Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Snape Excerpts

Monday 24th January 2011 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Snape]

68: Clause 11, page 9, line 30, at end insert—
“( ) Each constituency shall be wholly within a single county boundary.”

[Lord Snape]

My Lords, in speaking to this group of amendments, I bear in mind the exchange that has just taken place in your Lordships’ House. I hope that whoever replies from the government Front Bench will accept that these are important amendments, which are worthy of discussion, particularly bearing in mind what has just been said about the need for your Lordships’ House to act as a revising Chamber. Most of the matters covered by this group of amendments were not debated in the other place for various reasons. I do not particularly blame the Government for that.

Some of us who have been around for a while—at least in the other place—were not particularly happy about some of the proposals made after the 1997 general election to revise the sitting hours of the House of Commons. We pointed out that some time—that time is now but we pointed it out even back then—the Labour Party would be in opposition and might well regret that the number of hours available for debate for many of these important matters would be curtailed under those proposals to amend the hours of the other place, which were accepted. So much legislation now comes before your Lordships’ House not debated at all or, if debated, done so under a time limit and certainly without any great thoroughness. I repeat: that particularly applies to this group of amendments. I hope that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, will bear that in mind when he comes to reply and will acknowledge that this group contains some serious and relevant proposals for the improvement of this piece of legislation. I labelled him “the nice Lord” last week, which probably did not enhance his career greatly among his colleagues but I meant it anyway.

On Amendment 68, the fact that so many of your Lordships have already expressed concerns about the new constituencies crossing county boundaries is worth repeating, albeit briefly. After all, the county councils—the 48 ceremonial counties, as they were known—were set up as long ago as 1888 by the Local Government Act of that year. Although further reforms took place in the back end of the 19th century, the counties were significantly formed in 1929, when many of the powers available to those county councils were increased. They were largely curtailed by the Local Government Act 1972, which led to the demise of some local authorities, such as the Ridings of Yorkshire and Westmoreland, to name but two. Concern has been expressed in your Lordships’ House over the course of the debate about the prospect of the new constituencies crossing county boundaries. I do not wish to repeat anything that was said. I understand that people in Devon and Cornwall feel very strongly about these matters, as do some Members of the other House.

I indicated when I got to my feet that much of this legislation has not been properly debated in the House of Commons. However, much of it was reported on by the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee of the Commons, which had the following to say about constituencies crossing other boundaries, particularly as far as county councils are concerned. Page 25 of its report on the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill, under the heading “Constituencies crossing other boundaries”, says at paragraph 78:

“Requiring all constituencies to be within 5% of the electoral quota would mean … the creation of constituencies crossing regional and county boundaries, not least in Cornwall and Devon. Keep Cornwall Whole, a cross-party group campaigning against this aspect of the Bill, told us”—

that is, the committee—

“that creating a constituency with a number of historical, political and geographical identities would pose a serious challenge to the local MP, and that”—

here the committee quoted Keep Cornwall Whole—

“‘there is a severe risk that elements of it will go under-represented or indeed unrepresented.’ They have stated that loosening the equalisation requirement for constituencies to within 10% of the electoral quota would mean avoiding the need for a constituency to cross the Devon-Cornwall border”.

I hope that the Government will look carefully at that report and will see what they can do to prevent constituencies crossing county borders. One of the main reasons behind this part of the legislation—the new constituency sizes—was given by Her Majesty’s Government as the need to save money. Removing 50 or 60 Members of the other place would, it was said, save millions of pounds. I remind your Lordships, particularly the Conservative Members, that those of us who were active in local government in the early 1970s remember the Local Government Act 1972 because of its creation of metropolitan county councils.

Many of us pointed out at the time that the creation of metropolitan county councils would be an extremely expensive exercise. So it proved to be. Chief officers of those local authorities rightly expected—and got—substantial pay increases because of the size of the population for which they were responsible. However, the Local Government Act 1972 went ahead and the metropolitan county councils were created. They came into being in 1974. Within 12 years, a Conservative Government decided to abolish the metropolitan county councils.

I do not say that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, who is replying to this debate, has any responsibility for that, but it would be an interesting financial comparison if he told us how much that particular exercise—the creation of metropolitan county councils and their abolition within 12 years—cost the taxpayers of this country. I would hazard a guess that it was considerably more than the supposed savings to be made from the abolition of 50 or 60 Members of the other place. I hope that the noble and learned Lord will give us some figures so that we can compare and see just how genuine this supposed saving is going to be for the British tax payer.

