Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Howarth of Newport Excerpts

Wednesday 12th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness McDonagh]

I ask the noble Lord, Lord Lester, or anybody on the government Benches: why are the roles of government and the big society mutually exclusive? I find the notion quite shocking that it should exclusively be political parties that deal with underregistration and with underregistration of individual groups. I think that government and not-for-profit membership organisations in the voluntary sector should work in partnership to achieve these goals. In the run-up to Christmas, I was out every week doing registration as part of my local Labour Party. All the political parties were doing that work, as was the local authority. We increased the register by just under 4,000 voters across the local authority. That would have brought in 1 million voters across the country if people had done likewise everywhere. Every strong democracy in any country in the world sees government as responsible for compiling an accurate register. I think that it is quite shocking that you would not see that as the role of government.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

My Lords, the life of this country has been enriched and energised generation by generation by waves of immigrants coming to Britain and forming communities here. Whether they were Huguenots in the 17th century, Jewish refugees from central and eastern Europe in the first half of the 20th century, the Afro-Caribbean influx in the second half of the 20th century or Ugandan Asians within that same period, they have all contributed immensely to our society. The brilliance and energy of this capital city, London, seems to arise from the fact that it is a completely open international city, not that that is something that any Government have ever intended. Indeed, we have attitudes to immigration in official policy that seem to be curmudgeonly and mean and which are getting worse.

The question at issue is how those members of black and ethnic minorities, and other minorities, who are legitimately resident in this country should be engaged in the democratic process, should be entered on the electoral register and should be motivated to play their part and to exercise their democratic rights as citizens. Of those people legitimately here in the minorities, far too many are grievously disadvantaged. My noble friends Lord Boateng and Lady Thornton have both explained in reference to London and to Bradford just how bad the situation is.

This polarisation of our society is shameful. It is something that we must act on and not simply contemplate with regret. The voices of those who are unenfranchised as it is need to be heard. Their needs and their aspirations need to be represented, but they will not be unless they are registered to vote and exercise their vote. The best possibilities for the future of our society depend on their doing so and on the fullest integration within our society of those minorities.

The one-nation tradition has been a proud tradition of the Conservative Party. I hope that that tradition is not in abeyance and is not dead. One nation, of course, has to be characterised by a rich diversity economically, culturally, socially and politically. The condition of the electoral register—its completeness and accuracy—is a crucial test of our progress towards achieving that fullness of integration that will enable all our people to have the opportunities that they ought to have and our society to achieve the potential that it ought to recognise and to see. Failure to achieve that political integration must be a source of division, of tension and of the impoverishment of individuals and of us collectively.

I strongly support the view that has been expressed by my noble friends in moving and speaking to the amendment, and as was expressed by my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer of Thoroton earlier today, urging the Government to accept that there should be a drive this year to achieve a step change—a major improvement—in levels of electoral registration. That has to be a responsibility of all sorts of institutions, agencies and different groups within our society.

During this debate, mention has been made of the role of the political parties, the churches, the Equality and Human Rights Commission and the Electoral Commission. We have spent some time discussing the role of local authorities and their capacity to promote electoral registration. Above all, it should be the role of the Secretary of State to lead. I hope to hear from the noble and learned Lord the Minister, in his response, some account of how the Secretary of State will lead this process.

While we can disagree with many aspects of the reforms to which the Government have committed themselves in this Bill, all of us will accept that we must have a voting system that engages people. We must have a Boundary Commission and procedures for it to ensure that the boundaries are sufficiently contemporary and appropriate for the proper functioning of our democratic system. Without the improvement that is needed in electoral registration, those reforms will be deprived of their utility and the value that they ought to have. Reform, therefore, in the sense of real improvement in electoral registration, is no less important than the other reforms to which the Government are committed in the Bill.

I was surprised to hear the noble Lord, Lord Lester, say to the Committee that the law will not change attitudes, as one of the virtues of the equality legislation with which he is so honourably associated is that, while it may have taken decades longer than many of us would have wished to achieve the purposes that were enshrined in it, the way in which it has worked has been, as much as anything else, declaratory: it has stated a principle and established new norms in our society so that people understand what is proper. Gradually, attitudes and practice have conformed to that. I believe that the law can change attitudes. If this amendment is incorporated in the Bill, it will, by the declaration that it makes, help to change attitudes for the better and will have significant practical effects. I think that we should welcome that.

[Lord Lester of Herne Hill]

May I suggest that the noble Lord reads the White Papers of September 1974 and September 1975, where he will see what we wrote and what I have just repeated, apparently in vain, which is that the law is not a panacea? In order to be given effect and to change hearts and minds, the law has to be translated into action by voluntary measures taken by ordinary men and women. I would also add, for the benefit of another noble Lord, that I did not say that the functions of the state and the private sector are mutually exclusive. I said that they are complementary.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

I shall be happy to follow the noble Lord’s suggestion and look again at the White Papers, but I believe that the benefit of those papers and the legislation was in part that they established principles to which as a society we should commit ourselves. It has taken far longer than we hoped that it would for the reality of our national life to match the aspirations set out in that legislation, but without that legislation that change would not have happened.

