Scottish Parliament (Constituencies and Regions) Order 2010

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts

Tuesday 26th October 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, I will make a short intervention. I was born in Dagenham—made in Dagenham, effectively—which was then part of Essex and is now in occupied Essex, since it is occupied by the London Borough of Havering. I am interested in the debate on this order. I say to noble colleagues from Scotland: be thankful that, whatever this order and the Bill in the other House say, at the moment there is no question of boundaries crossing the Scottish-English border. I ask you to keep that in mind when it comes to other nations in the United Kingdom. Cornwall is a Celtic nation. I ask for noble Lords’ support when the other Bill comes to this House. There is a possibility of boundaries crossing the Tamar river. I ask the Government to take that into consideration as they think about the Bill before it crosses to this House.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble and learned Lord the Advocate-General for Scotland for his introduction to this order, and for his explanation. I am also grateful to his officials for the helpful information that I received this morning. It has certainly been a wide-ranging debate. I am sure the noble and learned Lord is looking forward to responding to all the pithy questions put to him.

I would particularly encourage him to respond to the noble Lord, Lord St John of Fawsley. It is quite remarkable, given the current size of the House, that the Government are proposing to bring dozens of new Peers into the House. I am a member of the Leader’s Group, which is looking at retirement options because of concern about the size of the House. I find it remarkable, given that the Government now have a notional majority which we are seeing as the votes come through, that they seem determined to pack this House. It is difficult to see how this House can perform as a revising Chamber if the Government are determined to win every vote. What is the point of the second Chamber in that respect? I hope the Minister will respond to that.

As he said, the orders follow the submission of the Report on the First Periodic Review of Scottish Parliament Boundaries by the Scottish Boundary Commission. The intention is that they will apply to the Scottish Parliament elections in May 2011. I start by paying tribute to the Boundary Commission for Scotland. Clearly, not all noble Lords agree with the entire outcome of the commission’s work. However, I do not think that any noble Lord has criticised the thoroughness with which it embarked on this exercise.

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[Lord McFall of Alcluith]

Perhaps I may paint a deeper picture for my noble friend regarding the River Clyde. There is a history to that, which entailed patients from my area on the north side of the Clyde going to Paisley. The Argyll and Clyde Health Board at the time decided to impose that. Its very obtuseness and refusal to listen resulted in the demise of that health board and the population being absorbed into Greater Glasgow. That was an example of hostility and lack of identity on both sides of the Clyde. It may be that the pages referred to by my noble friend use that as a case history and the commission said: “This far and no further”.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

I am grateful to my noble friend for illuminating our concern, because local inquiries allow for local matters and history to be brought to the attention of the commission. That cannot happen if you have simply a paper exercise.

Of course, the Government are determined to scrap the whole local inquiry process for Westminster constituencies, which means that the public will lose the opportunity for meaningful participation in it. That risks undermining the transparency and legitimacy of the current position. We then have the utterly absurd position, as I understand it, whereby the Government wish to hasten the abolition of public inquiries for Westminster constituencies in Scotland but such inquiries will continue for Scottish Parliament constituencies. I should like the Minister to confirm that that is the position of the Government and to have a go at justifying it.

While he is at it, the noble and learned Lord might comment on the boundary position more generally. On this side of the House, we have no problem with the principle of creating equal-sized seats, which has long been written into law and is the main purpose of the Boundary Commission’s work. However, the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill pursues the objective of a rigid equalisation of seat sizes, which means that millions of eligible voters, predominantly younger people and those from lower-income groups, will be ignored by the Boundary Commission’s proposals and calculations. That will distort the results. Boundary Commission hearings will no longer be required to take account of history, local ties or geography, because the electoral quota will trump all other considerations. As a consequence, towns and villages will be divided between constituencies. Natural boundaries such as mountains, rivers and valleys will be overlooked. The vast majority of existing parliamentary constituencies held by representatives of all parties, regardless of the electorate, will undergo significant disruption as a consequence of the new rules and thousands of voters will be moved into and out of existing seats. In England, we have just gone through a boundary revision and we are just getting used to new constituencies, only to have them all ripped up.

This is a great pity and a tragedy. The future for Westminster constituencies represents a huge contrast to the way in which the Scottish Boundary Commission has gone about its work. I ask the Minister: why the difference in approach between boundary reviews for the Scottish Parliament and Westminster? It has no logic. It exposes the unsatisfactory and undemocratic nature of the parliamentary voting system Bill, which, I can promise the noble and learned Lord, we will subject to the most rigorous scrutiny possible.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate. It has been a very good one. My noble friend Lord Maclennan, who apologised that he would not be able to stay for the wind-up, put his finger on it when he pointed out that there was nothing that we could do. I suppose that we could vote it down, but neither Ministers nor noble Lords can amend this order. Possibly that is why we have ranged slightly more widely than the order itself. I did not expect when I came into the Chamber that I would have to respond, in a debate on a measure dealing with Scottish Parliament constituency boundaries, to questions about the number of peerages that are being created. I note what was said but I point out that a large number of Members have joined this House in recent months, of whom a number contributed today. Indeed, this debate benefited from what they said, so it would be unfair to say that the large increase is necessarily a bad thing when the contributions that we heard today were very good indeed.

