Parliamentary Constituencies Bill

Lord Lipsey Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 27th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lipsey (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I am amazed to hear that the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, can do from north to south in the Brecon and Radnorshire constituency, where I live, in an hour and a half. It takes me two hours, or perhaps one hour and 50 minutes if my wife is driving, so it is wonderful that she can do it so speedily, But—and here is the point—at the moment the Brecon and Radnorshire constituency has 53,000 electors. The quota under the new system will be 72,000: in other words, it will have to put on 19,000 electors. Where are they to be: north, south, west or across in another valley? It beggars belief that such a proposition could be seriously put before this Parliament.

I want to join the noble Lords, Lord Tyler and Lord Hayward, in regretting the recent death of my very good friend Ron Johnston, who was the great academic expert on all things boundaries. Without him, consideration of this Bill feels a bit like “Hamlet” without the prince. This Bill is “Hamlet” without the prince. It puts right a whole lot of things in the Bill that your Lordships’ House destroyed in 2011—except its worst feature: namely, the 5% plus or minus differential between the size of electorates. I could go—and no doubt in Committee may go—into the full details of the poverty of the arguments put in favour of that, but I want to make a political argument, because that is the only thing that ever convinces this Government, in my experience.

The previous boundary reform fell apart because Tory MPs found that their constituencies were being messed with and they had to fight the Tory MP in the next-door constituency to decide who should be the candidate, when they preferred to be fighting the Labour Party—and I can understand that. The Whips got fed up, so the Minister did not lay the orders and nothing changed. Although going from 600 to 650 helps, I can tell noble Lords that the same thing will happen this time. In three years, when the penny has dropped, Tory MPs will find themselves fighting each other for the new seats that have been formed out of chunks of their old seats—and that is going to happen every eight years, ad infinitum, unless something is done about it. Indeed, I look forward, with considerable anticipation, to the moment when the then-vulnerable noble Lord, Lord True, stands up before this House and does his Callaghan, proposing that we get rid of this Bill because we have to get rid of the 5% variation.

Parliamentary Constituencies Bill

Lord Lipsey Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 8th September 2020 Grand Committee

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

We have had some excellent contributions. I want to make a simple point: the ties of community should be given equal weight to arithmetic. To strengthen those ties, there should be a longer period between each distribution.

[Lord Lipsey (Lab)]

My Lords, first, I want to refute the calumny that I am participating in this debate only to go down in parliamentary history as one who was present at the first-ever hybrid Grand Committee of the House of Lords. It is not true. Indeed, it goes contrary to my strongest principles because, as a noble Lord said earlier, this Bill should be on the Floor of the House; it is constitutional, but it goes beyond its constitutionality.

We should consider the scale of the change in the Bill, the degree of disruption that it will cause if it is put into effect in full, the ruined lives down the other end of the Corridor—going from 600 to 650 helps, but it does not help as much as not having a 5% variant—the disruption it will cause and the loss of confidence among the population because they will not know who their Member will be next time round. This is really large-scale stuff—and that is without getting into the issue, which I do not intend to cover this afternoon, of whether this is in fact a gerrymander. No doubt we will have a chance to discuss that later in Committee and on Report. So I am not participating just to be in a hybrid Committee. I wish we were not in a hybrid Committee but on the Floor.

The second calumny is that I am intervening on this amendment only because the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, and I are such comrades, if I may use that word in the House of Lords. We are great veterans of the 2011 attempt to persuade the Government of the points, or most of the points, that I have just made. That attempt narrowly failed, due to a piece of stubbornness on David Cameron’s point of view. It is a great pity that those measures went through—they had to be ditched anyway—but it gives us a chance to have a second, more sensible, go. Unfortunately, I do not think that the Government have succeeded in doing that.

As I say, my noble friend Lord Foulkes is a comrade. He knows that we disagree on electoral reform. The idea that electoral reform would necessarily destroy the relationship between MPs and their constituents is nonsense. It was shown to be nonsense by something that nobody round this table other than me will remember: the Jenkins report on the electoral system. I remember it quite well because I was on the commission. Those noble Lords who remember that will remember that it had most constituencies represented by a single Member, as now. There were some additional Members to deal with discrepancies in the amount of support that each party needed to elect somebody, but they were on a county basis; they were not asked to represent the whole country at large or any of the things that go with other proportional systems, so there is no necessary link between electoral reform and whether you go ahead with this sort of system. It should be debated on its own complicated merits. I suppose I had better come to the amendment about now.

At the moment we have the Fixed-term Parliaments Act, which implies that elections take place every five years. It makes sense to me that you should have a fixed gap between a boundary review and an election—they should come in that order. If you had 10 years under the present system, that is what would happen. It would come at the same distance before an election each time. Eight years tells you nothing. It means that sometimes you will have a boundary review immediately after a general election, so you will fight the next election on completely outdated boundaries. The time after that will be just before an election, so no would-be Member of Parliament will have time to get to know his electorate. It is a complete absurdity. It is so absurd that I can think of only one argument that the Minister could use to defend it, which would be to say, “We committed in our manifesto to get rid of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act”—and I recognise that that is the case.

