Parliament: Conventions
Lord Rooker Excerpts(9 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Rooker
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the effectiveness of the conventions between the two Houses of Parliament as they have affected government business during the current Parliament.
The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Stowell of Beeston) (Con)
My Lords, while there has been no formal assessment of the effectiveness of the conventions between the two Houses as they have affected this Government’s business this Parliament, we believe that they have proved adaptable and continue to stand the test of time.
Lord Rooker (Lab)
My Lords, I agree that the conventions work well while this House is unelected. However, may I ask the noble Baroness, in her role as Leader of the House—as opposed to a government Minister—to indicate to the main party leaders that, when they come to write their manifesto paragraphs on Lords reform, they should include issues related to the functions and powers of this House, and its relationship to the other House, rather than just a banal slogan on its composition? If they do not, it is likely that such legislation will get short shrift in your Lordships’ House.
Baroness Stowell of Beeston
I think I will leave it to the other party leaders in this House to decide whether they would like to write to Messrs Miliband and Clegg, but I agree with the noble Lord that the primacy of the House of Commons should never be in doubt. I agree with him that form should always follow function and I am clear that the purpose of this House is to give the public confidence in the laws that Parliament makes. It is an essential part of what we do and should inform what we do and how we do it, both now and in the future, however we may be composed.
House of Lords: Oral Questions
Lord Rooker Excerpts(9 years, 10 months ago)
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Baroness Stowell of Beeston
I would like to say first of all that we as a House offer something different from the other place. It is not just about what we do but how we conduct ourselves. Our customs and conventions are there to help us do just that. On the point about reading, my noble friend is absolutely right. Paragraph 6.29 of the Companion is clear: questions should not be read. In my view, if a question needs to be written down, that is a sign that it is probably too long. I urge all noble Lords to comply with the rules on that and ensure that questions are kept brief.
Lord Rooker (Lab)
I say to the Leader that Question Time in this place is much tougher for Ministers than it is in the other place. I say that from experience, having done both—others are in the same position. It is much tougher, with four Questions and 30 minutes. However, what is a farce is choosing the supplementary speakers. I want an early vote in the new Parliament to give that role to the person in the Chair.
Baroness Stowell of Beeston
I really do disagree with the noble Lord’s description of the way in which we conduct ourselves during Oral Questions in so far as who gets to ask a supplementary question, because none of us chooses who gets to ask a supplementary question. It is the responsibility of all of us to ensure that we all have an opportunity to ask a question. In this Session alone, more than 400 Members of this House have been able to ask a question, so quite a lot of Peers have that opportunity. It would be a very big and serious step for us to move from the position we have now, which is freedom for everybody, to one where we invest power in a single person.
Iraq
Lord Rooker Excerpts(10 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord Rooker (Lab)
My Lords, I support the Government. I have heard every speech in your Lordships’ House today and have had the advantage of listening to and watching the whole of the Prime Minister’s speech. I have to say that he has shown exemplary parliamentary and national leadership on this issue. Unlike in 2003, it is crystal clear for all to see that there is a problem that has to be dealt with by the use of force. We are right, even at a late stage, to join other nations, and the more the better.
It looks like a regional problem and these problems are best dealt with by regional nations, but in reality it is international. Because of that, force cannot be the only ingredient to a solution. Different nations have different agendas for the future, but the threat to all is so great that we should use our best endeavours to work together at this time. It seems to me crucial that Iran, and indeed Russia, should be welcomed to play a major role and not be shunted to the sidelines, as Secretary of State Kerry indicated a few weeks ago in the case of Iran. Yes, there is a need to talk to the Syrian Government. Some may not think that they are a legal Government, but they are still there.
The burden on the neighbouring countries of the millions of refugees cannot begin to be comprehended as we sit and watch events unfold from the comfort of our homes. The opportunities for IS of destabilising more nations grows daily as the refugee flow continues. This is in no nation’s interest.
There has to be an end plan. It is now clearer than ever that having no plan post 2003 was a major error of leadership and judgment by the then war leaders. I was a member of the Government at the time and I supported the Government at the time. The Iraqi army—where is it? Can we be convinced that it can be rebuilt again so that it is sustainable to defend the country?
I do not think that we have to defend existing borders at this time. This is about defending peoples. As such, if we are to reach a settlement, some boundaries may need to be redrawn by the nations themselves and we should support them. The Kurds are playing a very substantial role and it is the case—or I hope that it is the case—that Turkey, Iran and Iraq may see the benefit to themselves of having a more unified area for the Kurds.
There will, of course, be problems in this enterprise and very serious issues, especially relating to hostages, now and in the future. There is heavy weaponry in the hands of ISIS. It might down aircraft. We have to think about that. This brings me to my final point, where in some ways I part with the leadership on my side. It is never too late to avoid making a bad decision. I believe that we put our own pilots at greater risk in the efforts that they will be undertaking by stopping at the Iraq-Syrian border. There is legal opinion, and reference to that has been made in the House today, that a UN resolution is not required to go after ISIS in Syria. In any event, the veto will be used if it looks like a step too far. We should not, therefore, hide behind the Russian veto. Russia clearly feels badly let down about the misuse of the UN resolution in the case of Libya. Surely we can accommodate Russia on this issue. The governance positions of Iraq and Syria are different, but ISIS is in both countries.
I support the Government, as I said. I wish our service men and women every success as they enter battle and I ask those involved to think hard about the end plan, which unfortunately appears to exclude Syria.
Queen’s Speech
Lord Rooker Excerpts(12 years, 7 months ago)
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Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, the noble Lord has responded to my invitation to speak with clarity. Labour will support only a 100% elected House with a codification of powers that means that the elected House will have less power than the existing one. The noble Lord can quiver and quibble—he and his noble and learned friend Lord Falconer of Thoroton can do all those things—but in the end they need to be clear on all this. I wonder where all this nonsense came from. Throughout the past 10 years, no Joint Committee, White Paper or any aspect of this has ever mentioned that Labour was in favour of the codification of powers.