Amendment 69 refers to the number of local authority boundaries in the new constituencies. I plead no superiority over any other Member of your Lordships’ House who did not serve in the other place, but I know that the Minister who is replying did serve there. He knows, as I know, the difficulties of constituency Members of Parliament and the importance for them of establishing and retaining a relationship with senior officers as well as councillors in the local government area in which their constituency lies.

As with noble Lords of all parties who have served in the other place, I met constituents who came to me with problems that were entirely a matter for the local authority. I said at one of our earlier debates that some of my colleagues down the Corridor, perhaps with more courage than I, would say to those constituents who came with purely local government problems: “This is nothing to do with your Member of Parliament, take it to your local councillor”. Many of us, with some difficulty perhaps as far as our parliamentary majorities were concerned, did not see that as a proper way forward, and took up those matters on behalf of those constituents.

The relationship with senior councillors and officers—directors as they became, thanks to the Local Government Act 1972—was such that I could ring, let us say, the director of some particular function in Sandwell Council, which lay in my own constituency; I would not say “Do this” or “This must be done”, because Members of Parliament in the other place have no such powers, but I would say, because of the relationship I had established, “Would you look personally at this particular case?”. Quite often I got a reply saying “We didn’t handle that very well and this is what I propose to do”. That is entirely a normal relationship and one that noble Lords of all parties who served in the other place will be familiar with. I put it to your Lordships how much more difficult it would be to do that with two or three different local authorities in a constituency.

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[Lord Snape]

Yes, I noticed that the noble Lord lost his seat in Northampton South at one stage as well; I do not say that that was anything to do with the fact that he had three local authorities to deal with, but he would at least acknowledge, I hope, that the resources necessary to deal with three different local authorities are considerably greater than those needed to deal with just one. I am sure, given his reputation for hard work, that he found dealing with three local authorities completely effortless. Those of us who did not perhaps possess his stamina or his drive felt it was pretty exhausting dealing with one, let alone two or three. I am sure that the noble Lord would accept at least some part of what I say; it is easier to deal with just one local authority.

Again I refer noble Lords to what the report from the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee had to say about this particular aspect of the Bill and that covered by this particular amendment.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

I think I am right to recall that the boundary review for the seat for Northampton South took place a few years ago and that now it is wholly coterminous with the actual town of Northampton; the other area is not there any more.

[Lord Snape]

I suspect that the Boundary Commission, having noted the elevation of the former Member to your Lordships’ House, felt that no one else could possibly follow in his footsteps and therefore made sure that the constituency was coterminous with the local authority.

[Lord Naseby]

Well, after 23 and a half years it is not surprising that there were changes made. Yes, the present Member for Northampton South has only two local authorities to deal with; not one, though.

[Lord Snape]

Amendment 71 refers to three local authorities, I think. I have been aware of some of the difficulties, but I must not detain the House for longer than necessary.

The Political and Constitutional Reform Committee had this to say so far as local and district councils are concerned:

“Another practical effect of the 5% equalisation requirement is that many more constituencies than at present would cross local authority boundaries. The numbers involved will vary across the UK: Scotland is likely to see 15-20 (out of 50) cross-local government border constituencies, Wales between 23 and 28 constituencies (of 30), and in England, where 34 constituencies already cross a London borough boundary, the commissions ‘expect to cross boundaries to an even greater extent in a review carried out under the terms of the Bill.’ The Secretaries to the English and Scottish Commissions, Bob Farrance and Hugh Bucanan, told us they intend to take local authority areas into account when designing constituencies. In Wales very few constituencies will be able to follow local authority boundaries”.

We need constituencies that have some affinity. Drawing lines on maps, as has been pointed out in these debates, does not a community make; crossing local authority boundaries is something that the Boundary Commission for many years has done its best to avoid.

The committee went on to say:

“Another consequence of the 5% equalisation requirement is that the boundary commissions will have to split wards in order to achieve the required number of electors in each constituency … Professor Ron Johnston told us that research suggested that political activity declined when wards were divided”.

I have no wish to offend the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell, by talking about political activity, but the party unit of government in my own party—once the ward and now the branch—is normally based on a local government ward. If you split that ward then obviously political activity in that particular area is likely to be considerably affected. That might not bother noble Lords on either side of the House, but all three major parties depend on active volunteers, and what gets volunteers actively involved in a political party is a sense of community that I fear will be lost unless some of these amendments are accepted.