However, do not be surprised if the Prime Minister and his party do not in the end show the enthusiasm that they have shown so far for the proposition that they go back to the old system where the Prime Minister calls the election every time. I should say, first of all, that the record of Prime Ministers calling elections when they have that discretion is bloody awful. I go back to Jim Callaghan, who I was then privileged to be an adviser to, funking autumn 1978 and going for 1979 and therefore making Mrs Thatcher possible. I understand why he made the decision, but I think he was wrong—and I think he thought he was wrong. More recently, Theresa May, befuddled by the opinion polls and having adopted a policy for social care that was bound to lead to at least a 10-point drop in the Tories’ reckoning, went for an election that was the end of her.

Even more recently, not the Prime Minister but the leader of the Labour Party, in the face of irrefutable evidence that his party would be massacred if it went to the country under his leadership, nevertheless decided that his party should vote for an early election, thus handing Boris Johnson the easiest victory in electoral history. My experience of politicians is that they do not much like choosing election dates anyway. The Fixed-term Parliaments Act, for all its defects, seems to be basically right, so if we keep that, we will keep five-year Parliaments and one review for each 10-year stretch.

That would also avoid unnecessary disruption. Every time constituencies change, as ex-Members of the Commons have told us so eloquently this afternoon, there is considerable disruption. There is a tremendous problem that may do for these plans in the end. It is perfectly true, and if Ministers were honest they would admit it, that on the whole this change is probably slightly biased in favour of the Conservative Party. But that is one thing. It is another thing when the Back-Benchers are going to see the Chief Whip every week and saying, “We can’t have an election, look at what’s been done to my constituency. We only held it last time because I had so many supporters in Borrowstown and now they’ve been moved off to that fat, useless Tory Member for Bugglestown.” That is why they did not do this last time. It was not a matter of principle or because they saw that they were wrong, or even because of what the Lib Dems might have done about it. It was because it was rightly causing bedlam on the Conservative Back Benches.

This may seem to those who advise the Prime Minister like a bumper wheeze for getting a few extra Conservative seats. I promise that, before the next election, they will be eating their words and the Prime Minister will be saying, “Who the hell got me into this? Haven’t we got anything better to do than deal with Back-Benchers who feel that they’re going to lose their seats and it’s our fault?” There is no worse accusation to be made against a Government than that they are knifing their own party in the back.

[Lord Lennie (Lab)]

My Lords, I have enjoyed the speeches so far in this debate. I come here as a former chair of the political parties parliamentary panel of the Electoral Commission. We had something to do with elections and it is our fault that MPs had those reviews and the consequences of them. It seemed to me that the most important thing to the MPs whom I and other parties dealt with at the same time were the lines on the map: “Where will my majority be most or least affected?” So the co-operation between parties was immense in many respects in drawing up the constituencies, because it was a question of trading these voters for those voters and so on, to protect each other’s majorities and therefore the relationship.

Parliamentary Constituencies Bill

Lord Lipsey Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 10th September 2020 Grand Committee

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

I want to speak specifically about Amendment 14. I am glad to see it on the Marshalled List, because it raises some important and specific issues about the situation in Wales, introduced very ably by the noble Lord, Lord Hain.

The reference to the 1944 Act in this amendment reminds us that Wales has always been accepted as a special case. In terms of population, its smaller rural constituency sizes have been accepted as a practical necessity. The formula that the Government propose would see 32 Welsh constituencies, which is clearly inadequate. Some would argue, as the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, has, that, now that Wales has devolution, it no longer requires this protection.

My answer is that the Senedd still has unrealistically low numbers of Members—only 60. That is quite out of kilter with Northern Ireland, for example, which has a smaller population and 90 Members of its Assembly. As it has gained more powers, the Senedd has a greater rather than a lesser problem; it is now within the Senedd’s own power to increase its size, and it has been Welsh Liberal Democrat policy for many years that there should be greater powers for the Senedd and at least 80 Members. If that were to be the situation, we would not oppose a reduction in the number of Welsh MPs. I considered tabling my own amendment on this, but I could not find a way to cast it that would be acceptable because, as I said, it is the Senedd that decides its membership, and I very much hope that it goes on and approves an increase in membership very soon.

The news yesterday and today in Wales is dominated by the UK Government’s internal market Bill, but in Wales there is an additional concern about it because the Government intend to recentralise some powers that were previously devolved. MPs from Wales will therefore apparently be busier than they are now, so it seems a strange time to cut the numbers so drastically.

I looked at the predicted numbers across all the nations of the UK; the totals give a stark picture of 10 more MPs for England and eight fewer MPs for Wales. It sometimes seems that this Government neglect no issue in their attempts to alienate the devolved nations. I warn them not to take Wales for granted. My noble friend Lady Humphreys has pointed out the increasing support for independence. Yesterday’s resignation by David Melding, the Conservative shadow Counsel General in Wales, makes the point that this is not just a nationalist flurry. David Melding is an ex-Deputy Presiding Officer for the Senedd and one of the leading Conservatives in Wales.

When we argue for the special factors in Wales, it is geography which usually dominates the debate. There is an old joke: if Wales was ironed flat it would be as big as England. The mountains are our glory, but they are also powerful barriers, and there are so many of them. In the north there is Snowdonia, in the middle, the Brecon Beacons, and in the south, dividing the valleys. I live in Cardiff, and have to cross Caerphilly Mountain, or go a very long way around the bottom of it, to get to the next local authority. Combining valleys in one constituency means combining totally different communities, served by different local authorities and services. It already takes two or more hours to drive from one end of Brecon and Radnorshire to the other, so combining it with another constituency is clearly ridiculous, as the noble Lord, Lord Hain, said. All this makes a powerful case for the importance of the Electoral Commissions continuing to take into account local community ties and identities, as they always have.

