Scottish Parliament (Constituencies and Regions) Order 2010

Lord Teverson Excerpts

Tuesday 26th October 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Martin of Springburn]

I first apologise, as I was unavoidably delayed. I have listened to my colleagues and friends. The case put on consultation is so important. A boundary change was to be brought in in the city of Glasgow in 1983. The noble Duke, the Duke of Montrose—I think that is who it was—mentioned the Scotland Act. The original boundary report said that there should be no more than 71 seats for Scotland. The case that Glasgow had to put in the old city hall, the Candleriggs Hall, was that it was to be no less than 71, which meant that the city of Glasgow would lose not two seats but one. That meant a great deal, as the noble Lord, Lord Maxton, will know.

Consultation was so important then, as it is now. We had a QC, the late Hugh Martin, whose brother George was in the House. Hugh put the case, and he won because the presiding sheriff accepted his arguments. At the lunch break, when we still did not know the result, we went to a restaurant and had what they call in Scotland a “fish tea”. There was Donald Dewar, myself and Bruce Millan, former Secretary of State, and we agreed to pay for Hugh Martin’s lunch—it was the decent thing to do. I tell you, it was a lunch worth paying for, because we won. Even Donald Dewar, who was known to watch his pennies, weighed in with the bill.

In the west of Scotland, unfortunately, we have had sectarian problems, and we have managed to overcome them. A late colleague of ours, Frank McElhone, was a great leader in overcoming those problems. When he asked his honourable friend for Rutherglen, the noble Lord, Lord McAvoy, if the community organisations could come along, the Union of Catholic Mothers and the local Orange Lodge put the case in Frank McElhone’s constituency. That was bringing the sectarian groups together and calling for unity. They were unified that day, and they won.

I accept what the noble Lord, Lord Maclennan, has said about distance. I was a union officer both in Argyll and in the Highlands, and I had not realised how lucky I was, living in Glasgow, that I could get from A to B in a short time. To go from Fort William to Inverness was a major journey in itself for a lowlander like me, and there were places further north that were even more difficult to get to, yet these places are encompassed in the same constituency boundary. The law officer himself knows this; it was a surprise for me when I went to Orkney and I spent the night on the ferry. I had not realised that it would take so long—on the map, Orkney looks so close to the mainland. In fact, I met the noble and learned Lord there the other day when I was up there.

It surprises me that the Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, had a slogan throughout the general election that every vote should be equal and therefore we should have equality among the constituencies. Constituencies that are represented in the other place by Liberal Members are so far spread, yet no one even approached them and said, “Look, by putting this argument, you are destroying the argument for us to be good representatives for far-out constituencies”.

The noble Lord has mentioned Argyll. We in the west of Scotland are so fond of our country. It is lovely that within three-quarters of an hour you can go from Glasgow to the banks of Loch Lomond, but from the outskirts of Helensburgh to Campbelltown is such a distance that you could actually drive from Glasgow to Fort William quicker. By the time that you get to Campbelltown, you are further south than the town of Ayr, which my noble friend knows about—yet it is all the one constituency. This document says that it is giving us consultation, but the other place is saying, “You are not going to have consultation”.

I go back to my native city of Glasgow. People would go into Glasgow and think, “Well, it’s just one big city”. That is as naïve as going to London and saying that it is just one big city. Since I was 14, I have lived most of my life in Springburn. It is a far cry from Shawlands; it is a different world. The people of Partick feel differently from the people of Parkhead. They are different communities. In the old days they used to be boroughs in their own right, with their own police officers. I come back to what the noble Duke, the Duke of Montrose, said. There was an area called Grahamstown, which was named after his ancestors. In my younger days I stayed in the borders of Grahamstown and the Anderson district. The Anderson district is a far cry from the Gorbals, although the sketch writers never quite got that right. They did not know the geography of Glasgow.

I know from my experience of going to Boundary Commission hearings that even those Members of Parliament and those communities that felt they had lost out always felt, at the end of the day, that they had been given a good hearing at those boundary change tribunals. It would be a very sad day if we just threw numbers into a computer and said, “There you are. That is what your elected representatives have to fight for”.

[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, I will make a short intervention. I was born in Dagenham—made in Dagenham, effectively—which was then part of Essex and is now in occupied Essex, since it is occupied by the London Borough of Havering. I am interested in the debate on this order. I say to noble colleagues from Scotland: be thankful that, whatever this order and the Bill in the other House say, at the moment there is no question of boundaries crossing the Scottish-English border. I ask you to keep that in mind when it comes to other nations in the United Kingdom. Cornwall is a Celtic nation. I ask for noble Lords’ support when the other Bill comes to this House. There is a possibility of boundaries crossing the Tamar river. I ask the Government to take that into consideration as they think about the Bill before it crosses to this House.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble and learned Lord the Advocate-General for Scotland for his introduction to this order, and for his explanation. I am also grateful to his officials for the helpful information that I received this morning. It has certainly been a wide-ranging debate. I am sure the noble and learned Lord is looking forward to responding to all the pithy questions put to him.

I would particularly encourage him to respond to the noble Lord, Lord St John of Fawsley. It is quite remarkable, given the current size of the House, that the Government are proposing to bring dozens of new Peers into the House. I am a member of the Leader’s Group, which is looking at retirement options because of concern about the size of the House. I find it remarkable, given that the Government now have a notional majority which we are seeing as the votes come through, that they seem determined to pack this House. It is difficult to see how this House can perform as a revising Chamber if the Government are determined to win every vote. What is the point of the second Chamber in that respect? I hope the Minister will respond to that.

As he said, the orders follow the submission of the Report on the First Periodic Review of Scottish Parliament Boundaries by the Scottish Boundary Commission. The intention is that they will apply to the Scottish Parliament elections in May 2011. I start by paying tribute to the Boundary Commission for Scotland. Clearly, not all noble Lords agree with the entire outcome of the commission’s work. However, I do not think that any noble Lord has criticised the thoroughness with which it embarked on this exercise.