National Assembly for Wales (Representation of the People) (Amendment) Order 2010

Lord Roberts of Llandudno Excerpts

Wednesday 1st December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Elystan-Morgan]

My Lords, there are two good reasons why one should welcome this order. The first is that the House is not experiencing any problem as far as seating is concerned. The second is that, for once in the history of Wales, we have a development that seems to be applauded generally and totally by everyone. That is almost unique in a land of such fissiparous divisions as my own land and nation of Wales. The Electoral Commission and all those bodies responsible for these amendments are to be commended on the way in which they have conducted themselves. They have consulted fully and have managed to achieve a rapport among all bodies. All that is involved in the order are amendments that are consequential on legislation that this House and the other place have passed over the past four years.

Having said that, perhaps I may, with the indulgence of the House, take one minute to mention other matters. No one can speak of elections in Wales without being aware of the vulturous presence of legislation that will in a few months affect Wales greatly. I refer specifically to the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill, which will deprive Wales of one-quarter of its constituencies. That is an immense proportion. Reducing the number of constituencies of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland by 50 will mean a reduction of one-thirteenth. If my mathematics is anywhere near right, that is about 7.8 per cent of the totality. In Wales, it will be 25 per cent.

Many people may say, “Well, come off it, you have managed to have this advantage for many decades. Has not the time come when you should surrender this advantage?”. That exact point was put to the right honourable Kenneth Clarke as Home Secretary when he was conducting the parliamentary commissions Bill through the House of Commons in 1992. He said, “I am not having it. Wales is a land, a nation. There is a constitutional arrangement here, which I respect and am determined to uphold”. Wales is no less a land, a nation, now than it was in 1992.

If the House wishes to have a sleepless and nightmarish experience over the next few hours, one need only contemplate the possibilities of what will happen not in May 2011 but in May 2015—assuming that Parliament will by then have passed an Act making the life of Parliament a solid five years, no more and no less. It will mean that the elections to the Welsh Assembly will coincide exactly with the elections to Westminster, and people will be in constituency A of the House of Commons but constituency B of the Welsh Assembly. It is, as I say, a wholly terrifying and nightmarish consideration. But that is not strictly relevant to this issue.

[Lord Roberts of Llandudno]

My Lords, I appreciate the words of both the noble Baroness and the noble Lord, both of whom I consider as colleagues and as friends. However, looking at this order, I am not quite as appreciative of it as others who have spoken. There is some concern that the order distances us from local areas and local people. It is true that you can have one agent for the whole of Wales, but it means that the Wales campaign is centralised, not localised—or it can be. The noble Baroness, Lady Gale, knows more about this than I do. So you could have a central campaign that does not reflect local interests.

There was a time when I was a young candidate and every ward had its own committee room on election day and every constituency had its central committee room—its swyddfa ganolog. Then there is the region. Yes, you can get on in the region, but remember that Welsh regions, like Scottish regions, are quite massive sometimes; they can stretch for many miles. The agent is far away, even at a regional level, from the local activity. We could possibly accept this, but some may remember when we had not one agent for Wales, but we had subagents covering so many areas of a constituency. To have an office located anywhere in Wales could present difficulties in the organisation of election days and electoral officers. It needs to be very well thought out.

The region-less ballot paper—the new one that has been presented to us—is far less cluttered than previously because, as has been stated, no candidate’s name is printed. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, suggested that Scotland has the same kind of ballot paper. Is this the first time in the United Kingdom that we have had a ballot paper with just the party’s name but no candidates? Is this a step in the right direction? I can understand why, because many parties—my own included, I am sure—have in the past nominated, say, 12 candidates for each region. Let us say that you have six or seven different parties contesting and most of them give you a dozen candidates. Wow, that ballot paper will be very cluttered. But to go further in a different direction and simply say Conservative, Labour, Plaid Cymru, Liberal Democrats, Greens, without giving any indication of who is the lead candidate, would cut away the personal link. It makes the regional candidates second-class Assembly Members, because they have not been elected as individuals, even though, as the noble Baroness mentioned, you can have a list of them in the polling station. When I go into a polling station—and I am allowed to vote at some elections, including the Welsh Assembly election—I do not look at the posters, I just look at the ballot paper I vote on.

I would ask—and other people are thinking this way—that we do not put 12 names for each party, but that we print the four top names selected by each party on the ballot paper of a regional list. At least we would have a personal involvement. People will have some idea about who they are going to return, not just someone who they have never heard of and whose name is totally strange to them. I speak to the Minister as a very dear friend of mine. I hope it is not too late to amend this order. I suggest we have four names—it might be three, it might be five—so that we keep that personal link with the regional list members as well as with the constituency members.

What you are doing also is that you are increasing the authority of a party and making it far superior to the individual candidate. Is this a danger? I think it is a dangerous step—a very dangerous step. We do not have to take that step—it is not too late—because we can amend it to include the lead names for each party.

I am more than happy with the constituency ballot paper. It is clear and the sort of ballot paper that we are more or less used to. Mind you, there is one great sadness. You are asked to put an X in one of the boxes. I hope the time comes when we do not ask for Xs but for 1, 2,3, and 4 and we have a proportional system.

[Lord Elystan-Morgan]

My Lords, in so far as that particular specimen ballot paper is concerned, has the noble Lord noticed that all the names used were Anglo-Saxon ones—there was not a Jones, an Evans, a Morgan or a Williams? It may very well be that this was done, as lawyers would say, ex abundanti cautela—out of an abundance of caution; I must say it struck me as rather strange that there was not a single Welsh name among them.

[Lord Roberts of Llandudno]

I of course defer in this to the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan; he not only has one name on the ballot paper, he has two. I am reduced to the very inferior status of a Roberts, but, as a Roberts, I say, yes, I welcome the constituency ballot paper. Then I ask the Minister to look again at the absence of names on the regional ballot paper. I think that we may have to accept the one agent for the whole of Wales, although I still remember the ward committee rooms with great affection.