Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Bach Excerpts

Wednesday 15th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord McNally)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, for bringing forward this amendment. I agree entirely with the last point that the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, made that the pattern of using referendums since the 1970s has been to learn, modify and improve. That will probably go on.

The noble Baroness, Lady Liddell, gave a very good example of an injunction being brought against an election broadcast. I am always fascinated by the difference between English and Scottish law. When I ask, “What is the difference?”, the answer that I get in the Ministry of Justice is often, “They do it much better in Scotland”. That is just a passing observation. I am disappointed that the noble Lord, Lord McAvoy, still does not trust the Liberals. I really thought that we were beginning to bond. I will have to do more work on my charm offensive.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, was quite right: this clause was brought in as a specific amendment suggested by the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee to address the guidelines for broadcasters. There is a principle to consider. Would it be right for party election broadcasts for the local and devolved Assembly elections, which will take place on 5 May, to refer to the referendum and/or make any comment on different voting systems? There is an argument that, as a final strap line, a broadcast could say, “Use both your votes on Thursday”, or whatever. We recognise that there is an issue to be discussed. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, said, the Electoral Commission has made some comments on this as well.

I am advised that there are defects in Amendment 39AA that would bring in ambiguity. We could perhaps test that. On the second amendment, I suggest again that the noble and learned Lord does not press it and that we have further discussions to see whether it can be improved and clarified. Before the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, breaks open the champagne, I should add that my speaking notes contain lines that I have not heard since “Beyond the Fringe”. They say: “What I am saying does not mean that I agree with his amendment, but nor should it be assumed that I disagree with the amendment”.

[Lord Bach]

I am sorry that the noble Lord has not seen that since “Beyond the Fringe”; I saw it many, many times.

[Lord McNally]

We all know that the final line of the “Beyond the Fringe” sketch was, “But neither should this be taken as an abstention”. I suggest to the House, quite genuinely, that—as the noble Baroness, Lady Liddell, reminded us—getting this wrong could cause all kinds of trouble with the best of intentions.

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Moved by

[Lord Bach]

40: Clause 7, page 5, line 27, leave out “the Lord President of the Council or”

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[Lord Bach]

I can make this point fairly briefly, but it is a point of some significance and I should be grateful for the Minister’s response. The amendment looks, rather unusually, at the interpretation clause of the Bill. Clause 7(1) says that,

‘“the Minister’ means the Lord President of the Council or the Secretary of State”.

I have been lucky or unlucky enough to take a number of pieces of legislation through your Lordships' House, and to hear many others taken through it. Bills with interpretation clauses have, as a standard, defined “the Minister” as “the Secretary of State”. That seems pretty sensible and uncontroversial and has the advantage of having been used traditionally. In this case, it would be whoever is Secretary of State for Justice at the relevant time, although, as I understand it, strictly speaking it could be any Secretary of State who would be entitled to take the orders through, which is why “Minister” appears in the Bill. But to say,

“the Lord President of the Council”,

in this Bill is, it seems to us at least, to personalise the position. I shall explain why.

The role of the Lord President of the Council, whoever that may be at a particular time, is set out on the website of the Privy Council and defined as follows. It says that that person:

“Presides at Privy Council meetings, including any Emergency Privy Councils … Considers for approval a number of Statutory Orders concerning Health Care, Veterinary, and Scottish Higher Education matters … As a member of the Privy Council Committee for the Affairs of Jersey and Guernsey, reviews Laws and Orders relating to the Islands, and makes recommendations to Her Majesty concerning their approval … Deals with Ministerial correspondence and Parliamentary Questions relating to Privy Council Business, such as the appointment of High Sheriffs … Determines cases, where the Lord President acts as University Visitor, in a private capacity”.

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[Lord McNally]

I think I am now 2-1 up in the interventions of my noble friend Lord Newton; I am very pleased about that. It is an interesting thought. I am surprised that the other side should leap on this to assume that it was the Secretary of State for Justice. As I explained, I am here in my capacity as Deputy Leader of the House of Lords, and covering Cabinet Office business. When I studied my constitutional stuff at university, I learned that “Secretary of State” was a portmanteau term in government, not specific to any one person.

The noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, talks of scope for mischief-making. For half this Committee, we have constantly been told that this project has been driven through by Nick Clegg and Nick Clegg alone. If we go through the various Hansards, we will find that Nick Clegg has been named more often by the Opposition than any other single person. The Government have put into the Bill who has the responsibility for this legislation. It applies to something that will be carried out next May, when we will be celebrating the first of the five years of Nick Clegg being Lord President of the Council, but nevertheless it is relevant to this Bill. It is simply a matter of common sense to have him named. I agree with my noble friend, Lord Newton. In the past, there have been people who have carried the dual title of Lord President and Secretary of State because of that curious anomaly of what Secretaries of State can do. As I remember it, it used to be only the Minister of Agriculture who was not a Secretary of State. All the rest were. I am sure it is not mischief-making.

The arrangements in the Bill make sense. They allow the Deputy Prime Minister to take key decisions with nationwide effect, but also enable decisions with a specific territorial flavour to be made by the territorial Ministers. For this reason, I urge the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Bach]

My Lords, I shall of course withdraw the amendment but this is an interesting point because, as far as I know, it has never been done before. If the Minister has some precedent for it, I will be proved wrong. What most upsets me about the whole debate is having stirred up the noble Lord, Lord Newton. I do not enjoy doing that at all, although he does not seem much stirred up to me.

[Lord Newton of Braintree]

Only in the nicest possible way.

