Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Lipsey Excerpts

Monday 10th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lipsey]

My Lords, with this clause, we reach Part 2, which is a more technical part of the Bill—

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

My Lords—

[Lord Lipsey]

I am sorry. I thought that the noble Lord had resumed his seat.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

I thought that I was taking an intervention. I hope that the noble Lord will forgive me. The Government will not get off that lightly.

The Government should be reminded of the relevant sections in the very well written report of the House of Lords Constitution Committee on the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill. I understand that the report’s recommendations were carried unanimously by the membership of that committee. All parties subscribed to the principles set out in paragraph 11, which states:

“We regret the fact that this Bill has not been subject to either pre-legislative scrutiny, or to prior public consultation”.

That is to say, Liberal Democrat and Conservative Peers all support that statement.

The report continues:

“We conclude that the Government have not calculated the proposed reduction in the size of the House of Commons on the basis of any considered assessment of the role and functions of MPs”.

My noble friend’s proposed inquiry would do precisely that. It is fair to ask the question: why 600? Why not 590? Why not 500, as my noble friend Lord Rooker has suggested? Why not 550? Why not 700 or 800? All the coalition Government have done is pick figures out of the air and say, “Yes, the Liberal Democrats want 500; the Conservatives want 600. Let’s settle on that figure”. That is not the basis on which the size of what is perhaps the most important Parliament in the world should be decided.

We then have to consider the whole issue of Lords reform. Until we know what the arrangements for an elected House will be, how can we even begin to comprehend the nature of the relationship that will develop between individual constituents—because there may well be individual constituents—and Members of an elected House of Lords, and the extent to which that will impact on how many MPs there should be in the House of Commons? That matter has not even entered into the discussions that have taken place prior to the introduction of this legislation.

There is also the whole question of population, on which I intervened during my noble friend’s speech. I have pondered over the Christmas Recess on why population should not be taken into account when, particularly in the inner cities, many of the people who come to MPs’ surgeries would be excluded from the electoral register. I cannot see why those groups who are excluded should not be taken into account when one is deciding the workload of a Member of Parliament and the size of any constituency.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Thomas of Swynnerton]

My Lords, I speak as an independent who usually supports the coalition Government, but I must say that I am very much influenced by the speeches in favour of a committee of inquiry and of delay on this matter. Again, I speak as a completely independent Member, and there is one thing that should be considered. If there is a committee of inquiry, there is the fact that the other place made one major change during the course of the 20th century which was not legislated for and was not really discussed either in this House or in the other place. It is the very large increase in the number of governmental supporters who receive some kind of emolument or support from the Government of the day. In the case of the last Government the figure went up to about 100 Members as a matter of course. There has been no parliamentary approval of that, it has just happened. Perhaps we should not allow such a monumental change to happen again without discussion.

[Lord Lipsey]

My Lords, with this amendment, we move from Part 1 to Part 2. I shall make one important observation relevant to the case that my noble friend Lord Wills has made. In the case of Part 1, there was an inquiry—I know, because I sat on it. It was the Jenkins inquiry. It is perfectly true that the referendum will be not on the recommendation of Jenkins but on half of it; namely, the alternative vote. That inquiry did not completely crack the problem, but it moved the debate forward. As we found when we debated Part 1, all the speeches made were informed by the famously articulate report of Lord Jenkins and the analysis that it contained. Some agreed with it and some did not, but it shaped the analysis and therefore enabled us to have a much better debate.

The second advantage to flow from having a prior report is that, between the setting up of Jenkins and the introduction of this Bill, many people, whether mostly or wholly, changed their minds. There are many people, particularly in my own party, who are adamant first-past-the-posters and can still see the arguments for it today, but they are prepared to contemplate the argument set out in Jenkins for moving a little way in the other direction by having the alternative vote, which is an improvement on first past the post in the view of many of them.

[Lord Tyler]

My Lords—

[Lord Tyler]

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, for giving way. He was a very distinguished member of the commission that was set up and chaired by Lord Jenkins of Hillhead. Why does he think that, 10 years afterwards, we have had no action on its report? Does he not share our cynicism that the proposal of his noble friend is simply a way of privatising, pushing out and delegating responsibility for these important decisions so that nothing should happen? The experience that he and I have had of the complete failure of the Government whom he supported to do anything on the basis of that commission’s recommendation, makes us very cynical about asking somebody other than Parliament to take decisions on this matter.

[Lord Lipsey]

The noble Lord was very grateful that I gave way, but I am even more grateful to see him popping up to speak. The silence is broken—omertà is finished with. I am sure that we will have many contributions from him in the future.

There is no intention among anyone, I think, to stop this legislation, as considered properly, going through. Let us be clear that what will destroy the legislation is not the danger of delay but the danger of haste. The danger is that this ramshackle legislation, half considered, will be forced into law and that a subsequent Government, seeing that it is half baked, will force it out of law and we will have achieved nothing. That is the plan that the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, is urging on the Committee. I beg this House, which is a great example of the benefit of the rational consideration, to reject that way forward.

I was saying before I gave way to the noble Lord that many first-past-the-posters have been converted to the alternative vote, but I take more pleasure in another form of conversion that has taken place. There were many people, and the Electoral Reform Society was in their hands, who believed in wholesale, immediate electoral reform and full-scale proportional representation. I have never been persuaded of the case made for proportional representation; I do not believe in it and I do not agree with it—nor did Jenkins. However, during those years since Jenkins, and in months and years of debate, those people have moved their position so that now the Electoral Reform Society is a very strong backer of the yes campaign in this referendum. I think that it sensibly sees that a consensus reform that goes half way is better than a wholesale reform that later gets reversed, and that it is more likely to get reform by settling for a halfway house than by holding out for ever for the whole cake.