The truth is that no single system is appropriate for every type of area across the UK, from the Cities of London and Westminster to Orkney and Shetland. In Wales, we have a specific additional factor that must be considered: the Welsh language. It is by far the most developed and flourishing UK minority language. I was proud to be the very first Minister for the Welsh language, and I initiated a strong programme to support and encourage its use. It was all community-based. The language’s areas of strength are geographically based in the west and north of Wales, although nowadays even areas of Cardiff are recognised as Welsh-speaking areas. It would be a mistake to fragment those Welsh-speaking communities by dividing them into different constituencies.

I realise that a number of other parts of the UK might claim a similar distinctiveness. My noble friend Lord Tyler’s Amendment 20 makes a similar point about Cornwall. The following group of amendments that will be considered this afternoon, to which I will not speak, relates to the different percentages that might be used as the permitted variants, and includes Liberal Democrat Amendment 16. These are all ways of attacking the problem that the current 5% variance is too tight to avoid constant reorganisations of constituency boundaries. I hope that when these variations are discussed, this can happen alongside consideration of the importance of local community ties and characteristics.

The proposal for 32 Welsh constituencies is clearly a product of an inflexible approach and an attempt to standardise the fundamentally different parts of this United Kingdom. The 35 seats suggested in Amendment 14 is one way to tackle the issues. Liberal Democrat Amendment 16 is another. It is a different approach, and I hope that they would achieve similar outcomes; they both have similar intention, and I urge the Government to accept one of the proposed compromises.

[Lord Lipsey (Lab)]

My Lords, I was thrilled when in introducing this debate my noble friend Lord Hain thanked my noble friend Lord Grocott for participating as an Englishman but did not thank me. That was quite right, because I have been for 25 years now living half my life in Wales. I am only a little behind my noble friend Lord Hain, who started in Neath in 1991, so I speak now—officially anointed by my noble friend—as a Welshman. I am not going to speak about Wales—there has been a wonderful hwyl about the geographic specialities and peculiarities of my adopted country; no doubt I could persist in that. I am afraid that I am going to speak about crude politics.

We are constantly told that this is a Conservative and Unionist Government, who want to save and protect the union. We are all of us familiar with the threat to the union from Scottish independence, but I am afraid that I detect—I hope that I am wrong, but I do not think I am—a growing threat in Wales. Polls have been referred to. At the beginning of the year, only 19% of Welsh voters were in favour of an independent Wales; that reached 25% in June and 32% in August, when polled by YouGov. That is sharp increase in sentiment in favour of an independent Wales.

We also have elections coming up for the Senedd next year. Not all people in Wales have the great enthusiasm I have for the current Administration in Cardiff, but what are those who do not want to vote Labour supposed to do? The Lib Dems are past their peak down our way. The Welsh are not naturally Conservatives. Brexit or one of those lot? I doubt it. Quite apart from increasing sentiment for independence, there will be a strong temptation to turn to Plaid.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

The five protected constituencies are islands, as the noble Lord has already said, and I think an island is different. The islands need to be of a certain size in order to merit this, but I think that is correct.

I have mentioned the fact that it is for the Boundary Commissions to listen to these arguments about the specifics of constituencies, and that is not just for constituencies in Wales and Scotland; I am sure, as we have heard already today, that similar issues may arise in certain parts of England. Each constituency is unique; every single MP in this country will say that they have a special constituency with unique features which needs unique ways of dealing with these issues.

So, I am sorry, but I do not agree. I think that islands are different, and that is why we have further brought the Isle of Anglesey into this. Any local issues of geography and community should be brought up with the Boundary Commissions when they do their reviews.

[Lord Lipsey (Lab)]

I will just, if I may, correct the Minister on a minor point. She listed among the Scottish Members present my noble friend Lord Grocott. As he was born in Watford, educated at Leicester and Manchester and represented English seats, including The Wrekin, I wonder if she might withdraw that little error.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

I am sorry; I am very happy to withdraw that. He was supporting the cause of Scotland.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Tyler (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I wish particularly to speak in support of Amendment 16 in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Rennard. Inevitably, I need also to refer to some of the others in this group which offer slightly different solutions to the fundamental problem with this Bill that we all agree is so apparent. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, will break the habit of a lifetime and support a Liberal Democrat proposal, because I think that it would absolutely and precisely meet the circumstances to which he has just referred.

All those who have been carefully examining the psephology on which this Bill is predicated will have been hugely indebted to the independent and non-partisan academic analysis by the late Professor Ron Johnston and his colleagues. This was the core of the evidence presented to the Commons Public Bill Committee. In brief, it proved conclusively that the proposed very limited 5% permitted variance in almost all constituencies, except of course for the five exempted ones, was not an essential requirement in the context of the Government’s anxiety to improve the equality of vote value that they repeatedly claim to be their objective in this legislation. My noble friend Lord Rennard will give further details of that analysis.

