Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord McAvoy Excerpts

Tuesday 16th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord McAvoy]

My Lords, I shall take a minute or so to outline the context and the background against which I shall make my remarks. When I came to the other place, quite a long time ago, I did not have much time for this place and did not understand it. I thought that this place was undemocratic, illogical, irrational and all the rest of it. That was quite a naive attitude to take and was based on a lack of knowledge of this place. When I was in the government Whips Office in the other place and there was ping-pong going on, at the third ping-pong I decided to come here to try to get a grasp of what was going on. Back and forwards the Bill went, and then the Conservative spokesperson got up and said, “Well, it’s our job to revise and to get the Government to think again, but we have asked them three times with three revisions and they have chosen not to take our point of view. However, they are the elected House and they must have their way”. That was quite a shock to the system, because the people who had the power to defeat the Government chose not to use it. That made a powerful impact on me, and since then I developed quite a bit of respect for this House long before I arrived here.

The Leader of the House, in speaking against the hybridity Motion yesterday, had some fun saying that what was happening on our side of the House was House of Commons-style. That was quite provocative and, to me, it was quite clear what he was doing. He was condemning the House of Commons style as being confrontational and partisan, with all this argy-bargy. He was creating a diversion by provoking the type of behaviour that he was condemning to show that the opposition to this Bill is based on Commons partisanship and Commons-style oppositionism. That is completely wrong, but I certainly knew what he was up to.

I accept that the role of the House of Lords is that we revise and send legislation along and ask the Government of the day to think again, but the partisanship did not start on this side of the House. David Laws blew the gaff in his account of the coalition negotiations. The bit that hit me between the eyes was when he said that the Tories came forward with their proposed reform of the constituencies to “remove Labour over-representation”. The reform was nothing to do with democracy or about over-representation being a bad thing; it was about removing Labour over-representation. As my noble friend Lord Wills proved when dealing with the over-representation argument, at the very least it is debatable that there is over-representation.

The word that I would use to describe the Bill is “gerrymandering”, which has been used quite a lot this evening and yesterday. I know that sensitive people on the other side of the House do not like that word, but it is a fact—we regard it as a fact on this side of the House. I was hoping that the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, would still be in his place and I am sorry that he has left—one thing that I have noticed about this place is the weighty contributions from speakers, on both sides, who have ability, experience and judgment, so this place impresses me—because he referred yesterday to the dangers of trading permanent changes for short-term advantage, which he said would be wrong. In the Bill, we have a collaboration or coalition Government who have come together for their own short-term party-political advantage. The Conservatives, of whom I notice that there are only two in the Chamber at the moment, can only do that with the support of—guess who?—the Liberals. Members on both sides of the House have long experience of dealing with Liberals—we know what they are like—and we can see that, from their condescending position of taking the high moral ground with their fine principles, the Liberals are now displaying hypocritical behaviour. As anyone knows who has watched this situation, they have sold their souls. And what have they sold their souls for? They have sold their souls for AV.

[Lord Tyler]

My Lords, I have a very real affection for the noble Lord, Lord McAvoy, but I recall only too well that he was the past master of the black arts in the Whips Office in the other place for many years. I have the greatest respect for his opinion, but does he really think that it is appropriate that my former constituency comprised 87,000 constituents? I wonder how many constituents he represented. Does he think that it is a gerrymander to try to level things up to provide equality of voting strength among constituencies when there is such a discrepancy? Perhaps he would like to tell us how many people he represented.

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[Lord McAvoy]

Certainly. I represented 77,000 constituents. Let me say right away that, as for the affection that the noble Lord holds me in, I will think about that.

[Lord Grocott]

I suppose that my noble friend is as surprised as I am that the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, did not follow the basic rule of parliamentary questions, which is never to ask a question unless you know the answer.

[Lord McAvoy]

As ever, the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, has hit the nail right on the head.

Let me tackle the questions put by the noble Lord, Lord Tyler. First, I felt a sense not of unease but of strangeness in being described as a past master, because that phrase is not usually associated with a name such as Thomas Anthony Martin McLaughlin McAvoy. If he is not sure what he is talking about, he should come up to the west of Scotland. I certainly believe in more equalisation, and I have no problems with the Government tackling that. How the Government are going about that is the problem for me.