Lord Rooker
I will tell the Leader where it has come from. We want to make the primacy of the elected House a reality. You cannot make the primacy of the Commons a reality unless you do something about codification of the powers here. The refusal to take that seriously, as was shown by Clause 2 of the draft Bill, shows that the Government still have not got it.
Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, was a distinguished Minister with the previous Administration. At no time did he make those points in Parliament or within his Government, in all the Joint Committees that met or the White Papers that were published. They did not start quibbling about the primacy of the House of Commons then. The noble Lord, Lord Richard, in his Joint Committee has made an entirely sensible, reasonable and well argued case about the defects of Clause 2, and we will take those up. However, the Labour Front Bench in this House and, I suspect, in another place, has decided that it does not want to create a consensus, and that is why it has come up with these conditions.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, it is an interesting idea. If we face huge constitutional change in the affairs of the United Kingdom because of the referendum and the potential of Scotland leaving the United Kingdom, one should at least put on the table the fact that there might need to be some kind of constitutional convention to consider what impact that would have on Westminster and certainly on the second Chamber. In the mean time, if a Bill is brought forward we will of course give it every consideration. None the less, it will have to deal with the issues of powers and relationships—we believe that it should be 100% elected—and one cannot duck the fundamental positions that my party has adopted.
Lord Rooker
Perhaps I may give my noble friend another example. We did not develop this matter in the Joint Committee, but it was raised. If we were to have a second elected House—80% or 100%, it does not matter—it would leave the United Kingdom as the only country in the world with two elected Houses and no written constitution. If you looked at the matrix of those with unicamerals and those without written constitutions, and then look at those with elected second Chambers, you would see that we would be unique. In other words, there is nowhere else we can go to learn about how you work with two elected Chambers without a written constitution for settling disputes. That is a barmy position in which to put ourselves.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
I agree with the noble Lord. He is absolutely right. Of course, this is not new. One has only to go back to the preamble of the 1911 Act because the drafters of that Act knew that too. That is why they said that if a Chamber were constituted on a popular basis—and noble Lords on the Lib Dem Benches frequently remind us of the distance between 1911 and 2012—new proposals would be needed for limiting and defining the powers of the new second Chamber. The position in 1911 was exactly the same as the one pointed out by my noble friend today.
We are on a truly uncertain journey. Last week, in a notable intervention, the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, asked how the public would feel about a constitutional change, which is really a deal got up by the two political parties in the coalition, whereby the Conservatives get extra Members in the Commons and in return the Lib Dems get control of the balance of power in the House of Lords. I wonder how the public would feel—as has been briefed in the past few days by a number of people close to the Conservative Party—if, in order to save the immediate future of the coalition, another deal might be got up in which the Conservatives do not get the extra seats after all and in return the Lib Dems drop their passion for Lords reform. What would the public think if that were to happen?
Indeed, how do the public feel about Lords reform? As a Birmingham resident, last week I took part in a ballot to decide whether we were to have an elected mayor, and I wonder why the people of Birmingham are not to be given a say on whether we should have an elected second Chamber. There is only one answer: Mr Clegg is frightened of a referendum and what the public would say.
The Government owe it to the nation to think very hard about the substantive issues that are likely to be raised in our debates on the Bill. I hope the Government will listen carefully to the words of the Joint Select Committee and the alternative group. I also hope that the Government will in the end realise that they owe it to the British people to decide and will agree that, whatever proposals come forward, there ought to be a referendum of the people.
Health and Social Care Bill
Lord Rooker Excerpts(12 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord Martin of Springburn
Perhaps it would help the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, if I were to say to her that no Speaker takes these decisions lightly. It is not done with representation from the Government, in the sense that they come in and say, “We want to do it this way and you’ll give us a hand, Mr Speaker”. Perhaps I can give an insight into what happens in the Speaker’s study: the Speaker takes advice from the clerks—I stress that is clerks in the plural. You have clerks there who act like the devil’s advocate and put a contrary view. They end up giving strong advice to the Speaker. Therefore, the Speaker is independent in this matter of Government and Opposition—let us not kid ourselves that the opposition Whips are not often in there pounding the ear of the Speaker. If the Speaker’s signature goes on that piece of paper, it is done very sparingly and with considerable advice from those who are experts in this matter.
Lord Rooker
My Lords, that being so, and referring to the Motion that we are debating at the moment, would it not be for the convenience of everybody concerned with the Health and Social Care Bill if, for every amendment tabled, we knew before we debated it on Report in this House that it was subject to financial privilege? We would then know that we were wasting our time, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, said. The problem is the lack of knowledge. If we know beforehand and we have a certificate for a money Bill, we know that it is a money Bill. We do not know that with domestic policy Bills. If particular amendments are a cause for concern among the authorities of the other place, that should be signalled before we debate the issue in this House.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton
My Lords, in my experience there are two issues. One is the matter of degree. I hope that the Leader of the House will agree that this is not a clear, black and white issue in terms of the individual parts of a Bill that could be declared financial privilege or the range of parts of a Bill that could be declared financial privilege.
Secondly, the Leader of the House said the week before last in your Lordships’ Chamber, and I hope that I recollect his words accurately, that obviously a wholly or partially elected second Chamber would exercise greater authority and power and have greater legitimacy. Does the Leader of the House believe that people would stand for election were huge chunks of legislation to be declared beyond their competence?
Procedure of the House (Proposal 1)
Lord Rooker Excerpts(13 years, 1 month ago)
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Baroness Quin
My Lords, I do not claim to have the unique experience of the noble Lord, Lord Wakeham, but having been a member in the other House for a number of years, like many people I think, I often compare and contrast the proceedings between both Houses. In many ways, the experience of being in the House of Lords is a very favourable one in that respect. However, for the reasons advanced by the noble Baroness, Lady Boothroyd, I feel that it is worth at least having a trial period where we have these matters judged by the independent voice of the Speaker.
