Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Falconer of Thoroton Excerpts

Wednesday 9th February 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

My Lords, we have had a very good and a very short debate. I support entirely the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick. We moved an amendment at an earlier stage in these proceedings proposing 10 per cent in exceptional circumstances. As the noble Lord has described, the Government, through a variety of Ministers, raised a number of reasons why a succession of amendments would not work. In relation to each of the problems raised by the Government, the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, produced a sensible solution.

At the heart of what the noble Lord is suggesting is acceptance of the principle of much greater equality, but there will be exceptional cases where it is necessary to give effect to an exception based on geography or local ties where a small bit of procrustean flexibility is sensible. That is a classically common-sense amendment which should be considered on its merits.

With the greatest of respect to the well known legal expert, the noble Lord, Lord King—a much respected figure in the House—I suggest that noble Lords look at the matter on the basis of the merits of the argument being advanced by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick. They should ignore views about the conduct over this Bill, ignore what the position may be in the future and ask themselves, “If we, as a House, agree this amendment to the Bill, will people outside this House think well of us and think that we improved the Bill in a way that gave a sensible degree of flexibility?”.

Almost the most powerful speech that we have heard in the course of the debate came from the noble Lord, Lord Williamson, who said that this should be an object lesson in how this House should operate. That is, the power of the argument on the merits should succeed. Of course, I am parti pris and therefore not in a position to give an argument that would be regarded as anything other than subjective but, my goodness, the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, has done the work, which nobody else has done in relation to this debate. I commend his amendment to the House.

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[Lord Newton of Braintree]

Briefly, I ask my noble friend why, if this river and estuary are to be written into the law in this way, others should not be? We have already had arguments about the Mersey. I live in Essex and the Thames is at least as substantial a division between Essex and Kent, I suspect, as the Tamar is between Devon and Cornwall. One can think of a number of other rivers including the Severn, which is a big division between the south-west and Wales, so why are we going to pick out only one? The problem with most of these rivers—I am afraid I do not know the West Country well enough to know whether it is thus with the Tamar—is that a dividing factor at the mouth, where that is so big, becomes a uniting factor further inland, where towns straddle the same river: the Thames, the Severn or whatever it might be. It is not rational to build this kind of consideration into this kind of legislation.

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

My Lords, I fear that I disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Newton of Braintree, and agree with the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, who, through the conduct of this sometimes slightly choppy Bill, has consistently carried the hopes of the people of Cornwall on his shoulders. He has spent a lot of time inside and outside the Chamber persuading people that Cornwall should be treated differently. He has persuaded us, strongly supported by the fact that we—and everyone else in this House—have heard forcibly from people who know about Cornwall. We support the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, and this House owes a lot to him.

One person who the noble Lord thought he might have persuaded was the noble Lord the Leader of the House, who said in Committee:

“Of all parts of the country, I think there is a genuine feeling in Cornwall”.

Unfortunately, he later went on to say:

“we reject the argument made in Cornwall because we want clarity and similarity to stretch right across the country”.—[Official Report, 25/1/11; col. 921.]

In this Bill, the Government have understood before they started that certain places required special consideration. The noble Lord, Lord Fowler, persuaded this House that the Isle of Wight should be given special consideration; the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, has done the same service. Please listen to what the people of these places are saying. I very much hope the Government will accede to what the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, has said.

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, I do not have any doubt about the passion, sense of identity and pride that my noble friend Lord Teverson brings to this debate about Cornwall. We are well aware of the broad views of the various political groupings and of the Members of Parliament. Last night I heard the noble Lord, Lord Myners, explaining why he could not be here today but leaving his own views on this on the record. As always, with this, as with a number of the other amendments that we have discussed throughout this Bill and in recent times, we come again to whether a special pleading—I do not say that in any pejorative sense—outweighs the Bill’s objectives of giving equal weight to the votes.

I also understand the argument being put that Cornwall would rather have only four MPs than five if one of them crosses the Tamar. I am not sure whether that is actually in the best interests of the people of Cornwall. I do not really understand the argument that the pride and the identity—the pride in Cornwall’s rich history and the talk of strong community—that we have heard of will be diminished simply because one MP is going to take responsibility outside Cornwall. The answer to my noble friend Lord Newton’s question is that I totally agree that there is no unique argument about river borders and we have not applied that in the Bill.

