Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Tyler Excerpts

Wednesday 26th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goldsmith]

My Lords, it is an enormous privilege to speak immediately after the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, who, with scholarship, erudition and experience has made an extraordinarily powerful case for a reduction in the number of Ministers. But there are two matters before your Lordships’ House on these two amendments. The first is whether to maintain, as the amendment in the name of my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer of Thoroton would do, the number of Ministers at least proportionate to the number of MPs. The noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, would go further.

I support the amendment in the name of my noble and learned friend to the extent that that amendment at least ought to be accepted. The Government have come with great and, in many ways, worthy protestations of a desire to reform politics, in particular to reduce the power of the Executive—I look particularly at those on the Liberal Democrat part of the Government Benches. I do not understand how they can be content when that is not what will happen under this Bill. Indeed, it will be quite the opposite, as my noble and learned friend has said.

Lest there be any misunderstanding outside this Chamber as to the significance of the payroll vote, let me try to spell it out. First, if you are on the payroll vote, which means those who are paid or unpaid for these purposes, including Parliamentary Private Secretaries as well as full Ministers, you cannot vote against the Government without resigning. It is as simple as that. If a piece of legislation is put forward that a number of Ministers do not like, they cannot stay as Ministers and vote against it. That automatically means that the Government have a greater number of Members of Parliament able and willing to support what they want.

Secondly, as noble Lords have said, the Government cannot be held to account. When I was a Minister I could not ask questions of the Government through the mechanisms which exist in this House, let alone those in the other place. One can do what one can behind the scenes, but one cannot in an open way hold the Government to account.

On 17 January, I drew attention to the statement made by the Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Clegg, that the unambiguous judgment on the part of the Government was,

“that reducing the power of the executive, seeking to boost the power of the legislature, making the legislatures more accountable to people ... collectively introduces the mechanisms by which people can exercise greater control over politicians”.

I will listen intently to what the Minister—if it be the Leader of the House—says as to how that statement can be reconciled with a position which does not accept that at the very least the number of Ministers must be reduced proportionately to the number of Back-Benchers. Otherwise, the power of the Executive will not be reduced. The power of the legislature will not be boosted. Quite the opposite will take place.

[Lord Tyler]

I wonder whether the noble and learned Lord will take his argument a step further. There is a powerful case here for looking at this issue. With his great experience as a very senior member of the previous Administration, but as a Member of this House, he will immediately acknowledge that this is also related to the issue of how many Ministers should sit in this House.

In the past, I have heard a powerful argument that, if and when this House is reformed, it may well be that there should be a proper separation of powers and that there should not be any Members of the Executive who are voting Members of this House. Will he acknowledge therefore that there is a good case for this issue to be addressed in the context of the future role of this House, which, as we know, this House and the other place will consider in a matter of weeks? Therefore, it may be premature for this issue to be addressed in this Bill when the relationship of the two Houses and, in particular, the relationship of this House to the Executive will be in front of this House in weeks.

[Lord Goldsmith]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for his intervention and for his kind remarks, because he makes my point. The problem is that the Government have chosen to introduce in this Bill not only the referendum, which they need as a matter of urgency because of their political deal, and with which I have no difficulty, as I have said before, but also the reduction in the number of MPs.

A part of this change is in this Bill. My concern is that this Bill does not deal with the whole of it. I do not find it acceptable for the Government, with respect to the noble Lord who will answer this point, to say, “Well, don’t worry, something will be looked at later”. I am going to ask the Minister three questions now and he can think about them. What are the Government going to do about this? I have already drawn attention to the fact that on the Constitution Committee, when we asked Mr Clegg and Mr Mark Harper, the Minister, about the risk of increasing the power of the Executive, Mr Clegg said:

“There is a strong argument that says that you must look at this and adapt the number of people who are on the government payroll so that you do not get a lopsided imbalance between those on the payroll and those holding them to account”.

If there is a strong argument—and I agree with him that there is—what is going to be done to deal with it?

Secondly, when is it going to be done? Vague statements about the boundary changes not coming into effect for some time and having been able to look at this by then are all very well—but when is this going to happen? Thirdly, will the Minister tonight in his reply commit to some method by which the reduction in the number of Members, if this House or Parliament adopts the proposals in the end, does not come into effect until there has been a satisfactory reduction in the number of Ministers, either as suggested in the amendment of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, or by that of the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth? I would prefer to see that being dealt with in this Bill. I do not think it should be put off, which is why I support the amendment. At the very least, the Government should ask themselves what they are going to do, if the new politics are to have any credibility, in their proposals for increasing the power of the legislature, reducing the power of the Executive and giving more power to the people. So long as they do not give a clear, unconditional commitment on this question, that statement will appear just a mirage and a charade. Having got into power, they are happy, as many Governments have been in the past, simply to retain the reins of power and the patronage and ability to get their legislation through by having as many of their people as possible on the government Benches. For those reasons, I support the amendment of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer.

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[Lord Myners]

I said “in great detail”. I knew how to spot the tricky words. I tended to skip over the salutations at the beginning and the end but I read the meaty bit in the middle. However, to be more serious, the decisions that one took as a Minister were of a very modest order compared with the decisions that we would expect the leader of a large corporation to take. That seems to me to support the view that, regardless of this amendment or the Bill, we simply have too many Ministers and they create work; they get in the way.

My final observation relates to the role of this House. When I was first appointed, I was terrified—I really was—and I made a complete fool of myself at my first debate when I was given a speech by my officials which I should, in all honesty, have reviewed more carefully. It was clearly a cut-and-paste job from the other place; it had numerous references to “the honourable Member” and “the Speaker” and so it did not take long before the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, rose to his feet from the Benches to my left. I had no idea what I was meant to do; nobody had briefed me, but I had watched it on television so I thought I ought to sit down. I think I was intervened on about eight times in five minutes before the Chief Whip came to my protection.

In my preparation for the ordeal of the House, whenever there was a Statement, I tried to go to the other place in order to see how it was handled there and then scuttle back here. What I observed from that experience was that the challenge for Ministers in the other place was simply of a much lower order than in this place. I think that that is an observable and unchallengeable truth. The questions that I was asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, and by the noble Lord, Lord Newby, who is not in his place, but who was an excellent spokesman on Treasury matters for the Liberal Democrat Party and, I believe, continues to perform that role, were of a different order. I look across now and I see the noble Lord, Lord Higgins. There are very few people in the other place who can ask a penetrating, focused, accurate and informed question with the degree of precision and understanding that the noble Lord, Lord Higgins, can. There is a question of accountability. We have too many Ministers and they do not seem to be sufficiently accountable.

Finally—I said that I would cover four points and I believe that this is the fourth—I think that this is evident in the work of some Select Committees. The Treasury Select Committee, to which I had to report on numerous occasions, was mixed in its understanding of the issues. There were a number of good members—Mr Andrew Tyrie has already been mentioned; let me mention him again, an excellent chairman of that committee with a very good understanding of the issues—but I cannot say that about every member of the committee, nor can I say that they always showed evidence that they had thoroughly studied and understood the issues. Again, accountability is at the heart of this—it is an issue that stands apart from the Bill and needs to be addressed. There are too many Ministers making too much work, doing too many modest things and not subject to appropriate scrutiny, particularly by the other place.

I see the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, about to spring to his feet. I seem to produce a Pavlovian reaction in the noble Lord, who is, no doubt, about to tell me that some ancestor of his, several generations ago, had some involvement which shows that he knows more about this than I ever will. That seems to be his normal response to me. I now give him the opportunity to see whether he can approach me in a courteous and constructive way. We have too many Ministers and, to my mind, they are not sufficiently accountable. I look forward, therefore, to the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, telling us how the Tory-led coalition will deliver on the promises made before the election to reduce the number of Ministers, regardless of where we end up on the Bill.

