Parliamentary Constituencies Bill

Lord Morris of Aberavon Excerpts

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

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Henig) (Lab)]

Lord Liddle. No? We will move on to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris of Aberavon.

[Lord Morris of Aberavon (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to support the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas. As Welsh Secretary, I ran a mile whenever I thought there was a conflict of interest. It is for others to judge whether I succeeded. It goes without saying that I did the same as Attorney-General. The spirit and meaning of this amendment is that the office of Lord Chancellor has been changed. It certainly gives the appearance of being a more political office. I will make no comment on his statutory duty to maintain the rule of law in the present circumstances, but it is important to distance the appointment of the Boundary Commission from a perception of closeness to party interests. The machinery—the bread and butter—of general elections is the make-up of constituencies. This is what the Bill does, with disastrous consequences for the representation of Welsh electors. A judicial method of appointment removes the semblance of political interests.

As Welsh Secretary, I had experience of a parallel matter. In what I would call my vice-regal role, it was my duty to appoint the chairman of the Local Government Boundary Commission and, I believe, its members. I presume that this duty went, on devolution, to the Assembly and it is too late to amend it, but it is important so far as England is concerned. The same argument—the need to distance decision-making from a politician—applies to this kind of appointment and the Boundary Commission itself. On assuming office, I inherited the proposed appointment of the Local Government Boundary Commission chairman from my Conservative predecessor. I was not satisfied with the proposed appointment.

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[Baroness Deech (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I support everything that the noble Lord, Lord Norton, has said and, therefore, I oppose this amendment, because it is clear to everyone that 800 MPs in this or any other legislature in the world is too great a number for ease of debate, expense, space, collegiality and concentrated expertise. Indeed, 650 Members of Parliament was thought to be too many, and it seems that that number has been chosen over 600 to avoid too many MPs losing their seats. If that is the case, 800 is certainly too large for this House as well, even though a substantial proportion rarely show up or participate. Even when we have been operating virtually and many of the barriers to physical arrival in the House have been removed, only about 550 have participated in votes. One is grateful to those who absent themselves because it relieves the pressure on facilities but, at the same time, one asks what they are doing accepting a peerage if they do not want to join in the work of the House.

In opposing this amendment, I call for a renewed effort to reduce the size of the House to a number comparable with the Commons. The fact that our efforts so far have turned out to be in vain is not our fault. This House, sadly, seems to be as unpopular as it has ever been, partly because of its size and partly because of unexpected appointments. It might have been more explicable if a practice recommended by the Lord Speaker’s committee of appending a notice to the announcement to a new appointment of how that person qualifies and expects to serve had been adopted. It is unpopular, too, because it has vigorously and repeatedly rejected the clear will of the electorate, expressed first in a referendum and then confirmed by two subsequent general elections, that they do not want to stay in the European Union. But I wish there was more understanding of our role as scrutineers of legislation and, on occasion, as the moral conscience of the nation—an issue that is likely to come up shortly.

On the issue of size, your Lordships know very well the sensible measures for reduction put forward by the Lord Speaker’s committee. We were progressing quite nicely with reduction until the addition of the new appointments made by this and previous Prime Ministers in the last few years. Despite the pledges made, it seems that Prime Ministers cannot resist the temptation of handing peerages to supporters and donors. There is no way that the House can defy the Writ of Summons calling them to Westminster. The size and composition of this House are also hemmed in by the presence of 26 Bishops and the hereditaries—elements that work to block a better gender balance. Therefore, we have to take matters into our own hands and ask the party groupings again to consider how each may reduce its share of membership. Some will have to be thrown off the life raft in order that more may survive. Rejection of this amendment is a spur to action, and I call on it to serve as such.

[Lord Morris of Aberavon (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, on the size of the House of Lords are not quite relevant, with respect. When we discussed this before, I said—I was a lonely voice—that our efforts to reduce the size of the House of Lords were bound to fail because of the grim truth that no one could restrain future Prime Ministers. It is the like the puzzle you had as a schoolboy doing your 11 plus or the equivalent—filling the bath at one side and emptying it on the other; there is no means of controlling the end product. That is what I would say on the relevance.