I recognise the strength of feeling in Cornwall but I cannot agree that Cornwall’s position is similar to the Scottish island constituencies in terms of why the exceptions were accepted. By this, I mean that the Bill originally provided for exceptions on the practical level. Without these exceptions, we would be faced with constituencies that would be impractical for Members and constituents and so would deny effective representation. In other words, the genuinely extreme geography of the dispersed Scottish island groups does not make it possible to combine them with the mainland, for practical reasons. If we look at the Scottish island groups in this way, we do not think it possible to argue the same case for Cornwall.

I recognise the strong sense of identity that many have in Cornwall. I do not agree that parliamentary constituencies can create or destroy that identity. I believe that a parliamentary constituency can cross the boundaries of a local authority, without taking away at all from the sense of identity of each constituent community within that constituency. The fact that a parliamentary constituency might cross boundaries, be it in Ayrshire or Cornwall, in no way takes away from that sense of identity. I repeat; I have heard no argument that convincingly sets out the opposite case.

I know that we have had a lot of fun about Cornwall and Devon. I occasionally have jousts with my noble friend Lord Shutt about the relative merits of Lancashire and Yorkshire. That is part of a long tradition within our United Kingdom but it is very difficult to push those arguments too far. Further, I argue that there is strong evidence to support the case that constituencies can and do exist that contain more than one community with more than one sense of identity. Many Members of the other place represent diverse communities today, from constituents with rural and urban communities to those containing the speakers of dozens of different languages, all of whom have their different cultural identity. Belonging to one constituency does not detract from one or diminish that diversity. I believe that Members of the other place who are in that situation do an excellent job representing the various interests of all their constituents.

Again, I recognise the strength of feeling and pay tribute to the campaign that my noble friend has waged, but I cannot agree that we should depart any further from our objective of greater equality in the value of votes unless the geographical ramifications of doing so might create an impractical constituency. We do not see a sense of local identity and the setting of a parliamentary constituency as an either/or decision. Instead, we seek the best balance between respecting a local objective and a national one. Locally, the opportunity to voice one’s opinion to the Boundary Commission at a public meeting means that those commissions will be able to take local factors into account on a case-by-case basis. Nationally, we want electors to know that their vote counts and has equal weight as much as we possibly can. The Bill, we believe, presents the best balance between those two important principles, so, although I respect his passion, I invite my noble friend to withdraw his amendment.

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Moved by

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

25ZB: Clause 11, page 12, line 13, at end insert—
“(6) The total number of seats to be allocated to any part of the UK shall not be more than ten per cent fewer than the current number of constituencies; and if the number of seats allocated by the process described in sub-paragraphs 1 to 5 of rule 9 exceeds that limit in any part of the UK then additional constituencies shall be allocated to that part to bring its allocation within ten per cent of the current number of constituencies.
(7) This number of seats shall then be the allocation for that part of the UK for the purposes of rule 9.
(8) Any reallocation to one or more parts of the UK made under the terms of sub-paragraphs (6) and (7) above shall not result in any change to the allocation already allotted to any other parts of the UK.”

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

My Lords, we have in this group two amendments which relate principally to Wales. The Bill will have a greater impact on Wales than on any other nation in the UK. Wales is projected to lose 10 seats of the 40 it currently has; that represents a 25 per cent reduction in its Westminster parliamentary representation. In Committee, we heard noble Lords from across the Chamber passionately describe the effect of that on Wales.

The Welsh Affairs Select Committee in the other place produced a report in October last year that was highly critical of the proposed changes. A decision to cut the representation in Parliament of one of the nations of the United Kingdom—Wales—by a quarter at a stroke should be shown to have been subject to the most careful and measured consideration and should be taken in the light of proper examination of alternative approaches, including a slower pace of change. The impact of the Government’s proposals on Wales is a complete departure from the current legal minimum of 35 seats for Wales enshrined in the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986. It is also a significant reduction in the number of Welsh constituencies in place when the Welsh people voted for the devolution settlement in 1998. That settlement, as the former Welsh Secretary, the right honourable Paul Murphy, noted in debates in the other place, was a package. It was, he explained,

“not simply the establishment of the Assembly, but the continuance of Members of Parliament, at that level, here in the House of Commons to protect the interests of the people of Wales and their nation. If we have a referendum, and there are greater powers, that might change, but at least people would have voted on it. However, in 1998, they voted for the opposite—the retention of Members of Parliament”.—[Official Report, Commons, 6/9/10; col. 72.]

That point was echoed by Mr Simon Hart, the Conservative Member of Parliament for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire, who warned the Government that a reduction of 25 per cent in the number of Welsh constituencies ahead of the referendum on new powers for the Welsh Assembly was being decided,

“without any reference to the Welsh nation”.—[Official Report, Commons, 6/9/10; col. 119.]

