Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Grocott Excerpts

Wednesday 12th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness McDonagh]

To save time for your Lordships, I shall speak to Amendment 56. I put my name to this amendment because of my understanding of politics and government, which is that what can go wrong will go wrong. It seems a complete folly to introduce a major change to the voting system when none of us knows whether the referendum will be carried or not, which means that we have to organise the legislation in such a way that it can be implemented at the same time as introducing the biggest boundary changes that any of us have seen in our lifetimes. Only one constituency in the United Kingdom is guaranteed to fight an election on the same boundary. Why do we need to do this?

I suggest that it was with some irony that the Minister from the Lib Dem Benches said that the constituency changes are important because of the great principle that one vote would be equal to one vote. We are about to pass a law that will put a system to the vote where, in some cases in some constituencies, some voters will have two votes, where, in some cases in some constituencies, some voters will have three votes, and where, in some cases in some constituencies, some voters will have four votes and up to five votes. It is not because of the principle that one vote is equal to one vote, otherwise we would be debating a referendum on a pure PR system, which we are not. We know already, because we can see it from the figures, that constituencies in the United Kingdom are largely similar. However, they also have one other facet, which is that they represent communities. I believe that moving this change to 2016 will preserve confidence in our democratic system.

It seems to me to be quite right and proper to want to reduce the timescale for the Boundary Commissions. Reducing it by half, within the current funding constraints, can be seen as possible. Reducing it to two years suggests to me that people are not being realistic about the deliberations that need to be undertaken. In addition to the cost for the Boundary Commissions, I want to ask the Minister what extra provision is being made for local authorities, as many of these changes will fall on them.

In life, big risks should be taken where there are big rewards. I do not understand where the rewards lie in introducing both these new systems at the same time when we could undermine the faith of this country in its democratic systems. An example of this at the last election was that a small number of voters were locked out of polling stations that they had attended before 10 o’clock. This caused huge uncertainty and concern among the public. What the Government are proposing to do here poses a much greater risk.

[Lord Grocott]

Amendment 56A, in my name, covers much same ground as the two amendments that have been briefly discussed today, so I do not intend to speak to it when we reach it. My suggestion is that the Boundary Commission should be required to report by 2017. It is not a date that I have picked out of thin air; it was chosen in anticipation of the time that a Boundary Commission would normally take to complete its work. Lest the Committee should think that I am a Johnny-come-lately on these issues, I point out that I am an obsessive. When you have had the experience, as I have had, of representing a constituency with an electorate of around 90,000 when your majority is around 360, you look very closely at parliamentary boundaries.

As soon as I saw in 2009 that the Conservative Opposition, as they were then, were thinking of reducing the number of MPs, my mind flew to how the boundaries would be drawn. I asked the then Minister—a splendid Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Bach—in a Written Question how long it took to conduct a boundary review. He said in his Answer of 3 November 2009 that the previous boundary review for England had taken six years and eight months and that for Northern Ireland it had taken three years and five months. I know from my experience of various Boundary Commission changes—many other people in this Committee will have had the same experience—that consulting local people and discussing whether their community should be split, joined or divided is a lengthy process. The job has been very well done by Boundary Commissions in the past and the time taken has been reasonable.

Although I knew that the Conservative Party was likely to go ahead with its pledge when it came into government, I did not think that it would substantially short-circuit the period of time required for a proper boundary review. I have proposed 2017 because I anticipate that the Bill will become an Act this year, which will give the Boundary Commission six years to do its work. I do not think that is an unreasonable period.

Anyone who has been an MP knows that boundary redistributions are pretty uncomfortable and difficult processes, as are the consequences of Boundary Commission proposals, which often mean colleague fighting against colleague from the same party for nomination for a seat. If you believe in first past the post, as I strongly do, you obviously have to accept that constituencies should be broadly similar in size and that they should be reviewed, because populations and their distribution change. However, they should not be conducted with phenomenal regularity.

I think I am right in saying that the House of Commons has an unusually, if not unprecedentedly, large number of new MPs. When they have settled into the euphoria of becoming a new MP—and it is a pretty euphoric experience—they will discover that they had not bargained for the fact that within a few months someone will come along and change the boundaries of their constituencies, probably substantially. That will put them in conflict with neighbours and all the rest of it. What is more, that will happen every five years. I almost plead with the Government for their own sake that that is not a good idea. You will not make MPs of whatever party—this is not a Labour Party partisan plea—very happy if you put them in a continual state of uncertainty about the democratic base on which they stand.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

It is not just the sense of insecurity; it is the fact that it will influence the quality of entrants into the House of Commons because people make a judgment when they seek to be candidates. It is an important issue for many MPs.