Meanwhile, there is common ground across your Lordships’ Committee that the insistence on the 5% variance straitjacket, imposed on the four Boundary Commissions, will result in the following problems: first, more changes with 650 constituencies than were proposed with the previously proposed 600 constituencies; secondly, more regular changes for more constituencies and more reviews; thirdly, more consequent knock-on changes even to adjoining constituencies that are themselves within the prescribed limits; fourthly, more disruption of historic and naturally cohesive communities; and, fifthly, more disconnection between MPs, councillors and the public, at more regular intervals, than is either necessary or desirable. It is disruption which is going to be the name of the game if we let the 5% stand.

We were told during the coalition that these latter reasons were basically those that motivated the then Conservative Leader of our House to recommend to the Prime Minister that the variance be 10%. I mentioned on Tuesday that some 20 of those who contributed to the Second Reading debate, from all parts of the House, expressed concern about the 5% limit at present in the Bill. We can, perhaps, take it as read that there is a strong argument for more flexibility. The question in this debate is how we should adjust the figure.

Our Amendment 16 recommends a normal 8% variance but permits each of the Boundary Commissions to explore the validity of 10% where exceptional circumstances demand it, in each of the nations of the UK. That would be very relevant to the concerns expressed about local problems to be addressed in the previous debate. This might include avoiding crossing major administrative boundaries—for example, in English counties and unitary authorities—or greater problems of rurality and limited transport links, or other special factors. Paragraph 5(1) of Schedule 2 to the 1986 Act makes detailed references to which we can refer and to which our amendment refers. My noble friend Lord Rennard will pay special attention to some of those.

I recall that in my then North Cornwall constituency, before boundaries were redrawn, to drive from one advice surgery at one end to the next one at the other end could take 90 minutes in winter but up to 150 minutes at the height of the summer holiday season. The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, might note that that involved getting around an estuary. Let us compare that with some inner-city constituencies where a similar electorate can be conveniently served by a short cycle ride or even an energetic jogger.

As has been emphasised by all participants at all stages of the Bill, our prime concern should be for the effect on the individual residents, groups and communities in a distinct area rather than their political representatives or local political parties. That is why we prefer our formulation in Amendment 16 to those in Amendment 15 or Amendment 17. The former seems to us too restrictive and not to recognise the special local circumstances to which I have referred. Some areas will certainly require more variation than 7.5%. I think that is widely acknowledged across the Committee. The latter provides so much variation universally that it fails to accept the significance of a smaller number of potential constituencies with unusual requirements. However, the common cause we all recognise is that the unacceptable level and regularity of disruption, implicit in this current 5% straitjacket, must be avoided. Between now and Report we may be able to achieve a consensus on the optimum solution.

Finally, I suspect that the author of Amendment 19 has not had the advantage of educating himself by reference to the exhaustive independent academic analysis to which I referred earlier. The rest of us hope that the Minister will accept the strength of the case for greater flexibility that so many of your Lordships are advancing. I hope that he is listening.

[Lord Lipsey (Lab)]

My Lords, I think the noble Lord, Lord True, had only just entered the House, in 2010, when we did the 2011 Bill late into the night, night after night. I do not know how that relates to his extreme reluctance to draw any time limit to business tonight or determination to get to the Government’s target. We may well make it anyway, but it would be very disappointing if we were left short of time to have these important arguments. Indeed, it would only prolong Report in a way that none of us would really want to see.

I will focus, because I do not want to speak for any longer than I have to, on the central logic that underlies the Government’s proposal of 5% in this Bill, which, as the Minister said earlier—I thank him giving me the text—is that each vote must have the same value. The Government realise that they cannot achieve that just through boundary changes. The only way for each vote to have equal value would be to have PR on a national scale, and then each vote would have equal value indeed. I suspect that there is no majority even in this Committee that would favour that approach; most of us would like to see a preservation of the constituency-based system, for very good reasons. Therefore, we do not want to see complete equality of votes.

The more you look at this proposition of the equal vote, the less it stands up. First, the Bill does not pretend to provide equality of votes; within the 5% each way margin, it provides equalities of electorates, which are very different things, because turnouts are very different in different seats. The Government are not even potentially achieving the objective that they have set themselves of equality of votes. Equality of electorates is no doubt a useful surrogate, and you could imagine a system—I could design one, given a few months—in which the Boundary Commission was told to project the likely turnout in each seat, and do that within 5% each way. I do not think that that would prove a very comprehensible system, although it would certainly be a sensible and logical one if you really wanted to equalise votes. But the Government do not really want to equalise votes—they just say they do. They just want to equalise electorates, and there it can.

The second problem with this argument about equalising votes is that only some votes count. Only votes in marginal seats count; all the rest of the seats are in large piles. The occupants of safe seats build up huge majorities, and they make no difference whatever to the national result—nor, when people go and cast those votes, have they any reason to think that it is even remotely possible that their act of civic discipline will change the result of the general election one iota. This is not a sensible goal when most votes do not count under the system that the Government provide.

Thirdly, if you start to look at results and not just high theory, we actually have a gross inequality in votes. Each Conservative Member at the last general election had the support on average of 38,300 voters. For each Labour MP there were 50,800 votes. But to get a Liberal Democrat in required 336,000 votes nationwide, so there is a factor of 10 in the efficiency of vote use against the Liberal Democrats. Interestingly, with all this talk about Scottish and Welsh representation, it may be said that the present system greatly favours Plaid and the SNP. The SNP needed only 26,000 votes per seat, and Plaid only 36,000—less, even, than the Conservatives, so they were favoured by it. But it is a grossly unequal system. There may be good reasons for that, but it is not an equal system. It takes the wind out of the argument that this is somehow a Bill about inequality.