This speaks to the second of the amendments in this group which the opposition Front Bench also supports. We acknowledge that there was a reduction in Scottish Westminster representation when powers were devolved to Holyrood. There may need to be a reduction in the number of Welsh Westminster seats following a similar pattern, but it is right that such a reduction should take place only once further primary law-making powers are transferred. For this reason we should await the outcome of the March referendum in Wales and then make a judgment. That is the tone and purpose of Amendment 30.

Putting aside the issue of the referendum, the amendment in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Bach would in effect ensure that there was no reduction in the number of seats greater than 10 per cent in any one country in the United Kingdom at one time. The imposition of a UK-wide electoral quota of the kind imposed by the Bill is bound to create one or two enormous Welsh constituencies that will be overwhelmingly rural in nature and will cover wide, and in places, inaccessible territories. It will force the construction of new constituencies in the Welsh valleys, which will be impractical, difficult and injurious to local community ties. We are not arguing that Wales should be protected from any reduction in parliamentary representation. We are political realists and we understand that the Government have basic objectives, including the creation of more equal sized seats. We recognise the legitimacy of some of those objectives. The question is whether they need to be pursued in quite so rigid and fast a fashion and in a way that excludes almost all other factors.

As we are beginning to see in debates and votes on amendments, those things which would inject a little more flexibility in the rigid rules set out in the Bill are implacably opposed by the Government. Wales appears an obvious area where sensitivity ought to be given to its special geographical characteristics as well as to its status as a small nation within a larger union in which England is the dominant force in wealth, population and political representation. The Welsh Affairs Committee stated that its concern was,

“about how the Government's proposals will affect Wales in ways distinct from the overall picture for the UK”.

While Wales will lose 25 per cent of its MPs, Northern Ireland will see a reduction of 17 per cent, Scotland 16 per cent and England 5 per cent. Our amendment seeks to assert that a more sensible approach would be to ensure that at any one boundary review no part of the United Kingdom should experience a drop of more than 10 per cent in its number of seats. If the Government profess to be interested in fairness, it is important that the interests of each region of the United Kingdom are properly heard at its national Parliament when national representation is being debated.

As I have said, the Government’s proposals would reduce at a stroke the number of MPs representing Wales by 25 per cent. As the Select Committee concluded, by any yardstick this would be a profound change to the way that Wales is represented in Parliament. Our amendment does not preclude an eventual reduction to that effect but would ensure that such a change would be gradual. I invite the Government to consider accepting this amendment. I beg to move.

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[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

My Lords, I would passionately defend a united kingdom, but I do not honestly believe that it is doing service to all parts of the United Kingdom if we say that some part of it needs a hand-up. I believe in each of the constituent parts of our United Kingdom—Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and England—having equal status. That is why, when the other place is dealing with issues such as defence or macroeconomic policies, the votes of a person in Wales should carry equal value to those of a person in Scotland, Northern Ireland and England. That is not unfairness or inequality. In fact, to do otherwise would put inequality into the system. I therefore ask the noble and learned Lord to withdraw the amendment.

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

My Lords, as the noble and learned Lord said, “I have not heard why Wales should be treated differently”. Our amendment simply proposes getting to the same point as everyone else but doing it in a gradual way that does not put the union under strain. Not once did the Minister address that argument. I wish to test the opinion of the House.

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Moved by

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

27F: After Clause 11, insert the following new Clause—
“Variation in limit of number of holders of ministerial offices
(1) The House of Commons Disqualification Act 1975 is amended as follows.
(2) For section 2(1) substitute—
“(1) The number of holders of offices specified in Schedule 2 to this Act (in this section referred to as Ministerial offices) entitled to sit and vote in the House of Commons at any one time, whether paid or unpaid, must not exceed 95 if the number of constituencies in the United Kingdom is 650.”(3) After section 2(1) insert—
“(1A) If the number of constituencies in the United Kingdom decreases below 650, the limit on the number of holders of Ministerial offices entitled to sit and vote in the House of Commons referred to in section 2(1) must be decreased by at least a proportionate amount.”(4) In subsection (2), after “subsection (1)”, insert “or subsection (1A)”.”

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

My Lords, this is about the size of the Executive. The effect of this amendment would be to reduce the size of the Executive in proportion to the reduction in the number of MPs. There is no issue that it should not happen. Not surprisingly, Mr Nicholas Clegg declared before the election:

“I want to be clear: I am talking about a major reorganisation of Whitehall … As a result of our restructure the number of Ministers and government whips would be reduced from 119 to 73”.