I am absolutely delighted that the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, has come in to the House, because he is the second Conservative Peer that I would like to quote. He need not look so worried, because it is a semi-compliment, although perhaps that might upset him. He said yesterday that constitutional change should be as a result of consensus. Those are wise words, but we do not have consensus here. That starts with the timing of the referendum in Scotland in particular, where the timing could do damage in relation to turnout. As the noble Lord, Lord McNally, mentioned, there was a large number of spoiled votes in the Scottish elections of 2007 because of confusion and change.

My noble friend Lord Grocott talked about the MPs’ constituency links, which are the bedrock of the parliamentary system. Dividing constituencies on numbers alone by taking boxes of 75,000 people would totally destroy the concept of that bond. Any MP whom I have ever met—no matter which party they were in—felt that special bond with their constituency. I was surprised to hear the noble Lord, Lord Maples—I am sorry to say this because I have always found him personally amenable—apparently denigrate both his former constituencies. I do not think that he meant to do so, but that was how it came across. That link between the Member of Parliament and the constituency is undervalued in the Bill. However, I do not want to repeat how an MP can link up with his or her constituency, because that has been dealt with quite a bit already.

Noble Lords have referred to the fact that a referendum on AV was mentioned in the Labour Party manifesto. I do not have a problem with having a referendum. I am opposed to AV and I shall campaign against it if a referendum comes about, as I believe in first past the post. To come back to my friends the Liberals, with proportional representation—or any variation of it—parties and their leaders will say one thing before an election and then, once they get into the smoke-filled room, they will do a deal and forget what they promised the public. For example, right up to days and hours before the general election, Mr Clegg pledged not to vote for increased tuition fees, despite the fact that, internally, the Liberals had acknowledged two months before the general election that going back on such a pledge would be a distinct possibility. Yet what happened? They made a deal. Proportional representation is undemocratic. I do not believe that people should get their way on PR, which just allows the hierarchies and elites to go and make their deals.

It has been acknowledged on all sides of the House that 3.5 million people are not on the register that will be used to draw up these parliamentary boundaries. It is particularly undemocratic that there are to be no local inquiries; that is an affront to democracy. If Liberal-held constituencies can get special treatment, why cannot my former constituency? My former constituency faces being split, despite regaining our community cohesion as being part of South Lanarkshire rather than, as was the case previously, being situated in Glasgow. Yesterday, the Leader of the House—again, I note that he is not in his place—invited my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer of Thoroton to come up to the Western Isles to face the people there about the size of their constituency. I invite the Leader of the House, in his absence, to come to another constituency by coming to Rutherglen or Cambuslang or Halfway.

Even better, I invite the noble Lord, Lord McNally, or the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, to come to Rutherglen, Cambuslang and Halfway to advocate that the constituents should again be in with Glasgow. If the noble Lord, Lord McNally, accepts my invitation, I will be absolutely delighted to make the arrangements now. As the chair of the meeting, I will give him fair and impartial treatment. I would like to see him come and tell the people of my former constituency that they do not care whether they still have their own local community, which we have been in for 500 years. We are going to be ripped apart by a deal done for political convenience.

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[Lord Roberts of Llandudno]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to take part in this debate. Much of what we have heard seems to treat the electoral system as something that is static and could well be stagnant, but it has always been evolving. There was the secret ballot, generally advancing the number of adult males who could vote. Then there was more or less universal suffrage, with the introduction of votes for women. Then the voting age was reduced to 18. It has always been an evolving system. As it has evolved, it has largely adapted to the needs and demands of the time.

The first past the post system was possibly far more acceptable when there were only two parties, as in the 19th century. There were the Whigs and the Tories, then the Liberals and the Conservatives, so in every constituency there would be a straight fight. That meant that whoever won would have had to have won 50 per cent of the vote. It was only as the other parties came on the scene that fewer than 50 per cent of the electorate could enable a party to win a seat. I refer to Wales in the 1910 general election. There was one two-Member constituency, Merthyr Tydfil, and let us admit that it did the nation proud by electing Keir Hardie as one of its two Members. However, there were 32 single-Member constituencies, and of those 32 only a Swansea seat had a three-cornered contest, won by Ben Tillet, who entered the fray on behalf of the Labour Party. In 31 of those Welsh seats it was therefore just a straight fight, so those Members would represent 50 per cent of the electorate.