This the fourth or fifth time I have spoken on this legislation. I hope that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, who is to reply, will acknowledge that on no occasion have I spoken for longer than 15 minutes. These amendments are important. The only real debate that took place was on the 5 per cent quota, not on the details that I have outlined in these amendments—and there is a whole group of them. I say again to noble Lords that if we had really been anxious to be difficult, we would have debated all the amendments separately. These are important matters. I hope that when the Minister replies he will bear it in mind that we are talking about communities as well as political parties, and that he will look seriously at these amendments. I beg to move.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

My Lords, I support the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Snape. Counties are the starting point of any boundary review. They are not the building blocks; wards are the building blocks. Those of us who have been involved in boundary reviews in various capacities will know that. I would include among that group myself, the noble Lord, Lord Bach, and many noble Lords on all sides of the House who have served in the other place. They will know that counties are the starting point. Outside London, you always start with a county—it can be a shire county or a metropolitan county. You are advised of the number of seats in that county and the initial recommendations of the Boundary Commissions are published.

I recall my time working in the east Midlands, when Derbyshire received an extra seat. That came into force at the last general election and the constituency was called Mid Derbyshire. This was because the electorate had increased and the county qualified for a new seat. I was always clear that that would be a Conservative seat and in May last year it returned a Conservative MP. There were knock-on effects. The review resulted in High Peak becoming coterminous with the district council boundary. That was positive and sensible. A seat called Derbyshire Dales was created close to the boundaries of Derbyshire Dales District Council. The South Derbyshire constituency became coterminous with the boundary of the district council; previously, it had contained a couple of wards in the City of Derby.

There are of course seats all across the county that cross different district boundaries, but all are contained within the county. The county is compact; it provides historic identity and people understand it. Take away those county boundaries and what do we risk? In Derbyshire, bits of High Peak would go into Greater Manchester. North East Derbyshire would be put together with Sheffield, while seats that are largely based on the towns and districts of Erewash and Amber Valley would be ripped up. The historic A52, which was recently named Brian Clough Way, in recognition of what Brian Clough brought to Nottingham and Derby, was put in a Leicestershire seat. It is wrong to ignore these boundaries. Greater London is a county and is allocated a number of seats. It is true that in Greater London seats cross borough boundaries, but account is taken of that. That recognition would go under these proposals.

Seats and communities of course change and movements in boundaries should take account of those changes. However, the Government’s proposals are deeply flawed, as nothing else matters but the number of people, who are thereby denied their right to proper input. They will have the right to send in a letter but not to appeal to an inquiry. That is not right. It is most regrettable that the Government have not moved on these proposals, but I live in hope, given what we have heard from the Leader of the House this afternoon.

The names of seats are also important. This is sometimes forgotten, but boundary inquiries are a good forum for looking at them. The inquiries do not always get it right, but they can improve the situation. I grew up in Walworth in the London Borough of Southwark. When I joined the Labour Party in 1979, I found that I was in the Southwark Peckham CLP. I went to secondary school in Peckham, but calling the seat Southwark Peckham did not reflect the community. The proper name should have been Camberwell, Peckham and Walworth, which would have identified the three distinct communities in that constituency. I am pleased that in a subsequent review the seat was renamed Camberwell and Peckham, which better reflects the constituency, because most of Walworth has been included in Bermondsey and Old Southwark, although that name could be improved.

I bring my remarks to a close in the spirit that has been expressed on both Front Benches. I hope that a deal can be sorted out shortly.

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[Lord Rennard]

Introducing a specific hierarchy of priorities is rather more problematic than the noble Lord might think. One problem would be that if you try to prescribe exactly in which order the commission must take into account different factors, you open up the Boundary Commission process to legal challenges down the road, which would cause greater uncertainty, including to Members in another place, about the eventual outcome. It seems to me that for flexibility in the different criteria that the Boundary Commission has to follow, it is better to say, “in general, in so far as it sees fit”. When it sees fit how to take into account those different criteria, we should address in this House how much flexibility it may have in trying to equalise the electorates.

[Lord Snape]

I hope that the noble Lord will forgive me for interrupting him so early in his interesting contribution. I draw his attention to the review from the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee of the other place that the overall problem is the 5 per cent leeway one way or the other. If that could be looked at, some of the other matters that the noble Lord correctly raises could be properly considered.

[Lord Rennard]

I am saying very carefully that I think that there are good arguments for looking at the degree of variation that there might be between the electorates of different constituencies. When, some months ago and before the general election, a proposal was on the table to recreate constituency boundaries with only a 2.5 per cent margin between electorates, I thought that that was far too narrow and tight. The Bill currently proposes a 5 per cent variation. I am simply saying at this stage that I think there are legitimate arguments for discussing the variation that we might have, and that those are stronger arguments to have than to say that we should have hard and fast rules about never crossing county boundaries, district council boundaries or ward boundaries.

