Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Morgan Excerpts

Monday 17th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Soley]

My noble friend is quite right, but I am seeking to persuade the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde. I am wooing him, if you like. He does not look as though he is being wooed, but we will keep working at it and I might even get the noble Lord, Lord Baker, on my side. I indicated earlier that, when the noble Lord made his suggestion, he knew that it should happen with all-party agreement. I think that I am also right in saying that it would have implications for the size of government.

I want to touch on another very important point. If this proposal goes through in its current form, the Government will be not just opening the door but laying out a welcome mat to any future Government of any complexion to say, “We’ve decided that this is the right size for Parliament and we are going to legislate to make it that size”. That is what is so dangerous about this measure. If it goes through in its present form without an independent assessment of some kind, all-party agreement or a Speaker’s Conference, the noble Lord will have no grounds for complaint if a future Government—

[Lord Morgan]

My Lords—

[Lord Soley]

I shall give way in just one second. The noble Lord will have no grounds for complaint if a future Government, be it a Labour Government or any other kind of Government, come forward with a proposal that, they will have worked out, will benefit them politically.

[Lord Morgan]

Does my noble friend not agree that it is very puzzling that this completely arbitrary figure has been given for Members of the legislature but that no figure has been given for the size of the Executive, even though many civil servants have made such proposals? Perhaps, in the course of his fascinating remarks, he will be able to draw out from the Leader of the House an explanation as to why one aspect has been stressed and not the other.

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[Lord Lipsey]

I do not know whether it should but it does not count in Mr Straw’s list or in British Political Facts. If my noble friend wishes to inform the House further about that, I am sure it would be immensely valuable to our proceedings this evening.

[Lord Morgan]

I think the difference is between a conference convened by the party leaders, which they ask the Speaker to chair, and a conference that the Speaker is a dynamic element in arranging.

[Lord Lipsey]

I defer absolutely to my noble friend. Indeed, I was quailing in my seat at the thought of the intervention he might make, which might have sent me back to the classroom on this matter.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Morgan]

My Lords, I support the amendment admirably moved by my noble friend. This is my first intervention in discussing this measure. I do so partly because late at night one has an opportunity to make a speech without being shouted down by mass of numbers and because the constitutional issues raised are so enormously important. The proposal for a Speaker’s Conference is very serious and admirable as it gives an opportunity for objective measured reflection, which is manifestly something we are not having through the procedures chosen by the Government to get this measure through. There has been much debate on this and I have heard many noble friends on these Benches correctly say that Parliament has not had a proper opportunity to deliberate on the principles of this Bill. I say, never mind Parliament, the electors have not had a proper opportunity to do so. That is one of the extraordinary anomalies of this case, which was not put together in a manifesto. The Liberal Democrats gave a quite different number for the membership of this House. The Conservatives prudently did not give any number at all. It was not in the manifesto. It was not actually even in the substitute for the manifesto, which in itself was a constitutional anomaly, the coalition agreement, which was not put before the electors but was put before the people in that rather small room who put the present Government together. Some issues are not even in the coalition agreement, which I understand did not produce the figure of 600. This has simply emerged out of the ether and is therefore not to be found in any document, written or unwritten, other than the Bill we are discussing.

A Speaker’s Conference would also provide objective reflection on this portmanteau Bill of policies yoked together haphazardly, as the coalition parties were yoked together. As we have heard so frequently, it is at variance with constitutional tradition whereby major changes have been deliberated over at very great length and with great care. The Bill is being rushed through not because of the constitutional needs of good government in this country but because of the nature of the relationships between the Liberal Democrat leaders and the Conservative Party leaders which affect the date of the referendum for their own, no doubt, proper purposes. This is simply a matter of private deals, not of constitutional necessity.

