Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Wednesday 19th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to support my noble friend Lord Fowler in his amendment, and to support Mr Andrew Turner, the Member of Parliament for the Isle of Wight. I cannot imagine what it must be like to be a Member of a governing party, or a party in a coalition, and find that a proposal is put forward to link your constituency with a part of the mainland for which there is no logical link. He has behaved with very considerable restraint. I have personally appreciated the way in which he has briefed us about the background to those issues.

At Second Reading, I made it clear that I do not like this Bill very much. Ideally, these issues of reducing the size of Parliament and deciding on how the boundaries are achieved would have been done by a Speaker’s Conference and not by a Bill of this kind. Ideally, there should not have been the two separate issues of AV and the reduction of the size of Parliament in the same Bill. That, however, is all water under the bridge. I confess I looked at the Bill with a certain degree of hostility, and perhaps because I am cynical, when I saw that there was an exception for Orkney and Shetland, I thought that that must be a bit of a deal with the Liberals, because that is a Liberal constituency. I realise that that was a wicked and improper thought. The Western Isles, of course, is a nationalist constituency. Then I had lunch today with Mr Charles Kennedy and I said, wrongly, “Of course, your seat is not affected”. He quite rightly pointed out that that was a widely held mistaken belief; although his seat is the largest—Ross, Skye and Lochaber—it is, of course, not exempted because the Boundary Commission simply has that as a size. He is in the same boat as everyone else. I accept that the reason that the Western Isles and Orkney and Shetland are made exceptions in the Bill is that, quite rightly, somebody recognised that they are distinctive communities. There are many islands that form part of Argyll which have all the problem of ferries and the rest that affect the Isle of Wight, but the key point is whether it is a distinctive community. Clearly the Isle of Wight is a distinctive community.

I do not wish to detain the House, but I would like to make one other general point. I return to what I had to say about Mr Andrew Turner. All of us in this House—especially those I expect who were Members of the other place—must feel great distress at the way in which the status and standing of Members of Parliament have taken a knock of late. One thing, however, that is really encouraging in all the polls and surveys is that people still hold their own Member of Parliament in high regard, even if they have a jaded view of Members of Parliament as a group.

One of the reasons for that is because the Member of Parliament is seen to be the Member for their area or community. I was a Tory in Sterling where two-thirds of the voters had never experienced or wanted a Tory but, as such, you were respected as the Member of Parliament—their man or their woman in Parliament. Even in the days of the rotten boroughs people came to represent the rotten borough, they did not come to represent a block of so many voters on the map. I support my noble friend’s amendment in the hope that the Government will listen—

[Lord Martin of Springburn]

I am sorry to disturb the noble Lord’s thought, but I would also like to say that I have a very high regard for Mr Turner. Andrew is a lovely person and a very hard working individual. It disturbs me that he had only a few moments on the Floor of the House to put the arguments that the noble Lord has put so succinctly. The noble Lord touched upon Argyll, and this disturbs me too—a great island community; I think we are talking about 15 islands—as the same went for Alan Reid, who was unable to speak or had very little say. The noble Lord is quite right that a Speaker’s Conference would have allowed those Back-Benchers to put the case for their communities.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

I bow to the noble Lord’s very great experience, not just as a former Speaker but as a parliamentarian. But, of course, we are where we are. The point that I wanted to make was that the identity between communities and Members of Parliament is very important. I am supporting my noble friend in the hope that the Government will recognise that the Isle of Wight has just as strong a case. The noble Lord, Lord Dubs, said, that it should have one constituency; it could have two and still be closer to the criteria set under the Bill than either the Western Isles or Orkney and Shetland.

On the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Martin, the Government, in looking at the Isle of Wight, should also think about this point about the identity between Members of Parliament and constituencies. This is not just a numbers game. If we end up making it a numbers game, we may very well find that the respect, support and influence that Parliament is able to bring to bear through its Members in their constituencies are greatly diminished at a time when we need to strengthen Parliament. That seems to me to be a very retrograde step.

On the other point that the noble Lord made, we have had a long debate about the procedure which in effect is bringing a guillotine to this House. That would, of course, bring all the disadvantages that we see in the Commons, which is why our workload has gone up. It was Robespierre who invented the guillotine and he ended up being a victim of it himself. I venture to suggest that this House may like to consider that example.

[Lord Pannick]

The strength of the case for this amendment confirms the mischief in this part of the Bill which we debated in Committee yesterday. The rigidity in the formula contained in rule 2 allows for these vital geographical and local considerations to be taken into account only in the two specific cases or within the rubric of the 5 per cent tolerance that the Boundary Commission has. We can seek to address this specific case, and there are many other examples—perhaps not quite as strong as the Isle of Wight—of particular local and geographical considerations, by adding one or two more exceptions to rule 2. Or, as I would prefer, the Government could now recognise that the rigidity of the Bill is quite indefensible. We desperately need a broader exception which allows the Boundary Commission to take account of these factors in what it regards as exceptional cases, of which the Isle of Wight is plainly one.

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[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

Perhaps the Royal Mail might find that useful for their coffers, but I am not sure whether that is going to happen. Perhaps I might draw it to the Committee’s attention that the Isle of Wight shares its police force with Hampshire and that, in other areas, the island is already making the most of its links with the mainland. On 28 October last, the Government approved a bid to create a Solent local enterprise partnership covering the economic area of south Hampshire and the Isle of Wight. Indeed, one of the expectations for successful bids was whether the geography proposed represented a reasonable, natural and economic geography. I am confident that an MP would be able to represent a constituency that meets those criteria, such as in a cross-Solent seat. The island has indicated a willingness to develop its long-term interests, where appropriate, in conjunction with its mainland neighbours.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

I find the point that my noble and learned friend has made about the police force curious. Orkney and Shetland share a police force with the mainland. What is the relevance of the police force?

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

I was acutely aware of that. I was just indicating that there were links. I was almost immediately going to come on to the point that the distinction which we believe that there is between the Isle of Wight and the two named exceptions in the Bill is that they cannot readily be included physically in a constituency with the mainland, owing to their distance and to the dispersed nature of those constituencies, which we believe are distinctive. Indeed, as has been said—the Committee was reminded of this by my noble friend Lord Hamilton of Epsom—there is the principle in the Bill of equal votes and equal value. The Government recognise the strong views that have been expressed and believe that, at the end of the day, the principle which I have articulated would not be achieved by this amendment. I nevertheless want to say in conclusion—

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[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

Indeed. I said that because I know for a fact that he does read these debates. I will certainly ensure that, before I have any meeting with my noble friend, my honourable friend, Mr Mark Harper, has read the terms of this debate and that would then inform the discussion that I am offering to have.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

I will put this very gently. What are we doing here? This is a Chamber of Parliament. We are debating legislation. My noble and learned friend speaks for the Government and says that a Minister in the other place reads our proceedings and will have a meeting. I am sorry, but that is treating this House with contempt. None of us wants to create a Division here, but the arguments have been put, this is Parliament, and surely the Minister’s duty is either to say “Your arguments are rubbish and we do not accept them”, or “I will go and talk to my colleagues to see if we can get collective agreement to meet them”. Simply to say “We will have a meeting” is not acceptable and not treating this House as a House of Parliament.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

In response to my noble friend, this is a Committee stage, there will be a Report stage and there will be an opportunity—the opportunity I offered—for the outcome of the discussions that take place to be considered. The House will return to it and if my noble friend Lord Fowler is not satisfied with the outcome of that meeting, I have no doubt that he will be willing to table an amendment again.