Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Tyler Excerpts

Monday 24th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff]

My Lords, I have not yet spoken in this debate and indeed I hesitate to speak now, because I am concerned about the length of time that these debates are taking and their impact on the reputation of the House. However, I live and work in Wales and am aware of the different cultures in the different areas there. That is why I felt that I wanted to support the amendment. Indeed, the first report from the Welsh Affairs Committee of this Session starts off by saying:

“The Parliamentary Voting and Constituencies Bill will have a greater impact on Wales than any other nation of the UK. Wales is projected to lose ten of its forty parliamentary seats, a reduction of 25 per cent”.

I know that we will be debating other aspects of Wales later, but I am not sure that I will be able to be in the House because I will be at work.

The noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, has made an important point. Culturally, the area of Brecon and Radnorshire is quite different from Ceredigion, from the north and from the south Wales valleys. In considering whether to support this amendment, I looked at a map of travel times across the whole of Powys. The routes for short distances are inordinately long whichever way you go. I thought it was just my poor navigation skills but in the rain and the dark, in an area where sat-navs often do not work and there is no phone signal, getting around that area is extremely difficult.

The other aspect is that the nature and history of that community are quite different from the history and the interests of the area in the valleys further south, of the Welsh-speaking area of Ceredigion and west Wales, and indeed of the north, which has natural flows because of the new main road across into England in the Merseyside area, as we all know. It makes a great deal of sense that if we talk about representation of people through their Members of Parliament, we must consider who it is that these MPs will be representing.

To have representation of that area in Powys requires someone who, like the late Lord Livsey, was hugely respected, understands the culture of that area, can represent it and, realistically, travel around it, and does not get distracted by some of the other no less important but completely different problems that affect the other areas represented by other Members of Parliament. It is for that reason that I commend this amendment to the House.

[Lord Tyler]

My Lords, I think that I was under the same misapprehension as the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, until I actually heard precisely what the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, said. I should say that I know the constituency in question extremely well. My brother has lived there for many years, and of course Richard Livsey was one of my closest colleagues; I campaigned for him, I worked with him and for him both in the other House and in this House, and I was privileged to attend his funeral service, which was one of the most moving I have ever attended.

We should be clear, however: this amendment is not proposing that this constituency should be made an exception. It does not add to the list of exceptions. The amendment would change rule 4 for every constituency in the country. I do not understand why the noble Lord, who is usually meticulous in preparing amendments, moved it in totally different terms. It may or may not apply to the constituency of Brecon and Radnorshire but it certainly introduces a completely new rule for the whole country. Therefore, if I may say so, the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, should look very carefully at the amendment. It changes rule 4. I understand that it may or may not apply to this constituency, but the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, is making sure that there is a completely new set of criteria for every constituency—in Scotland, England, Northern Ireland and Wales. It does not provide for an exemption.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

I put it to the noble Lord that it is surely sensible, as my noble friend proposes, to develop sensible rules of general application, rather than to proceed by amending the Bill here, there and elsewhere by adding new clauses to create anomalies and exceptions to unsatisfactory rules, as we have them at the moment in the draft Bill. That is why my noble friend’s amendment is very sensible.

[Lord Tyler]

It does not do that; it provides completely new criteria, which would presumably change over time. That is not clear from the amendment. The amendment is defective, even in the terms in which the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, has proposed it.

[Lord Elystan-Morgan]

My Lords, this amendment is not confined to Brecon and Radnorshire, as I accept. It removes a colossal and monstrous injustice as far as the whole concept of a constituency is concerned. What is a constituency? What should a constituency be? I suggest that it should be, first and foremost, a community of interest that is acceptable in relation to the division of the United Kingdom into various parliamentary constituencies. Sometimes this will mean that one has to draw rather artificial lines on a map. In many cases, it will mean that one must respect ancient communities that have been there for a very long time. If you can superimpose your model on to those ancient communities, you should do so. That is what parliamentary representation is about.

In relation to Brecon and Radnorshire, it is one of the clear absurdities of a situation where one looks at the whole question of representation through the wrong end of the telescope. This piece of legislation says that you should look at representation from the viewpoint of the Member of Parliament and the number of constituents that he has. No, my Lords: you should look at it from the other end of the telescope—from the end of the ordinary constituent, who asks himself, “How accessible is my Member of Parliament to me?”. If you ask that question, you are likely to get a more reasonable and just result.