On this occasion, I would actually like to consider going further down the “slippery slope”, although I normally like the self-regulation approach very much. These days, however, I have to say that Question Time—certainly for me and, I think, some others—can be quite stressful when one is competing so much with very active and well prepared Members on one’s own side, as well as trying to intervene in Questions in relation to other groups. In many ways, we should consider the Speaker as having the ability in the future to call Members because I think that it would create a fairer distribution. Not all of us have booming voices or towering physical presences, and sometimes it is not pleasant competing with one’s own side. Therefore I would like further consideration of this matter in the future.
Lord Rooker
My Lords, for two years while the noble Baroness, Lady Amos, was the Leader of the House, it was delegated to me to perform the functions of the Deputy Leader. I can assure the noble Lord, Lord Geddes, that the Lord Speaker can see more people around the House than the person sitting on the Front Bench can. There were a number of times when I had to be elbowed because I could not swivel my head to see other groups. That is a fact. On the other hand, the configuration of this House is not the same as that of the other place, where not only do the Clerks sit in front of the Speaker but the Speaker’s secretary usually stands alongside him giving tips if he does not spot something.
I take very much what the noble Baroness, Lady Boothroyd, said. As a government Minister, it is not appropriate to choose who asks questions of the Government. That is the fundamental principle we are dealing with here. That should not be the role of a government Minister, and we need to find a suitable way. I can understand those who do not want change. Those who did not want a Lord Speaker in the first place can see, in years to come, the neutral person in the Chair calling the supplementaries. That in itself would be an advantage. I do not have the statistics in front of me, but something like 50 per cent of the supplementaries are asked by 10 per cent of the Members. That is because they have the loudest voices. It is a bully boy’s tactic. We try to encourage people to come into this House in order to use their expertise, but when it comes to Question Time, they look at what happens and say, “I am not playing a role in this”. Doing it that way is not professional and there has to be another way. I think that this is just a small modernising step.
Baroness Sharples
My Lords, I have been in your Lordships’ House for 38 years and I should just like to say that I agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd. I think that the Leader of the House should be on his feet rather more quickly when two people are trying to ask a question.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
Lord Rooker Excerpts(13 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord Rooker
As an amendment to Motion A, at end insert “but do propose Amendment 1D as an amendment to Commons Amendment 1C in lieu”:
“Line 11, at end insert—
“(5) The estimate of the turnout in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland published under sub-paragraph (3)(a) shall be made available before any order is made under section 8 implementing the result of the referendum; and if the total turnout in the four parts of the United Kingdom is less than 40% of the total electorate of the United Kingdom, the result of the referendum shall not be binding.”
Lord Rooker
My Lords, in short I am proposing to add to the government amendment a sub-paragraph (5). When I saw the Government’s amendment a few hours ago I thought, because I am weak, that I saw some movement. Sadly, that is not the case. I said earlier today that the issue of substance is not the figure, although I have used the same one. The issue of substance is that this will be a binding referendum for the first time in the UK. The Government are still refusing to address that issue; it is being glossed over. In the talk about previous referendums, not once has anybody addressed the issue of this being the first binding referendum. That is still the case, which is why I do not apologise for continuing to raise the issue.
I had thought of adding to the government amendment—because I thought I saw a bit of movement—some words to the effect that the Electoral Commission report should be done properly, which I do not think it will be. By properly I mean that it should meet the issues that government Ministers have spoken about at the Box—that is, take off the electoral register the dead, the foreigners, the students, the hundreds of thousands with two addresses and all those with two homes. That would mean the commission had to go to every electoral register—not every constituency but every register—and double-check to get an accurate measure. That is what I would expect the Electoral Commission to do as a result of the Government’s amendment but I fear that it will not be the case. However, I would like that report to be put to Parliament and properly debated before a Clause 8 order, assuming that there is a yes vote.
I have seen no evidence. I sat in the Commons Gallery during the debate earlier this evening. The real issue was not addressed in the Commons, and the government Minister hardly spoke to the amendment that he was moving. He did not explain it. I thought, “He hasn’t got that much to say about it. It can’t be worth a great deal”. When Sir Gerald Kaufman and others indicated that from their experience, before the coalition, it was possible to get agreement on various aspects of Bills going through the House, they were shouted down.
In the years that I was a Minister in your Lordships’ House, I was in four departments and responsible for many Bills, including Bills that started here. I cannot recall a single Bill that I was ever in charge of as a Minister on which I did not offer change following debates in your Lordships’ House. Indeed, twice I made the policy at the Box and went back to the department to say to the policy Minister, “This is what you have to accept. This is the will of the Lords. If not, your Bill will be in shreds”. That is what I did because I took heed of the voices in this place who had tried to make the legislation better. However, I have not seen any attempt to do that on this Bill. On two occasions the Leader offered a “package of concessions” a week apart. I have to assume that he did that with authority. All I can say is that—I choose my words carefully—I will know what to think the next time I hear the phrase “package of concessions”.
The Government have refused to listen from day one of this Bill. They have rammed it through both Houses under a guillotine—that happened again tonight—and people who wanted to speak did not have the opportunity to do so. Reputations have been damaged all round save for that of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness. I do not wish to embarrass him. I am just giving my view; I do not speak for anybody else. I therefore offer the House and the Government a last chance, if you like, according to what the Leader said, to break the precedent that they are creating. They can waffle all they like about previous referendums and thresholds but this threshold does not damage the introduction of AV, as I have said repeatedly. They refuse to accept that this is the first time that the people of this country have been given a referendum where the result—whatever the turnout and the majority—will be the order of the day. That has never happened before. It is no good praying in aid the euro referendum or the Scottish referendum as they were not binding referendums. Legislation followed but they were not binding, so it is no good praying those in aid. There is no precedent for what the Government are about to do. Sadly, no Minister has addressed that central issue of substance.
