Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Lloyd of Berwick Excerpts

Monday 15th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grocott]

My Lords, I listened to the Leader of the House many times when he was Leader of the Opposition and was often almost seduced by his oratory. However, that was not the case on this occasion and I do not think that it was a speech that he will be entirely thrilled about, because it was based almost entirely on suggesting that my noble and learned friend’s argument was spurious, shallow, pointless and simply and avowedly party-political. The noble Lord is nodding, so he is obviously confirming that. I want to comment initially on two points that he made, which are important considerations for the rest of us during this debate.

The noble Lord said that we know “that this Bill is on a tight timetable”. In other words, it has been guillotined quite severely in the Commons; that; of course, is what he hopes to be able to achieve in the Lords. I simply ask him: who is responsible for this Bill being on a tight timetable? The Government have made that decision in the full light of all the information. It is also, presumably, the reason why the Government say that it was not even possible to have pre-legislative scrutiny on this huge constitutional Bill—one which I think the party leader of the noble Lord, Lord McNally, has described as being part of the most important reforms since 1832, with characteristic understatement. Your Lordships need not worry; I am coming to hybridity. I am sure that the noble Lord will deal with that as seriously as I am dealing with the comments that he has been making.

The noble Lord enunciated what I thought a unique constitutional principle—at least as far as I have heard in this House; it was an astonishing one to come from the Leader of the House—in which it is not this House’s business to consider issues which have not been voted on or considered in the other place. He has commented on it enough times to make me realise that this means that large swathes of business under this coalition Government will not be possible for us to discuss, because he knows perfectly well that in the other place large sections of business are frequently not discussed and not voted upon. That is due to timetabling, which obviously took place under the previous Government as it does under this one. But please let us not pretend that he is making a serious constitutional argument that we must not consider it ourselves because it has not been considered by the other place.

I come to a severely practical point on the issue of hybridity, which was partly touched upon in an earlier exchange. No one could seriously argue that this particular clause of this particular schedule did not have characteristics of hybridity: “Preserved constituencies” is all it says. It then lists two constituencies with no explanation whatsoever of why they are preserved. I put this as a procedural point to the Leader of the House; I would have thought that there is clearly no reason on earth why any other constituency that wants to be added to the preserved list should not be able to make out a case for doing so. There are 648 parliamentary constituencies not covered in the preserved list. I shall certainly be trying to persuade this House that Telford is a constituency that should not be interfered with. It is a fast-growing town in the West Midlands, whose population changes much more rapidly than other constituencies. I put only that point to him. I will not develop the argument now—it would not be to the specific point of hybridity—other than to point out that these amendments, should they be tabled, could not possibly be grouped because the nature of the hybridity means that each case is individual and is unrelated to all the other constituencies. That is the basis on which these two constituencies are put down.

If, for the sake of argument, many amendments were tabled making the case for individual constituencies, it could not then be sustained, even if you concede that this clause is hybrid, that it was only a small part of the Bill, as some of the proponents of this not being a hybrid Bill are advancing. If, during the passage of the Bill through this House, other constituencies were added to the “exempt” clause, it would become a much bigger part of the Bill. I put it to the noble Lord the Leader of the House that these are serious questions; the case is certainly serious so far as I am advancing it. There is hardly a constituency in Britain that could not put its case on the basis of its boundaries, its communities and their relationship of the communities to each other.

In passing, we have to acknowledge that all local contribution to this by way of public inquiry, which has always been the case in the past, is being bypassed too; as the noble Lord the Leader of the House has told us, the Bill is under a very tight schedule. I acknowledge that there are different opinions on this, but it is not worthy simply to use the characteristics of normal parliamentary banter, which I enjoy as much as anyone else, in responding to a very serious Motion that my noble and learned friend has tabled which, on the noble Lord’s own admission, will delay the Bill, if that is what it does, by only a week and a half. On a matter of such constitutional importance—the Government’s words, not mine, although on this occasion I agree with them—should we really not be able to delay the Bill by that time in order to establish where there is clear and serious doubt, although the noble Lord will no doubt be able to persuade enough people to his point of view? We should at least have the opportunity of dealing with that question in the proper way by referring it in the way that my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer is suggesting.