Mr David Cameron, now the Prime Minister, in a lecture entitled “Rebuilding Trust in Politics”, sounded a similar note, promising:

“We’d want to reduce the power of the executive and increase the power of Parliament … We’ve got to give Parliament its teeth back so that people can have pride in it again—so they can look at it and say ‘yes: those MPs we elect—they’re holding the government to account on my behalf’”.

The effect of reducing the number of MPs by 50 without decreasing the number of officeholders entitled to sit and vote in the House of Commons by the House of Commons Disqualification Act 1975 is to increase the size of the government Front Bench proportionate to the number of Back-Benchers.

In Committee the noble Lord the Leader of the House said that,

“there is a very serious underlying point and that is the fear that the proportion of the Executive will increase as the number of Members of Parliament falls. I understand that there is an impatience in this Committee to know how the Government will address that fact. I am trying to be as helpful as I can but there is a limit to the helpfulness.”

You can say that again. He went on:

“We have said that we will address this issue and we will, but there is plenty of time to legislate before 2015 if we need to. The Minister for Political and Constitutional Reform told the Constitution Committee, of which my noble friend and the noble and learned Lord are members, that we will bring forward proposals during this Parliament. That is in good time as the reduction in the size of the other place will not yet have taken effect. I hope that is a sufficient reassurance”.—[Official Report, 26/1/11; col. 1058.]

No; that is, on the scale of reassurance, nil. Do we trust this Government to introduce measures to reduce the number of Ministers in the other place? No we do not. The only way to deal with that is if Parliament is prepared to do it by saying, “Let’s reduce the number of Ministers”, as Mr Nicholas Clegg, Mr David Cameron and the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde—the triumvirate on which the Government are based—said they would. I do not trust them to do it in 20 years. In those circumstances, I invite the House to do it. I beg to move.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

My Lords, my Amendment 27FA would insert a new clause after Clause 11, and after the new clause inserted by the amendment of my noble and learned friend. His new clause relates to the size of the Executive—the number of Ministers. My new clause is intimately related to that and deals with the number of Parliamentary Private Secretaries. I propose that their number should also be reduced commensurately with any reduction in the size of the House of Commons. We are talking here of the so-called payroll vote—the payroll which consists not only of salaried Ministers and one or two unsalaried Ministers, but of Parliamentary Private Secretaries. Although they are unpaid, they are always somewhat sardonically referred to as being members of the payroll vote.

In Committee, noble Lords on all sides of the House expressed their concern that the capacity of the House of Commons to hold the Executive to account would be further enfeebled if the size of the payroll vote were not to be reduced in proportion to the reduction of the size of the House of Commons. An important amendment on that matter moved by the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, attracted a great deal of interest and support on all sides. Since then, I have learnt that the Speaker of the House of Commons himself has expressed concern that reducing the number of MPs without a commensurate reduction in the number of Ministers would skew the Westminster playing field in favour of the Government, as has the steady expansion of the payroll. Those sentiments were attributed to Mr Speaker Bercow in an article in the House Magazine.

Mr Cameron has appointed a lavish number of Parliamentary Private Secretaries, considerable numbers of party vice-chairmen and special representatives. His latest appointment in that genre is a defence envoy for Gibraltar. The Member of Parliament who has been appointed to that distinguished role is someone for whom I have the highest personal regard, but the important point is that she will be bound into the patronage system and lose her capacity to express an independent point of view—certainly in terms of voting. Richard Hall, writing in the House Magazine, said that patronage sucks in more and more Back-Benchers, leaving fewer to hold the Government to account.

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[Lord McNally]

That is a very valid point that could be looked at. Successive Governments have relied on the goodwill of Members of this House to take on considerable duties and responsibilities. Again, I do not rule out looking at those matters. However, now is not the time to legislate on the issue. The reduction in the size of the other place will not come into effect until the next election in 2015. It would be much better to consider these questions closer to the time, when the parliamentary landscape will be much clearer. I assure noble Lords that we are looking at this question, but it does not need to be answered—and it would be wrong to answer it—in the Bill. Therefore, I invite the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, for tabling Amendment 27FA. The amendment is similar in principle to that tabled by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, and the noble Lord, Lord Bach, so I shall be brief in my response. We are sympathetic to the intention of the amendment. The Government are keen to investigate the options for addressing the issue, and keen to hear any thoughts that noble Lords may have. We recognise the noble Lord's desire to limit the payroll vote. However, even with the provisions of the amendment, were the number of parliamentary private secretaries to be increased before a general election, a post-electoral reduction would not introduce the changes that the noble Lord intends. The issue needs further consideration and we cannot commit to making these provisions in the Bill.

