Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Cavendish of Furness Excerpts

Tuesday 25th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Graham of Edmonton]

My Lords, I will speak to the amendments tabled by my noble friends Lady McDonagh and Lord Kennedy. I will make the same case for the River Tyne as has been made for the Thames and the Mersey. They should not be crossed in order to make up the numbers. I appreciate that the Minister or anyone else can say, “Well, there are no proposals to do that”. Of course there are not, but this is a warning shot across the bows. If the public are going to be deprived of their say at a public inquiry, we have an additional responsibility to air their views here.

I was born on Tyneside, in a place called Scotswood Road, which runs parallel to the River Tyne. It was years before I crossed the river into Gateshead. Now, of course, people talk about Newcastle and Gateshead because of the great work that has been done by One North East, which is due for the chop. That is a disgrace, because it was very successful.

There was never any enmity or animosity, just indifference. Of course we on Tyneside and in Newcastle knew that Gateshead was there. It had a football team in the Third Division; Newcastle United was in the First Division. We were the Magpies and the other team had its own name. The Minister would be wise to give an assurance that this is not intended. The sad fact is that that is what we are relying on, rather than a public inquiry.

I am delighted to see in the Chamber my good and noble friend Lord Dixon—Don Dixon. When he spoke on an earlier amendment, he injected a level of passion and emotion that we have seen rarely in this House. Whenever I see someone emotionally involved in an issue, I say to myself, “He’s doing a Don Dixon”. The noble Lord was able to convey to this House—and, I hope, to the local press and to those whom he represented so well in Jarrow—that this is the place where, if it has to be said, it will be said, and with passion.

When I wrote my book, I called it From Tyne to Thames Via the Usual Channels. The title wrapped up three aspects of my life. I chose it because all my memories are of Newcastle and not Gateshead. There is nothing wrong with Gateshead, Jarrow, Hebburn, North Shields, South Shields or any of the other shipbuilding towns along the Tyne such as Wallsend. However, one is proud of one’s roots and I am proud to come from Newcastle. I once had a trial for Newcastle boys. I was 13 and played in goal. I never wondered afterwards why I was not selected, because we were beaten 5-0. I was not very good. However, there is nothing wrong in pride. There is nothing nasty in not wishing to be associated with somebody else.

There has been a renaissance in Newcastle and Gateshead over the past 20 or 30 years. It had a shaky start. My noble friend from Jarrow will have memories of the Jarrow march in the 1930s. He and I worked together in 1986, when the march from Jarrow to London of 1936 was replicated in commemoration. I am sure that I do not have to press the Minister too hard for him to recognise that people feel very strongly about protecting the memories of their youth. This is not idle talk. I am not standing up merely to take up five or 10 minutes of the House’s time. We have an opportunity here. I have resented very much the way in which colleagues have had to use the opportunities over the past few days to say what they want, because I fear that this is the only place that we have at the moment, given the possibility that the Boundary Commission will act in the absence of a public inquiry. I have attended public inquiries and so have most noble Lords here. We pleaded, won and lost cases, but at least we were able to say what the people whom we represented wanted us to say.

Good luck to Gateshead and to all the developments. People there should be as pleased as I am that the Tyne Bridge was built in 1924. Very few people comment on the fact that the Sydney Harbour Bridge was modelled on the Tyne Bridge. It is a feat of engineering. Whenever I talk about the things that I am proud of in Newcastle, I mention the bridge. I also mention the Tees industrial estate in Gateshead. When I was a boy, before the war started in 1939, I began to learn about Gateshead. There is a place called Jackson Street in Gateshead, which was the headquarters of the Gateshead Co-operative Society. Eventually it became the headquarters of the North Eastern Co-operative Society. Gradually, over the years, sporting, industrial and cultural opportunities have brought together people on both sides of the Tyne.

The Minister would be well advised to say that the amendments are well understood. He might say that they are not necessary—he has his own speech to make. However, I support the argument that on either side of the River Tyne, good as it is—better as it is, with fish coming out of the Tyne that have not come out for years because of the clean-up of the pollution—Newcastle and Gateshead should remain distinct and separate. They both have good Members of Parliament: men and women who speak up, and speak positively and strongly, for their areas. But leave us divided.

[Lord Cavendish of Furness]

My Lords, I apologise to the Committee for intervening in a debate on a Bill in which I have hitherto played no part. I have listened to noble Lords opposite talking about rivers being boundaries. It was part of my early education to be taught about mountain ranges. These were discussed in the early hours of this morning, particularly by the noble Lord, Lord Kinnock, who talked about people making boundaries having looked at flat maps, although he put it rather more strongly. In Cumbria, we had county divisions made from flat maps, which presented problems. However, whereas each noble Lord who spoke about their own area may well have had a point about their communities, it is not because of rivers that communities are different. Water unites and mountains divide. That is a historical rule that the Committee might take note of.

[Lord Dixon]

My Lords, first, I thank my noble friend Lord Graham for his kind words, which I have not earned. I will talk about the amendments dealing with the River Tyne. I spent 32 years working as a shipwright on both sides of the River Tyne. I do not think that the Boundary Commission or the Minister realise the rivalry that exists between the north and south.

I served my time on the south side of the river in Palmers. I remember working in Wallsend, which is on the north side of the river. One of the shipwrights in North Tyneside said to me, “You people from the south side—from the other side of the river—are taking our jobs”. I had to remind him that, if it was not for the river, there would be nobody in a job, because there would be nowhere to launch the ships. So there is a rivalry.