I speak, of course, as a former party agent and party organiser. From my point of view, it was much more convenient if all the wards were within a constituency; that makes it easier for the parties. I believe that, by and large, that should be the case. Indeed, amendments that we will consider later in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Tyler flag up specifically to the boundary commissions the importance of ward boundaries, but we do not suggest that they should never be crossed. The reason that I think that they can never be crossed is that there is still the overarching principle in the Bill of more equal sized electorates. By and large, it is possible to achieve more equal sized electorates without crossing ward boundaries. Where they are crossed, that should be very rare. I hope that we do not cross county boundaries, district boundaries or London boroughs more than is really necessary.

[Lord Rennard]

The only principle I will express in this part of the debate is my overarching belief, shared by many noble Lords opposite, that constituencies should have roughly the same sized electorates, but in addressing the different balance of the arguments, there is in my view more merit in the case for saying that we should look at flexibility in the size of the electorates than for saying that we should try to treat each constituency, county or district as a special case. For example, I notice that an amendment has been tabled by a noble Lord opposite that Cumbria should be a special case. There is virtually no limit to the number of special cases that you could try to establish. My view in opposing the amendment is simply that there is more merit in the flexibility of the electorate argument than there is in saying that you should never cross the ward, the district or the county boundaries. Counties vary enormously in size, and the electorates can rise or fall rapidly, so it is not proper to say that you could never cross the county boundary, but I hope that it will not happen too often.

[Lord Snape]

Will the noble Lord give way?

[Lord Rennard]

I wish to conclude my argument and will not take further interventions. I think that we should make more progress on the Bill, and I will conclude my argument rapidly by saying that in relation to wards it is of course of general convenience for elected representatives and constituents if ward boundaries are not crossed, but we now have ward boundaries in parts of the country—Birmingham, for example—that are very large. There are more than 20,000 electors in a typical Birmingham ward. In Scotland, where we now have an STV system for local elections—thanks to the Scottish Parliament and supported by three of the four main parties in Scotland—we have larger wards than previously.

In my view, it would not be possible to have a roughly arithmetic equalisation procedure and never cross ward boundaries. In some cases—I will conclude on this point—there may be a dilemma for the Boundary Commission. For example, it may want to consider, “Do we want to keep Birmingham whole and not cross the Birmingham city boundary, or do we cross some of the ward boundaries?”. My personal preference might be to say that it would be better for representation and good governance to keep Birmingham whole and cross the ward boundaries. For those reasons, I do not support the amendments.

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[Lord Lipsey]

I cannot think what it was in my remarks—because no doubt the noble Lord intervened on me seeking clarification—which contravened what he just said. When he makes his speech in a minute, no doubt he will be able to develop his point, but I do not think that it arises from my remarks to the House, with great respect.

[Lord Snape]

Before my noble friend moves on, I put to him the point that I sought to put to the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, but he declined it. The House of Commons committee to which I referred states that,

“many more constituencies than at present would cross local authority boundaries”.

It is referring, as my noble friend implies, to the 5 per cent limit.

[Lord Lipsey]

I am not in favour of any absolutes—that is my point—but I am in favour of greater flexibility, which would enable most of the principles in the amendments to be respected. Perhaps I may take an example that came up earlier. Under the Bill, of the 46 counties of England, in only nine cases can the boundaries be respected. How does that reflect reality? However, if we had a different rule—a 10 per cent rule, for example—those boundaries could be respected in all but two cases, and these specific exceptions would not need to be brought into effect. Of course I give way to my noble friend.

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[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

I am grateful for those reassuring remarks from the noble Lord. Not only do wards provide possibilities as building blocks, but their very nature means that local ties are cemented through them.

[Lord Snape]

This has been an interesting debate. Fourteen noble Lords, including those on the Front Benches, have participated and I will ensure that my closing remarks guarantee that the debate is concluded in less than two hours. That gives the lie to those outside who say that none of this debate has been particularly relevant and that much of it, if not all of it, has been designed merely to hold up the Government’s legislation. That is not the case and I am sure that I speak for noble Lords on all sides of the House in thanking the Minister for the way in which he has just responded. If he could persuade his colleague, the noble Lord, Lord McNally, to adopt the same emollient tone, we might have two nice Ministers responding. So far he has not been too successful, so he had better stay where he is to ensure that the mood of your Lordships’ House does not change.

I will refer in closing this debate to some of the contributions that have been made from both sides, all of which have been relevant. My noble friend Lord Kennedy gave us the benefit of his knowledge of Derbyshire, pointing out that it would be difficult to retain parliamentary seats in Derbyshire under the 5 per cent rule and that it might be necessary to cross county boundaries. He mentioned High Peak and Greater Manchester. There is some affinity between the two, in that many commuters travel between them, but that is about it; from a social and economic point of view, there is not a great deal to unite them. He also emphasised the importance of the names of seats.