One of the things that a Speaker’s Conference would most certainly do is what Speaker’s Conferences have previously done, and that includes the very important principle of localism and local identity, which is being swamped in this Bill. Incidentally, if I might add to my noble friend’s admirable historical disquisition on this—I was sorry to interrupt him—the Speaker’s Conference of 1919, which he passed over rather rapidly, dealt very specifically with localism and regionalism and was a conference, incidentally, where the issue of Welsh home rule came up quite strongly. One of the ironies is that the proposals for Wales are likely to make Welsh home rule rather more likely—and they are the work of the party of the union—because of the way in which Wales is being treated.

Speaker’s Conferences have looked at a variety of criteria for assessing whether constituencies should exist, where they should be drawn, their geographical, economic and cultural aspects, and so on. They have used historical identity and the relationship with local government. None of these subtleties are being looked at in detail in the Bill. On the contrary, we have simply a crude mathematical formula. That is not the way that change has been done in this country.

We have heard in previous debates about the Chartists, who called for equal electoral districts. However, the Chartists, in that pre-railway age, had a very strong sense of localism and historic identity. Chartism was an amalgam, a coalition, of dispossessed people in different parts of the country. The Chartists were very aware that a variety of localities were represented in the country’s political system—or that they should have been. They were not objecting to the disparities; they were saying that Old Sarum was deemed to be a community, even though nobody lived there—it was just a lump of ground owned by someone. Other constituencies are equal in historical aberrations. Manchester is a community. Sheffield is a community. Liverpool, Hull and Birmingham are communities. That was the kind of consideration that the Chartists tried to bring.

The Speaker’s Conference on Wales, as my noble friend Lord Lipsey said, considered very carefully the nature of localism there. Like me, my noble friend who lives there is aware of the subtleties of localism, geography, historic identity and historic relationships in Wales. If I may digress, I am aware of that because my mother and father came from two Welsh-speaking areas three miles apart, but their Welshness and their language were totally different. They were divided by the River Dovey. I grew up not bilingual, but trilingual, because I spoke in my father’s Welsh and my mother’s Welsh, as well as trying to struggle along in the English language, which I am still trying to master after the passage of years. I am doing my best.

It is extremely important that these subtleties should be looked at by a judicious body, chaired by the Speaker, with a variety of legal and historical evidence adduced. No evidence at all has been adduced, as the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, said, for the figure of 600 Members of Parliament. That is just a figure, worth no less and no more than any other figure. There is plenty of evidence that the size of the House of Commons is not out of line with that of other Assemblies in the European Union or in North America. Some of those other countries have, in any case, federal systems, such as those in Germany and Spain. Therefore, the comparison is totally meaningless.

It is disturbing that the Bill, with little opportunity for consideration and reflection, not merely decides arbitrarily without evidence, but sets up a yardstick for future determination. Once you have started with this kind of system, it will continue, and its inevitable logic is that the representation of the House of Commons will go down and not up. Therefore, we need to take a careful, considered view of these matters, which are important not just for our constitution but for our historic identity.

I will say one final thing. The Speaker’s Conference of 1944 was an admirable, careful and thorough study of the geographical, sociological and other aspects of the distribution of constituencies. There was quite a lot going on in 1944. A total war was being fought and the resources of this country were strained to the limit. Nevertheless, the Speaker's Conference held its deliberations carefully and at length. It was typical of Winston Churchill, who showed great loyalty to parliamentarism, that he endorsed the work of the Speaker's Conference in 1944. If we had time in 1944 for a proper, considered look at the distinction between national and local considerations, we have time for it now, instead of this botched and rushed procedure.

[Baroness Wall of New Barnet]

I have listened very carefully to my noble friend. There was a lot of history that I found very interesting. What struck me most was the issue of localism. I find very confusing the position of the Government. They say that they are all about the big society and that people will decide locally what schools they would like and how their hospitals are run. Local issues are presented by the Government as the way forward. My noble friend mentioned that it was fundamental in the conference that local issues were taken into account. However, this seems totally unacceptable to the current Government. Perhaps my noble friend can elicit from the Government why that is the case.

