Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Snape Excerpts

Monday 15th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, that of course is right, which is why I pointed out the case in England. In Scotland there was a reaction to the Scotland Act and the reduction in the number of seats. It does not mean that it always has to take a long time, but in England it demonstrated that it did. Maybe in Scotland these things are, on the whole, managed rather better.

The new rules put in place by this Bill will require that every constituency is within 5 per cent either side of a single size. To ensure that constituencies remain equal and up to date, boundary reviews will take place on a five-yearly basis. The Bill will also set the size of the other place at 600 MPs. This is a modest reduction of around 8 per cent and will save the public an estimated £12 million a year.

[Lord Snape]

I am grateful to the noble Lord. In his opinion, which political party would benefit from these changes?

[Lord Strathclyde]

I cannot possibly predict what will happen at the next general election, but all taxpayers will benefit from a saving of £12 million each year.

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[Lord Baker of Dorking]

Any port in a storm. I say to my noble friend that I am supporting it because I am very much in favour of the second half of the Bill, which deals with the reduction in numbers in the House of Commons and the equalisation of votes in constituencies. I do not care for the first half of the Bill, but that is the price for having the Bill; it is the coalition price. I think that it is a price worth paying, because I do not think that the referendum will succeed. I am sure that there will be a majority of no votes.

I am opposed to the alternative vote system. I shall speak against it at rallies and all the rest of it. I am rather surprised that my new friends the Liberals are quite so keen on the alternative vote. After all, Roy Jenkins’s commission savaged it and said how unsatisfactory it was. However, my surprise is even greater that large parts of the Labour Party have embraced the alternative vote. I would have thought that they had had enough of the alternative vote. They have just gone through the process of having an alternative vote in electing their leader. It wreaked havoc on their party and did not produce the best man as the winner. The result of every alternative vote is that you have to try to persuade yourself that the person who won was the best man, when everyone knows that he is not the best man; he is the lowest common denominator rather than the highest common factor. If the Labour Party continues to embrace the alternative vote system, all I can say is that the position was well described by Kipling, who said:

“the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,

And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wobbling back to the Fire”.

[Lord Snape]

I am sure that the House is grateful for that bit of doggerel, but will the noble Lord accept from me that not all of the Labour Party is in favour of the AV system? I will find myself campaigning alongside him against that prospect later, but will he come to the nitty-gritty of the Bill and his support for it? Is it not about political advantage for his party rather than anything else?

[Lord Baker of Dorking]

I say to my new ally in the campaign—Snape and Baker ranging the country—that we will draw great crowds. I will come on to political advantage later, if I may.

I favour the second half of the Bill because three years ago I took a Bill through your Lordships’ House that did very nearly the same thing. The Bill was to reduce the House of Commons by 10 per cent, which was then Conservative Party policy, so there would have been not 50 but 65 fewer Members. It was also designed to equalise votes. I was interrupted by my new noble friend Lord Rennard—yes, he is in his place—who knows a thing or two about constituencies and electorates. He reminded me that the policy of the Liberals was to reduce the number in the House of Commons to 500. The Liberal policy was to reduce the number by 150; the Conservative policy was to reduce it by 65. Well, in the sweet compromise that figures the coalition’s proposal, the figure 50 was settled on and I am happy to settle for 50 now. That will be a considerable improvement.

Why do I think so? The noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, talked about the numbers in other countries. We have a population of 60 million and we have 600 MPs. Compared to other countries, we could be described as well represented. Japan has twice our population and 470 MP equivalents. Russia has two and a half times our population and 450 MP equivalents. America has five times our population but just 430 Congressmen and 100 Senators. Six hundred is quite a good number for the electorate’s representation. In Scotland and Wales, there are also the local Members of Parliament, who deal with most of the complaints of their constituents, as powers have been considerably devolved. There is plenty of representation at all levels where people can go and seek support from their elected representatives.

Under the Bill, the new constituencies will have an average electorate of 76,000, give or take 5 per cent either way. The former Lord Chancellor wanted 10 per cent, which would largely negate some of the Bill’s effects, but he is used to putting forward such amendments. At the moment, the size of an electorate in England is 72,000, in Scotland it is 65,000, in Northern Ireland it is 63,000 and in Wales it is 56,000. I remember when the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, and I were both in the House of Commons. It was a long time ago.