In some ways, I do not look forward to the morning after the count as I do not want to be proved right. I hope that there will be a successful referendum with a huge turnout and a clear vote one way or the other. That is my desire and that is what I will encourage. I do not have a problem with that. However, if that is not the case, we will be bound by the result. It will be impossible to get out of the mess and the people will find out what Parliament was doing. They will ask, “Why did you not think about this and give yourself a lifeboat? Why did you not think about what might happen? You have done it in the past with all the other referendums, so why did you not do it with this one?”. As I say, I do not look forward to the morning after the count for that reason; but many others will, because they might be proved right. I beg to move.
The Lord Speaker (Baroness Hayman)
The original Question was that Motion A be agreed to, since when Motion A1 has been moved as an amendment thereto. The Question now is that Motion A1 be agreed to.
Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, the referendum taking place in Wales on 3 March, on which there is no threshold and for which no threshold was requested, is for a poll which is binding on this Parliament. I know that noble Lords will say, as my noble friend and others have, that this is a binding referendum, so let me be entirely clear about my answer. Referendums are a constitutional device; they are rarely used but they are used occasionally to ask the people their view on a specific issue. I believe that it would not be right to offer the people a referendum where Parliament has explicitly laid out what the effects of that referendum would be and yet say that we might not give them what they vote for. A threshold, even in the more nuanced form proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, is unnecessary and, we believe, wrong.
Lord Rooker
My Lords, I shall not detain the House. I shall certainly not comment on that excuse about the concessions. That was not in the context of the two offers from that Dispatch Box about the defeats that the Government have suffered. It was not said in that context. It was about wholly different subjects, none of which has materialised. I think we have heard enough and people have been delayed long enough on this last day before the Recess. I beg to test the opinion of the House.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
Lord Rooker Excerpts(14 years ago)
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Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
Is it not ironic that we joined the European Union without a referendum, but that the referendum was on whether we should stay in? The major change took place without a referendum, but the referendum actually backed the status quo.
Lord Rooker
Perhaps I may remind my noble friend that the then Government had the courage to hold a referendum on a separate day—on 5 June.
Lord Grocott
My Lords, I am not able to support my noble friend Lady Hayter’s amendment simply because my approach throughout, as on other constitutional issues, is that the House of Commons is the House of Commons, it consists of single-Member constituencies and every Member of Parliament elected to sit in the House of Commons is there with the same rights and the same duties and with the same authority which derives from their election on the basis of first past the post. To the extent that the amendment detracts from that, it is not one that I can support. However, my noble friend has done the House a very good service in that she has reminded the Government, who do not seem to be in the mood to listen, that time and again, in responding to amendments, the Government have walked up one of two blind alleys.
One blind alley is their absolute commitment to a referendum next May, which is presenting them with difficulty after difficulty; not silly difficulties, not trivial difficulties, but very substantial difficulties indeed. If they decided now not to reverse the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Rooker that was carried, they would save themselves an awful lot of problems. It is not my job to be a consultant to the Government and should they think of asking me I am afraid the answer would be no, but they made a huge mistake by putting themselves in that time lock.
The second blind alley is best illustrated by my noble friend's amendment. The Government are committed to this being a legislative referendum, not an indicative referendum. If this were an indicative referendum where the results were sensibly considered and analysed by Parliament and the Government after the figures had come in, there would be absolutely no need for my noble friend's amendment even to be considered. Precisely those types of arguments would come up in the post-referendum debate that should be held about the significance of the public’s decision. Clearly, it would be a matter of concern to almost anyone if strong votes against changing the voting system from the electors of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland were trumped by a strong vote in favour from the electorate in England. Whatever were the numbers when you added them all up, I should have thought that that would be a matter of real concern and something that any prudent Government would want to take into account in deciding what to do next.
Am I the only one who so dislikes Clause 8(1)? That this is not an indicative referendum is encapsulated in this one line:
“The Minister must make an order bringing into force”.
Why bother the Minister? Why not press a button? There is no decision to make. The Minister presumably just stamps whatever referendum result comes for him or her to consider. He should not draw much of a salary for that part of his activities when he is told by an Act of Parliament what he must decide to do. I appreciate why my noble friend has tabled the amendment, but it is not one that I can support.
I say to those of us who were here sleepless the other night that it is not my intention to press my Amendment 44B on a 50 per cent threshold, but as thresholds have been mentioned I want to make one point very briefly. The noble Lord, Lord Tyler, who has been assiduous in attendance here is not with us today, but he made a point that was worthy of consideration in opposing a 50 per cent threshold. He simply asked the House whether it would not be very unjust if, with a turnout threshold, 49 per cent of the electorate voted in favour of a constitutional change. That would mean that 98 per cent of those who voted were in favour of constitutional change. I wish a bookie would let me have a bet on that not happening. The noble Lord was proposing that 49 per cent might vote yes, and if no one voted no—or 0.5 per cent voted no—that would not carry.
Of course the answer to that has already been given in an exchange between the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, and the Leader of the House. If we had an outcome threshold and the outcome was 25 per cent, surely even the most fervent supporter of changing the electoral system could not object to such a threshold. All we would be asking is for one in four of the public to be in favour of change. That would also deal with the point about abstentions. Deliberate abstentions would not matter provided that the 25 per cent of the electorate who we keep being told are enthusiastic for change turned up and voted. The decision would carry.
Obviously we will need to come back to the threshold argument on Report, but I would be very happy with that. That might be a first for me, but I am a moderniser. The noble Lord, Lord Tyler, and I could have a discussion about whether the sensible thing to do would be to table an amendment for an outcome threshold of 25 per cent. That would solve his sleepless nights worrying about what would happen if there were 49 per cent of the electorate voting for a change in the voting system which could not carry because of a turnout threshold. We would both be happy and my aim in life is to make people happy.