[Lord Morgan]

I am most indebted for that very interesting intervention by my noble friend. Very often those who claim to be localisers are actually centralisers. No Government rolled forward the frontiers of the state more than that of the noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher, in the 1980s. Hers was one of the most centralist Governments in our history. The present Government claim to advocate localism. Mr Pickles says that he advocates localism and the big society. He does that by telling councils what their policies should be on lighting, on the emptying of bins, on the number of local employees, on the stipends of local government officers and so on.

Localism is shot through the history of this country. It is an honoured tradition of the Liberal Party, which was pluralist. Lloyd George spoke of assizes of the people being set up in different parts of Britain. He was a radical liberal and I hope that his spirit still has resonance in the ranks of his mutated successors. The Labour Party used to claim that, but it lost its way. In the era of Keir Hardie and George Lansbury, Labour was committed to localism and local government. It then became a party of centralisers. That was one reason why it lost the last election and why the Conservatives’ spurious claims to be localisers made some headway. I was very pleased on Saturday to hear Ed Miliband reclaim localism for the Labour Party.

The Conservatives used to be a localist party. They used to claim as their patron saint Edmund Burke, who saw localism and varieties of identities and localities as the key to what he called prescription: the evolutionary historical character of a nation.

[Baroness O'Cathain]

I always love listening to the noble Lord, Lord Morgan. I have been to some of his lectures and there is no historian like him. Perhaps I may ask him a simple question. What has all that to do with this amendment?

[Lord Morgan]

First, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her great kindness. Secondly, I was endeavouring to say that the Speaker’s Conference and any rational detached look at the electoral system would introduce the issue of localities. That is what I was trying to say and, if I did not say it very clearly, I apologise. It is essential to segregate local and national identities. Edmund Burke said it and I say it.

[Lord Winston]

My noble friend cites 1944. Would he like to opine on whether he feels that Parliament was held in greater respect then and whether that is relevant to how it is regarded now?

[Lord Morgan]

The answer is clearly yes. If you look at the material of the Army Bureau of Current Affairs in 1944, you find that, when people were asked why they were fighting, they said that they were fighting for Parliament and the Crown in Parliament. That was in the literature. It spelt out, among other things, the imperishable doctrines of the Levellers, who were seen as pioneers of a democratic Parliament.

I am sorry if I did not make it clear, but I think that a Speaker’s Conference would introduce a subtle variety of criteria on the basis of constituencies. You would then conclude the total appropriate number for the House. This should be done in a detached, careful and scholarly way. I hope that even though the present Government are trying to destroy history with their higher education policy, with so little room for history, they will look at the way in which these matters are decided—any way other than this, which seems to me a botched non-compromise and a disgrace to democracy.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

My Lords, I rise with some trepidation because I am going to disagree with my noble friend Lord Lipsey and, I am afraid with my noble friend, the very eminent professor, who has just spoken. Instead, I would prefer to support the amendment standing in the name of my noble friend Lord Soley, which calls for the number of constituencies to be decided by an independent commission. I hope that the reasons for that will become clear.

It is probably agreed—perhaps not by the Leader of the House, but by everyone else—that we do not know the right number for the other place. Your Lordships will probably not remember, but in one of our earliest debates—it may have been on Second Reading—my noble friend Lord Dubs made from a seated position perhaps the most effective intervention when he mimed plucking from the air how that figure of 600 was arrived at. He claimed that that got him more fame than all his speeches, but I am not certain about that.

I am less interested in the question that has taken so much of the Committee’s time of how that figure of 600 was reached than by how any number should be reached. That is why I support the amendment moved by my noble friend Lord Soley. Incidentally, he may not know it, but in a book that I have just been reading by Jonathan Powell he is described, as he was at the time, as one of the sanest MPs. He has now been transferred into one of the sanest of our noble Lords—hence the amendment.

What is of interest to citizens—not us, the political class, if I can put us all into the same category, including even the Cross-Benchers, who as legislators would be deemed to be in the political class—on whose behalf we are all here, for whom we work, to whom we owe our legitimacy, to whom surely we have some duty of care and attention and who are the basis of our motivation in everything that we do, should be uppermost in our minds in this debate. For many years I represented the consumers of various goods and services on a variety of bodies and was in negotiations with suppliers from big business and small business, in the public sector as well as in the private sector. I learnt enormously from those whom I was supposedly there to help but who unfailingly taught me much.