[Lord Lloyd of Berwick]

In a brief intervention some months ago, I acquired an entirely undeserved and unsought reputation for being an expert on hybridity. On that occasion, though, I detected what I thought to be a serious issue that needed to be considered in the way described. On this occasion, I can detect no such issue. I have listened with great care to what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, has said. I accept that the threshold is a low one, a point that I made on the previous occasion, but an elector’s interest in voting is not a private interest in the sense described in the Standing Orders. There can therefore be no question of treating one private interest differently from another. I am saying, only in a roundabout way, exactly what I believe the Clerk of the Public Bill Office has himself said in the letter that has been mentioned.

Before I am asked, I shall say that I have not read—

[Lord Harris of Haringey]

My Lords—

[Lord Lloyd of Berwick]

I am about to be asked, I think.

[Lord Harris of Haringey]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. Is it not the case that the act of voting is an individual one, yes, but as an elector you want wherever possible to be with a community of others? Surely the point about constituencies is that they are about communities. If you break up communities that are naturally together, that has severe consequences for the interests of all the individuals who make up that electorate.

[Lord Lloyd of Berwick]

Of course communities matter. I yield to no one on that view but we are talking here about the specific question of whether the right to elect is itself a private interest, as described in the Standing Orders.

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

The argument I am making, which is based on the Charlwood and Horley Bill from 1973, is that the interest lies in the group with which you vote. The argument over the Charlwood and Horley Bill was about whether you should be in Surrey or Sussex. It was not about an individual right to vote; it was about who you were grouped with. I earnestly ask the noble and learned Lord to consider his view on the Charlwood and Horley Bill and why I am not right in what I am saying. He is putting the argument back to me in a way that is not how I am putting it to him.

[Lord Lloyd of Berwick]

Of course I am; that is my purpose. I am putting it in the way it should be put. To my mind, whatever group the individual may be in, it remains his individual right. That is not a private right as described in the Standing Orders.

[Lord Beecham]

Will the noble and learned Lord turn to the question of locality? What does “locality” mean if not what my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer of Thoroton and my noble friend Lord Harris referred to?

[Lord Lloyd of Berwick]

I am still on the question of whether the right to elect is a private right. That is the question. Unless it is, these so-called private rights are not private rights within the meaning of the Standing Orders.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

Does the noble and learned Lord accept that the determination of the size of a constituency affects not only the right to vote but, subsequently, the nature of the relationship between constituents and their Member of Parliament? In the case of Orkney and Shetland, where there would be only 37,000, and that of the Western Isles, where there are only 22,000, would their local and private rights not be differently treated by a Bill which otherwise created constituencies of 76,000, plus or minus 5 per cent? Would it not mean that the relationship between the Member of Parliament and his or her constituents in these two constituencies was fundamentally different from that of the Member of Parliament to his constituents elsewhere? Does that not therefore indicate that local and private interests are differently treated by the Bill? In that case, have we not passed the low threshold? I remind the House of what the Speaker said in the 1962-63 Session:

“I accept the true position to be this, that if it be possible for the view to be taken that this Bill is a Hybrid Bill it ought to go to the examiners. There must not be a doubt about it”.—[Official Report, Commons, 10/12/62; col. 45.]

Have we not cleared the low threshold?

[Lord Lloyd of Berwick]

I have already dealt with the threshold point. I accept and have always accepted that the threshold is low, but in this instance I suggest respectfully to the House that the threshold has not been crossed. As to the rest of the noble and learned Lord’s argument, it seems to go much further than the simple point that I am trying to make, which has to do with the meaning of “private interest” in the relevant Standing Orders. On that, I find myself in complete agreement with the views expressed by the Clerk of Public and Private Bills. I expected to be asked whether I had read the opinion of the leading counsel, who appears to have expressed a different view. I have no doubt that if I had read that opinion I would be better informed than I am, but I am not altogether sure that I would necessarily be any wiser. Certainly, doing the best that I can, it seems that the Bill is not hybrid.