Lord Rooker
There is a snag there. One of the reasons why I did not move Amendment 43A is that there is a legal contractual arrangement between the Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrats not to do that. Even before they introduced the Bill, they had a contractual arrangement that they would not consider that kind of threshold. So we are stuffed before we start. If that is not the case, we will receive advice on it, but, as far as I know, the so-called coalition agreement rules that out.
Lord Grocott
If my noble friend is right—and he has been right on far more things over the years than he has been wrong—we really are wasting our time on this Committee stage. It has felt like that from this side of the Chamber throughout. It is unlike pretty well any other Committee stage I can think of, when the normal response from a Minister to anything other than a completely ludicrous amendment would be to say, “Well, we don’t really like this amendment much, but there is something in it worth considering, so I am quite happy to discuss it”.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
Lord Rooker Excerpts(14 years ago)
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The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Strathclyde)
My Lords, what a most unusual debate we have just had. We had a fascinating history lesson from my noble friend Lord Lawson; I will come back to that. We had a disagreement between my noble friend Lord Tyler and the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, about what was said in the House of Commons and what was meant by what was said, and different bits being prayed in aid. We had a slight disagreement about the grouping; I slightly lost track of it, but I will go with the mood of the House, whatever it is. I am very happy to speak to all the numerical thresholds, but not to the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, and not to the noble Baroness’s other amendment about separate nations of the United Kingdom having different thresholds.
It is most unusual, because while this House often disagrees with another place, I cannot think of a time—I am sure that someone will find one—where another place voted so overwhelmingly in one way, and where the tone of this debate has been the other way. My noble friend Lord Tyler was right to remind us about what happened in the House of Commons; when it was asked to vote on thresholds, it voted 549 to 31. It was an astonishing, astounding majority. Chris Bryant, speaking for the Labour Party, said that he did not think that it is appropriate to bring in a threshold. I am genuinely confused by the position of the noble and learned Lord’s party as to whether or not they are in favour of a threshold. I think he said that he was; the Labour Party next door was clearly not. They may have changed their minds, or it may be something else. The noble and learned Lord cracked on about 19 per cent and how dreadful that would be, yet in 2005 the Labour Government were elected with 21.6 per cent of the electorate—derisory for a referendum on 19 per cent, but jolly good for the Labour Party on 21.6 per cent. We can make of that what we want.
In 1997, this House debated these issues. What did the Labour Party say in 1997? The noble Lord, Lord Sewel, who is sadly not in his place tonight, was the Minister. He said:
“The threshold, as we have demonstrated, is one of the most dangerous introductions into the democratic process that has been engineered”.—[Official Report, 7/7/97; col. 467.]
That was the Labour Party then. Tonight, the Labour Party is doing what it used to accuse the Liberal Democrats of doing—of saying one thing in one place and another in another, and changing their minds as the debate went on. We will have to see how this continues over the next few days.
My noble friend Lord Lamont spoke beautifully, as he does. I very much accept his view—although rather less so—that imposing a threshold might initially appear attractive; on the surface it may seem to offer an extra layer of reassurance and of legitimacy, particularly if the change being put to the vote is one that you personally do not favour. It is the Government’s view, however, that if people want change, and if the majority of those who turn out to vote want change, we cannot deny them this by imposing artificial barriers. People should know that if the majority of people vote for AV in the referendum, they will get AV. We must let people have their say, otherwise we will not help to restore people’s faith in politics.
That is why I was so fascinated by my noble friend Lord Lawson. I am sorry that there are not more colleagues here from those days. I was probably too young to vote in the referendum in 1978, but I accept that the Conservative Party voted for the threshold. I do not remember it being an issue of deepest principle. I think it was low-down cunning politics—and quite rightly, because the Labour Party was divided on the issue. It was trying to stop the nationalists by introducing devolution, and the Conservative Opposition quite rightly saw a great opportunity to try and ensure that the referendum would not be won, and that that would so destabilise the Labour Government that an election would be forced, and we would have the great years of rule. So my noble friend Lord Lawson was quite right in voting for it.
Lord Rooker
I have kept out of this debate, but I will give the Leader of the House the reason. It was the result of one of the finest speeches that I heard in 25 years in the House of Commons. The place was packed and I suspect that half the people in there did not know at the beginning how they were going to vote. George Cunningham turned the House around. I say that in all sincerity; he is no personal mate of mine. It was an absolutely magnificent speech. That was a big factor, along with the bit of low cunning that people saw as a consequence as well.
Lord Lawson of Blaby
If I may, while my noble friend is having a well earned rest, let me say that it was not a whipped vote on the Conservative side. It was a free vote and we were influenced in the way that the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, described. As an indication that it was a completely free vote, my noble friend Lady Thatcher, the Prime Minister at that time, did not take part in the Division. She did not vote—or did she? I do not recall.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
Lord Rooker Excerpts(14 years ago)
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Lord Campbell-Savours
My Lords, I shall also speak to Amendment 25. In moving this amendment, I need to step back, without in any way wishing to delay the House, to remind the House and those unable to be present last week that the central argument in the case for many of us is that the Government have picked the wrong system in the referendum question. The noble Lord, Lord Rooker, and I both support electoral reform, but we oppose the multioptional preferential voting system as set out in the legislation. The problem is that the Government failed to do their homework when deciding upon a system. They had three systems from which they could select. First is the classic AV federal system that is operated in Australia. Secondly, there is the multioptional preferential system—the one that they have selected in the Bill. Thirdly, there is the supplementary vote, otherwise known as the London alternative vote.
The Government picked the system in a rush against a background of frantic coalition negotiations. As the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, said in his speech the day before yesterday, it seems that they had in mind when they selected the scheme the fact that the Labour Government had picked a similar scheme when we presented our Bill earlier this year.