[Lord Tyler]

I am extremely grateful to my fellow Cornishman. I was going to say that the past few minutes have given us a fascinating insight into the workings of government and have actually proved the point that we should have more Ministers in this House and fewer in the other.

[Lord Rea]

It may interest your Lordships that, while I was listening to this extremely interesting exchange, I have done a little calculation on the back of the amendment list. The amendment of my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer of Thoroton would reduce the number of Ministers from 95 in the same proportions as the reduction of Members from 650 to 600. If that were to happen we would get 87, which is a lot more generous than what was proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, whose arguments were impeccable. I do not think there will be a choice of voting for one against the other but I would favour the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Norton.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Tyler Excerpts

Tuesday 25th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tyler]

I wonder whether I might offer a word of advice to the noble Lord. At 1.30 this morning, in one minute flat, I proposed a very simple and very straightforward amendment to the Bill, which was passed by the Committee. Rather than hearing from everybody who has ever had any constituency experience in Scotland—a repetition of the argument that the noble Lord gave us in 12 minutes of fascinating discussion—I wonder whether very simply we could now proceed to some conclusion.

I support in general what he says. I have two points to make. I think that his amendment may be in the wrong place. It should probably have come in under rule 5(1), where it says:

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

That is a very important qualification, and all four of the Boundary Commissions are advised by that.

In addition, this amendment may be too broad in its present terms. The intention is right and it may well be that my noble friend is prepared to accept it, but if the noble Lord would keep quiet now it would be more likely to be accepted.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

I accept the second two parts of the noble Lord’s three-part advice. As for the first part, I think he wants us to believe in fairy stories if he thinks that it was his eloquence that caused the Minister to accept his amendment.

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[Lord Myners]

I would have been more than happy to have given way to the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Goss Moor, who was my local Member of Parliament for many years. I look forward with great interest to his later contribution to the discussion on this amendment.

I was bringing my remarks to a close. I am sure that Members of the House realise that I can talk about Cornwall for some considerable time, but I will not delay the House further than to say that an approach that is based upon arithmetic simply will not be acceptable to the people of Cornwall. In an earlier debate the question was asked: “Would the people of Cornwall prefer to have five constituencies, none of which went across the boundary into Devon, or six representatives in the other place, one or more of whom had seats that went into Devon?”. The noble Lord, Lord Teverson, answered correctly, I believe, that the people of Cornwall would much prefer to have five committed Members of Parliament who stood for Cornish seats rather than someone who stretched across into a part of the world that the Cornish people regard as a different country. They look at Devon as part of a different country and they would not be able to understand why a constituency strayed across the Tamar into a country with totally different economic and social circumstances.

The obvious place where that would happen would be into Plymouth, yet the European Union, through the granting of Objective 1 and follow-on status, has recognised the acute poverty of Cornwall, which is very different from Plymouth. Indeed, one of the reasons why Cornwall was slow in getting support from Europe for its manifest poverty was that it was originally co-joined with Plymouth and Torbay, which had the effect of giving an illusion that Cornwall was more prosperous than is the reality. That is why my Amendment 88 proposes that Cornwall should retain six parliamentary constituencies and that they should remain within what is now the county of Cornwall.

[Lord Tyler]

I yield to no one in my pride at my Cornish ancestry. I am a direct descendant of Bishop Jonathan Trelawny, on whose behalf 20,000 Cornishmen threatened to march on London. Of course London gave way, so they did not have to march.

I have great affection for the noble Lord, Lord Myners. It is great to have him here fighting for Cornwall. I wish he had been more effective in doing so when he was a member of the previous Administration. However, I have to correct several of his misapprehensions. First, the reason why there were so many seats in Cornwall had nothing to do with good representation, unfortunately. It was simply that they were rotten seats, rotten boroughs, effectively owned by the Crown through the Duchy of Cornwall—it was a way of bolstering their majority in the other place. In my own north North Cornwall constituency, for instance, Bossiney had a notable Member representing it: Francis Drake. I am not aware that he ever went there, and there were only about three electors if he did.

Secondly, and much more seriously, if the noble Lord thinks that it was somehow through the advocacy of we who represented Cornwall that we managed to increase the number of seats from five to six, that is simply untrue. It was arithmetic—just as now, quite rightly, we are looking at the arithmetic. My noble friend Lord Taylor of Goss Moor and I can guarantee that because of the increase in population in Cornwall, the Boundary Commission had to give us another seat.

I will also take the noble Lord up on his history. I know, for example, that when miners went over the border into Devon—it having been found that, as a result of the running down of the mining industry in Cornwall, there were more jobs in west Devon, as it now is—they allocated to themselves the description of working in greater Cornwall. That enabled them to say proudly that they were still Cornish miners. They could then emigrate to New South Wales, for example, knowing that they would not have to mix with Welsh, Scottish or Yorkshire miners. There would be only the real thing—Cornish miners.

I have a great deal of sympathy with this amendment—a great deal more, I am sorry to say, than with the selection we considered earlier. The big difference is that many of the other exceptions claim to be able to have overrepresentation. Their reasons are understandable; I do not deny the special claims that have been made. The Isle of Wight and Cornwall are, as far as I can see, the only areas of the country that may be prepared to accept underrepresentation. The case for six seats in Cornwall is not very strong. It makes a real difference if the people of Cornwall are prepared to accept underrepresentation with five seats, as was the case when my noble friend and I were Members in the other House and had very large electorates. The difficulty is of how to test that. Even if a referendum in Cornwall showed that people were prepared to accept a level of underrepresentation at the moment—which would be very persuasive to me, as a good democrat—what about the future? What about a year or two hence, when people say, “Why should we have less effective representation than other parts of the country?”? It is a real dilemma.

I do not know whether the noble Lord intends to press his amendment to a vote—perhaps he does—but we must give very careful consideration to that issue. In the mean time, it is much better that we treat Cornwall as a special case and examine it as such, as in the case of the Isle of Wight. It would have been wrong to put it into a longer list of exceptions, as I said at some unearthly hour last week.

[Lord Taylor of Goss Moor]

In following my noble friend and the noble Lord’s comments, I will briefly reflect on a couple of points. First, the noble Lord suggested that the Boundary Commission, in its wisdom, had decided at the last review that Cornwall should get six seats, rather than five. That was certainly not the case. It was a process of mathematics. Indeed, in the previous review we nearly crossed the threshold of five and a half seat entitlement to just above that to get six seats, but we fell just below it and got five. Any arguments in this place that representation has been based on a sense of entitlement or natural community are wrong. It has been a mathematical process, but one defined by one boundary—the county or borough boundary, which should not be crossed.

As somebody who represented two districts for a long time, I find some of the arguments about crossing local government boundaries rather untenable. It is perfectly possible to do that. What I profoundly believe—and always have—is that representation based on natural community is important. I have written about this and I do not like the Bill in its present form in that respect. I understand the belief that reviews should take place quickly and frequently to make sure that no party is disadvantaged by the slowness of the review process. The boundary review process has been too slow. There has been in place a genuine imbalance in the system for the past decade or two. It was clearly the case at the 2010 election that if the Labour Party had received a similar number of votes to those for the Conservative Party, the Labour Party would have been hugely advantaged by the distribution of seats. It is perfectly proper that Parliament is seeking to address that issue.

