Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Sewel Excerpts

Monday 24th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

I mention “Lochaber No More” because I suspect that that will be the consequence of this. As I said in the earlier debate, when I read the Bill I thought that this was a protection measure for Charles Kennedy’s constituency. He set me straight on that when I had lunch with him the other day. The most likely outcome is that the Boundary Commission will start, as it has always done, in the north; the constituency that is currently represented by Lord Thurso will become larger; and there will then be a fight between Mr Kennedy and the Chief Secretary to the Treasury for the remaining constituency. I do not know what my right honourable friend’s views are on primaries but they have always been enthusiastically embraced by the Liberal Party. If there is to be a contest, my advice to him was that he does not want it to be a primary because I think Mr Charles Kennedy will win hands down.

[Lord Sewel]

I do not wish to intervene in an internecine conflict within the coalition, but are the Government sure that their proposals are consistent with the Act of Union?

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

As the noble Lord was such a great mover in the process of devolution, he is on thin ice when talking about the security of the union as a result of legislation passed through this House. However, that is a debate for another day.

I have some sympathy with the amendment because it seems perverse to set a physical limit. When we talked about the Isle of Wight the other day—I understand that the noble Lord, Lord McAvoy, has taken to quoting me extensively—I said that constituencies are not about blocks of numbers. However, neither are they about blocks of specific land mass area. I did not know how the Boundary Commission would deal with the problem, but we could end up with a new Caithness constituency, which is an entirely arbitrary line on the map, arising from this provision. Like the noble Lord, Lord Bach, we have put the proposition fairly and I do not understand why this provision is here, unless it was thought that it would provide protection for a particular constituency. That constituency, Ross, Skye and Lochaber, has worked very well. Despite his politics, the right honourable Member, Charles Kennedy, has represented it very well in Parliament.

I am always in favour of saving public money, but it strikes me as I look at the noble Lord, Lord Sewel, that there is a curious thing in the Scottish context in that we want to reduce the size of the House of Commons from 650 to 600, but the Scottish Parliament, which has 129 Members, has fiercely resisted any reduction in its size. If one wanted to give the Boundary Commission instructions, it would be far more important to try to co-ordinate the boundaries of the Scottish parliamentary Westminster constituencies with those in the Scottish Parliament, but that does not feature. Instead, we have this extraordinary thing that no constituency can be larger than the existing constituency, which in itself was created to take account of geographical and other boundaries.

I do not want to detain the House, and I certainly do not want to be accused of filibustering or anything of that kind, but the noble Lord, Lord Bach, makes an important point and I look forward to hearing the Minister’s explanation.