Parliamentary Constituencies Bill

Lord Grocott Excerpts

Report stage & Report stage (Hansard) & Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 8th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I am delighted to welcome this amendment and to add my name to it. I can also be brief because of the excellent speech by my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham. I strongly supported the three-month provision in Committee, and I welcome this amendment, because it keeps the Conservative Party’s hands absolutely clean and above board. I make no apologies for reminding the House, as I did in Committee, that there have been only two occasions when Boundary Commission reports were abandoned: one was the disgraceful episode involving Jim Callaghan’s Government, who scuppered the report; and the other was a rather grubby move by the Lib Dems in 2011 to scupper the Boundary Commission report then. That was done purely out of spite because they had lost the PR referendum.

Enough of going over old bones: this now means that this Conservative Government will deliver on the commitment to make sure that Boundary Commission reports are presented automatically within four months unless there are these exceptional circumstances. My noble friend Lord Young cited a couple; they do seem to be rather serious and very exceptional circumstances. I will be grateful if my noble friend the Minister has got any more examples, but they do seem to set a standard that it would be very exceptional circumstances indeed before a Boundary Commission report did not proceed. Therefore, I welcome this compromise and I commend it to the House.

[Lord Grocott (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I certainly support this amendment; without it the Bill would have been based on a false prescription

Repeatedly during the passage of the Bill, we heard from Ministers that through it, Boundary Commission proposals can be brought forward without political interference. The dreadful word “automaticity” entered our vocabulary —or was refreshed—repeatedly. Under the system prior to this amendment, which I hope will pass, there certainly was not automaticity; there was automaticity “up to a point, Lord Copper”. An automatic car goes up through the gears without any interference from the driver. In the case of this Bill, the Boundary Commission proposals could move forward seamlessly over the first few hurdles, but at the point where the Order in Council had to be presented, that involved the driver, who, in this case, of course, is the Minister. The amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Young, deals with that problem to a considerable extent—not quite as far as far as I would have liked, but there we are.

I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Young. I reread his Committee stage speech and it really was masterly. The Minister, in fairness, realised this and all but said, “game, set, match and tournament” when he was winding up. Of course, we still do not quite have automaticity, and the part of the amendment that maybe I should have put down an amendment to and do not feel too happy about is that the four-month requirement for the laying of the Order shall proceed

“unless there are exceptional circumstances.”

In his speech today, the noble Lord, Lord Young, was all too aware that the validity and strength of this amendment depends to a degree on what is meant precisely by “unless there are exceptional circumstances”. The Minister said that they would be things like the Covid crisis. No one would deny that that is an exceptional circumstance but of course, as far as I can remember in my political life, whenever there are exceptional circumstances of anything approaching that level, emergency legislation is immediately introduced. Among other things, as with the Covid legislation, this sets asides all sorts of aspects of normal political behaviour. It postpones local elections. You cannot get anything quite as interfering in the normal processes of democracy as postponing local elections.

I am quite certain that if exceptional circumstances of the sort the Minister is envisaging were ever to take place and emergency legislation were required, it would be easy to insert a provision stating that the four-month rule must be overruled. I really see no need to put in the Bill the phrase “unless there are exceptional circumstances”. It may have been one of the compromises that the noble Lord, Lord Young, acknowledged are necessary when parties are involved in discussions, but the Minister really does need to address this point when he winds up. Can he please list the exceptional circumstances the Government have in mind and are worried about? In each case, can he give me an example of when it would not be necessary to introduce emergency legislation? Any emergency legislation could easily deal with this issue—I do not think it is a problem, but it is addressed in the Bill—by allowing this “exceptional circumstances” exemption. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say about this, because I think it is a weakness in the amendment.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, not for the first time I find myself very much in sympathy with the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, who always contributes sage and sensible comments to debates on constitutional affairs.

I would like to begin by congratulating and thanking my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham. By accident, my amendment went ahead of his in the debate in Committee, but he was the one who did all of the work and he made a most impressive speech, as the noble Lord, Lord Campbell, said a few minutes ago; he has also been foremost in the negotiations following the debate. It would be churlish—because my noble friend Lord True was effectively replying to my amendment— not to thank him for what he said and what he has subsequently done.