The whole question of how Wales is to be dealt with in this situation will, perhaps, have to wait for another day or two as far as this debate is concerned, but I lay down a marker. Do you think it right that Wales should lose 25 per cent of its seats, when the United Kingdom, by reduction from 650 to 600 seats, loses 7.7 per cent? Wales is not a region; it is a national community. We shall come back to that question again and again. I repeat: the whole issue, essentially, is looked at not from the viewpoint of the Member of Parliament vis-à-vis his constituents, but from the viewpoint of the individual constituent vis-à-vis the Member of Parliament.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Tyler]

Does the noble Lord accept that, if the amendment were added to the Bill, it would not even preserve the integrity of the present seat of Brecon and Radnor? All it would do is apply a new rule, under rule 4, to every part of the United Kingdom. However, you could still find the boundary changes in mid-Wales all too damaging to the communities to which other noble Lords have referred, because the amendment only talks about a size issue; it does not talk about the existing constituency of Brecon and Radnor. If I may say so, I think that the noble Lord has misled the Committee—I would not normally say that because he is usually absolutely meticulous—by saying that the amendment would in some way defend the present integrity of the seat; it would not.

[Lord Lipsey]

My Lords, I was going to go on to refer to the noble Lord and I will do so in a minute but that is yet another nitpicking point. It is up to the Boundary Commission to decide whether to preserve Brecon and Radnor. I said that in my speech. I did not mislead the Committee on that point. The chances of the Boundary Commission deciding to preserve Brecon and Radnor and then saying, “Perhaps we’ll have a little bit of that in or take a little bit of that away” is so absurd a notion as to cast doubt on what could be going on in the mind of the person who did it. The noble Lord, Lord Tyler, does indeed have a close relationship with the constituency of Brecon and Radnor. The people of Brecon and Radnor were very pleased to see him make the long journey to attend Lord Livsey’s funeral service and it was good to see him there. Frankly, I am surprised that he has not fallen in love with it and that he wants to see it dismembered by this Government.

As I said, the noble Lord, Lord McNally, did not seek to address the specific questions that I raised but just made some general points, the main one of which was wholly spurious. It is believed—we have heard this from other Ministers as well—that this Bill creates votes of equal weight. It is possible to have a system in which all votes have equal weight. It is called PR and most of us are against it. However, in our system all votes do not have equal weight. The only votes that determine the result of a British general election are those cast in marginal seats, so the great majority of voters cannot hope to have any impact on the eventual result. That is why politicians of all parties pay particular court to the middle England voters, as they used to be called—sometimes it is Worcester man or Essex woman or whatever. Theirs are the only votes that count because they are in marginal constituencies. In using that argument, I fear that the Minister merely illustrates the vacuity of the Government’s general case, and it is only a general case that he has put up against the particular factors, which I believe to be of some force.

We have learnt quite a bit from this debate—I hope that the Government’s supporters have learnt something from it—which is that the Bill needs to be looked at in detail and improved to reflect the realities of the electoral geography of our country, not theoretical concepts dreamed up by backroom boys who have no experience of the geographical realities of the great country in which we live. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Soley]

The noble Lord who has just spoken makes a fundamental mistake when he says that Parliaments in other countries decide the size of constituencies. He is right that they do, but the problem here is that the Government are deciding it. In other countries, political parties agree it, usually jointly or independently. That is all I want to say about that but it is an important point: Governments do not decide the structure and size of Parliaments; Parliaments decide that, and they normally do it by consent.

[Lord Tyler]

Does the noble Lord not recognise that the House of Commons has voted?

[Lord Soley]

I certainly recognise that. I also recognise that this is a bicameral House and I hope that it stays as such. One of the jobs of a bicameral House is for the second Chamber to revise what the first Chamber has done, and that is particularly important on constitutional issues.

I return to the core amendment. I want to speak only on Amendment 73, but there is a wider point here that affects some of the others. There is great diversity in this group of amendments, and it might have been better if some of them had been separated out. Those tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Rennard and Lord Tyler, might have been better as a separate group because there is quite a bit in them that is separate from the others.

I want to focus on Amendment 73 in the name of my noble friend Lord Kennedy, where he suggests replacing the word “may” with “shall”. Many people in this Committee will recognise that the wording of a Bill and the use of words such as “may” is critically important, because it carries legal weight. The word “should” is not very different from “may” and, I say to my noble friend, not much better.

This point is important because it relates to some of the other amendments in this group. Why do we not use “shall” in relation to my noble friend’s amendment? It is a stronger commitment. The Minister will know that, in several other places following this, “shall” is used. The obvious example is in rule 6 of the new schedule, which states:

“There shall continue to be … a constituency named Orkney and Shetland”.