However, I agree with my noble friend that where communities are willing and able to be a little underrepresented to maintain a natural community of interest in their representation, there should be flexibility to allow for that. I should like this Bill to encompass that flexibility. If the noble Lord, Lord Myners, chose to press the amendment, I would vote in that way. I have written about this issue in that way. However, we should not in any sense present this issue as some special cause of Cornwall. It is about the representation of genuine community. We should not suggest in any way that what went before was right, because it was clearly not right. It was a different mathematical process which did not properly ensure a democratic outcome in elections, although I do not think that it ever affected the outcome of an election. I have consistently believed that the proposals before us, in that respect, should have a greater element of flexibility.

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[Lord Berkeley]

I was illustrating the difficulty for a small community of 2,000 people of getting a new ferry link out of this Government and the previous Government. It is still not resolved; I gather that the final decision has been delayed, which will be extremely bad for those people next summer. I compare that with what happens in Scotland. There, with the support of the Scottish Government, these things seem to happen much more easily and quickly, because the Government there recognise the importance of the island life. I do not think that the English, or British, Government, recognise that in the same way.

My point is that it is important to have the strongest lobby in Cornwall to support such things. I have no particular view on whether it should be five or six Members of Parliament, but it must be a group of Cornish MPs.

[Lord Tyler]

I am extremely grateful to the noble Lord, for whom I have a lot of affection and with whom I have worked together on Cornish issues, for giving way. Can he confirm that his amendment, which I am sorry he has been unable to move, leaves open the issue of whether the number of Members of Parliament should be five or six? My remarks and those of my noble friend were directed at the possibility that Cornwall might be prepared to accept underrepresentation with five Members if it retained the integrity of the county. By contrast, the problem with the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Myners, is that it is prescriptive. It would have to be six. That is an important difference. Perhaps the noble Lord would develop a step further his point about the difference between five or six Members for the county.

[Lord Berkeley]

I am very grateful to the noble Lord. I am no great expert on sizes of constituencies. Under the number of 600, 650 or somewhere in between that is decided on in the end for the rest of the country, there could be increases or decreases in population in Cornwall—and, for that matter, on the Isle of Wight—which would affect that. I am happy to accept six and equally happy to accept five, but from my discussions with the people of Cornwall, the key thing is that they have a number, be it five or six, that is peculiar to Cornwall and does not go across the Tamar. Members of Parliament lobby for Cornwall in a very good way, and that would be lost.

I live in Polruan, which is in the South East Cornwall constituency. I know the Member of Parliament there, Sheryll Murray, who has written to me in support of the campaign for keeping Cornwall separate. She would be very unhappy to have a bit of Plymouth in her constituency. I agree with her, and all the people I have talked to would be equally unhappy. My main point is that Cornwall must be kept separate. I do not have a strong view on whether there should be five or six constituencies, and I am sure we can come back to that later if my noble friend does not press his amendment tonight.

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[Lord Myners]

I am most grateful that the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, has—

[Lord Tyler]

Ditto to that. Would the noble Lord like to conclude by putting his amendment and testing the opinion of the House? Then he could stop talking.

[Lord Myners]

I find the discourtesy of the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, which seems to be present at any time that I speak in this House, quite extraordinary and contrary to what I understood to be the custom and practice of this House. That is reprehensible. Fortunately—and I am closing my remarks now—it will not be long before the noble Lord, Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames, will be able to speak on matters relating to Cornwall. The noble Lord is a recent and most welcome addition to our House. He has previously contested seats in Cornwall and I know that he has a great affection for Cornwall. I also know him as a man of considerable courtesy and look forward to his interventions rather more than I can look forward to those from one or two others who sit with him.

In closing, and before inviting the House to take a position on the amendment, I take considerable encouragement from the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, that Cornwall is worthy of special consideration and from the endorsement given to that view from my own Front Bench by my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer of Thoroton. I hope, notwithstanding the somewhat dismissive approach to the case for Cornwall from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, that careful consideration will be given to the issue of Cornwall and that the Government will bring forward their own amendments at a later stage. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Tyler Excerpts

Monday 17th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Soley]

Nobody has moved the word “gerrymandering”, myself included. But let us be very clear what was being said, and not just in Andrew Tyrie’s document. He says that the current numbers are unfair as they overrepresent the Labour Party and that the Conservative Party is underrepresented. He does not use those last words, but it is there throughout. In a number of the speeches, comments and articles written in newspapers, which I have going back over that period, it is repeated on numerous occasions by Conservatives that the Labour Party has too many seats. What he is basing that on—although I do not want to go over my last speech—is the number of the electors. But of course it rules out the underregistration problem and the social and economic factors that we referred to, so it is not appropriate. What matters is that with those figures, he has worked out, quite rightly—although I know there are arguments about this—that the Conservatives would win more of those seats. The argument gets a big convoluted if you put in the alternative vote, when it becomes more difficult to predict. But there is not much doubt that in the mind of the Conservative Party since 2004 there has been the view that the Labour Party has too many seats in Parliament and that the Tory Party should have more.

[Lord Tyler]

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Soley. Uncharacteristically, he seems not to have been attending to all these debates. If he had been listening, he would have heard the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, making it quite clear from the democratic audit analysis of the potential effects of the proposals in the Bill that there is no substantial increase in advantage for the Conservative Party. Indeed, I have to say that there is some disadvantage to my own party. In all fairness, I should have thought he would recognise that. It is the most legitimate, careful analysis of the potential impact of this Bill.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Tyler Excerpts

Wednesday 15th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

I accept that the amendment is exceptionally modest. My fear is that, without even this as a backstop, we could risk having an even lower turnout and then be faced with what we do at that stage. Because this is an automatic trigger, it is not a referendum to advise the Government or Parliament about what they should do, but would automatically lead to that change. It is essential for there to be a threshold. Otherwise, we could be facing a low turnout and having to decide what to do about it. I am someone well used to dealing with risk management.

[Lord Tyler]

Does the noble Baroness recognise that the problem with thresholds for turnout is that not voting is turned into a no vote? Has she had the opportunity of examining carefully the persuasive argument of Mr Christopher Bryant, to whom reference was made earlier at some length, on 2 November, when he not only argued conclusively on behalf of the Labour Party against thresholds of this sort but was also most effective in securing a massive vote against them: 549 against 31. Has the noble Baroness had the opportunity of examining the arguments of Mr Christopher Bryant and, indeed, those of her colleagues who all went into the Lobby to vote against such thresholds?

[Lord McAvoy]

Before my noble friend answers the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, perhaps she could consider, in doing so, asking him about the advice offered by Mr Nick Clegg that AV was a “miserable little compromise”.

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[Lord Campbell-Savours]

I want to intervene only briefly, because I want to speak later on the whole question of thresholds in the Bill. I just want to clarify the position as set out by the noble Lord, Lord Tyler. I fear that he misrepresented exactly what happened in the Commons. I have the Hansard here. My honourable friend Chris Bryant said:

“My hon. Friend is absolutely right that there is no fixed determined policy that we are completely and utterly in all cases implacably opposed to thresholds … I was actually trying not to suggest a threshold … I am not convinced by the arguments that are being advanced in favour of thresholds. I personally will be voting yes in the referendum. I do not believe that there should be a referendum, but there is a legitimate argument that others might want to consider about whether the fact that we are combining the polls will produce differential turnout in different parts of the country that might make a necessity of a threshold”.—[Official Report, Commons, 2/11/10; cols. 247-8.]

In other words, he took that position on thresholds because he was concerned about differential turnouts. If we did not have the problem of the referendum being on the same day as different elections within the United Kingdom, his position on thresholds would have been completely different. It was most unfair of the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, to present his case in the way that he did.

[Lord Tyler]

My Lords, we can all cite from what was an extensive speech, but the judgment concerned stated:

“I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman about thresholds in referendums because, broadly, they are not a good idea”.—[Official Report, Commons, 2/11/10; col. 246.]