We do not wish to see an increase in the payroll vote as a result of the Bill, but now is not the right time to legislate on the issue. The Government believe that it would be better to consider the issues after the change in the political landscape that will be brought about by the Bill has been made clearer. As I said, the issues raised are very real ones about the relationship between the Executive and Parliament, and even in eight months, the Government have established a record that means that the realism of the noble Lord, Lord Boateng, is more appropriate than the cynicism of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer. We will address these matters and I ask the noble and learned Lord to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

The noble Lord, Lord McNally, has the respect of the whole House. However, with regard to the two areas to which he referred, the Government’s record over the past eight months has been dismal. The first issue that he mentioned was the Government’s respect for Select Committees, but I have today been shown a letter sent by the Constitution Select Committee of this House, agreed by every single member of that committee, complaining about the fact that the Government did not provide a reply of any sort to their comments on this Bill. The Select Committee said that now that the proceedings are almost over, any reply would be “of no value”. Therefore, the Government are wrong to claim that they have a good record on Select Committees. Secondly, as my noble friend Lord Howarth of Newport said, the Government now have the biggest payroll vote in history.

Therefore, in my view it is misplaced, first, to complain that we should admire the Government for what they have done in those respects over the past eight months, and, secondly, to ask us to trust the Government in relation to delaying the reduction in the size of the Executive proportionate to the reduction in the number of MPs. The noble Lord asked why we should do that now when it would not come into effect until 2015. However, we are legislating now to reduce the number of MPs, and therefore the obvious time to make the change is at the same time. I am completely unclear what further information is required to make a decision about this, the Government having said that they support such a reduction, and so I wish to test the opinion of the House.

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Moved by

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

28B: After Clause 13, line 4, after “the” insert “anticipated”

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

My Lords, the government amendment inserts the creation of a committee to review whether the decrease in the number of constituencies is right. The committee has no end date. The committee comes into effect only after the introduction of the reduction of the number of Members of Parliament. Yesterday, during Report, the Leader of the House, the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, described the committee as the starting point for the changes in the reduction from 650 to 600. He was right to describe it as the starting point, because most people, looking at whether to make a major change, look at the evidence first, examine it and then reach a conclusion whether or not to act. That is why it is called a starting point. That seems sensible. This Government, however, will instead make the change and then set up the starting point—which, with respect, seems absurd. That is why our amendments make the arrangement that the committee is set up first, before the change is done.

That is illustrative of the lack of care which has been taken about these changes, and it is a serious matter. This should not be dealt with in a flip or unthought-out way. A committee without an end date, without a process for choosing a chair, and with the most limited terms of reference is by no means ideal. We accept that there should be a committee. If this hardly thought-out piece of work is what is being offered, we will take it because nothing else is on offer. I would have hoped that the Government could have tried a little harder.

[Lord Williamson of Horton]

In this case, as in many others, timing—in particular, the timing of this review—is the principal question. That is apparent from the amendments tabled by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer. I sometimes think that it would have been instructive if, when we started the whole of this great debate on the Bill, we had installed a couple of clocks on the wall of the Chamber—not clocks to keep a record of the length of our speeches but to show the number of hours and minutes remaining until a referendum on 5 May, and until the completion of the constituency and boundary changes in October 2013.

It is those periods and the Government’s fear that proposals might prejudice them which have determined the fate of many proposed amendments. In the case of this amendment, as the noble Lord, Lord McNally, said, there have been a lot of questions about the decision to move to 600 Members of the House of Commons, the reasons for that change and a demand for some independent study of the consequences. The most comprehensive of those was the amendment moved yesterday, which was not accepted, by the noble Lord, Lord Wills. In Committee, I myself proposed an amendment that would have deferred the coming into force of Clause 11 until the end of the Boundary Commissions’ work, thus providing some time in which it would have been possible to undertake some examination of the consequences. The Government, however, made it quite clear that any infringement of the march to October 2013 is not acceptable to them. I assume that they will have the same difficulties with the amendments of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer.

We should therefore consider the proposal of the noble Lord, Lord McNally, on its merits as a proposal for post-legislative scrutiny—which is what it is now. For myself, I think that it would be useful to have it in the Bill. It is a requirement that there should be a committee to carry out a review of the effects of the reduction and the changes to the constituencies; otherwise we may very well not get one at all, ever. Who knows what Government will be in power from 2015? It will be useful to have a review to draw some conclusions. I do not think that we should overrate its importance, but I think that it would be useful to do that.