My view, and that of many of my colleagues, is that the system that has been selected is nonsense and riddled with flaws. That is why I argue for an inquiry in Amendment 22. I am convinced that whenever more than two or three are gathered together to consider AV systems, they invariably end up with the supplementary vote or London AV, which is the basis for Amendment 25. This amendment would modify the question in Clause 1 where it states:
“At present, the UK uses the ‘first past the post’ system to elect MPs to the House of Commons. Should the ‘alternative vote’ system be used instead?”.
I simply delete the word “the” alternative vote, and change it to read “an” alternative vote system.
Amendment 25 would enable Parliament to select an alternative voting system out of the three variants of AV available, to which I have referred. The Bill preselects an AV system which many of us reject, as indeed an overwhelming majority of the House would probably do on a free vote. An affirmative vote in a referendum would lead to an inquiry being established to recommend an electoral system to the House, and that inquiry would be able to select from the three systems. It deals with the distinction alluded to by the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, on Second Reading on 15 November—at col. 569 of Hansard—when he drew a distinction between pre-legislative referendums procedure as proposed by the Labour Government during the Scots and Welsh referendums: in other words, a referendum decision first and legislative detail after; as against the post-legislative referendum as set out in the Bill, which means legislative detail first followed by a referendum.
The question is simple: why cannot we have a referendum that simply seeks approval for the introduction of an AV system in principle? Parliament could then carry out a timetabled inquiry—perhaps even an independent commission of inquiry—to do the work. The Government could then introduce an order following a debate in Parliament, and at least then the merits of the various forms of AV would be debated. We would then have a system that might prove more acceptable to the voting public. My amendment would secure that pre-legislative referendum, which clearly preoccupies the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, and many of his colleagues on those Benches. It would mean that the building block of an electoral system, which I want to see in place—the supplementary vote, or London AV as it is otherwise known—would be on the agenda for consideration in an inquiry.
Amendment 25—the second of my amendments in this block—is the supplementary vote amendment. This would substitute the alternative vote proposal in the Bill in the referendum question with the supplementary vote, which is a tried and tested system in the United Kingdom. It is a variant of the alternative vote. The system has been the subject of substantial international debate among academics who specialise in electoral systems. It has been the subject of critical and supportive review in both its theory and its practice by academics in the United Kingdom, the United States of America, Holland, Australia and Belgium. It is the system which supporters of AV have consistently sought to rubbish, as it exposes the flaws in AV. It is simpler to use, is more easily understood by the electors and is invariably supported when subjected to rigorous debate. It is opposed by the Liberal Democrat element in the coalition because Liberal Democrats, and only they, believe that it would not deliver for them the windfall gains which they believe are available to them under the optional preferential system of the Bill.
The supplementary vote is the system that is used to elect the United Kingdom's 13 elected mayors, including Boris Johnson. The coalition hopes to create a further 12 directly elected mayors—which many of us support—presumably under the same, successful system which is now being used and supported by millions of voters in more than 30 mayoral election contests nationally in London, Bedford, Doncaster, Hartlepool, Hackney, Lewisham, Newham, Tower Hamlets, Mansfield, Middlesbrough, Northside, Torbay and Watford.
It is curious to note that when a noticeable number of advocates in the United Kingdom of AV or even full proportional representation are commenting on electoral systems, they studiously avoid reference to the supplementary vote. It is the system that the Government adopted when they were forced to choose between AV and SV in 1998. How does it work? With the supplementary vote, there are two columns on the ballot paper: one for the first choice and one for the second. Voters can mark an X in each column if they so wish. All the first preferences are counted. If a candidate has more than 50 per cent of the votes, they are elected. If no candidate receives 50 per cent, the top two remain and the rest are eliminated. The second preference votes of the eliminated are added to the votes of the top two candidates and counted. The candidate with most first and second preferences is the winner: simple and fair. I say to the Conservative end of the coalition that when we first presented that in 1989—it is 21 years since it was first presented in Parliament—there was support on their Benches in the Commons for that system.
I have been promoting the supplementary vote since 1989. It arose after a dinner in the Commons where there had been argument over a number of weeks about proportional representation and a system that would be acceptable to Parliament. At the end of the conversation at the last dinner, I announced to my colleagues that I would go away to research a new system, drawing on the experience of others in different parts of the world, which I believed would be favourably treated if it was fairly debated in Westminster. I spent nine months researching that system. I brought in Professor Patrick Dunleavy from the London School of Economics, who gave the work academic substance by testing the system using a whole series of electoral scenarios and subjecting it to the rigour of academic examination under his close supervision. We named the new system “supplementary” over a dinner in my constituency, and followed it up with a number of articles in the press and other journals in 1990. It has been the subject of a large number of reviews over all those years.
Soon after, the Labour Party established the Plant commission, which examined electoral systems including AV over four months, again in great detail. It produced the Plant report. The Plant commission, while not completely rejecting AV, came down in favour of a single-member constituency system in recognition of the desire of MPs of all parties in the Commons to retain single-member constituencies. In its comprehensive canter around the course of electoral systems, it came down strongly in favour of the supplementary vote with the following words:
“While other systems provide scope for variation from time to time, according to fashion or political whim, SV is relatively immutable; although it could be abolished (or turned into AV), there is little scope for altering the formula by which it operates. Hence, it is more likely to be durable in an unchanged form, and therefore to acquire legitimacy.
