Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Dubs Excerpts

Monday 15th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

I apologise. The noble Lord is absolutely right. It was the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, who said that the figure was plucked from the air. The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, said that it was “a nice round figure”. Thank you very much. Does the 600 figure have anything to do with research from the University of Liverpool, conducted for “Newsnight”, which clearly demonstrates that Labour will be the net losers in this situation? Labour would lose 25 seats to the Tories’ 13 and the Lib Dems’ seven.

[Lord Dubs]

I did not say anything. I just waved my arm a bit and I have become the centre of the debate. I am sitting quite quietly, behaving myself.

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

Perhaps I may say that the unspoken interventions of my noble friend Lord Dubs are more powerful than the words of the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde. What is the effect of removing 7.7 per cent—some 50—of the total of MPs? According to Professor King, the respected psephologist, the average constituency size will go up from 66,000, which it was at the end of the Second World War, to around 105,000 by the time of the next election.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Dubs]

My Lords, I agree very much with my noble friend Lady Kennedy about the importance of being deliberate in approaching constitutional reform and not rushing at it pell-mell. I think that we are making a lot of mistakes. I do not disagree on some of these issues, such as equalisation; but because of the way in which it is being done, it has all the hallmarks of being a first-class mess.

I think there is widespread agreement on the importance of the constituency link, which is fundamental. One of the key challenges in our politics is to improve the relationship between MPs and the people they represent. I judge this Bill, at least partly, in terms of whether it succeeds in improving that position, and I contend that it does not.

I do not want to spend my time talking about the merits or demerits of AV except to say that AV does keep the constituency link. In assessing the effect of AV or any other change, it is no good looking at it statically; one has to look at the dynamic effects of a change in our voting system as well. I believe that some of the issues to do with AV are a result of the fact that there will be a dynamic effect which is harder to calculate, but which I am sure will be there.

However, to go back to the heart of the Bill, as other noble Lords have said, it is very difficult to reconcile reducing the number of MPs in the Commons with increasing the membership in this place. We will have other chances to debate that, but it seems to me that it is an indication of how badly things have been thought out.

Let me turn to the referendum in particular. I am concerned, as are other noble Lords, that the referendum is to be held on the same day as local or devolved elections. It is difficult to see how the campaigns will go. If all the attention in, say, Scotland, is on getting a majority in the Scottish Parliament, the arguments in favour of the referendum taking place at all and its content will be swept aside. However, there is another difficulty that has not been mentioned which is that it is likely that where there is a hotly contested election—I think it will be in Scotland—turnout will be higher, which will pull up the turnout in the referendum, even if people have no particular interest in it. Contrast that with what will happen in areas where there are no local elections—I believe London is one of them—where the turnout will be lower. We will have a very skewed result for the referendum. There will be a high turnout in some parts of the country and a low turnout in others, which will make a nonsense of trying to evaluate the result. It is not right as an approach.

I agree that the timing is far too tight. The Electoral Commission has said that it is just about okay, but if there is any slippage, it will spell doom for having a properly conducted referendum. I therefore agree with those who have suggested splitting the Bill in two and dealing with one part first and then the other. I fear that it has not been thought through very well and all the signs are that we are going to get ourselves into some difficulties.

I am very concerned that there has been no consultation on these proposals, especially with the devolved Administrations. Nobody has mentioned Northern Ireland yet. If the devolved Administrations are all unhappy about the referendum being on the same day, they should be listened to. It is important because they are the people who know what is going on on the ground.

There is something anomalous in the fact that Members of this House can vote in a referendum that will determine how the next general election is to be conducted, even though we do not have a vote in that general election. It is ridiculous. I think there is a way of moving an amendment to the Bill that will sort that out, and I trust it will have widespread support. However, people have died for the right to vote. The suffragettes campaigned for years for the right to vote. Some Members of this House say, “Oh, it’s not important whether we have the right to vote or not”. Since I have been in this House—and it is a privilege to be here—every time there has been a general election, I have felt a real twinge of unhappiness that I could not vote, even though I was shepherding voters to the polling stations in the constituencies where I was helping. I think there is something wrong in principle. If we are going to give prisoners a vote, it will leave us even more out on a limb. The people of this country are not going to demonstrate in Parliament Square to give us the right to vote, but I think it matters and represents an important point of principle.

I move on to the plans to reduce the number of MPs to 600. I made a gesture earlier on that the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, thought was a comment but, frankly, there has been no argument at all about why it is 600, except the view that looking at it, it will damage the Labour Party and the Conservatives will gain. The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, is shaking his head, but the fact is that if one took an average between the Conservative plans to reduce the Commons and the Lib Dem plans, we would have had an even lower figure. There is no logic to this, except that 600 is a figure that somebody thought of. It is too arbitrary for us to be happy about it, and unless there is a reduction in the size of the Executive, it will simply mean that an even larger proportion of the Commons will be on the payroll.

The noble Lord, Lord Oakeshott, mentioned the Isle of Wight. My mother lived there for a time, so I know it fairly well. However, it is not just the Isle of Wight; there are also serious concerns in Cornwall, Cumbria and many other parts of the country that the sense of local community will be damaged. I think that that is absolutely crucial. Anyone who has represented people, whether at a parliamentary level or at local government level, will know that the local community is crucial. It is the bedrock of our political system, and the bedrock of the relationship between elected politicians and local people. I contend that under the Government’s timetable, there would be very little time at a local level for the parties to prepare for boundary changes. Anyone who has been a constituency MP and has gone through the agony of boundary changes will know how everything gets upset. The local parties have to be reorganised. One’s whole political sense of who one represents is altered if there are significant boundary changes. In 1983, I went through it in Battersea and I had to contest the seat against a candidate from the other part of the constituency. There is a lot of turmoil and difficulty.

Eighteen months is barely time for the local parties to sort out any changes. If by some chance there were to be an earlier general election, say one year earlier, there would be only six months in which to sort things out, which is patently ridiculous. I do not know whether the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, has fought elections—no doubt, he probably has—but I am sure that some members of the Government have not. I say to those people that it is not workable. The local constituency party associations need time to sort out the effects of boundary changes, which will be much more dramatic and widespread. Because they will bear little relationship to existing communities, they will be even harder to manage. It will be hard to ask local parties to do it and to ask local communities to accept it.

The Government have not thought this through. The Bill has all the hallmarks of a Bill which was rushed in because they said, “We have got some deadlines. Anyway, there is no legislation, so we have to find something to fill this long time”. After all, we have had no legislation in this House pretty well since the election, except for the Public Bodies Bill, which has been an equally botched effort. I just wish that the Government would say, “Let’s slow down on this. Let’s think this through. Let’s consult on it”. We would end up with a better system than we will get now.