One hundred years later, we rarely see a two-party fight. There is a multitude of candidates for every seat. In Wales, as in other places, since the Labour Party emerged we have had Plaid Cymru and the Green Party; we often have between five and eight candidates contesting the one seat. That means that of those seats, very few of them see more than 50 per cent of the votes cast for the winning candidate. For instance, I was looking at the 40 seats that we had at the general election, and in only six of them did a party have 50 per cent or more of the votes. We have a situation that demands adaptation and modernisation or else we are back in the dinosaur era of the 1900s.

I am thinking of north Wales—I can speak of the area that I know. We have nine parliamentary seats in the regional list area for the Welsh Assembly. Of those nine seats last May, no one winner came anywhere near having 50 per cent of the votes. Aberconwy was won with 35.8 per cent for the winning Conservative candidate, while 63.2 per cent voted against that candidate. In Alyn and Deeside, 39.6 per cent voted for the winning candidate while 60.4 per cent voted against. So it was throughout the region. Arfon, Clwyd West, Delyn, Clwyd South, Vale of Clwyd, and Wrexham were all won with less than 50 per cent of the vote. Usually the winning candidate had around 40 per cent or less.

Ynys Môn, the last one, was won by Labour with a vote in favour of the MP of only 33.4 per cent. That meant that 66 per cent of the electors in that constituency did not vote for the winning candidate. Is that a fair result? The Bill that we are discussing is a Bill for the representation of the people. Do figures such as these give us adequate and fair representation of the people? When there was a straight fight in Anglesey in 1910, Ellis Jones Griffiths, who I am happy to say was a Liberal, got 70.7 per cent of the vote—more than double the 33.4 per cent of 2010. I suggest that, whatever our traditional approach to this, the system is horrendously unfair. Two-thirds of the electorate in a constituency are unrepresented directly.

When we fight elections every party uses the two-horse race theme, saying that it is a fight between Labour and Conservative or Liberal and Conservative. We try to squeeze the vote, instead of having a straightforward system whereby the people themselves choose the second name that they want to vote for. It is a far more transparent and much fairer system. Under the system that we have today, if we go for larger constituencies—if, say, Ynys Môn were to go from 50,000 to 75,000—and just 33 per cent still vote for Labour, it will mean that even more people are unrepresented. If we have larger constituencies it is absolutely essential that we have the AV system of election.

Let us also look at something else. The system that, a century ago, gave at least half the electors an MP of their choice, today denies that to the majority of the electorate of the United Kingdom. We speak of 3.5 million people who are unregistered. Can I speak for the 20-odd million people whose votes are not influential in electing a Member of Parliament? We have the opportunity in the AV Bill and the AV referendum to put that right.

How do we encourage young voters? I have another meeting tomorrow evening in Parliament.

[Lord McAvoy]

My good friend the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, has informed me that in 2005 my electorate was just over 74,000. In response, I should have said “approximately 77,000”. I needed to get that clear. In 2010 it must be near enough to 77,000. Does the noble Lord, Lord Roberts, take into account that the bigger the constituency in numbers, the more casework there will be? In my old constituency I went from having 53,000 to that 74,000 after the reduction of the Scottish seats. It made for a considerably increased amount of work.

[Lord Roberts of Llandudno]

That has nothing to do with my argument. My argument is that in larger seats more people will not have a direct influence on the Member that they elect, which is very serious.

I come to mention the Bite the Ballot campaign, which aims to engage young people in democracy and bridge the gap between democracy and young people’s apathy. Are we going to say to those young people, “We want you to be engaged in democracy but, remember, two-thirds of your votes will not count”? Are we going to say that more than 50 per cent of the votes that they cast will have no influence whatever? That is why we need to support not only the Bill but the AV referendum when it comes.

To conclude, the system that we have today is unfit for the 21st century. It was worn out in the 20th century and barely acceptable in the 19th century. I ask those who say, “Let’s keep the old system”, what is your alternative if we are to tell young people that their votes count? Under first past the post we say, “Hard lines—you just haven’t come up with a winner”. What is your alternative? Will you continue to support a dinosaur system of elections, or are you ready to move into the future?