I am aware that yesterday the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, described Amendment 28A as “almost contemptible”. I do not agree with that. However, I was extremely glad that he included the word “almost”. I think that it is reasonable to have this proposal which the Government have now put forward in the Bill, and I hope that it will pass this evening.

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[Lord McNally]

As I have said before, many of the dynamics of this, and much of the cynicism from the Opposition, will be overtaken by the sheer dynamism of the Government’s reform programme.

If these amendments were accepted, there would be a real risk that the deliberations of the committee and the publication of its review would interfere with, and even potentially undermine, the ongoing boundary review. That could result in fighting the next general election on the basis of unequal constituencies which are based on electoral data that are 15 years out of date. The cynics might even suggest that that has been the motivation behind much of what the Labour Party has been about these last—five months, is it? Secondly, if the review were conducted on the basis of an anticipated reduction of constituencies, the advantage of taking into account what the Bill’s actual effect had been would be lost.

If we put in train the review next month it will be little more than a continuation of the debate that we have had over the past few weeks. Although I know that many noble Lords will be suffering withdrawal symptoms, I think that we should resist this proposal. We have had a very thorough discussion and debate on the reasons that the Government had in mind when they provided for this reduction of the size of the other place. Noble Lords opposite have returned many times to the Government's rationale, probing carefully at each stage of the Bill’s passage through this House.

The culmination of these debates was yesterday, when we debated the proposal for a committee of inquiry moved by the noble Lord, Lord Wills, and the amendment that effectively retained the number of constituencies in the other place moved by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer. Noble Lords tested the opinion of the House on both those amendments and both those amendments were disagreed. Given that, I feel that it is now right that we press on with the boundary review and consider its impact when we have the hard evidence of the impact that it has had. That would have two advantages. First, it would move on from the useful debates that we have had about what might be the case, to see what actually was the case. Secondly, it would allow the aim of the Bill to be achieved, which all sides of the House have said that they are in favour of—that the next election will be based on more equally sized constituencies and the most up-to-date electoral data available. I therefore ask the noble and learned Lord to withdraw his amendment to my amendment.

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

My Lords, there is force in what the noble Lord says about the rejection yesterday of the amendments on a committee of inquiry. I therefore beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 28B (to Amendment 28A) withdrawn.

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[Lord Low of Dalston]

From the Cross Benches, I must say that that was an absolutely marvellous speech from the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth. Most ingeniously, he managed to give us a wonderful warm-up for the debates that we shall no doubt have about the reform of this House. However, at this stage of the Bill, on which we have laboured for so many hours, I suggest that it might not be a good idea to go too much further into that debate. At one and the same time, he has not only done that but has also given us a wonderful valedictory on the debates we have had. He pointed to a number of factors that he rightly suggested we would do well to reflect on. The first was the great increase in the number of Members of this place, but I will not elaborate on what he said about all the disadvantages that that can entail. In a very even-handed and fair-minded way, he made some comments about what his side of the House would do well to reflect on: namely, the flexibility with which they have handled the many issues that have been raised in this debate. He also suggested that the brinkmanship, which some of us may have felt has been practised on the other side, may have also gone too far and affected the reputation and regard in which this House is held.

The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, has therefore at a stroke pointed to a number of factors that, unless we row back from the place that we have got to, could well contaminate the debates which we are bound to have about the future shape and composition of this House. We would do very well to heed his words and, as we come to the end of these proceedings, to reflect on all the points that he has brought to our attention and perhaps row back a bit from the place that we have got to at the end of this Bill.

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

My Lords, I believe that this is a significant amendment and that the speech that the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, made in introducing it impressed the House with its quality and seriousness. He made a number of points that obviously resonated around the Chamber. I support the amendment. With respect to the noble Lord, Lord Low, I do not agree that it is not appropriate for this Bill. It is appropriate because of the underlying principles that have been advanced by the Government in relation to why the House of Commons is going to be reduced.

The anxiety that now exists throughout this House is that no regard is being shown to the good workings of the House in the context of the people who are coming here. I make it absolutely clear that every single one of the people who have come has the highest possible quality and regard. This has nothing to do with the quality of the people who have come who are all much admired and many of whom have made a real contribution to the House. It is to do with the good working of the House. If we are having a reduction in the size of the House of Commons in order to make it work well, at the same time, we should not have an increase in the size of the House of Lords that might, for the sorts of reasons referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Cathain, make its workings become more difficult. In those circumstances, we support this amendment.