[Baroness Liddell of Coatdyke]

My Lords, I am glad to have the opportunity to follow my noble friend Lord Howarth because the point he has made about the law changing attitudes in this case is very valid. If we were able to see this House accept my noble friend’s amendment, it would be a signal of the determination of the establishment of this country to reach out to those in minority communities. It had not been my intention to speak to this amendment, but my noble friend Lord Boateng’s very persuasive argument in relation to it has made me rethink some of my own attitudes. I think that some of us assume that communities are to a large extent homogeneous and that people go out and register their vote. However, I discovered a key thing in the 1970s when I was general-secretary of the Labour Party in Scotland, having come from a community that had almost no minority members at all but was also made up largely of incomers.

I come from the industrial west of Scotland where people settled either as a consequence of the highland clearances on the one hand or the Irish potato famine on the other. The policeman would be a native Gallic speaker and the miner would be a native Gaelic speaker. Often the two communities existed in complete oblivion of each other. It was probably not until I went to university that I was aware that I had actually been brought up in a Scottish town because all my heritage had been Irish. One of the reasons for making that point is that there were very few black people in that community. The only black people were Pakistani shopkeepers, and only a couple of handfuls of them at that. They transformed the community because, for the first time ever, you could get a pint of milk after six o’clock at night.

Thirty years later, I was elected as the Member of Parliament for that community. What was interesting was that the demographic had barely changed. What had changed was that those Pakistani shopkeepers were extremely wealthy small businessmen and absolute pillars of the community. But the real eye opener for me when I moved on to the Scottish stage was realising the sense of alienation, particularly among the Chinese community, who operated pretty much in isolation. The most shocking thing I found as someone trying to engage other women in the political process was the extent to which Pakistani women were completely blocked out from the opportunity to participate politically. At the time it caused me to look hard at how you get people from minority communities to engage in the political process. The light bulb moment was the recognition that it was not just about language, although that was significant. I was helped enormously by people like my colleague from the other place, Mohammad Sarwar, who helped to engage the Labour Party in the Pakistani community in Glasgow.

I also discovered the extent of suspicion of the political process. That was because of people’s backgrounds and fears, which were perhaps linked to the reasons why they had left their countries to come and settle in the United Kingdom. Some of them were second and third generation, but they were frightened of the consequences of being seen to be part of a political system and perhaps of taking the wrong decision as to which party to support, thereby being disadvantaged in the community.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

With respect, I think that the point that the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, made was whether Ministers have such discretion. It is certainly my understanding that the power is not intended to be discretionary. The intention is that, if a boundary commission wants a modification, Ministers will be obliged to incorporate that modification in laying the Order in Council. The two new subsections (5A) and (5B) need to be taken together. New subsection (5B) describes the circumstances in which a modification would be made.

As I have indicated to the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, and indeed to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, I will read this again. I have done so already and I am satisfied that there is no malign intent that would oblige Ministers to follow a request from one of the Boundary Commissions, but I am willing to give it further reconsideration and others will no doubt look at it and read it.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

I am looking at the Explanatory Notes to Clause 10 of the Bill. It seems to be very clear that discretion is left to the Secretary of State in laying,

“before Parliament a draft of an Order in Council for giving effect to the recommendations in the boundary reports”,

to accept or not to accept the modifications that the Boundary Commission may wish.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

That is perhaps a good reason for us to examine it again. I have indicated what the intention is and I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, for flagging this up. It will give us an opportunity to be satisfied that the wording reflects the intention.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord McNally]

I will take comfort in it. It is still seared into my soul—we should count ourselves lucky here—that I once had an order in the other place that involved Northern Ireland. There was me, the government Minister, and five Ulster Unionists, and we finally got away at about 2.20 am. I take the noble Lord’s Gypsy’s warning; I will check on this, and if there are any worries I will bring it back to the House.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

Before the Minister sits down, I want to pick him up on his use of the term “paranoia”, which he has used a couple of times.

[Lord McNally]

I can give the noble Lord evidence. There has been bullying by—

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

May I just make my point?

[Lord McNally]

No.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

I ask the Minister and his colleagues on that side of the House to understand that there is deep and genuine concern on our side that great quantities of constitutional legislation are being driven through Parliament by the coalition, which has no mandate for it and has not offered the public or the political system as a whole the opportunity to consider it in advance of its introduction. The legislation is being driven through on a fast track. We have a responsibility to guard the constitution, and if the Minister considers that our objections to the process that the coalition Government are adopting are paranoid, he is being extraordinarily obtuse and insensitive.

[Lord McNally]

This side of the House has treated serious amendments seriously, but I invite any future historian to read Hansard and then they can make their judgment.