[Lord Grocott]

I can see my noble friend’s point, although I am not sure I agree. There will always be a lot of people who want to be a Member of either of these Houses—quite rightly because it is a wonderful privilege. There is no shortage of people who are keen to stand, for all the hazards of elections—and I know all about the hazards. I simply put it to the Government that it is not unreasonable to suggest that we should have a reasonable period of time—six years was my suggestion—before the next boundary review, not least because we have only just had the last one. The 2010 general election was fought for the first time on new boundaries. That was pretty unsettling, as it always is. The Government are wrong to propose another one so soon. If they want to change the mechanism of elections, obviously they can do that. They have a majority that will enable them to do that. If they want this Bill to become an Act, in whatever amended form, they will probably get away with that as well.

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

Before my noble friend concludes, can he help me with a question that I asked earlier, which is not rhetorical? Why does he think the Government are being impelled into this unseemly haste? What is the motive for doing away with what has been an accepted British tradition for a very long time: the boundary review and public inquiry procedure? What is the motive for throwing all that away and removing the strong degree of political legitimacy that derives from this process?

[Lord Grocott]

That is a question for the government Front Bench. I think I know the answer. It has something to do with five days in May, but we can wait for those on the Front Bench to answer that. If they want to look after their own Back-Benchers, let alone the Back-Benchers of any other party, my advice to the Government is that to have parliamentary boundary reviews every five years is not such a good idea as they thought when it was first put on the drawing board.

[Lord Wills]

I support all the amendments to this clause, but I incline most to the amendment to which my noble friend Lord Grocott has just spoken. They all speak to the folly of the unmerited speed of what the Government are doing with these boundary reviews. The risks of their approach are manifold, and we have heard some of them already rehearsed this afternoon. I focus on one: the statistical inadequacy of conducting reviews on the basis of what is universally acknowledged to be a flawed electoral register. The best estimate that we have is that 3.5 million people are eligible to vote but are missing for one reason or another from the electoral register. How on earth can the Government propose to rush through a boundary review on the basis of such a flawed register?

The Government must be aware that the Labour Government took significant measures and passed legislation to ensure that the flawed electoral register was repaired. It gave the duty to the Electoral Commission of ensuring that by 2015 the electoral register was comprehensive and accurate, and gave it significant powers to achieve that end—powers that I see the Deputy Prime Minister is now claiming as his motivation and responsibility. Actually, the previous Government passed the legislation that gave the Electoral Commission those powers.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Maclennan of Rogart]

I have finished my speech.

[Lord Grocott]

My Lords, I cannot help but remark that, although the noble Lord, Lord Maclennan of Rogart, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness—who I assume will sum up the debate— both had long and distinguished careers representing their constituencies in London, their experience of boundary redistribution may not, I respectfully suggest, be very typical. Unless my geography is completely askew, the former constituency of the noble Lord, Lord Maclennan, was surrounded on three sides by sea and the former constituency of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, was surrounded on all sides by sea. To me, that suggests a security of tenure that I would have envied.

[Lord Maclennan of Rogart]

I thank the noble Lord for giving way. The reality is that the Boundary Commission added 25 per cent to the number of my electors. That did not give a sense of security.

[Lord Grocott]

Whatever the circumstances, being a Member of Parliament is not the most secure of roles.

I want to make two points. First, I have added my name to Amendment 58, in the name of my noble friend Lord Martin of Springburn, which would provide for Boundary Commission reviews every eight years. Certainly in my case, that number was not just plucked from thin air. The current law provides that the period between each redistribution should be between eight and 12 years. There needs to be some compromise—there is no tablet of stone that tells us how frequently redistributions should take place—but a requirement that redistributions should take place every eight years would have some historic precedent. I hope that our recommendation of eight years would go some way towards meeting the Government’s requirement to provide, on a continuing basis, for a rough equalisation of constituency sizes—a principle to which in general terms I certainly do not object. Requiring the review to take place every eight years would at least give Members of Parliament probably two terms in which they would represent the same area.

Secondly, I simply want to point out the sheer practicalities of the situation that my noble friend Lord Lipsey has described as a kind of permanent revolution. Members of Parliament would not be human—we have all seen this happen—if, having discovered halfway through a Parliament that they will lose a large section of their current constituency and gain another area from another constituency after the election, they did not start concentrating some of their activities and energies on the area that was to be transferred. They would not be human if they no longer attached quite the same level of attention as they had in the past to the bit that they knew would be going somewhere else in 18 months or two years. That is just a matter of sheer common sense and no reflection on the integrity or commitment of the vast majority of MPs. I have always believed that to have been the case.