That is absolutely clear. The clarity of that statement is endorsed by the fact that not only were 549 votes cast against the amendment against 31 for, but the vast majority of the honourable gentleman’s colleagues voted that way. I think that he was very persuasive; I think that it would be doing him a disservice to interpret it in any other way.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

I have read the Hansard of the whole of that debate. It is clear that the decision that my honourable friend took was on the basis that there was a possibility of differential turnout arising from the arrangement whereby the referendum takes place on the same day as a number of other elections throughout the United Kingdom.

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[Lord Campbell-Savours]

My Lords—

[Lord Tyler]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, seems to have shouted, got up and sat down. The issue here is simple arithmetic. Suppose that the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, went through and 45 per cent of the registered electorate voted yes while 4 per cent—I do not think that it will quite so dramatic, but who knows?—voted no. The noes would win because only 49 per cent of the electorate would have turned out. I am very sorry to have to disagree with my noble friend Lord Lawson, but my noble friend the Leader of the House is right: if you do not vote, it is a no vote.

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

I do not think that the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, has been listening to his noble friend Lord Lawson, who is saying that sometimes a threshold will encourage people to vote yes. The question that I am asking the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, is: what does the evidence point to?

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Tyler Excerpts

Wednesday 8th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grocott]

That is very wise. I bet that he comes out of his course sensible on Lords reform.

[Lord Tyler]

My Lords, I should say that my daughter also studied at Hull, but she is absolutely staunchly in favour of AV. She had the right influence from the noble Lord, Lord Norton.

[Lord Grocott]

My noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours asked which AV system, but no doubt there is a specialist MA course on that. Does that not give us some of the answers? A few university departments quite properly consider these things, as well as one or two writers for the Guardian newspaper, which seems to think that this is the way that you can solve most of life’s ills, and I assume that these debates take place at branch meetings of the Liberal Democrat party. They must be a lot of fun. I am sorry that I missed them.

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[Lord Grocott]

I would not have taken so long if I had not had so many interesting interventions. I am afraid that I will have to toss this back at the noble Lord. If the Lib Dems are so convinced, as they have been telling me ad nauseam over the years, that the British public are crying out for electoral reform, why on earth are they desperately putting the referendum on the same day as other elections, in the hope that they might get 30 or 35 per cent of the electorate to turn out? I understood that the public were queueing up to take part in any opportunity to get rid of the old, discredited system, as the Lib Dems call it. I am afraid that that is another theory that has been tested under fire and found wanting.

This clause will stand part of the Bill. It has limped along, drawing no enthusiasm from any of its proponents. I understand that there are always dilemmas about whether you can support your own Government in office. I do not criticise anyone, but I have no doubt what would happen if we had a good old-fashioned secret ballot on the Bill, nor about what would have happened if a secret ballot had been held in the Commons before they sent the Bill here. The noble Lord, Lord McNally, knows this as well as I do. He is well versed in the machinations of the higher echelons of parties—at least he was when I knew him—and he knows perfectly well that this is a friendless Bill and that this clause is certainly a friendless clause. I hope that we will remember that when we continue debating the Bill.

[Lord Tyler]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, has been rather unfair on his noble friend Lord Lipsey, who gave an excellent and much briefer speech in support of Clause 1. I will follow the example of the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, by being brief and to the point. I will concentrate for a few minutes on the issue of turnout, which has been a constant concern of all of us across the House this evening—and rightly so, because we are all anxious to look again at the involvement of our fellow citizens in the way in which we vote.

There have been one or two trips down memory lane this evening, and I hope your Lordships will indulge me for a couple of minutes. On the last wintry day of February 1974, in a very scattered rural constituency in Cornwall, 83 per cent of those who were registered to vote turned out. In those days, there were many fewer postal votes, so most voters went to the polls. Why? Because those very wise Cornish men and women knew that the result would be very close. It had been relatively close at the previous election. They were right: I had a majority of nine, which, even in those days, was thought to make mine a rather unsafe seat. In subsequent elections I did better. I confess to the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, that I cannot remember whether I constantly got more than 50 per cent of the vote, but I certainly did on one or two occasions, and I built a majority of 9,000. What happened?

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

Perhaps the noble Lord could explain that the importance of that day—which I, too, remember well—was that it was a verdict on the Government rather than on his good self. Perhaps he could also remind us of the outcome of that election.

[Lord Tyler]

That is not true, because in other parts of the country the turnout was not 83 per cent. It was 83 per cent in my constituency because the contest was seen to be very close. When I had a majority of 9,000 plus, down it went. Because it was not so interesting and the votes were not going to be so important, it dropped to 63 per cent. There is a direct correlation between safer seats and turnout. Nobody can deny that. I see the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, is agreeing with me. Where constituents feel that there is not a real chance of change—whether they fear it or hope for it is immaterial—they do not register on the same level and they do not turn out. For example, in May 2010 the lowest turnout—well under 50 per cent in Birmingham Ladywood, Manchester Central and Leeds Central—was in seats where the electors knew there was very little chance of change, whether they wanted it or not. On the other hand, in Westmorland and Lonsdale and in Richmond Park, where there was clearly going to be a very close result, up went the turnout to 77 per cent. People vote and register to vote when they think that their votes are going to be important in terms of the outcome. That is surely the most important lesson we should all learn.

Short of compulsion, which we discussed earlier, the most effective incentive for people to vote is because they think their vote will make a difference and that is the case for AV. I have never pretended—I agree with my noble friend Lord Greaves—that somehow this is the magic solution and everybody is going to turn out and will inevitably go for a first preference. It does not necessarily mean that everybody will have a majority. But look at the alternatives; look at first past the post. It is a staggering fact that there is not a single Member of the other place who can put their hand on their heart after the May 2010 election and say, “I am supported by more than half the people who could vote in my constituency”. Not one can say they have more than 50 per cent of those registered to vote in their constituency. Not one. If we are saying that AV is not perfect, first past the post is much less perfect.

[Lord Rooker]

I missed the first part of the debate on Clause 1 and I regret that. The noble Lord gave the example of the second defect, which my noble friend Lord Grocott did not address—not so much the argument about everybody getting 50 per cent but the second porky that it does away with tactical voting. We heard that today from the people who launched the pro-AV campaign. Yet the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, has just said it will be their second preference. That is what will get them out to vote. That is where the tactical voting comes in. What we need on the record, like we had from the Leader earlier on, is a definitive statement from the Government that it is not true that every MP will get elected by 50 per cent. We also need on the record that AV does not do away with tactical voting because the tactical vote is on the second preference, not on the first vote. It would be quite useful if this debate could get that on the record because all our words will be used in leaflets next year, I can assure noble Lords.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Tyler]

It is obviously true that if the elector chooses not to vote tactically, they do not have to. But it is also perfectly true—as the noble Lord’s colleague, Mr Ben Bradshaw, has acknowledged on behalf of all those members in the Labour Party who are supporting AV, including the leader of the party of the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, who has come out very strongly in favour of AV—that it reduces the need for tactical voting. Ben Bradshaw said yesterday that AV gives more power to the people—nobody can deny that—freeing them from the pressure to vote tactically. They do not have to vote tactically. They can do their first preference and their second preference. But the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, is quite right. It does not necessarily abolish tactical voting. It makes it much less effective and much less necessary. Mr Bradshaw, his colleague in the other place, is right on that.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. I want to take him back to a point which I heard him make a moment or two ago to confirm that I understood him correctly. His criticism of the first past the post system—he seemed to be building up to this criticism because he made it so vehemently—was that there was not one Member of the House of Commons who could claim to be elected by 50 per cent of the registered voters in his or her constituency. Do I understand that the noble Lord is now setting that as the bar for a credible voting system? If he is, can he point me, an ingénue in these matters and not in any sense an anorak or a wonk, to one example of the operation of this alternative vote system that meets that challenge that he has now set?