I think that we should be thinking of some of the things that I learnt about how consumers, citizens, users and, yes, voters see and relate to those who take decisions on their behalf or whose decisions affect their lives, as we debate. Those people want to know: who decided what? When did they decide it? Where did they decide it? Why did they decide it? Those people ask, “Were we consulted? Were we warned about it? Were we thought about in advance?”. They often asked me whether those decisions respected their interests and their needs. Perhaps most importantly, they would say: “How can I get my voice heard by those people who take decisions that affect me?”.

That is why, historically, trade unions were formed: to give workers some say. It is why user groups are formed, whether of people who use libraries, parent groups, or car groups—all sorts of groups where people who share an interest want to get a voice. What bigger issue is there than how people can get their voice heard by Members of Parliament, who take decisions that affect them or can influence decisions taken by others that affect them?

How constituencies are put together and how many there are should perhaps not be decided at all by the political class, which is why I have to differ with the view that there should be a Speaker’s Conference. I think that the decision on the number should be taken by an independent group hearing from local people as to how they can best relate to their Member of Parliament, who will vote on the big issues here in SW1 but who will also use their influence and interventions over numerous issues—be they planning, hospitals, education, local government services, housing or private issues, such as complaints against a provider.

[Lord Morgan]

I have enormous sympathy with the spirit of what my noble friend is saying, but the point is that a Speaker’s Conference would only recommend; it would not decide. The decision would be taken by people very similar to those whom my noble friend discussed.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

It is the decision-making that I am interested in, but it seems to me that we need an independent committee that can go out to hear those views before it makes its recommendations. We need to decide how many electors can effectively be represented by a Member in the other place and not how many electors an MP can represent. Let us look at it the other way round: how many electors can effectively be represented by a Member of the other place? That means talking to those voters and asking them how they see the need for such direct communication with their representative, how they want to feel represented and how they want to be consulted.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

If I may say so, I think that that is the voice of the trade union of former Members of the other House, as opposed to those of us who have never been there.

[Lord Morgan]

I have never been there.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

Indeed, my noble friend, the most eminent professor, has never been there.

My view is that this should be a matter for the electors; their views should have a big say. It may be that these two amendments can come together to meet the essence of what we both want. I am trying to stress that this decision should not be taken by the political class; it should be taken after hearing from voters, citizens and those who will become voters how they think they can best be represented. How will people want to relate to their elected Members? Will it be by phone and e-mail? Will it be in person, one to one, or will it be through groups? I am not on Facebook, but people increasingly want their views to be heard through groups and texting, along with others of a similar position.

That may result in all sorts of needs for the size of the House, because it may be better to go, as I think was said on the Benches opposite earlier, for big constituencies, rather like the old Euro constituencies, which were the size of nine of our current constituencies. It was clear to electors that that was not where they should take local issues and that they should go to their councillors, or that they should take just big policy issues to Members of Parliament. I am not certain whether that is the right or the wrong answer. Perhaps we should have smaller constituencies, so that people can meet their representatives more. The needs of the electors should be uppermost in our minds, or in the minds of those who take these decisions, in relation to the number of seats and, therefore, the relationship that Members can have with their electors.

The same applies to the personal issues or issues of policy that electors have. Again, it may be that people will much more want to gather together, whether they have an interest in the environment, historic buildings, health or education. They may want to be grouped much more when talking about policy. Surely these issues need serious debate, rather than a quick and easy decision.

I do not know what the right number should be but, from my work with the consumers and users of any service, I know that they want to be asked, to be consulted and to be involved in those decisions before the decision is taken. That is why I support my noble friend Lord Soley in calling for an independent commission to work on this, to do real work with voters and to think about those sorts of issues. Then we might get an answer that is accepted by the whole electorate and provides for a House of Commons that really reflects the will of the people.