My noble friend Lord Dubs correctly pointed out that there are anomalies under the present system, to which the Minister also referred. No one says that the present system is perfect—it cannot be—but I refer without quoting directly to the committee in the other place, which said that there would be a great many more anomalies unless we looked in detail particularly at the 5 per cent rule.

My noble friend Lady Liddell of Coatdyke reminded us of the importance of the relationship between elected Members. Although, to paraphrase what the Minister said, legislation should not necessarily be about the administrative convenience of Members of Parliament, it should not be about exacerbating the differences between them either. The greater the number of district councils involved on a particular issue, the greater the number of Members of Parliament. That is regardless of party. It has been known for Members of the other place of the same party to disagree about constituency matters. I know that such a thing would never occur among the Liberal Democrats, but I suspect that the Conservatives are a bit more like us and are more inclined occasionally to fall out.

My noble friend Lord Haworth referred to a particular constituency difficulty in London and spoke of giving evidence with some trepidation at a public inquiry. We are anxious to preserve the principle of public inquiries on boundary alterations. Any confrontation between him and Ivor Stanbrook QC would lead to only one winner—you do not need the letters QC after your name to be able to act as an advocate in such a way as I know that my noble friend does.

My noble friend Lord Bilston gave us the benefit of his 40 years of distinguished service at various levels in the Black Country. He quoted Omar Khayyam. I cannot compete with that. I suspect that the words that he quoted so movingly were not aimed at Boundary Commissions or boundary alterations, but they were certainly appropriate in the context of this debate. He reminded us of the long-standing feeling of hurt when electors are transferred from one district to another. In my former constituency in West Bromwich, we had some difficulty in 1974 in deciding the name of the new borough. Even now, 40 years on, the borough of Sandwell is not immediately recognised throughout the United Kingdom. You do not often hear the people who lived in the former authorities that formed the borough of Sandwell saying in response to a question as to where they live: “Well, actually, I live in Sandwell”. I was a fairly new Member of the other place when the borough was created. I was told that people in Smethwick, which formed part of that borough, having been transferred to the new constituency of Warley, which they did not particularly recognise, were certainly not going to have imposed on them the name West Bromwich, although that seemed to me as an outsider at the time to be the most sensible name for the new borough. I suspect that there will be many difficulties and arguments such as that unless the Government see sense on the 5 per cent deviation rule.

My noble friend Lord Davies of Stamford at least provoked an intervention from the other side of the Chamber when he pointed out that none had been made until he got to his feet. He emphasised the importance of the ward structure, as, to be fair, did the Minister in his reply. One participant from the other side was the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, who was rather more emollient on this occasion than he has sometimes been in the past in saying that there should be discussion rather than hard-and-fast rules. He rather skated over the fact that there will be many more such anomalies unless, I repeat, the 5 per cent deviation rule is eased. He implied, although he did not say so in as many words, that just a few more constituencies would cross local authority boundaries under the legislation. That was not the view of the committee in the other place or of organisations that wish to defend the integrity of counties such as Cornwall. I readily accede to the experience and knowledge of constituencies of the noble Lord, Lord Rennard—it was until fairly recently impossible to conceive of a by-election taking place without a figure lurking in the background with a coy and retiring smile, which invariably belonged to the noble Lord—but I hope that he will recognise that, unless some changes are made to the Bill, the anomalies that have been raised on both sides of the Committee will be perpetuated. Indeed, my noble friend Lord Lipsey put his finger on the matter in his brief intervention, saying that under the legislation only nine out of 46 counties would have their boundaries respected. That is an anomaly; it is a significant change, which the Government should look at.

My noble friend Lord Rooker entertained us with stories about Sutton Coldfield joining Birmingham. Unfortunately, the former Member of Parliament for Sutton Coldfield, the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, was not present, otherwise we might have seen a discussion, if not a minor spat, between the two of them. My noble friend and I were referred to by the British press in the context of some of the debates last week as a couple of ageing lefties. I suppose that we ought to be suitably grateful that, for once, the British press got something half right. My noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours said that we have to move on the 5 per cent deviation rule, as did my noble friend on the Front Bench, who said that constituencies would otherwise become fragmented and disjointed.

I was grateful for the tenor in which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, responded. These are matters to which we shall have to return on Report, as he said. Given that, and the amiable nature of the debate—and the fact that no time has been wasted—I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 68 withdrawn.