[Lord Tyler]

My Lords, I am not saying that AV would automatically mean that every Member of the other House would have 50 per cent but first past the post clearly goes nowhere near to achieving that result. AV can make that more possible. More people can have more influence on the outcome of their constituency election and as a result there will be many more seats in the country—not all of them, there will still be safe seats—where it will be possible for people to have more confidence that their vote will make a difference.

[Lord Browne of Belmont]

I am extremely grateful to the noble Lord. He is very patient with me. Other Members of his party have shown exasperation when I have intervened, but if he will bear with me, I need education on this issue. I have listened carefully to what he has to say and resisted the temptation to intervene on him on two or three occasions because I wanted to see the point he was building up to. I am not asking him for an assurance that this will deliver that benchmark all the time. I am asking him, as a self-professed expert on these matters, to give me just one example of the system of AV which he is promoting in this referendum delivering against that benchmark.

[Lord Tyler]

The noble Lord is simply taking a question that I have not posed and which I do not intend to claim. All I am saying is that the present system discourages people in large tranches of the country from thinking that their vote will make a difference and, therefore, they do not bother to register or to vote. That is a fact. No one can deny it.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

Let me hit the flaw in the noble Lord’s argument. He is presuming that the remotest preference cast by an elector, which might be the sixth, seventh, eighth or ninth preference, should be given the same value within the electoral system as the first preference. That argument is ludicrous. His whole case is based on that and that is why he is wrong.

[Lord Tyler]

That is what happens under the present system. The present system is totally inadequate in that respect because you have to plump. In answer to the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, who undoubtedly understands the point I am making, I say that under the present system many people in this country feel that they are forced to vote in a very artificial way because their first preference is not likely to win. I am arguing that in many parts of the country people do not bother to register or to vote at all because they think that their first preference is not likely to win. The safer the seat—

[Lord Norton of Louth]

My noble friend’s argument is based on the premise that people are aware that under a different system—in this case AV—their votes will make more of a difference than under the present system. I should be interested to know what his empirical evidence is for that.

[Lord Tyler]

The empirical evidence, of course, is the way in which so many other elections, outwith elections to Parliament, operate. I think I am right in saying that all the parties now select their candidates through a form of AV and it is seen to be very effective. Many other professional organisations and trade unions use it and, as was pointed out earlier, the Lord Speaker was elected under that system. There are plenty of examples where people understand that by making a number of choices or preferences they can make a difference.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

On one of the noble Lord’s examples, trade unions, there was recently an election in the Unite trade union for the general secretary. There was a huge campaign around the country, which was very hotly contested between two very different front-running candidates. Does the noble Lord know what the turnout was? It was less than 20 per cent. Surely, that is one of many examples which fully undermines his case.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

Indeed, if the noble Lord looks at the Scottish results to which I referred, he will see that the average turnout was just over 25 per cent under the system he is advocating.

[Lord Tyler]

As was pointed out only a few minutes ago, the noble Lord was very selective in the ones that he quoted, and 25 per cent is not a bad turnout in a local election. I would argue that AV is not perfect and I have never said it is perfect, but I believe it has real advantages in terms of the relationship between the elected Member and his or her constituency. In that respect, in many ways it has advantages over a pure proportional representation system. Incidentally, my noble friend Lord Hamilton was utterly wrong in describing anything in the Bill now as a proportional system. It is not. Some of us might think that in due course there may be a proportional system, but this is not a proportional system and I would never claim that it is. If his opposition to AV is based on that, I am afraid he is deluded.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom]

Does my noble friend accept that if we move to an AV system, we are more likely to have coalition governments and, if we have coalition governments, we have coalition agreements, such as we had at the beginning of this Parliament, and we end up with a government who are governing with a new manifesto that is only vaguely related to the two manifestos of the parties in the coalition?

[Lord Tyler]

All the evidence from Professor John Curtice, who was mentioned earlier, is that AV is less likely to result in a balanced Parliament, as we have now, than first past the post. The noble Lord may be able to look to the future and have a better idea, but the academic evidence is that AV is less likely to do that because there is a sort of bonus towards the larger party as a result of the election.

I find it incredible that so many Members opposite are ignoring what has been said by their party leader—and in the Guardian today—by saying in absolutely firm terms that they believe that AV is the right way forward. Of course, they are being consistent with what they said previously in Parliament and in the election, but I find it quite extraordinary that so many Members opposite feel that it is necessary to rebel against their own party at this juncture and to weaken the position of their new leader.

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

I would like to help my noble friend. It is not the position of the Labour Party that there cannot be an open debate—I hope that he will encourage an open debate as well—and there is no party obligation to support AV. We support the idea of a referendum, but not necessarily AV. We want the country to debate it, and I am very grateful to the noble Lord for contributing to that debate.

[Lord Tyler]

I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord, because he has pre-empted the question that I was about to ask. I am assuming, from what he has just said, that he will support—not just not vote against—the motion that Clause 1 stand part, because what he has said implies that he will do so. If we had known that an hour or so ago, this debate might have been rather shorter.

It is true that the previous Labour Government twice committed itself to this precise form of words for putting the issue to the people. I believe, as Churchill said, that we should trust the people on this issue. I am quite prepared to debate in any television studio with the noble Lord—

[Lord Rooker]

Churchill did not want AV. As the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, told us, Churchill is on record as doing the best rubbishing job on AV that anyone has done.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Tyler]

I have to tell the noble Lord that Churchill was a supporter of electoral reform when he was a Liberal, and then—I am sorry to say—disappeared off into a different party.

I believe with both the coalition Government and the Labour Party that those same citizens who have been cheated by our current system for so long should be given an early opportunity to vote for a better system. The proposal may not be perfect—I agree with those who made that point—but we have had the moment of truth, in that the Opposition Front Bench are now saying that they will support the motion that Clause 1 stand part of the Bill. That is good news. I hope that we can make equally good progress with the rest of the Bill.

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

What a rip-roaringly good debate it has been. Only the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, who keeps putting words into my mouth, slightly spoils it.

These are the questions that need to be addressed as a result of the debate. First, there is a strand in the debate from the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, and my noble friend Lord Grocott, who said there should not be a referendum at all. The noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, said it would lead to a worse system; the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, said that there is no case made out adequately for AV. One of the purposes of us debating it in Committee is for the case to be looked at. The first question that the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, should deal with, is why should there be a referendum with AV as the only alternative in it? He should answer the noble Lords, Lord Hamilton and Lord Grocott, because for people voting in the referendum, there needs to be a credible case for it made by the Government, which goes beyond saying, “I agreed it with my coalition partners, therefore it must happen”. That carries no weight with the electorate.

The second question that has been raised is: why choose this sort of AV? That was the debate between the noble Lords, Lord Campbell-Savours and Lord Greaves, which is beyond most of our abilities to comprehend. I say seriously that it is important because the Government are saying, “A detailed proposal for an alternative vote system is set out in Clause 9 and if you vote “yes”, that is the one you will get”. The noble Lords, Lord Greaves and Lord Campbell-Savours, are at each other’s throats about whether that is the right system of alternative vote, and in voting yes, the individual members of the electorate in the referendum have to decide whether they think it is the best.

I say in parenthesis how glad I was to see the Deputy Chief Whip, the noble Lord, Lord Shutt of Greetland, going to speak to the noble Lord, Lord Greaves—I think, to encourage him to continue to participate in the debate. The moment that the noble Lord, Lord Shutt of Greetland, spoke to the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, instead of keeping to his seat, he immediately got up to intervene in the debate. I congratulate the Liberal Democrats on that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Strathclyde]

In a series of votes in the House of Commons, Members of the other place united behind this system and decided to put it forward to this House.