I think that it was in 1979 when the River Tyne was breached for a parliamentary boundary for the election of MEPs. The first MEP elected for our area was my noble friend Lady Quin. In 1983, we had the nonsense of the Boundary Commission creating the Tyne Bridge constituency, which was half in Newcastle and half in Gateshead. The first Member for the Tyne Bridge constituency was my late great comrade Harry Cowans. He had represented Newcastle Central, which he took over when Ted Short was elevated to this House. Despite representing that north part of Newcastle, he had also been a councillor in Gateshead for many years, so he did not have the problem that some people would have had going to the other side of the river. He did an exceptionally good job because he had that knowledge of Gateshead and of Newcastle.

In the 1983 boundary changes, we had quite a lot of constituency changes. At that time, most of the Labour MPs had already been selected. What we had then was called a resettlement, where, if someone took part of a constituency, the other MP could claim that constituency, and vice versa. In the northern region at that time, we all agreed on who should go and who should not for various constituencies. For example, my noble friend Lord Clark of Windermere was MP for South Shields; I was MP for Jarrow. If part of Jarrow went to South Shields or part of South Shields came to Jarrow, we could both go for that constituency, but only us two could go for it.

That worked well all around the northern region, with the exception of North West Durham, where Consett was eliminated as a constituency. The two MPs at the time were the late Ernie Armstrong and David Watkins. Ernie Armstrong was the father of my noble friend Lady Armstrong of Hill Top. They fought for that constituency; Ernie won and David Watkins lost. The new constituency of Sedgefield was created during that reorganisation. David Watkins did not have a claim on Sedgefield because none of his constituency went into it, so the result of the 1983 boundary changes was that we lost an MP and gained a Prime Minister, because Tony Blair got the Sedgefield constituency. So constituencies and constituency boundaries are important, especially across the river. My exiled Geordie friend, Ted Graham, talked about Newcastle and Gateshead. I can remember the Callender brothers playing halfback for Gateshead—do you remember that, Ted?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Judd]

My Lords, the amendments that we are considering this afternoon go to the very heart of the widespread anxiety about what this Bill is doing to our democracy. Anyone who has felt the spirit of democracy, let alone studied our constitution, knows that the fundamental principle on which we operate in the two Houses at Westminster is that we are a representative democracy. We are not delegates; we are representatives. There is no way logically that any Member of Parliament can speak with authority for each individual member of his constituency. That is a physical, intellectual and mental impossibility. However, the way in which that representation can be meaningfully conducted is by speaking for the community of which those who voted—and even those who did not vote—for a particular Member of Parliament are a part. The first thing that fundamentally worries those of us who are exercised about what this Bill will do to our democracy is that it strikes at that principle of how people are effectively represented.

I will spell that out a little further. As I understand it, the Government have a deep commitment to the individual. They believe in enhancing the role of the individual in society. They have a great commitment to localism and making sure that as much government as possible is conducted away from the centre, in the community where it really matters. How on earth will that happen without communities in which people can find their place, discuss and formulate their ideas and bring pressure to bear on those in authority? The danger is that, deliberately or just by unforgivable accident, the Bill will undermine the very purposes that the Government express on other occasions in other proposed legislation.

There is another consideration. I was very glad indeed that in the brief but telling intervention by the noble Lord, Lord Cavendish, he referred to the fact that, while rivers were significant in some people’s minds, they were not the only consideration. For example, in the county in which we both live, there is a strong sense of community. In a rural area, it is important that people can find identity in a community, because they can become very isolated and disempowered in their isolation. Communities are very important. In a great county such as Cumbria, there is history and tradition. We have had quite a job—in fact, some people feel that it has never really happened sociologically—in making the county of Cumbria, because we have Westmorland and Cumberland and people’s loyalties are for one or the other.

[Lord Cavendish of Furness]

We also have Yorkshire and north Lancashire and much else besides. While I am on my feet, I will say that a beck runs though my village and I remember that, when I was a boy, there was a seat on either side of it. There were men sitting on those seats who in their entire lives never crossed the beck. Today, because of local leadership and the fact that we participate and have mobility, those people talk to one another and I think that the communities are probably better for it.

[Lord Judd]

My Lords, I am glad that the noble Lord took the opportunity to expand a little more on his strength of feeling, much of which I share, about our county. I think that the noble Lord will agree that the arguments that we have heard about London and Tyne and Wear strengthen the concern. They are a geographical reality, which emphasises the point that we are both making.

There is one other issue that needs serious consideration. We live in an insecure age and one of instability. It is important to have communities as the basis for security and stability. London is a huge multicultural gathering of people. It is possible in that situation for people to feel that they have no particular identity whatever. Surely in London of all places, with its great mass of people coming together, it is important that people can develop a sense of community and belonging, a sense of being able to discuss their anxieties with others and bring their representations to bear. For all those reasons, the issue of the constituency community base is fundamental. I simply cannot envisage how we can continue to have a representative democracy if we diminish the significance of the constituency.

My noble friend Lady Armstrong made a particularly powerful speech. I was a friend of her father and knew him well. She made a strong point about her father breaking his loyalty with his party because he felt so strongly about these matters. I would have only one argument with her. The other day, she talked about the link being broken. I ask her to consider that it is not a link but the fundamental cornerstone of a meaningful representative democracy. If we tamper with that, what road are we beginning to go down?