The noble Lord, Lord Norton, whom we all respect for his contributions in this field, has put his case very strongly. There is no magic number of 650. Nobody has explained to me why it should be 650 and not 651 or 649, or whatever number is justified. There is no case in my view for reducing the present membership of the House of Commons. That is why I support the principle, whatever the details of the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Norton.

Being an MP is now much more demanding. In 41 years of representing my own constituency, things were fairly level. There were other problems, mainly industrial problems, but now the task of the MP has become much more difficult. There is an expectation, with the development of email, of instant action on behalf of a demanding constituent. I tried to pursue two professions—of being a Member in the House of Commons and practising at the criminal Bar—and I hope that I succeeded. I doubt that in the present circumstances, such are the demands on a modern Member of Parliament, one could have done the same thing for 41 years.

This is an important amendment. I support it on the principle that the greater the number of MPs, the lesser the chance of wrecking the physical make-up of the membership in Wales. Under the present proposals, the county that I represented in part would again be subject to a huge wrecking operation to justify an equality of numbers for each of the new constituencies. Therefore, the principle of the greater number helps me in my argument of trying to preserve representation that offers some degree of continuity. I used to speak for constituents; those were the people I represented. They value continuity, value the membership of the House of Commons and value the fact that they know who their Member of Parliament is. In my part of the world that may be more important than in a major industrial area, where perhaps there is more anonymity. In our area, it is important that constituents know who to go to when there is trouble.

I support this amendment very much, because it tries to meet present needs, and a reduction in the House of Commons to 650 is no more justified than the original proposal to reduce it 600.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I am speaking to your Lordships from the far end of the Room. It is not that I consider noble Lords extra-contagious, and I hope they do not consider me so, and I am not extra-social distancing; it is just the only place that I can get into in my wheelchair. It was an absolute delight to hear the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, speak, and I agree with every word she said. I hope that that does not do irreparable damage to her reputation, but there you have it.

First, I did not intervene at the end of the Minister’s last speech, but I was very surprised by the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, for whom I have the utmost respect. I thought she was treated abysmally by Jeremy Corbyn, and I am glad she is back in position. I say simply that I recall from 1997 onwards that Tony Blair stuffed every single quango full of Labour Party apparatchiks and the Tory party is a bit slow in catching up.

I go back to the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Norton of Louth. I am afraid that I disagree profoundly with him. There are too many MPs already. I regret that we have gone back to 650 from 600, but I can live with that—I am okay with it. We will come to this later, under the next amendment but, in my opinion, Scotland is heavily overrepresented. Scottish MPs at Westminster have little to do and are earning money on false pretences. English MPs have to deal with all political matters, but Scots at Westminster have MSPs who do the bulk of the work. However, I shall say more about that under the next amendment.

The answer is not to have more MPs or Peers but to increase the powers of parish councils, district councils, county councils, unitary authorities and elected mayors, and to devolve authority down. I agree entirely that the House of Lords should not be larger than the House of Commons, but the answer is to cut the number of Lords and not increase the number of MPs. I am afraid that we have seen, as I said in my detailed report to the committee looking into the size of the Lords, that Prime Ministers will not play ball with recommendations voluntarily to restrict the number of Peers they create. They cannot and will not do it, for many well-known reasons. Like it or not, we are going to have to take matters into our own hands and, at some point, invent a system to have retirement of Peers over a certain age—whatever that may be—and chuck out those who attend less than 20% or 25% of our sittings. But that is for another occasion.

I will also say that MPs do not have a heavier workload now there are no longer MEPs. I am not sure that I ever had any constituents who went to an MEP to handle local problems. They expected the MP to do it. In my experience, most constituents who had a complaint about an EU proposal came to the MP.

I know that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris, said that, with email, people expect instant answers. That is the case, but there is also instant availability of the answers on government websites, and on information supplied by the political parties and by the House of Commons and House of Lords Libraries. I do not accept that the workload is so exceptionally increased that we need to increase the number of MPs. I hope my noble friend the Minister will reject the amendment. Admittedly, it was well argued by my noble friend Lord Norton, but I hope he will still reject it.