Through the post-Jenkins process has emerged a greater level of consensus on where we are going. It is not a wholesale consensus—that would require the verdict of the people in a referendum—but there is a greater level of consensus and a greater clarity on the arguments. That makes a hugely strong and powerful case for proceeding by reflection.

[Lord Desai]

Is my noble friend suggesting that the first part of this Bill is all right and the second part is causing problems, and that therefore we should hive the two things off and think more about Part 2?

[Lord Lipsey]

I made my criticisms of Part 1 during its passage. We have another chance to consider it on Report. I think it can be improved but I am broadly in favour of everything about it except the referendum date. That is my broad position. It is also my position that Part 2 needs much more improvement than Part 1. I am grateful to my noble friend for giving me the chance to make that point.

Without absorbing too much of the Committee’s time with interventions, perhaps I may be forgiven if I take one example of the kind of issue drawn from the long and comprehensive list in my noble friend’s amendment on which really considered inquiry and judgment is needed. That is the number of MPs. The figure was snatched out of the air. Half the time Ministers admit that. It should not have been snatched out of the air. There are lots of facts that are relevant. It is true that since 1950 the number of MPs has grown by 3 per cent. It is also true that the electorate have grown in the same period by 25 per cent. That is to say that every MP has 22 per cent more constituents to service. On the servicing of constituents, I have never been in another place but I did work for a Member of another place, Anthony Crosland, in 1972, and if we received 30 constituency letters per week we were astonished. They were dealt with by his constituency secretary and his local party without difficulty. Now I am told that 300 letters is the average and there is much more communication in other ways.

The research think tank, Democratic Audit, has produced some other facts that should be weighed. For example, it turns out not to be true, as the Government have argued, that we have vastly more representatives than other countries. We have barely more than France and practically the same as Italy. But other countries benefit from having far more local elected representatives to deal with a great many other things that our Members of Parliament have to deal with themselves. Whether we should go down that road is another matter but that is what was concluded. Then there is the question that has been raised briefly in this debate about the danger of cutting the number of MPs but keeping the number of Ministers precisely as it is. The Executive become even more dominant in our politics and in our political culture and even more able to get their way with the minimum amount of criticism and fuss.

I do not say that these arguments are conclusive and that the number of MPs should stay as it is, be reduced or increased. I understand the populist wave of emotion that causes people to think that the number of MPs should be decreased. It may be that an objective inquiry concludes that that is right. I do not express any opinion on those matters at this stage. All I say to the Committee is that it is surely reasonable that arguments and facts such as these should be independently weighed and considered before a final verdict is reached and before legislation making it the law of the land is forced through Parliament.

[Lord Touhig]

The Committee should be grateful to my noble friend Lord Wills for his amendment because it gives it and the coalition partners the chance to take stock and reflect on this seventh day in Committee on the Bill. If they were to adopt the proposals in the amendment that my noble friend has moved perhaps we would start to move towards some consensus on major constitutional change. That would be the common-sense approach, although I well remember as a teenager, my mother used to say to me, “Son, in life you’ll find that sense isn’t that common”.

My brief remarks all relate to subsection (2)(b) of the proposed new clause, which says that this inquiry would take,

“into account the need to maintain the Union”.

This is a matter I referred to at Second Reading because I believe that the Bill as constructed is a threat to this precious thing we have: the union of the nations in these islands. The noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, briefly referred to the Bill’s impact on Wales, where it would reduce the number of Members of Parliament by 25 per cent. If the Parliament of the United Kingdom treats Wales in this way, it will have an adverse effect on the view, Wales takes of the Union.

Welsh is the first language of the majority of people in five parliamentary seats in Wales—Ynys Môn, Arfon, Dwyfor Meirionnydd, Ceredigion, and Carmarthen East and Dinefwr. Wales is the only part of the Union where a substantial number of people—some 20 per cent of the population—speak two languages. If my noble friend’s amendment were accepted, it would at least give an opportunity to look at the impact that this legislation has on the representation of people whose first language is Welsh in this Parliament of the United Kingdom. Only Wales has a big linguistic issue so far as the rest of the union is concerned.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

The noble Lord, Lord Harris, is absolutely right about the Civil Service. It would be improper for it to do this, and it has not done it. Nor are the noble Lord, Lord McNally, and I aware of any special adviser who has done it. I cannot speak for the Conservative Party, and while I may be able to speak for the Liberal Democrats, I honestly do not know what the answer is. I simply reaffirm the point that the principle here is one vote, one value. It would be a rash person who would predict the political fallout from this reform.

[Lord Lipsey]

How does the noble and learned Lord square what he is saying about this part of the Bill being about one vote with one value, with the argument that he and his Lib Dem colleagues have put forward for years that the only votes in our system that have value are those in marginal seats, because in all other seats the votes do not count at all because of the huge majorities?

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

We are debating the earlier part of the Bill and are not going to debate electoral systems. That would be beyond the scope of this amendment. What we have done in Part 1 of the Bill will lead to a better system. That is my personal view, and the view of my party. The Government as a whole will not take a view in the referendum. I have a number of important points to make and would like to do justice to them.