[Lord Tyler]

Can my noble friend tell the House whether the Government took cognisance of the fact that the previous Government, having obviously gone through a very similar thought process, decided on precisely this form of AV for the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act and then repeated the proposal in the general election?

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

As the noble Lord is aware, it was a Conservative Member of Parliament, Mr Christopher Chope, who moved what was in effect the supplementary vote amendment in the House of Commons. He had support from Members on his own Benches, but it is a pity that he did not drive them into the Division Lobbies.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Tyler Excerpts

Wednesday 8th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tyler]

My Lords, I am always struck by the eloquence of the noble Lord, Lord Snape, but what might happen in such a constituency—not his former constituency, of course: nor, I hope, in mine—if the majority of people who performed their democratic function of going to the polling station wrote on the ballot paper, “None of the above”.?

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom]

My Lords, I very much support the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart: and the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, on his previous interventions. We are greatly reluctant about compulsory voting, which has to be right. People have to have the option of not voting at all. I am afraid that on this issue I am not with the noble Lord, Lord Snape, as I was on his previous amendment, but I was rather attracted by his suggestion of incentives to vote, rather than doing what the Australians always purport to do, which is to fine people who do not vote. I do not quite know how many Australians get fined for not voting, but I suspect that it is not a very efficient system.

However, an incentive to enable people to vote strikes me as rather attractive. An incentive that takes the form of, say, a voucher to knock something off your rates or something of that sort, which you are given in the polling station, would encourage people to vote in person. That would get us away from the problem of the growing number of postal votes and all the fraud involved in that, which was alluded to in an earlier discussion.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Bach]

My Lords, I will speak very briefly. We have heard very powerful arguments for the amendment. We on the Front Bench support the amendment. We do not claim that it is the biggest or most important amendment, but it does have an importance in the Bill. I hope that the Government are big enough to accept a well argued amendment that would improve the Bill. It is about fairness. The Bill already covers Wales in this way; surely it should do the same here. The amendment specifies that the ballot papers would be printed in the two languages only in Scotland. Surely the cost of printing the question in two languages would not be great. Administratively, it would not be difficult to organise; and, practically, such a change could be straightforward.

We have heard from a number of speakers how, in this age of devolution—

[Lord Tyler]

I know that the noble Lord wants to be brief, but I put a question to him to which I genuinely do not know the answer. Can the noble Lord remind the House whether his Administration included a Gaelic version of the question for the Scottish devolution referendum?

[Lord Bach]

My Lords, I cannot remind the House because I do not know the answer. However, I think that there is someone who does: the noble Lord who will speak after me. Even if we did not, we were not always right. It is a terrible admission to make, and not one that the present Government are prepared to make at this stage. Perhaps later on they will.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Tyler Excerpts

Monday 6th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

That raises a fundamental point which my noble friend Lord Rooker puts very well; you have to be able to explain why AV has been chosen and the public are not being given a choice on anything else. I have to say again, rather distressingly, that the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, did not deal with that at all in relation to the last amendment. He said that clarity was important. That is an answer, but it does not deal with why AV has been chosen. There is a profound sense in this House that there are a range of options. My noble friend Lord Rooker and the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, have pretty well destroyed the idea that AV is an effective choice.

If at all possible, I should like the coalition to explain why it has chosen AV as the only alternative proposition that it is putting to the electorate. If the answer is—I think that the Deputy Chief Whip is trying to tell me this—“Well, that is all we could agree with the Liberal Democrats”, that is fine, and I hope the electorate will treat that with the contempt that it deserves. Then the position is that we are not suggesting that it is the best alternative; we are saying that it is the only one on which we could reach agreement. I very much hope that the coalition is straightforward about that, because this is a serious debate about the constitution. Unless no answer is forthcoming, there is no other option but for this House to debate which are the better options. I know that that wearies the noble Lords, Lord Strathclyde and Lord McNally, but if you cannot explain or debate the best alternative to first past the post, the position is that the merits of each of them have to be debated.

[Lord Tyler]

Perhaps it would help the House if the noble and learned Lord was able to explain why this was the only alternative to the first past the post system that his Government twice put before Parliament and the nation. The first time was in the Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill, when this was very specifically the only alternative that was going to be put before Parliament and the people, as he well knows. The next was at the general election. It would help the House to have his explanation.

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

That was the step that the then Government proposed in the Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill. That step was then proposed in the referendum, but it was rejected by the public because we lost the election. This is the team who won the election. Unless you are saying to us, “We adopt the position that the Labour Party adopted”, I am unable to understand why it is. I hear the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, saying “Come on” from a sedentary position. If the reason is that the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats have adopted the miserable little compromise that they proposed because we adopted it, let them say so. The deafening silence, the lack of argument and the black hole at the centre of the argument—

[Lord Tyler]

This is absurd. Presumably, the noble and learned Lord and his very distinguished colleagues in the previous Administration had a thought process that brought them to the conclusion that it was the right choice to put before Parliament and subsequently at the general election to put before the public. They were not just jumping ahead and wondering what a putative coalition might attempt in the future. At the time, he was a distinguished member of that Government. Surely he had an input into that thought process. Can he not share that thinking with us?

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

I am afraid that I was not a distinguished member of the Government at the time, but let me speculate as to what might have been in the mind of the Government.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Tyler Excerpts

Monday 6th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom]

My Lords, I support the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, on this amendment, not because I am completely relaxed about whether this referendum on the alternative vote is held on 5 May or later, because I am not. I think that there will be enormous confusion if the referendum is held on the same day as local elections. As the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, has pointed out, this is an extremely complex matter, which is not well understood by the electorate. Therefore, we need a special day. I am not too worried when it is after the local elections on 5 May, but it should be on a separate day. I know that this would involve £15 million-worth of public expenditure at a time of austerity. But this is a very important change in our constitutional arrangements and it has to be properly debated. The people of this country have got to understand what is at stake.

If the referendum is to be wrapped up in local authority elections with certain, say, Labour campaigners saying, “Vote for your Labour candidate, but vote against the alternative vote in the referendum”—the Conservatives would be doing similar—that will be extremely confusing to the electorate. Therefore, it is important that the referendum is held on a separate day. This is a radical and important change in our electoral system, and it should not be allowed to be muddled up in the local elections. I do not think that it will be satisfactory for anyone, whatever the result of the referendum, if it goes through while the electorate do not understand what was going on. We need a separate date. We need to debate it properly and to make absolutely certain that the people of this country understand what is at stake and understand the issues involved in whether we have an alternative vote system or not. That is why it should be on a separate date and why I am pleased to support the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, in his amendment.

[Lord Tyler]

My Lords, it would seem from what Members were saying at great length last week in a debate lasting nearly two hours, and again from what has just been said, that as a Parliament we have never had to face the prospect of two big decisions on the same day. I remind your Lordships—and I shall be interested to hear from the opposition Front Bench in a moment—that the previous Administration pushed through the referendum on London government and mayoral and Assembly legislation, with the exact same collision of votes on 7 May 1998. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, may like to comment on the following extract from a speech by his colleague Mr Nick Raynsford, who was then the responsible Minister:

“We are holding the referendum on 7 May deliberately to gain the benefits from combining the poll with local government elections. That will result in a considerable saving in public expenditure, which I would have thought all hon. Members would welcome. Separating the referendum date from the local election day would probably result in additional public expenditure of some £2 million to £3 million and could reduce voter turnout. That is not in the interests of democracy or of economy, and the Government do not intend to propose that”.—[Official Report, Commons, 19/11/1997; col. 380]

What was right for London is apparently not right for other parts of the country. Perhaps Members on the other side think that somehow the voters of Scotland and Wales are not capable of taking two quite distinct decisions on the same day but people in London are.

