Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Soley Excerpts

Tuesday 8th February 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Soley]

My Lords, I shall be very brief, but I do not in any way want to underplay the importance of this amendment. So far as I am concerned, it goes to the heart of the problem of this Government. Having won the election, they have decided that they will change the number of Members of the House of Commons to suit their own party political advantage. It comes from the history of the document written by Andrew Tyrie MP and various others, where the suggestion was to reduce the number by 60 or close to that figure in the first five years and then by another 60 in the following five years in order to maximise the Conservatives’ advantage in winning elections. That is what is so profoundly wrong in this.

As I have said on other occasions, it is an invitation not just for this Government but for future Governments of any political complexion to do exactly the same after every election. This is an invitation to gerrymander the House of Commons by the party that wins. I shall not labour the point, but if we were investigating an election in a country emerging from a communist regime where they were trying to assess the size of a House that would benefit the reformed communist party, we would blow the whistle. We are now, shamefully, doing the same.

[Lord Garel-Jones]

Does the noble Lord not consider that it might be fairer to say that what the coalition Government are doing is beginning to deal with the totally unfair built-in advantage that the Labour Party has enjoyed for many years?

[Lord Soley]

I do not accept that. The advantage of my noble friend’s amendment is that it invites a considered response. If the noble Lord is right, although I do not believe he is for a moment, then this is the opportunity to look at it. This is the way that any future Government would, I hope, address the issue. Like my noble friend, I support a reduction of the numbers in the House of Commons, but we should not do it this way. You should not fiddle around with the constitution to suit your own party advantage. This proposal offers structure, which is very important. I give way to my noble friend.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

Is it not rather remarkable that the noble Lord, Lord Garel-Jones, has just admitted that the motive of the coalition in introducing this legislation is to achieve a more favourable political structure in the distribution of constituencies to the benefit of the Conservative Party?

[Lord Soley]

There is a genuine argument about whether it automatically gives a bigger majority to the Conservative Party because all sorts of issues like turnout and so on have to be taken into account. However, the general view has been expressed consistently ever since Andrew Tyrie wrote his document in 2004 that this would benefit the Conservative Party. That is what it does. So I would say this, particularly to the Members opposite: bear it in mind that you will not be in power for ever and you will then not be in a position to complain about a Government who come in and do the same to you. I shall give way one last time, but I am anxious not to delay the House.

[Lord Garel-Jones]

I am extremely grateful to the noble Lord. Picking up on the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, will he reflect on the fact that I mentioned the word “fair”? Perhaps he may wish to reflect on why it is that in 1992 the Conservative Party achieved the largest popular vote in the history of this country and was rewarded with a majority of 21, a vote never achieved by the outgoing Labour Government who, I think I recall, achieved majorities in excess of 170.

[Lord Soley]

I invite the noble Lord to read the debates held during the Committee stage, where he will find that those issues were dealt with. I do not want to repeat it all again. I would also say to him that he should read his own party’s literature on this matter since 2004. The arguments are very clearly put in favour of the Conservatives reducing the number of seats not just for fairness but because a reduction would increase their majority. That is a fact, and my concern about it is that any future Government could do the same.

If the Conservative Party is then in opposition, as well as the Liberal party—although why that party is pursuing this is beyond me, because if it was on this side of the House it would fight it fiercely, and its friends in the press would support it—that party would be saying that it was the Labour Party gerrymandering. This is a gerrymandering issue. What my noble friend has done is come up with a structure so that we can take our time and deliberate on very important issues related to the size of the House of Commons. We could do it over time and we would not need to delay the Government getting their Bill. This is a very important amendment that goes to the heart of the problem that the Government have on this. In my view, the position is deeply undesirable and I would love this amendment to be taken in the spirit in which it is intended. It recognises that there is a case to review the size of the House of Commons, but not doing that to the advantage of one or other political party. If my own party tried to do this, I would feel just as strongly about it.

