Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Soley Excerpts

Wednesday 19th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kilclooney]

My Lords, as one-time Minister responsible for electoral registration in Northern Ireland, I have been interested by the references to the introduction of individual registration in Northern Ireland. As several speakers have said, several conclusions could be reached about what the result of that individual registration was. However, it certainly was not, and I strongly refute the suggestion, that it was because elderly people there did not know what they were doing—the word “illiterate” was used. I remind the House that the standard of education in Northern Ireland, and indeed in Scotland, is generally higher than in England.

On a serious point, the average size of the family in Northern Ireland is considerably larger than a family in England. When the head of a household filled in the registration form, he would very often put down all the members of the family whether they were living in Northern Ireland, England, New York or wherever. That was brought to an end when the requirement for individual registration was introduced and people outside Northern Ireland were no longer registered, only those who were actually living there. That is one of the reasons why the electoral register fell in numbers.

[Lord Soley]

My Lords, I had not intended to speak on this matter. I shall be brief, subject to interventions, which I will take if I possibly can.

I am not a great expert in this area, which is why I do not intend to speak for very long, but we have had the advantage of listening to two very good speeches. One was by the Minister, who demonstrated as usual that he is in command of his brief and was willing to answer questions—that is where he scores over some of his colleagues, who are not so in command of their brief and do not answer in the detail that he has—and I learnt a lot from that.

I have learnt an enormous amount from the other very good speech, which was from my noble friend Lord Wills. We ought to listen to him with great care. He has vividly described what was happening under the previous Labour Government in order to increase registration and how to get local authorities to do that well. Anyone who was aware of that during that period, and I certainly was, will be aware of the efforts that he and others made in order to get this right.

My purpose in intervening now is to say that we need to listen and learn from my noble friend’s experience. I do not want to go into the detail of it, but he is right. I simply want to say that a deal on the Bill is possible if the Government would go the extra mile that they need to go to do it. It is crazy to drive through a constitutional Bill without getting the all-party agreement and involvement that we need. It is possible to reach agreement. This may be a late stage but the Government need to do it. They do not have to bring the House into a position whereby it becomes a carbon copy of the House of Commons, but on constitutional Bills they have to try to reach agreement on key issues. That is not impossible. My noble friend has convinced me on this point. I shall not go into great detail about my former constituency. I took an interest in registration, as every MP does. I was always worried about underrepresentation of certain groups in my constituency and above all about the fluidity of an inner-city area where the population turnover is very high.

I say again that the point my noble friend made about the estimates, and using figures from elsewhere, is profoundly important. It is important to note that underrepresentation in some areas is due not to the ignorance or lack of concern of the local population but stems from its socio-economic make-up and so on. I repeat that it is possible to reach agreement on this matter but you cannot do that with a Government who are not prepared to reach agreement. I say to the Government, please to try a little harder.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

My Lords, the Minister’s early intervention was very helpful because a lot of the things that he said answered questions that I had. I can therefore be relatively brief. I hear the sighs of relief. I wish to make two points. First, we have been discussing two issues. One is underregistration. Every party represented in this House and in the other House thinks that that is a bad thing. Every party wants to increase representation and encourage local authorities to get as many people on to the register as possible. That is in all our interests and is something we should all be doing. We should accept the good faith of other parties in wishing to do that. However—this is my second point—what we are talking about today, as my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours said, is not that issue at all. What we are talking about today is the best way for the Boundary Commission to make a judgment about the boundaries and the most accurate figures that it can use.

I have made my next point on a couple of previous occasions, much to the Minister’s annoyance. I have put down Amendment 67C, which says that we should use the number of people eligible to vote rather than those on the register. Questions have been asked about the accuracy of various figures. I and other Members have argued for a figure based on population. The Minister criticised that on the basis that it was an estimate. I have been talking to wiser colleagues than me about estimates. We pay taxes based on estimates. The Barnett formula gives money to Scotland and Wales based on estimates. As my noble friend Lord Desai said to me, the retail prices index, on which our pensions and other benefits are calculated, is based on an estimate. So there is nothing inherently wrong with estimates. As my noble friend Lord Desai also said to me, many things which cannot be measured scientifically are based on estimates. Despite the criticism that we have heard of the population estimate, it is relatively accurate. As has been said, it is fortuitous that the census is taking place in 2011. Therefore, we will get a very accurate measure—not an estimate—of the population, and those over 18, in 2011.

The Minister said that the register of electors is absolutely accurate but that is not the case. As I regularly used to find out when I went round canvassing, a lot of people on the register are dead. I understand that some of them used to vote in Northern Ireland, and not just in Northern Ireland. Of course, people move from one constituency to another and some of us are registered in more than one constituency for different reasons, so there are variations there. However, I argue that the biggest variation occurs—we know this as we have discussed percentages in previous debates—in the percentage of those eligible to vote who are actually registered in each constituency around the country. In some it is only 60 per cent, in others it is nearer 90 per cent, even towards 100 per cent. That is where the major imbalance occurs and that is why using the number of those eligible to vote is far fairer—“fairer” is the relevant word—when working out the boundaries than using the number of those who are actually registered to vote.

Having listened to this debate and having heard the arguments, will the Minister ask the Boundary Commission what its views are and whether it thinks that it would be feasible, better and constitute an advance to make its judgments based on population rather than on the electorate? I would welcome that. I know that the Minister will tell us that the Boundary Commission has given evidence, but will he put this to it de novo? Will he tell it that this submission has come from people who have been involved in elections and has arisen from a debate specifically on the issue which reflected our concentrated thinking on it? I would welcome a new response from the Boundary Commission as that would greatly help the debate and the discussion.