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[Lord Bach]

Then I feel much better for that. I still do not see why both positions are there. If the Minister is right in his argument, why are the words “Secretary of State” included at all? Why is it not just the Lord President of the Council or, if the Government want to put other Ministers in, why not say the Prime Minister, too, or the Chancellor of the Exchequer? I do not see why both names are there when the precedent is that it is the Secretary of State, but perhaps—

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

Could the answer be that there is some concern among those involved in the “pro” campaign that the Lord President of the Council might be identified with Mr Clegg, who himself will be identified with the most derogatory remarks about the electoral system that is being promoted?

[Lord Bach]

My Lords, I was trying to be as polite as I possibly could be. One of the dangers of personalising it in this way, as I think my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours is hinting, is that Mr Clegg may be either so popular that his name, as it were, in making the orders means that what he wants will occur or, heaven forbid, so unpopular that whatever he does or suggests means that what he wants will not happen. To that extent, I agree with my noble friend.

[Lord McNally]

On the point about Secretaries of State, I think the intention is that those in mind are the Secretary of State for Scotland and the Secretary of State for Wales.

[Lord Bach]

So, for England, is it the Lord President of the Council?

[Lord McNally]

If there was to be anything specifically territorial, the Secretary of State could take responsibility there. That is my interpretation of it, but there is no great mystery about it. It is simply that, as I said at the very beginning, the Lord President is steering this Bill. He steered it very successfully through the House of Commons and we are doing the same.

[Lord Bach]

The Minister is being unfair to himself. The Lord President of the Council was hardly seen in the House of Commons while the Bill went through it. I think that he moved the Second Reading and did not appear again until Report. But we are seeing a great deal of the noble Lord, which is of course always a huge pleasure.

[Baroness Liddell of Coatdyke]

I am a bit confused about something that the Minister said about the territorial responsibilities of the Lord President. Having been a Secretary of State for Scotland, I am not absolutely clear that that is the position. It might be helpful if the Minister could seek greater clarity from his inestimable advisers.

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[Lord Grocott]

This is a Bill of 300 pages—and I do not apologise for repeating this—which plans to change the constitution of our country. I hope the noble Lord is not arguing that to spend five days—I am speaking from memory now, but I am pretty certain that I am right—on the Committee stage in the House of Commons and two days on Report is an inordinate or generous amount of time. I hope he is not suggesting in any way, shape or form, that the time that we have spent in this House on the scrutiny of crucial groups of amendments is any more than they properly deserve. If he does think that, I would appeal to him to let us know which group of amendments should not have been discussed or were addressing anything other than very serious matters about our constitution. He gives the impression that he is very irritated—perhaps I am wrong, perhaps we are over-sensitive on this side—at every criticism of the Bill, and at any suggestion for any amendment. If that is the way he responds, I suggest he talks to his noble friend Lord Strathclyde, who has the capacity most of the time, at the other end of the scale, for making us think that what we are saying is important—what he privately thinks I do not have the faintest idea but I will give him the credit for giving that appearance—and at the same time being amused, not being tetchy and not being irritable. We could have moved on a great deal more quickly with this amendment. The noble Lord has wasted time.

While I am on my feet, the next amendments after mine are six government amendments. I hope that the noble Lord will not do anything other than a proper courtesy to the House in explaining these amendments in proper detail. I absolutely assure him that neither I nor any of my colleagues, and I suspect any on his side of the House, will accuse him of time-wasting.

[Lord Bach]

My Lords, I am surprised that my little amendment has developed into the excitement that we have enjoyed in Committee for the past few minutes. I have one serious point to make. I ask the Minister to reconsider his attack—maybe he did not mean the words, I do not know—on a particular individual at the other end who is a colleague of mine in the opposition justice team. It is an unwarranted attack on an individual. If the noble Lord wants to attack tactics, that is fine, but do not attack an individual, a Member of Parliament, for doing what most of us would consider to be his duty—and indeed what the noble Lord did so well when he was sitting on the Opposition Benches just a few months ago. Before I withdraw the amendment, I ask the Minister to consider—

[Lord Rooker]

I do not want to prolong this, but this is the result of this place not having a Speaker. In the other place, if anybody down there had said about somebody up here what was said by the noble Lord, Lord McNally, the Speaker would have ruled it out of order. You are not allowed to criticise named Members of this place down in the other place. There is no benefit to it, because we do not get anywhere doing it. We have no Speaker here to stop that kind of immature comment and we ought to have.

[Lord Bach]

I give the noble Lord the chance, please, if he will do that—

[Lord McNally]

If the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, wants to call me immature, that is part of the rough and tumble of politics. I am not going to say sorry. For goodness’ sake, again, I really hope that people outside read Hansard and then they can make a judgment about the handling of this Bill. I am willing to go into the details of this and argue it. We have had everything from the Mongolian elections to the sensitivities of—the Member for the Rhondda Valley, was it? I cannot remember which one it was.

[Lord Bach]

I am extremely disappointed that the Minister, who is normally a parliamentarian of the highest order, should on this occasion not think it right to withdraw what he said about an individual Member of Parliament. I very much regret that. It tempts me very much to call a Division on this amendment, but it is a temptation that I will resist, because I think it would be a mistake—

[Baroness Hollis of Heigham]

Spoilsport!

[Lord Bach]

Yes, spoilsport I may be, but on the basis of the debate that we had about the issue itself, the proper thing is to withdraw my amendment which I intend to do. However, I give the noble Lord just one last chance. Why not just say he is sorry for what he said about an individual Member of Parliament? His criticism has been heard. Why not withdraw it now? I beg leave to withdraw.

Amendment 40 withdrawn.