It is important to look briefly at the position of the Government. They justify the reduction in the number of MPs in part by the costs they incur. Mr Nicholas Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, stated during the Second Reading in the other place that:

“We settled on 600 MPs, a relatively modest cut in House numbers of just less than 8%, because it saves money—about £12 million each year”.—[Official Report, Commons, 6/9/10; col. 39.]

I am not persuaded that cutting the size of the other place is necessarily wise; nor am I persuaded that the real way to judge whether we should cut the number of MPs is how much they cost; nor am I necessarily persuaded that that is the real motivation. But accepting all those things at face value, it is worth just considering what the cost has been of increasing the size of the House of Lords. Since the general election, the Prime Minister has appointed 116 new Peers. On the basis of an Answer given by the Chairman of Committees in 2009, each Peer costs £168,000 per year. That totals £19,656,000. According to the House Library, the Prime Minister is appointing—

[Baroness O'Cathain]

That figure surely includes items such as building works, security and maintenance. The fact that we are operating in this amazing building should not be added on to the cost of Peers. In any business, you would not do that.

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

I am using the figures that the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon of Tara, gave. The noble Baroness may well be right that looking at those figures again, we could take other and better figures, but these are the only figures we have at the moment because I understand that the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, was asked and refused to answer.

According to the House Library, the Prime Minister is appointing new Peers at a rate well in excess of any of his recent predecessors. The number of new Peers appointed in the first year by Mr Callaghan was 19; by the noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher, it was 18; by Sir John Major it was 25; by Mr Blair it was 38; and by Mr Brown it was 16. I remind the House that the number appointed by the current Prime Minister before the end of his first year is 116. That is a remarkable trend.

[Lord Trimble]

Steady on. A large chunk of that was the nominations that he inherited from the outgoing Prime Minister and I think the noble and learned Lord should acknowledge that.

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

I do not know what number that was. It was perhaps 30 at the most, so that would make the Prime Minister’s figure double the highest figure. I do not think that anyone, except perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Trimble, would dispute that the Prime Minister has appointed Peers at a much faster rate than anyone else in recent times and as we understand the effect of the coalition agreement, he has not yet finished. The coalition agreement says:

“Lords appointments will be made with the objective of creating a second chamber that is reflective of the share of the vote secured by the political parties in the last General Election”.

The report of the constitution unit of University College London of 22 November 2010 estimates that fulfilling that commitment will result in a House of 977 compared to the current 786, which makes it already the largest second chamber in the world. The coalition agreement on Lords appointments would therefore mean an additional 200 Peers. Accepting the limitations on the figures, which the noble Baroness, Lady O'Cathain, has rightly pointed out—that means that there may be better figures—that would mean an additional cost of £33.5 million. Even if one took a third of that figure to deal with the capital costs, the saving of approximately £12 million each year, which is advanced as the reason for making the cull in MPs, would be dwarfed. The importance of those figures is that they perhaps undermine the justification given.

Even assuming that one put to one side the question of the unsound basis being advanced by the Deputy Prime Minister for culling the number of MPs, the views expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, my noble friend Lord Grocott and the noble Baroness, Lady O'Cathain, are very widely shared around the House. If the trend goes on at the rate that has been said, putting aside the costs, the workings of this House will not improve but will get worse.

What the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, is suggesting is not something that will cause delay in the introduction of the reduction of MPs in the other place. It is not in any sense an amendment that cuts to the quick of the Bill. He proposes that the changes will not come into force until legislation has been introduced—only introduced—into either House of Parliament to limit the number of Members of the House of Lords. He is not saying what the number should be and he is not saying how it should be calculated. He is simply saying to the Government, “Put your money where your mouth is and do something about it. What you do is a matter for you in detail but you must address the issue”. That is a moderate and reasoned approach that would find favour around the House. It is a very serious issue which connects in completely with this Bill and I shall be very interested to hear what the noble Lord, Lord McNally, has to say about it.

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords for their contributions. Perhaps I should put the statistics given by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, into place, as I could see a few puzzled faces when he mentioned the figure of £168,000 as the cost per Peer. I thought I saw the noble Lord, Lord McAvoy, take out his pocket calculator to work out why he was getting a fair amount less than £168,000 for attending this place. As newspapers love to bandy around such figures, it is better to put on the record that expenses drawn by most Peers for attending this place average out at about one fifth of that figure. Let us not get canards about—

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

I completely accept that and I completely accept that £168,000 could not possibly be the costs that an individual Peer draws from the House. I quite understand that, without this correction, people might well have understood that that was what I was saying. However, I was saying that obviously the cost of a Peer is most certainly not simply the expenses that he or she draws but also particular costs such as the provision of a room, heat and support which go up by reference to Peers; and that comes to a lot more. The marginal costs are obviously significantly more than the expenses drawn by individual Peers.