[Lord Baker of Dorking]

Time runs not to the memory of man. The noble Lord had quite a small constituency compared to an English constituency. I think that his electorate was about 50,000. That meant that English seats had 14,300 more electors than Welsh seats. There is substantial overrepresentation. You cannot deny it. If democracy means anything, it should be that one vote is equal wherever it is, but it is not. The Welsh voters who put the noble Lord into power as an MP were much more powerful than the voters who put me into power in England; they had a greater say on our nation’s affairs. The noble Lord cannot shake his head; it is a fact. It is true and realistic. There is massive overrepresentation.

That can be seen not just in Wales. Islington in London has an electorate of 67,000, whereas just a little way away in Brent—these are Labour seats—the electorate is 87,000. There is no logic to this and it is indefensible.

[Lord Snape]

My Lords—

[Lord Baker of Dorking]

Can we have our campaign meeting later, please?

[Lord Snape]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. I remind the House that he did at one time represent Marylebone, which was one of the smallest constituencies in the country.

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[Lord Snape]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow my noble friend. I have only one quibble about what he said: it is not just one party attempting to rig our constitution in this Bill, it is two of them; it is the coalition. That is the purpose of it all and what is behind it. There is no magic figure of 76,000 as far as electors are concerned. Anyone who has read reports from the Boundary Commission—I do not say that they are exactly compulsive reading, although those of us who served in the other place will know that they are if they refer to your own constituency—will know that sheer numbers is not what they are about. I think that the figure was 66,000 in my time in the other place. That is a general aim, and an avowed intention when new constituencies are created and old ones are altered. But it is not a hard and fast rule. There are other considerations too.

As my noble friend Lord Touhig said earlier, there are geographical considerations to be looked at. He amplified the nonsense of seats in Wales where it is possible to cross two mountain ranges and three rivers, or whatever the figure was, in order to arrive at this magic figure of 76,000 electors. As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Blackburn said, it is community that is important—community is the vital aspect of any constituency. This is a cynical attempt at gerrymandering.

As my noble friend Lord Hart reminded us, this is part of a triple attack on our constitution by the coalition Government. It does not apply just in the other place; it applies here too. They want to reduce the other place by around 50 and to increase this place by, coincidentally, the same number. The problem is that they will not be the same people. The idea is to get rid of a majority of Labour Members from the other place and plant—it has been said in the newspapers—another 50 or so Liberals in your Lordships’ House. I am not sure, given the rate of attrition in the Liberal Party currently, that there will be 50 of them left to come in here before Christmas. But certainly that seems to be the avowed intention, which would make this House anything but a revising Chamber where traditionally it has been said that that is what we are about.

In opening the debate, the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, threw out a comment about the number of Labour Peers created by the Labour Government. I would remind him that it took more than a decade of Labour Governments, two of whom had majorities in three figures and one with a substantial majority, before Labour Members of your Lordships’ House outnumbered the Conservatives, let alone formed a majority on the Floor, which of course we never did. But that is the clear intention of the gerrymandering that is taking place in both Houses. It will ensure that a Conservative/Liberal alliance or something similar will continue up to and, they hope, including the next election in 2015. But I hope it is our job to see that such a philosophy does not go unchallenged, and when we come to the Committee stage, I hope that the battle for some of the things that have rightly been pointed out during the course of this Second Reading debate is waged loud and long. I say that because if we are still a revising Chamber, at least until the parties opposite have done their worst, then if ever a Bill needed revising, it is this one.

The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, was at his ebullient best earlier today, saying that the Bill is almost a tidying-up exercise that makes a few minor alterations, with nothing really to concern your Lordships. But that is not the view of his distinguished noble friend Lord Baker, who let the cat out of the bag in his speech. I have always envied his capacity for swallowing his words and inventing new ones. He talked about the small size of some constituencies, predominantly Labour ones, but I remember that he won a by-election in St Marylebone. His hair was darker and shorter in those days, if I may say so, but I am sure it was he who represented one of the smallest constituencies in the country. However, I do not think he made any protest at the time about the relatively low number of constituents. Indeed, like many of us who represented inner city areas, I bet he was grateful that his constituency was a bit smaller because your Lordships will recognise that social problems in the inner cities are enormous. I do not say that Conservative or Liberal Democrat Members in the other place have fewer problems so far as their constituents are concerned, but in my experience the number of social problems in inner city constituencies can considerably outweigh those in the more affluent parts of rural areas. So there is a good reason for the relative size of constituencies.

[Lord Baker of Dorking]

My Lords—

[Lord Snape]

Let me finish the point. I certainly have not finished with the noble Lord yet. However, I shall give way to him now, as he did for me.

[Lord Baker of Dorking]

I did represent a small borough which disappeared completely. But we should dwell on the rest of my political career, when I went on to represent a constituency in Surrey that was one of the biggest seats in the country.

