Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Roberts of Llandudno Excerpts

Monday 17th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Soley]

My noble friend is right, although I thought that I said “any future Government”, not particularly a Labour Government. Any future Government could come in and simply say, “We are going to change the size”. That goes back to the previous amendment, on which I do not want to dwell but where I quoted from Andrew Tyrie’s booklet produced for the Conservative Party and referred to things that were said by other members of the Conservative Party in the intervening period; that is, that the figure of 120 over 10 years was too many, too fast, but that 60 over five years was manageable. My noble friend intervened with a question, but the real question is: should this Government win the next election, will they then go for the other 10 per cent? It is in the booklet; it is not a secret. There was considerable discussion of that figure. The Deputy Prime Minister said that he wanted the House to be reduced by 150. It is legitimate to ask whether the Government think that it is wise even from their point of view to have a system where the Government of the day get elected, look at the size of the House of Commons and say, “Well, we could have done better if we had this number” and then legislated accordingly. If in five years they are here, fighting such a proposal late into the night, they will not be feeling as they are feeling now and going around saying, “Oh, this is a filibuster. We don’t like it”. They will say, “This is an abuse of the constitution”. Every one of them will be doing it, the Liberals more than anyone else. This is where the Liberals say one thing in one place and another in another place.

[Lord Roberts of Llandudno]

Nonsense!

[Lord Soley]

I thought that the noble Lord was agreeing with me, but I might be wrong. Let us make no bones about it: if we are going to lay out the welcome mat to any future Government, not just a Labour Government, to be able to legislate on the size of Parliament, we are breaking one of the principles that we all observe when we check international elections. We are going against what is said in the European Union, the United Nations and the Commonwealth about checking elections. We all look at that as international observers for those bodies, yet here, all of a sudden, we are saying, “No, it’s all right for the Government to legislate for the size of Parliament. It doesn’t matter at all”. Of course it matters.

This Government might think that cutting the number MPs will be popular. Up to a point, they are right, but the problem is that they are playing the role of the overly powerful Government. It is not just the Public Bodies Bill and powers which they have taken which are over the top—Henry VIII powers are used in so much legislation now. I would be the first to concede that Henry VIII powers were taken to some extent under the Labour Government, but it is happening much more now—the Public Bodies Bill is virtually a Henry VIII Bill. But it is not just that; it is also putting enough new Members in this House so that the two political parties which form the Government, the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives, have a near-majority over the other political party. In other words, we are in danger of breaching that constitutional principle which we have all followed for years: that no political party should have a majority over the others here. I understand fully that the Government do not have a majority over the Cross Benches and the Labour Party jointly, but they certainly come very close to having a majority over the Labour Party. That differs greatly from what happened previously.