[Lord McNally]

More and more, the noble and learned Lord reassures me that he was in the MoJ and not the Treasury. I accept that.

I should also like to associate myself with the comments about the quality of newcomers. I really think that the new intake has established itself with authority and that it adds to the strength of the House. As to my own credentials for replying to this debate, before the 1997 election, I was on the Cook-Maclennan committee—the Liberal Democrats and the Labour Party—which discussed reform of this place. Indeed, at one stage in that committee we considered the concept of a great reform Act that would tie all the constitutional reforms into one great Bill. However, we backed off doing that due to the complexity of such a measure.

I should point out right at the beginning that, interestingly, throughout our history there has never been an interdependence in terms of reforming the two Houses. The oft-quoted 1832 Bill was a reform of the House of Commons; it did not touch the House of Lords. The 1911 Bill was a reform of the House of Lords—it did not touch the House of Commons—as was the 1999 Act introduced by the previous Labour Government. Therefore, there is no interdependence in this regard.

I put forward another thought in this interesting debate in relation to the Wakeham commission. I now freely admit that I think we missed an enormous opportunity in not accepting the Wakeham commission’s report. At that time I was a “big bang” reformer who thought that reform could be introduced quickly. I remember saying to the noble Lord, Lord Rodgers of Quarry Bank, that I could not believe that the Labour Government, given the majority that they had, would leave Lords reform on the shelf. I also said, “Wakeham is too timid. Let us wait and they will come forward with a real ‘big bang’ reform”—little did I know. However, as I have said before, there is a lot in the Wakeham report that could be revisited when we consider Lords reform. I also believe that the Steel Bill constituted a missed opportunity on the part of the previous Government. They could have accepted it and it would have been a major step forward.

However, that is in the past. The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, asked how we could justify enlarging the House of Lords while reducing the size of the other place. The only frank answer to that is, “with great difficulty”. It contrasts with what we are doing in this Bill. However, as I have said, the reason for that in part is the skill with which this House has deflected reform. We are left with a situation where it is difficult, if not impossible, for Peers to resign. We have always had to face the problem that without the ability to resign, and with Peers sitting for life, the composition of this place would be adjusted when Governments changed, and that there would always be a ratcheting upwards unless we addressed more fundamental reform.

However, the illogicality—or the lack of kilter—in what is happening should not be judged as a snapshot but, as I have said before, as part of a moving picture of dynamic reform by the Government, who will bring forward measures. As I explained, the Deputy Prime Minister is chairing a cross-party committee and one of the key issues that it is discussing is the size of the reformed Chamber. We are working to publish a draft Bill for pre-legislative scrutiny early this year.

I understand the variety of views that have been expressed. As one who wants a reform that works, I hope that the pre-legislative scrutiny committee drawn from both Houses will be broad based and will give all sides the chance to put forward their ideas and fears. I am not sure that I have ever accepted the fears about gridlock. Many countries in the world have two elected chambers and manage to work out relationships. I know that many books have been written about the dangers of gridlock developing in the United States and elsewhere but it is possible to work it out. I foresee developments emerging such as a business committee of both Houses which would do that. As I said, I sat on the Cunningham committee. I have always taken the view—the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, and I have debated this—that the relationship between the two Houses and our conventions would hold and would be tested by the two Houses, as they have always been. Therefore, these fears of doom and gloom are much exaggerated.

The Government believe that more can be done to allow Members of this House to leave permanently so that the size of the House can be reduced. The Leaders Group on Members leaving the House, chaired by my noble friend Lord Hunt of Wirral, published its report on 13 January. The Leader of the House has asked the Procedure Committee to come forward with proposals to put these recommendations into effect. I do not think that I would breach any secrets of the Procedure Committee on which my noble friend and I sit by saying that these proposals are on the agenda for our next meeting.

There is a Bill before the other place that seeks to limit the size of this House. The Parliament (Amendment) Bill was introduced by Mr Christopher Chope on 26 October 2010. Although the text of the Bill has not been published, it is clear from its Long Title that it will deal with the number of Peers. The size of this House is an important issue. But determining the size of the other place and this House do not have to be connected to one another in legislation. As I pointed out, they never have been in our history. The Bill aims to deliver concrete improvements to our electoral system as we find it today. Noble Lords will have ample—