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[Lord Snape]

I shall reflect on his distinguished career, but I was surprised that he failed to point out to your Lordships that he has had some experience of a small constituency and made no protest at the time.

Let me turn to his article, a copy of which I have with me. I am not sure whether the Times is compulsive reading on either side of your Lordships’ House, but I can imagine the conversation that took place between a senior journalist on the Times and the noble Lord at the beginning of October: “Ken, what’s your view on the coalition?”. “Oh, I am broadly in favour of it”. “Good. Knock us out a thousand words for 4 October”. Being the sensible man he is, my computer says the article is only 985 words, so I hope the Times does not ask him for a rebate for the words he has missed out. The very readable article about this legislation appeared under the headline,

“Stop worrying and learn to love the coalition: A Tory government with a tiny majority could not achieve what we are able to do now”.

The noble Lord then set out exactly what the coalition hoped to achieve. I have to say that the article is not entirely accurate, and again I hope that there will not be a demand for his fee to be returned. However, it is eminently readable, as one would expect given the talents of the noble Lord. He said:

“It begins to look as if the chances of one party having a significant overall majority will only come about if an incumbent government is greatly unpopular”.

We might test that theory over the next few years. He went on to say,

“as it was in 1979 to the benefit of Margaret Thatcher, and in 1997 to the benefit of Tony Blair”.

Again, that rather ignores the lessons of history. I seem to recall that Tony Blair, if I can call him that in your Lordships’ House—repeating the noble Lord’s words—was pretty successful in 2001 as an incumbent and did not do too badly in 2005, again as an incumbent. I am not sure about the accuracy of that part of the article but I am sure about the part I am about to read out because, despite the emollient words from the Leader of the House to which I have referred, the noble Lord, Lord Baker, went on to say:

“The greatest prize for the Tories is yet to come: constitutional change that will eliminate Labour’s 8 per cent advantage at every general election. This will be achieved by equalising the votes in each constituency to around 76,000 and by reducing the size of the House of Commons by 50 MPs”.

That brings it down to the 600 figure that my noble friend Lord Dubs was accused of mentioning and the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, was afraid to mention, or chose not to mention, during the course of his speech.

The noble Lord, Lord Baker, went on to say in his eminently readable article:

“MPs of all parties are coming to accept that there will not be an election in 2011 or 2012, when the British public will not want to be diverted from enjoying the Olympic Games”—

to get rid of this lot, some of them might be prepared to be diverted—

“and celebrating the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee”.

I was around for the silver jubilee, as was the noble Lord, but it did not stop us having by-elections and a continuance of the normal political toing and froing. The article continued:

“In 2013 the rewards of austerity are still likely to be meagre, so an election in 2015 looks odds-on. This coalition has staying power”.

For the sake of the noble Lord’s colleagues in another place, he had better hope that that is right because, in the short term, the coalition is going to be unpopular.

[Lord Baker of Dorking]

I thank the noble Lord for drawing to the attention of a wider audience the words that I wrote in this article in the Times. The point I wanted to make is that the Bill will be very significant in removing the basic unfairness in our democracy that at the last election we had to be eight points ahead in the opinion polls even to come level with Labour. That is manifestly unfair in any democratic system and cannot be justified. The Bill removes not all but about half the unfairness and means that the checkerboard of politics will for a long time be set out on a level table.

[Lord Snape]

There were a few clichés there which I would not care to follow too far. I do not agree that the present electoral system gives the Labour Party an 8 per cent advantage, nor do many independent commentators, for the reasons amply outlined by my noble friends during the course of the debate.

Before I leave the noble Lord’s article, I should say that I am pleased that he feels the two of us should embark on a crusade against AV because, like him, I am against it. Before we go round the country together, however, I have one request to make of him: that he lets me speak first because, given the quality of what he has said tonight, he could empty a hall even faster than me. However, it would be worth while to undertake such an exercise because on this issue he is right. During my 27 years in the other place I never heard a great clamour for AV. Indeed, I have yet to hear from any of my former constituents that they would be happy in West Bromwich only if they had AV at the next general election. AV is about transporting the party that traditionally comes last in the electoral system—that is, the Liberals—into permanent second place and, of course, into permanent coalition with whichever party happens to come first.

The Bill is a blatant attempt at gerrymandering. It arises not from a desire to do good in our thankfully unwritten constitution but from a desire to survive. The coalition Government hope that the voters will have short memories and that, with a rigged and gerrymandered system, they will sneak back into power in 2015. It will be up to us during the Committee stage and in the debates on the Bill to ensure that none of that comes about.