Secondly:
“Although it does not entail ‘proportional representation’ (in the sense of a direct link between votes cast nationally or regionally for a party, and the number of seats allocated to that party), it is possible that it would go some way to limit the imbalance between votes and seats that has characterised many election results ... While it would reduce the likelihood of any one party gaining an overall majority on the basis of much less than an overall majority of votes, it would not make single-party overall majorities impossible. Landslide victories, firmly establishing a major party in government without minor party support, would still be possible … In sum, the Supplementary Vote appears to have the advantages that it is a reform which, although possibly far reaching in its consequences, would nevertheless be practical, straightforward, comparatively modest, and would generally be perceived to be fair. However, it emerged that, while there was a clear majority in favour of some form of change from the present system, there was also a clear majority in favour of a single-member constituency majoritarian system. Both the Alternative Vote and the Supplementary Vote would represent a change retaining these features. Between the two, there was, though, a clear preference for the Supplementary Vote; and, accordingly, this is the majority recommendation of the Working Party”.
However, what should be of interest to the Liberal Democrats is the comments of the minority on Plant who favoured first past the post. Its view was that:
“The Supplementary Vote would be likely to increase the representation of the Liberal Democrats in the House of Commons—and so be more likely to produce hung parliaments and thus the possibility of coalition or minority government”.
That is why I simply cannot understand the scale of their opposition. In some ways, I hope that that comment deals with remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, at our team meeting the other week in Room 3A when he put it to the meeting that it was some sort of Labour Party stitch-up. It was never a Labour Party stitch-up; it was a very neutrally-based system.
The problem with the whole AV/SV debate is that the benefits of SV are often attributed by proponents of AV to the alternative vote, more often than not out of ignorance or a failure to subject both systems to detailed examination. Even the House of Lords Constitution Committee in its report on the Bill likened the system to AV when it stated in paragraph 14:
“This voting system”—
AV—
“is not currently used for any other public election in the United Kingdom, although a similar system, the Supplementary Vote, is used for mayoral elections in London and elsewhere”.
It is similar, but it is very different in operation and in how the votes are counted. For a start, under SV, bottom-placed candidates’ additional preferences do not have priority over the additional preferences cast for other candidates other than those cast for the top two. This avoids results where extremes, such as the BNP, can determine the results of elections, which can happen under the AV system in the Bill.
Also under SV, third and fourth-placed candidates cannot leapfrog into first place, undermining the credibility of election results. I understand that leapfrogging is the reason why the Liberal Democrats support AV—because it does precisely that—but that is a two-edged sword. They may wish to consider what would happen if there was an election tomorrow under the AV system in the Bill. They should remember that they are part of a coalition that is having to take some very unpopular and difficult decisions. As Plant put it:
“The main disadvantages of AV are as follows … it is possible for low ranked candidates actually to break through and be elected so that the most weakly preferred candidate could gain a majority … Following from the fact that the winning candidate has to get”
—at that stage he thought that was the case—
“50 per cent of the vote plus one might seem to be a less compelling principle, if that absolute majority involves weak preferences being counted”.
However, that was under the Australian system, which we are not even considering. Only under the Australian system do you have to get more than 50 per cent of the vote.
The other day I referred to the work of Professor Rawlings and Professor Thrasher at length, and I do not want to repeat what I said, except to say that, following their research into voting behaviour in Queensland, Australia, which uses the same optional preference AV system as proposed in the Bill, they concluded that,
“the most likely scenario over time is that many voters will treat an AV election just like ‘first past the post’, and not cast multiple preferences. Incredibly, under this very same AV system, in Queensland in 2009, fully 63 per cent of those who turned out in the state elections voted for just one candidate”.
Their comments on the operation of optional preferential AV completely undermine the justification for AV in this Bill whereby you give the electorate the opportunity to cast multiple preferences.
Rawlings and Thrasher argue that not everyone uses their additional preferences, whereas under SV they are more likely to do so. On 10 November 2010, in an article, they stated:
“At the three London mayoral elections in 2000, 2004 and 2008”,
under SV only, 20 per cent of,
“voters either voted just once or cast both their available votes for a single party candidate”.
In other words, 80 per cent voted for more. I would add that the complication in that early SV election arose from the way in which the question was tabled on the ballot paper.
I argue that SV is simple, easily understood, well tried, internationally recognised, more likely to lead to the casting of additional preference votes and easy to count. I have not even dealt with the problems that arise over counting—perhaps I can do that on Report. In replying to this debate, perhaps the Minister will take the opportunity to tell us whether it is proposed under their system to count the votes manually or electronically, which is significant. Unless they are counted electronically it will not be possible to work out how effective this system is. That view is expressed by returning officers in Scotland, with whom our people have spoken over the past few days. It reduces the influence of the extremes. Finally, it concentrates the mind of the voter on the need not to waste votes. I beg to move.
Lord Rooker
I support my noble friend in this amendment. I do not want to repeat what I have said in previous debates, but we are given an opportunity here to deploy once again—certainly, it will be deployed if and when a referendum takes place—the fact that the proposal in the Bill is fraught with difficulties. What is more, untruths are told about it. It will be the case that every time someone appears on a platform or a television station and says, “Oh, they have got to get more than 50 per cent to win”, someone will pop up and say, “Not true”. It is not true under the system in this Bill that every MP will be elected with more than 50 per cent of the votes. It cannot happen with an open system. It is impossible. Every time it is said, whether by the Deputy Prime Minister or anyone else, it is not the case. The public are being misled.
We have to look at which system of AV is being used. I know that it is the case—it was the case with the previous Cabinet and will be with this one—that there has been no proper discussion in the Government. There has been no seminar in the Cabinet Room for Cabinet Ministers to say, “There are three ways of doing AV. Which one do you want in the Bill?”. There has been no discussion at all. That is why we have a Bill based on ignorance. I am not saying that people are personally ignorant; I am saying that there is ignorance of the system.
It would not be so bad if the Government were offering up the system and telling the whole truth about it or if they said, “Well, this is the system we have got. It is not perfect, but none of them is. Most MPs will be elected with more than 50 per cent of the vote, but some of them won’t be. So we won’t make the claim that they all will be”. But the Government are not saying that, because they cannot say it under this system. They must know that by now because their advisers must have told them about it. As I have said, there is ignorance and lack of party discussion. It was the same with the last lot—no one was ever consulted and it just turned up in the Bill earlier in the year. Part of the reason why there has been no discussion is that there are never any discussions because the Government never meet. The public think that they do, of course, but they do not. That is a difficulty and it is where the Government face a problem.