Let us get away from electoral theory and go into the practice of the matter. What you are trying to do with boundaries is to weigh up various important factors and reach some kind of balance. There is no religious solution or mathematical formula that does it for you; you are trying to get to a reasonable solution. Yes, reasonable equality of votes is one factor that should be taken into account. We do not want to go back to Old Sarum, with its two voters choosing a single Member. There has to be reasonable equality between the sizes, but there are many other extraordinarily important factors that have to be weighed.

Parliamentary Constituencies Bill

Lord Lipsey Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 15th September 2020 Grand Committee

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords, thank you for letting me speak. As a signatory to the amendment, I should explain a little why I decided to support it. I have lived in Wales for many decades and provided healthcare to some of these communities. The geography is unique and different to the cultural mix in cities in either England or Scotland—I have done exactly the same as a GP in inner-city Glasgow.

Wales currently has 40 constituencies for its 2.3 million registered electorate. Yes, the size of the constituencies is smaller on average or on median size than other nations in the UK, but Scotland’s smallest constituency has half the number of electors of the smallest in Wales. The current boundaries in Wales allow co-terminosity, which helps co-ordination between the Senedd and Westminster. I will return to that relationship between Wales and Westminster in a moment.

To look at this and try to understand it, I spent some time with an Excel spreadsheet to look at the consequences of a rigid numerical approach. A cull of Welsh MPs to provide only 29 would be a 28% reduction in representation from Wales under the 2018 proposals. While maintaining 650 MPs, a leeway allowing a 5% margin on electoral numbers would still lost Wales nine seats—a 23% reduction in MPs. Are the Government determined to alienate their support for the union and fuel separatist nationalism? It certainly looks like that from all their behaviour at the moment. Funnily enough, as far as I can see, England would see only a rise in numbers under the Bill’s proposals.

A 15% lower margin on electorate numbers—I say lower because it is not about raising the 15%—although again hitting Wales hard, would decrease representation from Wales by 5%, or two MPs. However, it would also allow the complexity of the geography and demography to be accounted for. For an MP in Wales to represent an area with difficulties of travelling across large areas where, as we have heard, the sheep really do outnumber the population, it can take over two hours in some parts and around four hours in those same places in the winter. The South Wales valleys are indeed quite distinct zones, as the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, pointed out, and travelling from one to another requires driving north across the Heads of the Valleys road and down, or south to the M4 and up the valley. While it is reasonable to expect the MPs to do that, the constituents cannot. Many do not have their own car, have care responsibilities and cannot just access a remote MP surgery in an adjacent valley, nor do they identify with that position in an adjacent valley either. Poverty and an elderly population—9.5% is over 75—means that few have IT access to Zoom or Teams, and so on, although I accept that after Covid, that might have improved. However, on all other measures, they will effectively be relatively disenfranchised in relation to UK government.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, has already pointed out the political message that this is giving. The political message a massive cull of Welsh MPs gives is that Westminster is not concerned about Wales. I wonder whether one solution to meet the Minister’s concern about a 30% range of variance overall would be simply to delete the upward tolerance and allow only a downward tolerance. Without that, this amendment will fuel a narrative that Westminster really would like to see Wales cut off, cut out, and effectively ignored.

[Lord Lipsey (Lab)]

My Lords, this is a pretty odd grouping, is it not? You have one amendment on the links between constituencies, one on Devon and Cornwall, and one on Wales. It would have been even worse if I had not insisted on degrouping my amendment on Brecon and Radnor, for which the Committee will pay a price when I introduce it in a few minutes’ time. The grouping is so wide and disparate that I do not have a great deal to add, so I will not.

First, I totally agree with the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Foulkes about local ties, which seem wholly to have been ignored by the Government in drafting the Bill, and which I will come back to in the Brecon and Radnor context.

Secondly, I totally agree with my noble friend Lord Hain about the underrepresentation of Wales—the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, and a few other noble Lords came in behind him. I will say only that even the 15% variant would not deal with the Brecon and Radnor problem; it deals with certain problems but not with that.

Finally, on the epoch-shaking issue of Devon and Cornwall, I am in no doubt about the passions that this stirs in that part of the country, but I know nothing about it or those passions, and therefore I will remain silent.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I hesitate to intervene on Welsh and Scottish matters, in particular on the complications of the geography of Wales, beyond saying that of course all the regions of this country have large and disparate constituencies. One of my strongest memories of the early days of the coalition Government was of standing in William Hague’s office in the Foreign Office, discussing with him where exactly it was as you moved from Richmond up Swaledale that you lost mobile phone coverage, and seeing the horrified expression on the face of his private secretary as he realised that the Secretary of State would be unattainable in large areas of his extremely large and remote constituency. Yorkshire also has large constituencies.