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[Baroness Humphreys (LD) [V]]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hain, for tabling Amendment 14 and for presenting us with the opportunity to debate the impact of this Bill on the number of parliamentary constituencies in Wales and for his excellent introduction to this amendment. As we know, Wales has 40 MPs. If the recommendations in the Bill come into being and constituencies of near equal numbers of voters are created, it is estimated that this would result in the number being reduced to somewhere around 32—or, as the leading north Wales newspaper’s headline proclaimed:

“Proposed boundary shakeup ‘could see Wales lose a quarter of its MPs’.”

At a time when it is important that the voice of Wales is heard in Westminster, this reduction in representation is a real disappointment. By making all votes count equally throughout the UK, Wales will lose eight or perhaps even nine MPs to England.

If the Government care about all votes counting equally, could I recommend that they adopt a fair, modern and proportional voting system to represent properly the political views of all voters in the UK? I think that many people in Wales are beginning to view the country’s political future in a different light. We know already that as a small country we are massively outnumbered, as it is, by our larger neighbour. This reduction in the number of Welsh MPs will further unsettle voters.

However, attitudes towards our relationship with England and the union are changing. Devolution and, ironically, Covid-19 are contributing to that. A YouGov poll published on 1 September showed that more than twice as many people trust the Senedd as trust Westminster to look after the interests of Wales. The people of Wales are turning their backs on the union with England in another way. While preparing for this debate, I reread the speech I made in October last year in response to the Queen’s Speech. I spoke about the independence debate in Wales and the growth of what is termed the “indy-curious”—those people in Wales who do not consider themselves to be nationalist but are curious about independence and open to it. At the time I made the speech, I think around 6% of the Welsh population were in favour of independence. By June this year, the figure had risen to 25% and the latest YouGov poll taken in August shows 32%, the highest figure ever recorded in favour of Welsh independence.

For me, maintaining the status quo would be the ideal. We are rather comfortable with the 40 parliamentary constituencies we have now, but I accept that that is probably a non-starter under the Bill. I regretfully accept that there is very little likelihood that the Minister will agree to the proposed number of Welsh MPs being increased, despite the excellent case made by many speakers in Grand Committee today, but I would be delighted if the Minister proved me wrong.

Fortunately for Welsh voters, there is a way to redress the balance. The Senedd has legislated in Wales for more than 20 years, with only 60 Members. It desperately needs more. As the McAllister review concluded in 2017, the National Assembly, as it was then, needs more Members as its powers continue to grow in order effectively to hold the Welsh Government to account and deliver for the people and communities of Wales—now even more so.

As our representation and voice in Westminster look likely to be reduced, it is not only logical but right that our Senedd take the tools they need to do their job. The Welsh people now understand the value of devolution and the Senedd and the challenge is for political parties to be clear with the electorate as we approach the Senedd elections next year and make the case for increased representation in Cardiff in their manifestos. If Welsh voters are to lose out in Westminster, they cannot and must not also lose out in Cardiff.

[Lord Morris of Aberavon (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I support the amendment so ably moved by my noble friend Lord Hain, as is his custom. He was my political neighbour for many years. I represented Aberavon and he represented Neath. I am not going to take up too much time expanding on the observations I made at Second Reading. Indeed, I made the same points almost exactly word for word in the debates on the earlier Bill from the coalition Government. I could see that there had been an obvious increase in Welsh representation over the years. I suspect the reason has been that the Boundary Commission has not wanted to upset unduly the status quo and has taken the easiest route by expanding membership. I suspect it looked at Wales, as it knows it well. In fairness, there were strong arguments for it: first, the affinity with local government; secondly, the advantage of continuity; thirdly, the particular needs of constituencies with the run down of traditional heavy industries; and lastly, the unwritten rule manifested in practice almost without exception over a long period of time that the number should not fall below 35. Can the Minister tell us exactly when and on what occasions and for what period the figure went below 35? I have not gone into the history of the matter, and I hope the Minister will be able to give us the answer to that specific question.