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Wills’ amendment is back with us by popular demand, having achieved a very supportive hearing and interesting debate in Committee. I would imagine that that is why we are being treated to a guest appearance by the noble Lord, Lord Garel-Jones. We are disappointed that he has not played more of a part in our debates. Had he been here, as my noble friend Lord Soley said, he would have discovered—because these points have been made on many occasions—that the reasons why the Conservatives do not do so well are threefold. First, it is because their vote is spread all over the country; secondly, there are lower turnouts in Labour seats than Tory seats; and thirdly, that yes, there is some inequality, but that is the third and most minor of the reasons. I am glad to see the noble Lord, Lord Garel-Jones, nodding sagely, and I am only disappointed that he has come today, because the result might have been different in the previous vote.

The amendment moved by my noble friend Lord Wills is an attempt to force the Government to face up to the reality that the issues being dealt with in this Bill need proper thought. The Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill provides for significant changes to the British constitution, significant changes that everyone agrees ought to be properly considered in due time and by those with the expertise and the means to disseminate the many views and opinions on these major constitutional issues. These are matters which everyone agrees need proper consideration and resolution, but they undoubtedly will not get that from this Government.

It is therefore right that Members of your Lordships’ House—like my noble friend Lord Wills, who takes these matters seriously and has a proud record in what he has achieved as a Minister, particularly when he was responsible for constitutional matters, and who not only believes in good process and informed proposals but put those into practice when he was a Minister—should put forward amendments like the one before us now. I ask noble Lords to look at what, if I may say, is the rather idle government amendment tabled in the name of the noble Lord, Lord McNally, which can be found on page 14 of the Marshalled List. A minimum effort has been made in order to have an inquiry and it is almost contemptible in the way it has been done. No effort of any sort has been made, despite accepting the proposition which the noble Lord, Lord Renton of Mount Harry, finds so difficult.

The effect of my noble friend’s amendment would be to provide time for the key questions raised by the contents of Part 2 of the Bill to be answered. It would give the time for the sort of consideration that the constitutional matters at hand deserve, and time that we on this side of your Lordships’ House have been trying to provide. We have given this Bill proper scrutiny, and on this side we have forced the House to provide time to allow that to happen. There are so many things that the Government have not done properly in the Bill: no public consultation, no pre-legislative scrutiny, and no respect for the usual gaps between stages in Parliament. The consequence is that parts of the Bill were not considered at all in the House of Commons. The consequence is a shambles where correspondence from Ministers arrives after we have had a debate. That feels like a corrosive process as far as constitutional change is concerned.

But there is more—and my noble friend Lord Wills made this point very effectively. Noble Lords will know that allegations have been made, not by the Labour Party, although it does make them, but by Members of Parliament who are Conservative, for example, and “Newsnight”. People like that would be regarded as not parti pris. The effect is that these constitutional changes, effectively unheralded by a manifesto and effectively unmandated, would go through with an air of suspicion. The consequence is that, for the first time since the Second World War, the method by which we determine how many Members of Parliament there should be is in the hands of the majority of the House of Commons and in the hands of the House of Lords, which has received 114 new Members since May 2010. Every single one of those Members is delightful and personable, men and women of real merit, whatever party they come from or whether they come from no party at all, but I have the deepest and most profound suspicion that if we counted the numbers we would find that they have increased the coalition’s majority. Looking across the House, I see many delightful new Peers, many of whom have made a major contribution to British public life, but many of them are voting in accordance with a Whip that they receive from the Government. The consequence is that the Government now have the ability to ram through their choice on the size of the House of Commons in such a way that there is real suspicion that it has been done in the interests not of the country but of a party. The consequence is that that aspect of the coalition gets into political play.

The effect of my noble friend’s proposals is that there can be an independent review. We like the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, very much indeed, but we wonder whether his justification for there being 600 in the House of Commons—that it is a nice, round number—carries the weight that perhaps it needs when you are trying to persuade people that the reason you have reduced the number in the House of Commons is not for political but for good constitutional reasons.

We support this amendment. We think that a lot of trouble has gone into it and that it has real merit. With respect to the noble Lord, Lord Renton of Mount Harry, I think that it is entirely unfair when he said that the process would go on. I am glad that it was pointed out to him that my noble friend Lord Wills has thought about all the issues that he mentioned.

I very much hope that there will now be a change of heart and that the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, one of the most powerful members of the Government, will indicate that we are now going to have a committee of inquiry.