[Lord Rooker]

I never once referred to combined elections. That is not the issue as far as my amendment is concerned; I know that others in the group are concerned with this. My question is this: what were the relevant dates for that legislation? I know the referendum the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, refers to was for London only and not national, but how close to the referendum did the legislation start through the two Houses? That is the point that I am raising. I am not arguing against 5 May; I am just saying that if something goes wrong between now and then, my amendment is a lifeboat and we can still have the referendum.

[Lord Tyler]

I can answer the noble Lord, as it happens, because I have very good brief. That Bill started its progress through the House of Commons on 28 October 1997 and was not completed until well into 1998, so it is a very similar situation to the present one. I go a step further, which is why I hope we are going to get a contribution from the opposition Front Bench. Amendment 12 specifies that this referendum should take place on the same day as the mayoral and Assembly elections in London in 2012. What is right for the goose is surely right for the gander. How can we possibly argue, as Members opposite did for hours the other night—it seemed interminable—that somehow the Scots are not capable of taking this decision on the same day when London has done so in the past, and there is a proposal, which has been supported by at least some Members opposite, to do so again in 2012? I stand up for the Scots as a fellow Celt. I think they are quite capable of taking this decision on the same day, and I hope your Lordships’ House will take the same view.

[Lord Elystan-Morgan]

My Lords, there is a fallacy in the argument of the noble Lord, Lord Tyler. There are certainly many arguments for holding these elections on the same day as elections in Scotland, Wales and England, and there are many arguments against. My point is limited to this issue. Why did Her Majesty’s Government think for a moment that it was right to come to a final determination on this matter without consulting the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly? It seems to me, looking at it either with naivety or with remorseless logic, that it was either a case of negligence or a studied discourtesy. Which was it?

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness McDonagh]

I thank noble Lords who have come back to this issue of confusion. Can we knock on the head, once and for all, the suggestion that we are calling people stupid? People are not quite as obsessed by politics as we are and I always thought that it was the role of this House to look at legislation, to look at how it would work out in the country, in the community, in our experience, and bring back any concerns before legislation is passed. That is what we are doing. We are not, for a moment, calling anyone stupid. On Tuesday, the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, thought that in changing his parliamentary constituency in Scotland, he had also changed his European parliamentary constituency. I would not, for a second, call him stupid just because he does not appreciate that Scotland has only one European constituency.

I take this opportunity to ask about the 12 cities that are holding a referendum for mayor. I understand that some might be put off until 2012, but will the Minister tell us exactly where we are on that and, indeed, when the localism Bill will enter the House? Before I move off this issue of confusion, I say only that, if we are not careful—this is a serious point—we could end up having more spoilt ballot papers than the majority of votes, either for or against, under the alternative vote referendum. Given the legality of the Bill, there will be deep problems.

Who are we expecting to convey the arguments on the doorstep, if we proceed with an election in May? I would like to see anyone here get together a group of councillors facing re-election. These people are now going through very difficult times, having to cut something like 30 per cent of their budgets over the next four years. There will be serious cuts in adult services, child services and street cleaning, and some people may be moving to fortnightly waste collections. Any idea that you are going to knock on the door and explain that to the public and then say, “By the way, let’s have a chat about the alternative vote referendum”, is not living in the real world. I would like to be a fly on the wall in a room when anybody here attempts to do that. Without people on the ground being active in campaigns, be they for referenda or elections, they are not democratic election.

It seems rather ironic to have a referendum on our democracy at a time when there are elections in some parts of the country and not in others. By that very fact, you will skew—

[Lord Tyler]

Would the noble Baroness like to turn to Amendment 12, which is in this group? As I understand it, she is proposing that this referendum should take place on the same day as the mayoral and London Assembly elections, so she is now arguing against her own amendment. Will she come to that amendment in due course?

I know the noble Baroness has been extremely influential in her party. Does she recall that on a number of occasions her Government decided to have a general election to the House of Commons on the same day as local elections? Were those not the circumstances that she is now criticising?

[Baroness McDonagh]

I thank the noble Lord. He is right, and I never have a problem saying when I am in the wrong. When I laid the amendment, I did so to give us more time to debate it. I think the noble Lord is quite right, and I am happy to withdraw that amendment. The noble Lord, Lord Fowler, said that the fact that a number of us are tabling different amendments is causing confusion. If the Benches opposite want to join us and support either Amendment 5 or Amendment 6, I would be happy to withdraw all my amendments, and I thank the noble Lord for his intervention.

I think it is ironic to have a referendum on democracy on a day when we are having some elections and not others. Not having an election in London will depress the turnout, and there will be a variable result across the country. Therefore, I will support any amendment not to have a referendum on the same day as any other election, and I will appreciate answers to the questions I asked.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Tyler Excerpts

Tuesday 30th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tyler]

My Lords, I follow the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, with some trepidation because he always speaks with great authority, as those who have often appeared in court appear to do in your Lordships’ House. There is a wider issue here that your Lordships’ House needs to address. I am absolutely certain that the noble Baroness, Lady McDonagh, has the best of intentions but, as we all know from our early youth, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. The effect of delaying Part 2 by separating out that part of the Bill into a separate Bill would be, inevitably, that it would be delayed dramatically. In a way, it reflects the point that the noble Lord has just made, but it should be taken in a different direction. On these Benches—and on all sides of the House—we want to make sure that the boundary revision is fair, workable and sensitive to local conditions. It will take time in your Lordships’ House to decide how to do that.

I recognise that there are differing views about different parts of the Bill on all sides of the House. The problem is that, if we simply discard Part 2, separate it out and take it later, it cannot be implemented with proper consideration of all the local conditions in time for the next general election. There is wide concern on that point. It really would be ridiculous at the early part of this Parliament to delay this process so dramatically that it could not be implemented in time for the next general election. I hope, therefore, that you Lordships will very carefully consider what has happened in the other House on these issues.

[Lord Clinton-Davis]

Why does the noble Lord aver that this Bill, if properly considered, could not be implemented in time for the next election? It is absurd.

[Lord Tyler]

My Lord, my point is that, if it is held together as one Bill, it can. So the noble Lord is supporting my position. However, if it is separated into two Bills, then, by definition, and, indeed, because of the way in which this has been presented, it is clear that that would be a delaying tactic. That may not be the intention of the noble Baroness but, no doubt, we will hear from noble Lords on the opposition Front Bench. I will be very interested to hear what exactly their position is on this because, for all those who profess to want to make this a careful consideration of important legislation—of very considerable importance to the other place—there seem to be others in this place who think that it is a very good opportunity to delay, divert and derail the acknowledged agreement between the two coalition parties that we want to make progress on both counts. Both are trying to give more power to the individual voter so that in each constituency there is a better chance of having equal value.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, has made it clear in this House, at Second Reading and since—privately and publicly—that his position is to try to delay, divert and derail this Bill. What fun it would have been if he had adopted the role of courtroom jester when he was Lord Chancellor. This is an important Bill. Your Lordships’ House could do great damage to its own reputation—and possibly even to its future role in our constitution—if it simply seeks to play games with this Bill. It is a Bill, after all, which almost uniquely deals with the other place. Of course we have to try to improve it but, if we are seen to be simply standing in the way of the other place—where this Bill has been passed as one Bill—then we will be doing great damage.

I am sure that I do not need to remind the House that the previous Administration, in which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, played a very distinguished part, committed themselves to a referendum on electoral reform way back in 1997. There is no question that that part of the Bill has not been discussed ad nauseam over the past 13 years so we are not rushing into that part of the Bill.