The Government want that to be legally enforced, so the use of “shall” is essential. In rule 5, however, as my noble friend has picked out, “may” is used. In other words, it states:

“A Boundary Commission may take into account...special geographical considerations”.

The Explanatory Notes to the Bill and many of the things that Ministers have said from time to time indicate that they also regard the things listed in rule 5(1)(a) to (d)—that is, special geographical factors, local government, local ties and the inconvenience attendant on such changes—as very important. Schedule 2, the measure that is driving them forward on this Bill, says:

“The electorate of any constituency shall”—

so there they are using a very strong form of wording that has strong legal force. However, back over the page, as I say, they use the much softer “may”, which does not have that commitment.

I am after an answer from the Minister because this question affects other parts of the Bill—certainly some of those affected in this group of amendments—but I am trying to focus on one for the sake of clarity. There is in fact no reason why we should not also use “shall” in rule 5. If we are all saying, as the Government have done, that we want these things to be taken into consideration, the use of the word would not undermine the use of “shall” in rule 2(1)—

“The electorate of any constituency shall”.

It would simply instruct the Boundary Commission in a much more forceful way to take into account the factors that Ministers and Members on all sides of the Committee say are important. I do not see why we should not ask the Boundary Commission to do that.

The Minister might well say that it could bring up legal challenges. I understand that that could be a problem. We do not want lots of reviews by the courts of such things. Having said that, there is no way that we can assume that these factors are not important. Nor is there any reason to assume that the number of challenges in a court of law would necessarily be different if we used the softer “may”. That does not rule out a legal challenge. It might make it more difficult to win but it does not rule it out, as I understand the law.

I will focus my comments just on this one point, but it is very important because it runs throughout the Bill. I understand why the Government, for party political reasons, have locked themselves into “shall” for the number of seats in Parliament. What I do not understand is why they cannot also use “shall”—the stronger legal version—for issues that they say are important and we all say are important. This is perhaps the best example. My noble friend Lord Kennedy has drawn attention to that discrepancy. The Minister needs to explain why we cannot have a straight change to the Bill here, so that it reads:

“A Boundary Commission shall take into account, if and to such extent as they think fit”,

followed by the four factors.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Tyler]

74BA: Clause 11, page 10, line 12, at end insert—
“( ) boundaries of existing constituencies”

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Tyler]

My Lords, I recollect that some 10 hours ago the noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, my noble friend Lord Strathclyde and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, encouraged us to be brief and to the point, and I shall be extremely brief and to the point on this very simple amendment. I shall resist all temptation to take a leisurely lane in my constituency—as was the case last week, so often during the middle of the night. Instead, I shall simply move a very straightforward amendment that would be a modest improvement to the Bill.

Under rule 5, there is no reference to existing constituencies. That, I believe, is a pity, and this simple reference in Amendment 74BA would simply add an appropriate respect for existing constituency boundaries to the list of criteria that the four Boundary Commissions should take into account in making recommendations. It is very simple and useful. It would indeed take up the point made by the four Boundary Commissions: that they want to have, to such an extent as they think fit, responsibility for examining these sorts of criteria. I very much hope that my noble friend the Minister will feel able to accept this modest improvement to the Bill. I believe that all parties in both Houses, and, more importantly, the public, will welcome the recognition of the need to avoid unnecessary disruption to existing constituencies. I therefore beg to move.

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, may not have expected me to rise to my feet to support his amendment, but I do so willingly. I shall also do so briefly. The effect of his amendment, as I see it, would be to create a bias in favour of not changing existing constituency boundaries. It would in fact be, for the first time in our system, recognition of the costs of change. There are costs of all kinds: costs in disruption, costs to the political parties and to local authorities and, above all, the unquantifiable but very real cost that we have discussed throughout our proceedings of individuals feeling less attached to the constituency that they thought they were a part of.

As I understand it, the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, has taken into account all these considerations and said, “Surely, when in doubt, don’t make a change”—or even if there is a small doubt, do not make a change. He has not attempted to quantify the instructions that we would be giving to the Boundary Commission if we accepted this amendment. He has left it to the judgment of the Boundary Commission, which is right. However, he has alerted it to what the view of Parliament would be if his amendment were adopted—the view that it is important, whenever possible, not to change existing loyalties and perceptions of local constituencies and much better to preserve the status quo. It is a very sensible amendment. The noble Lord is to be applauded for having conceived it and brought it forward. I hope that it meets with the approval of the whole House.