Parliamentary Constituencies Bill

Lord Randall of Uxbridge Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 27th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Randall of Uxbridge (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend the Minister on introducing the Bill so ably. I should correct the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Lea of Crondall. I understand that Nissan is not closing its plant in Sunderland. Perhaps my noble friend can verify that when he winds up.

I welcome the Bill, for a variety of reasons. Those of us who served in the other place will recognise that constituency boundaries are always a subject of great interest. I agree that the previous proposals to reduce the number of constituencies were well intentioned, but rather misguided. Those of us who have been MPs in recent years can attest to the fact that a combination of factors, not least huge technical changes, have resulted in a vastly increased workload. There is also a great expectation about what services MPs should now be able to provide. When I first entered Parliament in 1997, I did not have an email and the new wonders of the modern mobile phone were virtually unheard of.

I am afraid that I take issue with the rather throwaway comments of my noble friend Lord Mancroft. He does Members of the other place a disservice to imply, however light-heartedly, that they are frolicking on the beach now that the Commons is in recess. My experience is that the hard work of MPs and their hard-working staff does not cease just because the House of Commons is not sitting.

I was extremely lucky in that I represented a constituency that I had always lived and worked in. My house was virtually in the centre of the constituency, but as various boundary reviews have taken place I have found myself slipping towards the borders. However, for the vast majority of the electorate, boundaries are relatively unimportant. All they ask for is to have a readily available representative who they can contact and who will deal with their concerns as speedily as possible. If we increase the number of constituents, that service might inevitably suffer.

Another unintended consequence is that it might increase the possibility that constituencies will cover more local authorities and attendant public authorities. I always counted myself extremely lucky that, with a geographically small constituency, I did not have to deal with the myriad organisations that other less fortunate MPs have to deal with. In this, I agree entirely with the sentiments of my noble friend Lord Trenchard.

I agree with the Government that this change will provide certainty that the recommendations of the independent and impartial Boundary Commissions will be implemented without political interference, or interference from either government or Parliament. This is absolutely the way it should be conducted. I also welcome the provisions that deal with how Boundary Commission reports are implemented. However, I add my support to the comments of my noble friends Lord Young of Cookham and Lord Cormack, and of the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Pittenweem, about tightening up the wording about laying Orders in Council, which currently states “as soon as possible”.

Time limitations mean that I will not speak about other measures in the Bill. Suffice it to say that I thoroughly support them and I look forward to its eventual arrival on the statute book. I wish it well.

Parliamentary Constituencies Bill

Lord Randall of Uxbridge Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 8th September 2020 Grand Committee

[Lord Campbell of Pittenweem (LD)]

My Lords, I am tempted to say: “Follow that!” The noble Lord has given us something that is not just elegant and eloquent but very firmly researched. To avoid the risk of being accused of being repetitive or even repetitious, I propose to adopt the contribution not only of the noble Lord, Lord Young, but that of the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, both of which point very firmly in favour of this amendment.

I took some time—but not as much as the noble Lord, Lord Young—to look at the dictionary and examine what the word “practicable” is said to mean. There are a series of alternatives: realistic, feasible, possible. The point about them, however, and the point about practicable, is that these are all subjective. The consequence, as was hinted at just a moment ago by the noble Lord, Lord Young, is that there is a discretion which is virtually unfettered. The potential problem for Governments, of course, would be that a failure would be subject to the possibility of judicial review. Very few Governments would want to be put to the embarrassment of being taken to the High Court to explain their failure to do something which, as the noble Lord, Lord Young, has just pointed out, is routinely a matter of administration.

The point is this: the amendment does not destroy that discretion but limits it so that Governments cannot use it for their own interests. We have had several examples of that, both at Second Reading and again today. It cannot possibly be wrong to allow the Government discretion but to ensure that they do not abuse it.

[Lord Randall of Uxbridge (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I am speaking to Amendments 7 and 9, to which I have added my name, along with those of three of the most noble of colleagues from the other place, for whom I have the deepest respect. What has already been said, particularly by my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham, says it all.

My noble friend Lord Cormack spoke about the Executive and I think he is right to have a cynical view of Executives of all political colours. As was said in a previous debate, the governing party should always remember that the electoral cycle will go round and it will be on the receiving end of some of these measures and they may not seem like such a good idea. I cannot see a good reason for not accepting these amendments, to be perfectly honest, as my noble friend Lord Young has eloquently expressed. It would be very wise for the Government to have a little think about this and insert a time limit. It might not be 12 weeks—although 12 weeks seems like an excellent idea—but, to make sure that they do not look like they have given in, they could make it 13 weeks, and then it would be a government victory. That is the way I see these things evolve.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, it is a delight to follow my noble friend Lord Randall, who was a superb Deputy Chief Whip when I had the privilege to be Chief Whip of the Conservative Party. We are both supporting the excellent arguments made by my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham, who, among his many jobs, was Chief Whip of the Conservative Party at least once. I say to the Minister that if he has three colleagues who have served at senior rank in the Conservative Whips’ Office, our point of view, as we are unanimous in this, should not be dismissed too lightly.

Since I am speaking from the cheap seats at the far end of the call centre, let me make the cheap political point first. The Conservative Party, of which I am a proud member, has absolutely clean hands on Boundary Commission reports. I want to keep it that way and I want the perception to be that way. The only parties that have mucked around with those reports were Labour, when Jim Callaghan ditched the boundary commission proposals in 1969, and the disgraceful ploy by the Lib Dems to kick into touch the 2011 review. They are responsible for our boundaries being eight years out of date. Those are the political points. The Conservative Party has never done that and I do not want it ever to do that and I do not want there to be the slightest ability for it to be perceived to be able to do that.

That is why it is terribly important that, in a Bill that has got everything else right—reducing the number of seats and cutting out the possibility of Parliament interfering and kicking Boundary Commission reviews into touch—we have an amendment that says it must be delivered within three months. I do not need to go through any of the excellent details that my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham delivered—in any case, I do not have that ability—but a couple of other points struck me as crucial. One is that everyone else in this process has to perform within strict time limits, but not the Government. The Government should also be held to a strict time limit, and three months is right. Six weeks is too little.

This has nothing to do with the Delegated Powers Committee, which I have the privilege to chair. We did not comment on this Bill because there was nothing relevant to us, but time after time in the Delegated Powers Committee we see skeleton Bills coming along with all the details to be filled in later by complicated regulations. Yesterday, I participated in the Chamber on the immigration Bill. The opposition spokesman criticised the Government, understandably, for bringing in a regulation which would run to dozens of pages on highly complex new Immigration Rules, which would be made under the “made affirmative” procedure and take effect immediately.

If it is possible for the Government in that instance—they are doing it on dozens of occasions—to invent, almost overnight, highly complex regulations, it is a piece of cake for them to pass a simple regulation that, as my noble friend pointed out, on the last occasion consisted of no more than 27 lines. It would be simple for them to produce an Order in Council implementing someone else’s report. The Government have no work to do: it has already been done by the Electoral Commission. All they have to do is make a simple order in Parliament and bring it into force within three months.

My noble friends Lord Randall and Lord Young of Cookham have made impeccable arguments for implementing the Boundary Commission reports within that three-month timescale. I conclude by repeating my opening remarks: the Conservative Party has had an impeccable record on this and the Bill is excellent in every detail, except for this one lacuna. I say to my noble friend the Minister: let us plug that lacuna and remove any possible suspicion that a Conservative Government could muck around with Boundary Commission reports and delay them.