Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Grocott Excerpts

Monday 13th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

My Lords, I support the amendment. It is a timid one but it is the only one we have, and I will wholeheartedly support it. There is a paradox, is there not, about one aspect of the punishment of someone who has put themselves outside society being to keep them outside society? Surely the very heart of rehabilitation is to get a prisoner thinking once again that they relate to the society that they have offended against—to bring them back inside the “big society tent”, if you like. It seems to be a self-injury to have the rule at all, although I can perhaps understand how the law is as it is out of respect for public sentiment, however wrong that sentiment may be. With that, I will simply say that I endorse and support what the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, has said.

[Lord Grocott]

My Lords, I had not intended to intervene on this. I have two brief points. First, I know that I shall be told that this is a ferociously anti-European thing to say, but it is emphatically not intended to be that. Am I the only person in this House, or indeed in the other House, who always feels slightly uncomfortable when a Government, of whichever party, stand up and say, “This is something we’ve absolutely got to do, whether we like it or not”? There comes a point where you question the extent to which that is compatible with a sovereign Parliament. It is always a bad argument, and I have seen this on a number of other occasions, if an elected Member of the other House has to go back to their constituents and say, “This is something we have no choice whatsoever about; this is a matter that’s been decided somewhere else”. That is a weak argument and I know that my noble friend did not deploy it; he addressed the actual merits of the case. That is just an observation.

Secondly, I am sure that there is an answer to this, but I am simply not versed enough to know it. Given that there are many other countries where I understand there is an unfettered right to vote in general elections, the practicalities of exercising that right in a meaningful way seem very difficult. A normal constituency campaign involves access to constituents and potential constituents if you are a candidate. It involves meetings, if necessary, and canvassing. I am sure that these practical questions have been asked long before I raised them in this debate, but I would like to know what the practical answers are.