I welcome the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, to debating Scottish matters. No doubt the excitement that he felt when he piloted the Marine and Coastal Access Bill and had to deal with all these important devolution issues whetted his appetite for dealing with even more Scottish points. I join him in thanking those who served on the Boundary Commission for their work, which comes to fruition in the report and in the order that we debate today.

There have been contributions from all parts of the House. I hope that I may mention without offending anyone the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Liddell of Coatdyke, who talked about the passion that Members of the other place have for their constituencies. I reflect that there were a number of contributions to this debate from noble Lords who were once Members of the other place and some of that passion has not been lost. I understand it and think that it undoubtedly coloured and flavoured the debate. Perhaps we have had a foretaste of debates that are still to come and noble Lords have had a chance to rehearse their speeches for a piece of legislation that will come to us probably sooner rather than later.

I will deal with some of the specific points that were raised. My noble friends Lord Maclennan of Rogart and the Duke of Montrose pointed to the reference in the Explanatory Memorandum to complex wording and references. I note that paragraph 3.1 states:

“The Scotland Office recognises that the enabling powers could have been more clearly expressed so as to permit the amendment of those provisions”.

Certainly, I agree that we should look at the wording of the relevant provisions. It is well known that a Bill will be presented in this Session of Parliament to amend the Scotland Act. I say without commitment that that might be an opportunity to look at the matter and take on board some of these points about very complex wording.

The noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, said that there is a reference in the 2004 legislation to the Electoral Commission. In fact, responsibility stayed with the Boundary Commission and did not go to the Electoral Commission. Therefore, it is the report of the Boundary Commission that we are dealing with today.

The question of by-elections was raised by my noble friend Lord Maclennan and by the noble Lord, Lord Watson of Invergowrie. There is no question, as my noble friend seemed to suggest, that this is legislation with regard to by-elections. I will make the position very clear. If the order is approved by your Lordships’ House and subsequently approved and made when it is submitted to the Queen in Council, that will set the boundaries for the next election to the Scottish Parliament—be that the election scheduled for May next year or an extraordinary election that takes place before then. The election will be fought on the new boundaries and the electoral administrators are confident that that can happen from 1 December. With regard to by-elections, if they occur between now and 5 February—because any vacancy that occurs after 5 February would be held open until the election in May—they would be undertaken on the existing constituency boundaries.

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[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, surely the substantive point is that, whatever the motivation of the parties who may come to the hearings, the proposals are put under public scrutiny. That will be missing from the Bill that will reach us very soon.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

Let me make it clear that anyone, including members of the public, will still, under the proposals being discussed currently in another place, be able to have their say on the proposals. In fact, the proposal in the Bill is to extend the period for representations on proposals from one month to three. Furthermore, if proposals are revised, the Boundary Commission will be obliged to consult once more.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, the point is that there can be a paper-based exercise in which comments are sent in and considered as part of the bureaucratic process, but the point about the local hearings is that the commission’s provisional proposals are really put to the test in a way that I doubt will happen if there is simply a paper-based exercise.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

My Lords, I do not think that that is a fair characterisation of what one would hope would happen. I do not think that it is fair to say that members of the public who write in would be part of just a paper-based exercise by some bureaucratic crunching machine. Surely if people bother to write in—and they will be given more time to do so—one would expect that their views would be given proper consideration by the Boundary Commission. At the start, we properly paid tribute to the Boundary Commission and I think that that is indicative of the fact that, whoever the commissioners are, they will act impartially and independently and will give proper consideration to representations made to them.

A question of timing also arises. In the general election that took place this May, the boundaries used, certainly for England constituencies, were based for the first time on an electoral register that was 10 years old. More frequent reviews can help to address that issue. Many issues contribute to fairness in elections—I do not depart from the passion about communities that has been expressed by noble Lords, not least my noble friend Lord Teverson, whose comments I am sure will have been noted—but it is also important to recognise that out-of-date electoral registers or boundaries based on electoral numbers that are 10 years old are not exactly the best way to try to secure the fairness that one expects from a modern democracy. Therefore, a system that will allow reviews to be shorter will ensure that we are more up to date. I think that that would befit a modern democracy, but I have no doubt that we will go through these arguments on many further occasions.

I hope that I have answered most of the procedural questions, although perhaps not to the satisfaction of those who will continue to raise the issue of reviews. The noble Lord, Lord Watson, asked about the future position of Scottish boundary proposals. There are no proposals to change the system, but it is important to point out that the next review will not take place until, at the very least, eight years’ time and, at the very most, 12 years’ time—that is, at some time between 2018 and 2022. We will have had plenty of opportunity by then to evaluate the alternative system that is proposed. One would hope that good practice will inform any subsequent view as to what should happen in Scotland, but there are no plans to change and no pressing need to change either.

With those words, I again commend the order to the House and beg to move.