On the question of the union as a whole, I will say only that we should all be very worried about its future. I have close relatives who live and work in Edinburgh, and each time I talk to them, I get increasingly concerned about the future of the union. The image they have of a competent Government, who also value international ties, as opposed to the incompetent and English nationalist Government in London, gives me no guarantee that if there were another independence referendum, they would not vote to support independence. We also know the games that are being played over the future of Northern Ireland. I leave it for the Minister to reflect that we have a Government who are playing fast and loose with the union even as the Prime Minister insists that he is doing his utmost to defend it, and we need to be extremely cautious about that.

I most want to focus on Amendment 18, which talks about the importance of retaining local ties. I remind the Minister that the Conservative manifesto last December made no reference to a 5% variation as the limit, but said:

“We will continue to support the First Past the Post system … as it allows voters to kick out politicians who don’t deliver, both locally and nationally.”


That is the way one can defend the first past the post system—it is about having a recognisable community which each MP represents and in which the voters are aware of the link between the constituency and the MP. When I first started out in politics, I remember many Conservative MPs who would say, “I represent all the voters in my constituency, not just the ones who voted for me”. That was the old approach to this. The noble Lord, Lord Hain, has already said that the important thing is whether you can identify with the constituency you live in. I remember in the 2010 election standing in the middle of the marketplace in Huddersfield, canvassing for the Liberal Democrats, and every other voter who came up to me on market day said, “I live in so and so—can you tell me which constituency I am in?” We are only half way towards the problem that most voters do not know what constituency they live in. If we move boundaries more and more frequently, and more and more without reference to the idea of local community, we are moving away from the principle of the first past the post system.

I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord True, knows Edmund Burke off by heart, and his references to the importance of localism—of the “little platoons” in which people live. We are in danger of losing that connection. As we lose it, we weaken the connection between the voter and their elected representatives, and we therefore weaken trust in democracy as the idea of politics becomes one of a distant game in Westminster not connected with the voter on the ground.

I fear that the devolution White Paper, when it is published next month, may make that worse. We already have in cities such as Leeds and Bradford local wards which are 12,000 to 15,000 voters per ward. That means of course that in Leeds there are only four wards per constituency, which is one of the reasons why the question of dividing wards up as you adjust the numbers for the Leeds constituency comes up so frequently. Many of these wards used to be entire urban district councils. The gap between the most local elected representative and the voter has already been severely damaged, and I fear that next month’s devolution White Paper will have little to do with devolution but much more to do with weakening local government further. I appeal to the Minister, whose distinguished record in local government I am well aware of, and as someone who cares about local government, to bear in mind how important it is to restore trust in democracy among our voters by recognising that democracy starts at the local level and requires a link between voters, their local community and democracy as such through their elected representatives.

Given that, Amendment 18 is important. We should not lose sight of this. We do not wish to follow the United States down the road where each district is redrawn after almost every election according to partisan forms. Under a Conservative Government we follow American politics far too often in far too many ways. We need politics to regain its sense of the local, the national and the regional. That is why I strongly support this amendment.

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Moved by

[Lord Lipsey (Lab)]

21: Clause 7, page 5, line 22, at end insert—
“(d) a constituency named Brecon and Radnorshire with identical boundaries to those of the existing Brecon and Radnorshire constituency”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment creates an additional protected constituency to make this seat geographically manageable.

[Lord Lipsey (Lab)]

My Lords, Brecon and Radnorshire, let me count the ways I love thee. It was quite a tie to come up to the House to be able to present my case for the constituency in person this afternoon when I saw the weather forecast suggesting 24 degrees today. I believe strongly that it should remain a single constituency, but perhaps more importantly, I have sought the views of the present Member, Fay Jones, as to whether it should be a single seat. All the views of existing Members of Parliament on their constituencies and boundaries have to be taken with a pinch of salt. As an invariable rule, they want no changes in the boundaries unless they think it is going to bring in a lot of extra votes for them, in which case they may well favour changes, but Fay Jones has established herself as a well-liked local representative of the people.

She writes as follows: “Brecon and Radnorshire is an outstanding constituency but it is not without its challenges”—you can say that again. “It stretches from Ystradgynlais”—did I get that right, I ask the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter?—“in the south-west corner of the constituency 60 miles north of Swansea to Knighton in the north-east, 10 miles west of Ludlow”. Towns include, “Brecon, Crickhowell, Talgarth, Builth Wells, Llandrindod Wells, Presteigne, Knighton, Rhayader, and Ystradgynlais itself—a huge variety and more than 3,000 kilometres, which is bigger than Luxembourg. I frequently have a 63-mile drive to get from one meeting to the next, taking well over an hour and a half to drive between meetings. Considering the additional challenge of sub-standard broadband and mobile signal, it is still essential to travel to face-to-face meetings as much as possible. Covering such a large rural area takes a huge amount of time and energy and, while I hope I am still young enough to do the role justice, an even bigger constituency may reduce the quality and frequency of the service offered by the Member of Parliament.” I endorse all that.

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[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Duncan of Springbank) (Con)]

We have had no requests to speak after the Minister so I call on the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey.

[Lord Lipsey (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate and particularly those who have spoken twice. I will make one point. The Minister expressed her support for the existing exceptional constituencies and said that Ynys Môn was of sufficient size. Not only is it a quarter of the size of Brecon and Radnorshire in geographical area, it has 51,925 electors as opposed to Brecon and Radnorshire’s 55,490. If Ynys Môn is of sufficient size, so is Brecon and Radnorshire.

