote in, and therefore whether they need to apply for a postal vote for any of the elections. The fact that poll cards will have that information on them will be very helpful.

The hon. Member for Rhondda also mentioned some of the other elections that we propose to combine. I want to correct a small error. I think that I said that five mayoral elections were planned for next year, but the figure is four. I shall list the places for the hon. Gentleman’s benefit: Bedford, Middlesbrough, Mansfield and Torbay. It is possible that further mayoral elections or by-elections might take place next year, and our combination provisions would cover them.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned local government referendums. I understand that several petitions have been registered with local authorities about referendums for directly elected mayors. We think that at least some local referendums are likely to take place. If they are held on the same day, we and the administrators believe that it would be sensible to combine them.

I have already spoken about amendment (a) to new clause 20 to limit the combination of elections. The amendment would not stop the elections happening; it would simply mean that administrators could not take them together. That does not help. I understand the views of hon. Members who do not agree with combination, but we had a lengthy debate of around five and quarter hours about that on the first day of our Committee proceedings. We had the argument and the Committee made a decision. If we accept that the elections will take place on 5 May, the Government amendments intend to ensure that they work sensibly, instead of rerunning the debate about whether they should be held on the same day.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Harper]

My information was that we had laid the three territorial orders in the Table Office. I think that that is correct—indeed, I confirm that it is.

[Kevin Brennan]

Do I take it from the Parliamentary Secretary’s comments about attending the count on a Monday that he expects no member of the Government to attend any of the counts for the AV referendum?

[Mr Harper]

I did not say that. I assume that most Members will have duties in the House and in other places. If they do not, of course they can attend the counts. However, I foresee that most Members of Parliament will have important matters to tackle here, instead of attending counts in local authority areas or in Scottish Parliament, Northern Ireland Assembly or Welsh Assembly constituencies.