Lord Lamont of Lerwick
Perhaps I may ask the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, a question. Under the supplementary system, would it be possible for a candidate who had no first preferences to be elected?
Lord Rooker
No, as my noble friend explained in even greater detail. However many candidates there are on the list, noble Lords should envisage the current ballot paper but with two columns. Voters put an X in the first column and an X in the second column—obviously for different people—and the contest is then between those two candidates only. One person could get elected, of course, with more than 50 per cent in the first column, as is the case with AV now, and that would be great. However, it would not be possible for the least popular candidate to leapfrog the popular candidate, as can happen with AV.
Lord Greaves
This is the first time that I have spoken on the Bill. I apologise that I did not speak at Second Reading and I do not expect to speak very often in Committee, which will please my noble friends.
I rise to speak because the debate is about the supplementary vote, which I consider to be an awful voting system. I want to explain why. Before I do, however, in response to the intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, I should explain that it is not possible under AV for a candidate who gets no first preference votes to be elected. It is possible, but highly unlikely, under STV in a multimember seat; it is not possible under AV. That is a red herring.
I normally expect the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, to speak a great deal of sense and to put forward sensible proposals, even when I am not allowed to support them. Nevertheless, I am astonished that he thinks that the supplementary vote is a good system. However, as he said, he was in at the genesis of the system, which was put together at a dinner party when people were talking around the table. It was something like that, anyway; it is a nice story. The noble Lord also said that it is tried and tested—as, indeed, it is—and that many people seek to rubbish it. That may be because it is a rubbish system. It is inefficient—I shall explain why in a moment—and it results in people being cheated. They think that they are voting and expect their vote to be counted, but it is not counted.
As the noble Lord said, the system is used in 12 mayoral elections for councils and for the election of the Mayor of London, so there is, indeed, a great deal of experience. However, on the evidence that we have, it is not particularly beneficial to any of the political parties. It often seems beneficial to candidates of weird and wonderful varieties but, at the moment, of the 12 mayors, three are Labour, two are Conservative, two are Liberal Democrat, four are independent and one is an English Democrat. People ought to at least ask questions about any system that allows the election of an English Democrat, as the argument of the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, against AV included the suggestion that that system might lead to influence for BNP voters.
Lord Rooker
The Leader of the House is deploying arguments that he has not used so far in this debate. He is to be congratulated for the exposition that he has just given. It naturally follows from what he has just said that it would be completely misleading for members of the Government to persist in claiming that the proposed system will mean that MPs will be elected with more than 50 per cent of the vote. That has got to stop. If he said that that will stop, that would knock one of the misleading issues off the agenda so far as the public are concerned.
Lord Strathclyde
I like to think that I have made an authoritative statement from the Dispatch Box as to what the Government believe to be the case. However, as the noble Lord knows, we will not be controlling the campaign—different people will make their different views known as to the merits or demerits of AV. However, the noble Lord is right. I have agreed with him, and I thank him for his earlier words about this case.
Lord Rooker
Lord Rooker
With respect to Amendment 24, in view of the clarity of the Leader’s speech this afternoon, as a reward and to avoid further embarrassment to the Liberal Democrats, I will not move Amendment 24.
Lord Grenfell
I wish to express my support for the amendment of my noble friend, Lord Snape. This may be an esoteric point but reference has been made to elections in other parts of Europe. Over the years, I have witnessed many elections in France and it is not just tradition that demands that they be held at a weekend; there are also some practical reasons and I shall cite just one. It may sound a little bit like French Cartesian logic gone mad, but it is much easier to get people to the polls at a weekend than on a weekday. Where there are still many one-car families, as there are in France, on the weekend the car will be at home and not at the office. That is one example of the kind of thinking in France and it is the kind of thinking that we might want to apply here to see what kind of practical advantages there are as regards weekend elections as opposed to elections on a Thursday.
Lord Rooker
I was not going to speak on the amendment but perhaps I could add to the debate by referring to the next amendment. Everything short of compulsory voting should be tried to raise the turnout. I am dead against compulsory voting. In my view, that is quite preposterous in a democracy. However, the barriers to increased turnout, such as the hours of polling, or the days of voting, are all things that could be addressed. There is a lot more as well. All these things should be in play. I realise that the Leader of the House is going to ask what on earth this has to do with this Bill, but one has to look for a peg to hang these things on. The localism Bill will probably be another one—it is exactly the same. I have been disabused of the history this afternoon. I always thought that it was a Thursday—and I have repeated this at meetings—because in the old days, that was the day the squires went to market and bought and sold constituencies. It seems as though I may have been wrong.
Lord Rooker
This raises an interesting issue for Part 2 of the Bill. If, as I have always understood, it is legally compulsory to register to vote, surely the other side of the coin is that there ought to be a legal obligation on the Government to ensure that every citizen is registered to vote, especially given that those numbers will be instrumental in determining the size of constituencies and all the other matters that come under Part 2. That opens up the possibility of some interesting amendments to Part 2 on compulsory registration to ensure that both those sides of the coin are dealt with. There must be a clear obligation on the Government to ensure that citizens obey the law, so that the millions of people who are allegedly missed off are not missed off before the constituency boundaries are redrawn.
Lord Bach
I agree with my noble friend that this is an important point. Various answers have been given over the past months that have suggested that registration is not compulsory in this country. I am not pressing the Leader of the House to answer on that today; a Written Answer would be satisfactory. However, the issue is relevant to Part 2, as my noble friend said. However, Amendment 29 is on compulsory voting, on which I look forward to hearing what the Leader of the House has to say.