Parliamentary Constituencies Bill

Lord Russell of Liverpool Excerpts

Report stage & Report stage (Hansard) & Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 8th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Russell of Liverpool) (CB)]

We now come to the group beginning with Amendment 6. I remind noble Lords that Members other than the mover and the Minister may speak only once and that short questions of elucidation are discouraged. Anyone wishing to press this amendment or anything else in this group to a Division should make that clear in debate.

Clause 2: Orders in Council giving effect to reports

Amendment 6

Moved by

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I hope I have explained the background to the amendments as well as their key details. My noble friend the Minister, whose DNA is all over the amendments, will be able to answer any detailed questions that arise during the debate. I beg to move Amendment 6.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Russell of Liverpool) (CB)]

The noble Lord, Lord Randall of Uxbridge, has withdrawn from this group, so I call the next speaker, the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Pittenweem.

[Lord Campbell of Pittenweem (LD)]

My Lords, I will be brief, taking full advantage of the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, whom I wish to congratulate on bringing this matter to the attention of the Committee and, indeed, persevering with it to the extent that we now know that consensus has been achieved. In that respect, it would be only right and proper to thank the noble Lord, Lord True, for being constructive in these discussions. The noble Lord referred to the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, who certainly deserves a mention in dispatches as having been a very fervent supporter of the principle, albeit with a different figure in mind.

The mischief that this amendment seeks to address is the fact that, under the previous legislation, the Government had what one could reasonably describe as an unfettered discretion, which has now been substantially removed. The consequence is that the onus will rest with the Government to establish whether or not the exception that is contained can be fully supported. I venture to suggest that the Government—any Government—will find it a lot more difficult to defend exceptional circumstances that would have had reasonable practicability.

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[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Russell of Liverpool) (CB)]

The noble Baroness, Lady Humphreys, has withdrawn from the debate on this group, so I call the next speaker, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris of Aberavon.

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

My Lords, I support the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, and I encourage him to press his amendment to a vote. I do not wish to repeat the observations I made in Committee in support of the noble and learned Lord, save to say that, first, as he has outlined, the office of Lord Chancellor is much more political now that it is held in the Commons. Instead of a quasi-judicial figure who sat as a judge in the Supreme Court and usually had no further political aspirations, we now have a highly political and mobile politician as Lord Chancellor in the Commons; these are not personal remarks.

As one who campaigned for the Ministry of Justice to be headed by a Commons Minister, and welcomed that, because it is a spending department, I have no complaint. But a political Minister should not have his hands on the machinery of elections—or, indeed, anywhere near it. The office dealing with elections should be manifestly independent.

There is one point that I wish to repeat: it is a parallel and wider argument. I noted the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, a few moments ago, and in Committee I gave my experience as Secretary of State for Wales in appointing the chairman of the Welsh Local Government Boundary Commission. I certainly was a political Minister, and headed my party’s campaign in Wales for six years in my tenure as Secretary of State.

Local government boundaries are one of the building bricks of parliamentary constituency boundaries. On the previous amendment, the Minister confirmed that. I once lost the eastern part of my constituency because of a new county council boundary, and I had to be compensated by the addition of a number of wards from the same county council area to the rest of my constituency. My submission, therefore, is that not only should a judicial figure appoint the Boundary Commission, but the Government should also consider doing likewise for the Local Government Boundary Commission.

Since the power of appointment might already have gone over to the Government of Wales, it would too late to legislate for Wales. But the Government could certainly legislate for England. Indeed, I believe that they should do so. I shall be interested to hear the Minister’s views. Local government boundaries are inextricably linked to parliamentary boundaries, and decisions should be politically distanced on both of them.