This may have been an oversight by the Minister, but I did say that I and the Conservative MP for Brecon and Radnorshire would like to have a further conversation before Report. It would be extremely kind if the Minister were able to give an assurance that that request will be seriously and positively considered. Subject to that, I wish to withdraw my amendment.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Duncan of Springbank) (Con)]

Does the Minister wish to come back on that point?

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[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey. I will talk to the department and I am sure that we can work something out.

[Lord Lipsey (Lab)]

Thank you.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Duncan of Springbank) (Con)]

Excellent.

Parliamentary Constituencies Bill

Lord Lipsey Excerpts

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

[Baroness Pidding (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I spoke at Second Reading but not in Committee, but I have been following the Bill’s progress with great interest. It is fundamental to our democracy. I want to express my concern about this grouping and to speak against Amendments 2 and 3 in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Foulkes of Cumnock, Lord Rennard, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter of Kentish Town.

The fundamental reason for boundary reviews is to ensure that constituencies of equal size are maintained. To do this, we need the data to be reviewed on a regular basis, balancing this with the need to avoid constant disruption. In a fast-moving world of significant changes in our demographics, which can be through housebuilding or geographical migration, including changes to people’s work patterns and locations, it seems that the Government’s proposal in the Bill to conduct boundary reviews on a cycle of eight years is fair and reasonable. If, as the amendments propose, boundary reviews are held only every 10 years, there will be an even greater risk than there is now that constituency boundaries will become out of date and unequal between the reviews.

Prior to 2011, when general reviews took place every eight to 12 years, it was a very unsatisfactory system where interim reviews would take place to consider whether particular constituencies should be updated between the general boundary reviews to take account of local government changes and shifts in population in particular areas. Those interim reviews were disruptive. They were made at the discretion of the Boundary Commission and they made it difficult for MPs to develop stable and effective constituency relationships with communities. A balance of eight years should avoid the need to hold interim reviews, which has to be a good thing.

It is right that all parliamentary constituencies should be of equal size and that everyone’s vote carries equal weight. It is a balance between regular reviews and minimal upheaval while ensuring that constituency boundaries accurately represent significant demographic shifts in a fast-moving world. Eight-year reviews strike the right balance.

[Lord Lipsey (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I support the amendment and I want to focus on one particular point. The Minister, in replying to the debate in Committee, put great weight on the support that he alleged his proposals had received from interested parties. I shall quote him:

“Prior to the Bill’s introduction we engaged with all the parliamentary parties and with the electoral administrator representatives, and an eight-year cycle was the one that was supported.”—[Official Report, 8/9/20; col. GC 171.]


I had hoped for rather more than that, so I put down a PQ. I did not get a lot more in response; I will come back to that in a moment. It said:

“Ahead of the Bill’s introduction, the Government engaged with parliamentary parties, and electoral administrator representatives, and there was general acceptance of an 8-year cycle.”


In Committee, the Minister said the eight-year cycle was “supported”, but in reply to the PQ he said it was accepted. Those are very different things. Being supportive is, “What a jolly good idea, Minister. How wise you are.” Being accepting is, “Well, Minister, if that is really what you want, I suppose that we will have to go along with it.” That comes perilously close to misleading the House.

I would be inclined to forgive the Minister for that if, when he winds up the debate, he is able to give a clear and concise summary of exactly what the consultation consisted of, who was consulted and exactly what their replies were. If he cannot do that in winding up—I understand that he might be a bit short of time—I would be grateful if he would give a commitment to write to all noble Lords involved in this debate setting out at greater length and in more detail what the consultation was. In doing so, he will make us a great deal more confident that this is not a product of ministerial whim and the justification for it thought up only after the event.

[The Earl of Shrewsbury (Con)]

My Lord, I believe that it is sensible to have more frequent boundary reviews than those being proposed in the amendment. Prior to Covid, this country was enjoying very substantial employment figures and people were relocating around the country to where the jobs were to be found. However, the pandemic has changed absolutely everything. The jobs market is dreadful and getting worse, and when we eventually arrive at a new normal, I suggest that it will bear little resemblance to what we knew pre-Covid. Jobs will be extremely difficult to come by, and to find employment people will have to translocate in pursuit of work. This will inevitably change the shape and size of many constituencies and demographics in general. That is one reason that I believe it is vital that boundaries are reviewed on a more frequent basis than that being proposed in this amendment. That is why I shall support the Government.

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Meanwhile, I will go back to where I started and remind noble Lords that the electoral quota is a starting point. The differential from that quota at the beginning of a review means that any variation from the quota at the beginning can lead to very wide variations towards the end of the review period. The current rules are a sensible compromise for a practical fit between geography, community and constituency representation in Parliament. We should be very careful about departing from that principle.

[Lord Lipsey (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I am not going to go back over all the arguments about 7.5%, 5%, 10% and so on; they have been wonderfully rehearsed by noble Lords who are much more knowledgeable than I am. I want to take this opportunity to make a general point about the process in relation to parliamentary constituencies.

We go to great trouble, as noble Lords said earlier this afternoon, to protect the effectiveness and neutrality of the Boundary Commission. It seems to me to be in complete contradiction to that to allow the Government of the day, effectively, to decide matters that are greatly going to affect the electoral geography, such as the number of years—as we debated yesterday—for which a Boundary Commission report should apply or, in this case, the degree of variety that should be permitted in their size.