I do not want to enter a discordant note, but I was tempted, as I said to my noble friend Lord Young the other day, to put down an amendment on the timing. I am very disappointed that it is four months. My noble friend Lord Young suggested “three months”, I suggested “six weeks”. I would happily have compromised, but I think four months is a shade long and I would like a brief explanation from my noble friend Lord True as to why he felt he had to go to that far.

The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, talked about exceptional circumstances. Of course, I accept that there are certain very sad and exceptional circumstances—one of which my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham referred to—but “exceptional” really has to be exceptional. I remain, always, suspicious of the Executive, from whichever political party they come, and I am always, first and foremost, a Parliament man. We have at least got a better outcome that we had in the original Bill. I am grateful for that, and I very much echo the words of my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham, who said there is great virtue in compromise. Of course there is, and may this indeed be a lesson to those who are currently conducting the most important negotiations in which our country has been involved for a very long time.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)]

The noble Lord, Lord Hain, and the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, have withdrawn, so I call the noble Lord, Lord Grocott.

[Lord Grocott (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I shall speak to my noble friend’s amendment and I agree with every word she said. I do not have a great deal to add. I also agree with much of what the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, said. That emphasises that we are not talking about an issue of principle in any of the amendments in the group but one of degree. It is worth reminding ourselves that there is widespread agreement across the House on most of contents of the Bill. That has been recognised even on a day like today when there have inevitably been Divisions, as there always will be. We are all agreed in our opposition to huge variations in the size of constituencies and that we should aim for equality—not precise arithmetic equality but much greater equality.

As regards my background in fighting elections, if anyone is qualified to speak on the issue of huge variations in constituency size, I can probably, without too much vanity, claim that qualification. At one stage, I represented a seat with an electorate of 57,000 and at another represented a seat with an electorate of 100,000. I therefore bow to no one in my belief that there should be far greater equality in constituency size, and that is agreed across the House.

We also all agree across the House—I include the Government in this—that there is much more to it than the simple question of arithmetic when determining constituency boundaries. We know all the guidance given to the Boundary Commission but in the Bill the Government acknowledge this issue by exempting certain constituencies from the general framework in which boundaries must be drawn. There are five such constituencies, whose inclusion I support but not for the flimsy reason that the Government claim—that they are all in one category. That is true to the extent that they are all islands or groups of islands but there also is a great deal of difference between them. No obvious similarities spring to mind between Anglesey and the Shetlands, or between the Isle of Wight and the Western Isles. Many more geographic issues need to be taken into account than the category of being islands, which is the only one that the Government seem to acknowledge, with all the frailties of that argument.

I agree with my noble friend’s amendment, which seeks greater flexibility and, in particular, has the important characteristic regarding Wales mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, and my noble friend Lady Hayter. I do not hesitate to repeat what I said in Committee. I was shocked at the impact of the boundary review proposals that we are considering in the Bill on representation in Wales. The House should walk on the other side on that issue with great care.

In conclusion, there is no great issue of principle that divides the Government from those of us who feel that there should be greater flexibility. All that we are asking is that they should change the rules in the Bill to allow a little more flexibility for the Boundary Commission, and Minister should offer more flexibility when he responds.

[Lord Wigley (PC) [V]]

My Lords, I very much agree with previous speakers on this group of amendments and support Amendment 18, to which I have added my name and, in the absence of my good friend, the noble Lord, Lord Hain, would be happy to move it, were that to be appropriate, if the Government were unwilling to move in that direction or to adopt an amendment moving in that direction.

Amendment 18 might be seen by some colleagues as being the more extreme option within this group, which seeks greater tolerance around the mean number of electors per constituency. That amendment applies only to Wales, and I appreciate the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, and the noble Lords, Lord Tyler and Lord Grocott. All referred to the challenging situation in rural Wales. It is therefore perfectly in order for noble Lords to support the smaller variations around the mean in England or Scotland, if they so choose, and I support their amendments seeking greater flexibility there. However, the imposition of still further flexibility in Wales can be taken on board because it does not change the number of seats allocated to Wales, merely the distribution within it. As has been stated, this would allow greater flexibility in respecting natural communities, geographic sparsity and ease of travel.

Wales should have at least 36 parliamentary seats but that is not the issue at stake in Amendment 18. It gives the Boundary Commission for Wales greater flexibility, if it chooses to use it, to respond to the topography and communities of Wales. As the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, suggested, constraining them into a straitjacket imposed by Westminster is not helpful. I urge the Government to accept this amendment or at least table an amendment of their own to meet these pressing arguments.