As to more recent commitments, it was of course a last-minute death-bed repentance on this issue, within the context of the Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill, that in the past 12 months permitted and committed the previous Government to having a referendum, and there the commitment was again in the Labour Party’s manifesto just a few short months ago. In those circumstances, if we sought to delay this legislation in a way that is out of character with your Lordships’ House, we would stoke up further irritation that Peers always seem to be devious and seeking to delay and dilute reform when they should be proceeding in a sensible and businesslike way.

If we want to guarantee the fate of most Cross-Benchers, when Peers are seen to be delaying important changes to our House of Commons, passing this Motion is the best way to do it. The political and public pressure for a fully elected senate will increase if your Lordships are seen to be playing games.

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

My Lords, I know and fully acknowledge that this is not the other place, but I am slightly alarmed by the sort of threats being made by the noble Lord opposite. When this House comes to deliberate on House of Lords reform, it will do so in due course and with the wisdom and knowledge held by every Member of this House. No Member should be under any threat in terms of the legislation which is about to be debated by this House.

[Lord Tyler]

I understand precisely what the noble Baroness is saying and I understand that that will be the role of your Lordships’ House. All that I am saying is that we have to be extraordinarily careful with this measure which, after all, deals entirely with the other place. It is not relevant to how your Lordships’ House is composed. If it is seen by the public outside that this is simply an attempt to delay and dilute important legislation, and to prevent it reaching the statute book in good time and in good order, we will not be doing anything to improve the reputation of your Lordships’ House.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Tyler Excerpts

Tuesday 30th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rooker]

My Lords, unlike the debate we have just had, this is a very narrow, targeted debate. My basic submission is that a binding referendum on virtually any issue, let alone an issue without consultation, is not the British way of doing things. We do not do it. I was told that there has been one case of a binding referendum. An indicative or consultative referendum is the normal way we operate in the UK and frankly it fits the bill in this case. There are many people who would take that view. It will preserve parliamentary sovereignty in a formal way, whereas the way the Bill is drafted it certainly does not. I think that is important. It allows for some thought on the result and the turnout. In my view, it would obviate the need for thresholds. I have not looked at the complete list of amendments. I do not know whether there are amendments about turnout or majority thresholds. With an indicative referendum you would not need to put into the Bill anything to do with thresholds because it would allow time for reflection afterwards and Parliament would decide, having listened to and taken the views of the people. I think the processes and consequences are important.

There has been an example—it is important to give examples—of where the processes have been used. When New Zealand changed its voting system from first past the post in 1992 it had a consultative referendum. That resulted a year later in a binding referendum so everyone was absolutely clear. However, initially Parliament was able to take a view about what the public had actually decided.

As the Bill stands—I stand to be corrected by the Ministers who know more about the detail—it does not matter what the turnout is or what the level of a yes majority vote is. The change will happen. That is set out, I think, in Clause 8. So what are we saying? I am not going to give high-falutin’ examples. Let us say that we get a respectable turnout—50 to 60 per cent. I think it would be a very respectable turnout, a general election turnout. That is tens of millions of people voting. Let us say that the majority of the yes votes over the no votes is 1,000. Do we really then proceed with such a major change, without let or hindrance, because that is what the legislation actually says? It could be 10,000 but we are talking of something like 30 million people participating in the vote.

Let us think about what we are doing. We are binding ourselves before we start. Parliament has never done that and we should not do it on this occasion. I do not need to speculate. Frankly, my amendment is a lifeboat for both the coalition and Parliament. It does not alter the rest of the Bill. I would almost settle for this amendment and almost not bother with the rest of them because I think that would be so important in constitutional terms. It would be a lifeboat for Parliament and certainly a lifeboat for the coalition. Without such a lifeboat it is inevitable that we will have debates about thresholds on the turnout and the majority in order to trigger the operation of Clause 8. Why should we do that? It may come as a surprise, but for the vast majority of people in this country, voting is the only political activity they ever do. We are all anoraks. Some of us have been in the other place, but we are all here for a reason. For the vast majority of people their only action is voting. To make a change of such importance and significance we have to have the demonstrable consent of the public to a change of the status quo. That is absolutely clear. First we have to listen to the public and then Parliament can take a decision.

This is not some executive decision such as the level of taxation or the granting of a planning application. This is a major fundamental change in the way we elect our Parliament. It is of supreme voter and constitutional significance and it should be embedded for a goodly amount of time. It will not be if the scenario I have just given as an example comes about. We will end up with chaos unless we are prepared to say that we will listen to the public, fight the referendum and Parliament will then decide the way forward having listened and consulted. By and large, Parliament has taken a view on consultation in the past. It would be a lot easier to decide in principle and practice to have an indicative referendum than try to decide thresholds. It would be a nightmare to get involved in threshold debates. I have thought about it. It would be an absolute nightmare. It is so unpredictable, so personal and subjective. To say we will have an indicative referendum to consult will be pretty important.

I am going to pray in aid only one Member of the House. Earlier today we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Tyler. I think we will all read his speech tomorrow. He gave several examples of what had been said before the election as a reason for doing it after the election. I disagreed with my own side on AV and made my position absolutely clear on 24 March, but that is not the issue now. I just want the referendum to be indicative so that Parliament has the final decision. It would be on the same date with the same question, the lot, but it would be consultative. As I said, I made my position clear on 24 March and I am saying the same things on this side of the House as I said on the other side. My challenge is for others to do the same. I quote from Hansard:

“On the other hand, a consultative referendum early in the next Parliament would assist rather than hinder deliberations and would not fall foul of the strictures from the Select Committee that we are producing change without scrutiny”.—[Official Report, 24/3/10; col. 971.]

Those are the words of the noble Lord, Lord McNally. I rest my case.

[Lord Tyler]

The noble Lord, Lord Rooker, very kindly referred to me in the previous debate and challenged me to contribute to the debate on this amendment. I certainly intend to do so, though I hope very briefly.

Frankly, I am mystified. I totally understand where the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, is coming from. What I do not yet understand is whether he is going to be supported from his own Front Bench because of course his party—I know he was a rebel on this and I respect him for it—was absolutely explicit in putting its case to the country just a few months ago. In its manifesto his party said:

“To ensure that every MP is supported by the majority of their constituents voting at each election, we will hold a referendum on introducing the Alternative Vote for elections to the House of Commons”.

There is no mention of ifs and buts about consultative, confirmatory or indicative. It said “we will hold a referendum”. It may be that I misunderstood the Labour manifesto but that seems to be an absolutely clear commitment. Indeed, Mr Jack Straw, who is a very distinguished colleague of those on the other side who take a different view, set out in the debates on the Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill just a few weeks before the election precisely where the Labour Party was and gave an opportunity for people in the country to understand where it was. This business that there has been no discussion about it is not true. There has been lots of discussion. Maybe it is only anoraks such as myself and the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, who were discussing the relative merits of these issues but the fact is that it was out in the open because Mr Straw said in the House of Commons that,

“all of us here must do all that we can to restore trust in politics … part of that process must involve consideration of which electoral system can best serve the people of this country and asking them to make a decision. Our response is to put in place a credible alternative that would go with the grain of what the British people value in our system, and allow them to express their clear view in a referendum”.—[Official Report, Commons, 9/2/10; col. 799.]

That was a specific proposal—put before Parliament weeks before the election and as clear as anything ever is from a ministerial statement—to insert into that Bill the specific proposal that we are now debating. It is simply untrue that this has never previously come before Parliament. What is true—I have to say—is that the Labour Party was absolutely explicit that it would not be a consultative, indicative or confirmatory referendum. It would be a decisive referendum. I rest my case.