Across the Atlantic, we have a dire warning of what happens when you let politicians decide for themselves on the rules that will determine whether they are elected. The danger of appearing to be partisan when doing it our way seems to me great, and more effort should have been made by the Government and, I am sure, by others to achieve a consensus reform of parliamentary boundaries—we all agree there should be one—rather than one that can be accused of being partisan and that is, in any case, not being addressed with the seriousness that should apply.

I speak as someone who worked for the late Jim Callaghan, who was for a long time an esteemed Member of this House, as well as, briefly, an esteemed Prime Minister. In 1969, Jim Callaghan got his own party to vote down a set of recommendations from the Boundary Commissions for purely partisan reasons. Lord Callaghan, being of a different mould from many of the politicians who lead us today, had the decency in later years to admit that he had made a mistake and that he deeply regretted his actions. We are making a mistake in accepting a Bill so close to the one that was presented. It would have been very much better if there had been a process of negotiation and compromise, rather than an edict brought by a political majority. It will represent a further erosion of the esteem in which our Government and our Houses of Parliament are held.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I cannot understand why the Government continue to insist on this reduction in the variation of size between constituencies. The original justification was the Conservatives’ complaint that the width of variation created a structural imbalance in favour of Labour. Others have pointed out that this arose from differences in levels of electoral registration, in turnout and in the size of majorities. The last three elections showed that this allegedly structural bias had disappeared. It must be inertia at Conservative Party headquarters that explains why the Government are persisting with it.

As the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, said earlier, in our unwritten constitution the House of Commons is supposed to a body that represents communities throughout the United Kingdom, not just an electoral college that votes for the Prime Minister. The first-past-the-post voting system rests upon the principle that there is a close relationship between each MP and his or her constituency, which means that each MP, and each voter, needs to grasp which constituency they are in and its relatively natural boundaries. Throw that out—as the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, suggested that we have begun to do—and, as the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, argued, you have made the case for proportional representation instead. The noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Holbeach, said that this widening of variation would be “unfair to the voter”. Let us have a wider discussion about what a fair voting system would be, if he wishes. This is nothing to with overall fairness for the voter.

This Government are chipping away, bit by bit, at many of the assumptions and conventions which constitute our constitution. Last December’s Conservative manifesto pledged to establish a commission

“to look at the broader aspects of our constitution”

before the end of this year, which is now less than three months away. Since then, we have heard nothing about this, nor does there appear to have been any consultations with other parties about the membership and working of such a commission. I do not see how a constitutional commission could possibly gain legitimacy if it emerged only from the Government, without any wider process of consultation or consent. Can the Minister tell us if the manifesto pledge has now been dropped, delayed for the indefinite future or is about to be sprung on us without prior consultation?

In the UK’s constitutional tradition, each MP represents a place, a recognisable community. To reduce the variation among constituency sizes to the narrow band which the Government propose weakens that link between MP and local community. Honest and traditional Conservatives, those who still remember and revere Edmund Burke, Benjamin Disraeli and Harold Macmillan, should join others in this House in supporting the amendment.

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Moved by

[Lord Lipsey]

17: Clause 7, page 5, line 22, at end insert—
“(d) a constituency named Brecon and Radnorshire with identical boundaries to those of the existing Brecon and Radnorshire constituency”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment creates an additional protected constituency to make this seat geographically manageable.

[Lord Lipsey (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, we have had a long, hard afternoon and tummies are rumbling, so I genuinely will not detain the House for long. An absolutely overwhelming case was made in Committee for this amendment exempting Brecon and Radnorshire from the 5% leeway allowed, but it has not got anywhere. The noble Lord, Lord True, was gracious enough to find time to discuss it with me one on one, though he did not give me any hope. I am sad to say that Ministers in the other place were not so prepared to have a meeting with Fay Jones, the Conservative MP for the seat, and I regret that.

Anyway, one has to know when one’s goose is cooked, so I accept that this will not happen, though the people of Brecon and Radnorshire will resent the way the Government have been pursuing what they will regard as their war on Wales.

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall) (Lab)]

My Lords, my apologies—I was momentarily distracted. I thought the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, had come to the end of his speech. He had certainly stopped speaking. Did I not hear him?

[Lord Lipsey (Lab) [V]]

I have stopped. No word issues from my mouth.

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall) (Lab)]

I wonder if the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, could repeat what he just said. I am afraid I was unable to hear him.

[Lord Lipsey (Lab) [V]]

No words are issuing from my mouth. I have finished; I have stopped; I am ended.

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall) (Lab)]

Could the noble Lord confirm whether he intends to move his amendment?

[Lord Lipsey (Lab) [V]]

I intend to withdraw it after the Minister’s reply.

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall) (Lab)]

My Lords, I think—I think—I was right the first time and the amendment has been proposed.

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For these reasons and those I addressed in relation to Cornwall—an equally loved part of our United Kingdom —the Government will resist the amendment, and I hope that the noble Lord feels able to withdraw it.

[Lord Lipsey (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I think that the friends of Brecon and Radnorshire should have a good party when coronavirus has departed and we are no longer bound by the rule of six. For all his courtesy, however, I am afraid I will not be able to invite the Minister. All that needs to be said on this subject has been said, and I therefore beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 17 withdrawn.