Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Lord Lamont of Lerwick and Lord Howarth of Newport

Monday 20th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick]

My Lords, I had not intended to speak on this because, as the noble Lord, Lord Williamson, said, it appeared on the face of it that this was not about thresholds precisely, but a different issue. But the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, has demonstrated the connection between the amendment moved by the noble Baroness and the issue of thresholds. Because I spoke last week, I certainly will not go over the arguments, but I want to comment on two points made by my noble friend Lord Strathclyde in reply to that debate. He argued that if you have a threshold relating to turnout, that just encourages people to abstain. He repeated the argument several times, saying that people will think that all they need to do is to abstain and the referendum will be rejected, but my noble friend Lord Lawson pointed out that that is not necessarily how it would go. It might well go in the other direction. He pointed out that, for example, there would be people who were against change but who believed that the threshold will be met and therefore will have an added inducement to vote. That is one category of people who would have an inducement to vote. Secondly, there could be a group of people who are in favour but know that if they do not vote, they may lose the issue. So it can work in several ways.

I made the point that in 1979, when we did have a threshold, the turnout then was 63 per cent—very high, even though there was a threshold—and that when the subsequent referendum was held without a threshold, the turnout was actually lower at 60 per cent. So in the particular case of the referendums in Scotland, when we did have thresholds, the turnout was higher. The noble Lord may say that that was an outcome threshold not a turnout threshold—and that is true—but I would argue that the effects of the threshold there are also ambiguous. If the noble Lord thinks that an outcome threshold that is something like the Cunningham amendment, with 40 per cent of the electorate required to vote yes, would encourage a high turnout, why do we not have that kind of threshold rather than a turnout threshold? The argument that a threshold encourages abstention is not very persuasive.

The second point made by the noble Lord in reply to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, was that the Labour Government had been elected by only 21.6 per cent in 2005. If that did for them and the noble and learned Lord was happy with that, why was he not happy with 21.5 per cent in a referendum?

A referendum is different from a general election. In a general election, Members of Parliament are up for election and may be up for re-election; a constitutional change is likely to be permanent and difficult to reverse. Secondly, even with 21.6 per cent in 2005, the turnout threshold put forward in the amendments would have been met anyway. There is obviously a difference between 21.6 per cent when at least three parties, and possibly four or five, are standing, and 21.6 per cent in relation to a yes/no proposition. Neither of the arguments the noble Lord puts forward against thresholds is persuasive.

I do not know whether or not we will have to vote on this but, on the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, to the noble Lord, Lord Roberts, that we did not have thresholds in previous referenda, although we did have one in relation to the Scottish referendum, one cannot think of a country in Europe that does not have a qualified majority provision for changes in the constitution. I shall be interested in what my noble friend says in reply to these points.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

My Lords, in tabling her amendment, my noble friend Lady Hayter has done two useful things. First, she has reminded us that in legislating, particularly on constitutional matters, we should be sensitive to sentiment in the different nations of the United Kingdom. We needed to be sensitive to that sentiment 10 years ago, which is why we brought in devolution; and, in the context of devolution, and after 10 years’ experience of it, it is all the more important that we should be so. However, the legislation proposed by the Government fails to be sensitive in that important regard. Under their model, a majority in the United Kingdom as a whole would trump a no vote within one of its constituent countries. In that way we risk alienating national opinion and national sentiment in whatever part of the country it was—it might be Wales or Scotland—that found its wishes thus crudely overruled.

The second important thing that my noble friend’s amendment does is to underline that whatever the result of the referendum and however the procedures might be amended in this legislation, if we then went on to have a referendum under whatever set of rules, the result is liable to be divisive. It would be divisive in the case of a particular country of the United Kingdom having its wishes on the electoral system overruled; and, equally, under my noble friend’s amendment, it would be divisive because what she proposes would mean that where there was a no vote in any individual part of the United Kingdom, that would trump the yes vote across the wider United Kingdom and invalidate yes votes in other parts of the United Kingdom. That cannot be a happy outcome either.

A third way in which it would be possible to go, although it is not proposed in the amendment, is for each of the constituent countries of the United Kingdom to determine its own electoral system. In those parts of the kingdom that voted for AV, general elections would in future be conducted on the basis of AV; in those parts which preferred first past the post, they would continue to elect their Members of Parliament on the basis of first past the post. The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, smiles at the evident fatuity of such a scheme, yet I do not know whether he entirely rules out the possibility of two classes of Member coming to this House of Parliament, some elected, some appointed, because he very wisely does not show his hand and delays doing so for as long as he can.

The only circumstance in which a referendum on the voting system would not be divisive and set parts of the United Kingdom at odds with each other would be the eventuality of every part of the United Kingdom voting the same way, either for AV or first past the post. It is reasonable to think that that is rather an unlikely outcome.