Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Tyler Excerpts

Monday 24th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lipsey]

I shall follow directly on from what the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, said, and I shall be extremely brief, so my noble friend will not be kept waiting long. In one way, I shall go further than the noble Lord did and say that many of the principles incorporated in the amendments are already present in the Bill in the rules under Clause 11. For example, it states, more explicitly than the present rules, that

“local government boundaries as they exist”,

on the most recent council elections, should be a special factor that the Boundary Commission can take into account. It states that a special factor that the Boundary Commission can take into account is local ties. County boundaries, as we know, most famously in the case of Cornwall, are exactly the sort of local tie that it can take explicit regard of. So those principles are in the Bill. The trouble is that they do not amount to a row of beans because of the 5 per cent limit. That is the problem. Otherwise we would not face this difficulty.

[Lord Tyler]

The impression seems to be given by Members opposite that somehow the existing situation is that a constituency never crosses a county boundary. That is of course not true. In the historic case of Lancashire and Yorkshire—I can think of no part of the country where counties have a more historic rivalry—the constituency of Oldham East and Saddleworth crosses the county boundary.

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Grocott]

My Lords, I am not sure whether my noble and learned friend’s amendment is the best way to encapsulate the basic philosophy of this part of the Bill, as far as this side of the House is concerned. It has to be acknowledged that that philosophy is very different from the philosophy of the side opposite. However, the amendment is certainly an attempt to do what is, surely, consistent with our philosophy, which is that the best way of determining constituency boundaries is broadly to follow how it is done at present. That is to say that it should be on the basis of guidelines—and they are guidelines—within which a Boundary Commission, in public consultation with local people, determines what the boundaries should be. To me, that is a flexible way of determining boundaries while totally accepting that one of the key factors ought to be, as the Government keep insisting, having as close to equality as we sensibly can get in the electorate in each constituency. Essentially, however, it is a bottom-up system with flexibility.

I find all this pretty astonishing. The Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives are, I acknowledge, in their different ways normally on the same rhetorical side, at least in these arguments, and say that they do not agree with top-down solutions. How many times have I heard that on other subjects, not least the health service at the moment? The Liberals pride themselves on localism. A great chunk of the coalition document is about the importance of localism and local communities.

[Lord Tyler]

My Lords, how does the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, manage to suggest that the amendment to which he is speaking is not a top-down solution and is not prescriptive, if he looks at its proposed sub-paragraph (2)(b)?

[Lord Grocott]

What, that,

“no district or borough ward shall be included in more than one constituency”?

In my book, that comes under the great heading of common sense. I recommend that to the Committee as being splendid. It is not exactly severely top-down and not nearly as top-down as what is in the Bill, where, irrespective of boundaries, the history of communities, mountain ranges or rivers—if we had any deserts, they would no doubt be subdivided into several constituencies—there is what I call a top-down solution, which aims simply at precise numerical conclusions.

There is no doubt about where I think the determinations of our boundaries should come from. It is precisely as I have described. However, an essential ingredient of it—we are not yet there in the Bill and I am certainly not going to talk about it now—is the crucial importance of local inquiries in which local people can participate. I have sat through nearly all our proceedings on the Bill and, as ever, my noble friend Lord Rooker has encapsulated why we are where we are. As he rightly said, it is the certain knowledge that we are not going to have these local inquiries that makes this Committee stage so important. This is the only point at which sensible local opinion can be expressed at a national level.

I am sure that some will correctly and energetically argue that the views of local people should be taken into account. I dare say that the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, will do so when we come to the debates on the county boundaries in Cornwall. Like everyone else in this House, I have been getting lots of e-mails and messages from people in Cornwall and there is almost an air of desperation in them. I was prompted to think that by the comment of my noble friend Lord Rooker— that this was essentially the local inquiry going on now, precisely because the people of Cornwall know perfectly well that, if we decide in Committee that county boundaries will be ignored, this will be their last chance to have anything sensible to say about that. To me, that is an indictment of the approach that the Government are taking, which is—I know that they will deny this and find ways of explaining it—essentially to end local community involvement within flexible rules, not within rigid rules, to determine local constituency boundaries. I plead for more flexibility.

I will not trespass too far on to other legislation, but when I thought about it I realised that this desire to make all the rough edges smooth, to apply a straitjacket to our constitution and to make it all work according to rigid rules seems to be an almost pervading view of the Government in a lot of the constitutional legislation that they are bringing forward. I do not know whether that goes right across government. In fairness, the Liberals have been quite consistent about this, but we are now saying that constituency boundaries should be very rigidly drawn and shortly we will be told the dates of all future general elections—presumably until the sun swallows up our planet. Every five years there will be a general election, come hell or high water, on a precise date. There will be no flexibility. I will not go into those arguments, but, my word, I will want to develop them when we reach the Bill about fixing the term of Parliaments.

I think that I am right in saying that the Liberal Democrats are very keen on us having a written constitution, which will lay all these things out and, of course, lead to the interpretation of the rules being adjudicated on by the courts. The beauty of a lot of our electoral and constitutional arrangements—this certainly applies to the drawing of constituency boundaries—is that they have been flexible. They apply the greatest principle that you can apply in any constitution, which is the principle of common sense. They allow for rough edges not to be smoothed out. This is particularly true in the case of the four nations that are the constituent parts of the United Kingdom. We all know that it is a slightly unusual arrangement, whereby one of the four countries totally dominates all the others numerically, but there are all sorts of accommodations, one of which we shall come to later, in respect of Wales, which is severely affected by the Bill.

I cannot write a constitutional doctrine explaining how the British constitution operates in relation to the four constituent parts of the United Kingdom, but I can say that it has worked pretty well, that people are pretty free within it and that they understand the system in which they operate. If there are a few anomalies here and there, so be it. I fear that what we are seeing in the Bill in relation to constituencies and constituency boundaries is yet another step along the road. I may be alone in this; I have been called a constitutional conservative by the noble Lord, Lord McNally, who, sadly, is not here. If that means someone who believes in common sense in the operation of the constitution, then I plead guilty. My noble friend’s amendment passes the test of common sense for me. It allows flexibility locally and that is why I support it.