Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Williamson of Horton Excerpts

Wednesday 26th January 2011 Lords Chamber

I hope that I have been able to convey to your Lordships the very real anxiety that many of us have about the impact of the Bill in Wales. I am sure that other noble Lords will now have their say, and I look forward to hearing them with interest. I especially look forward with interest to the reply of the Minister. I hope that he will at least agree that a fair case has been made to cause the Government to reflect and reconsider these issues concerning Wales. Based on his reply, I must consider whether or not I should seek leave to divide your Lordships' House. Let me say now that I hope that when he replies, the Minister will give me every reason not to do so.

[Lord Williamson of Horton]

My Lords, it is many years since I represented North Wales at cricket, but I assure the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, that I shall follow these discussions with considerable interest. I hope that he will allow me to make one brief intervention, which relates to Clause 11 as a whole. Thereafter, of course, the tour of Wales will continue. I have today tabled an amendment, to which we shall come eventually, but not immediately, which would defer the coming into force of Clause 11 until the end of the work of the Boundary Commission on the constituencies—that is, until the reports are laid before Parliament, the Secretary of State proposes to appoint a date and there are affirmative resolutions of both Houses.

I intervene briefly now to avoid any misunderstanding, thats if the coming into force of Clause 11 is deferred, we do not need to amend the clause now. I have tabled my amendment in the hope that it may contribute to an agreement that the Bill should pass, with a view to the referendum on the alternative vote on 5 May. In my view, it remains very important that we should try to get the Bill right. Obviously, there are the key questions of 5 per cent and the excluded constituencies. Before long, we shall come to the question of public inquiries. Today we have the question of the Welsh constituencies. I emphasise that I believe that all these amendments should be properly considered. If we can reach agreement, that is good. That is not inconsistent with my amendment, which would defer the coming into force of Clause 11 if the Bill is passed.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

I thank my noble friend Lord Touhig for laying out the case on behalf of Wales so impressively. These three amendments, to which I have added my name, together form a coherent whole. There is the amendment that states that the number of parliamentary constituencies in Wales should not be reduced below 35; there is the amendment that states that there should be no reduction of more than 10 per cent in the number of Welsh parliamentary seats at one boundary review; and there is the amendment that proposes that the measures in the Bill should not come into force unless and until powers have been transferred to the Welsh Assembly in consequence of a vote of the people of Wales in the referendum that is to be held this spring.

This is an important debate. It is a debate that we have to have, not least because in another place, there was no debate specifically on the measures in the Bill which would have such an enormous impact on Wales. In Committee in the other place, when amendments dealing with the situation in Wales would have been reached, I understand that some 30 Members of Parliament stood to catch the eye of the Chair, but the guillotine came down and that debate did not take place. That timetable Motion was not a proper way to treat the House of Commons, least of all when dealing with major constitutional legislation. As a consequence of that, aside from other considerations, it is our responsibility in this House to scrutinise the measure as it would affect Wales and discuss our amendments.

The Government are proposing an extreme and rapid reduction in parliamentary representation for Wales. Wales, which has only 5 per cent of the population of the United Kingdom, would, under the Government's proposals, suffer 20 per cent of the reduction in the number of parliamentary seats for the country as a whole. Wales would lose 25 per cent of its existing seats. By comparison, Northern Ireland would lose 17 per cent of its seats; Scotland 9 per cent; and England only 5.5 per cent. Of course, it is in England that Conservative electoral strength is most concentrated. Whether or not it is the Government's intention to rig the parliamentary system in support of the Conservative Party, I must tell them that there is a real perception in Wales that that is what it is about.

The noble and learned Lord the Minister may contend that, as things are, Wales is overrepresented in the House of Commons. I recognise that, by reference to the principle of numerical equality between constituencies, that is indeed the case. But, as we have frequently contended in the debates on this legislation, there are other factors that it is proper to take into account. Wales is a nation. It was joined with England in 1536, but over the centuries it has had its own history and, as my noble friend emphasised, its own language. Until now, the Parliament of the United Kingdom has recognised that and has accepted that proportionally Wales should have more seats in the House of Commons than the numbers in its population alone would imply.

There are very good reasons for that. Aside from the reality of Welsh nationhood, there is also the geography of Wales which, as the House is aware, is singularly intractable when it comes to trying to achieve numerical equality between constituencies. There are very large rural areas that are very thinly populated. We have spoken about the constituency of Brecon and Radnorshire in our debates. It is 80 miles from north to south and 40 miles from east to west. It is a huge constituency geographically. If the Government’s proposals were to be implemented in their undiluted form, we would have a constituency that might stretch from Crickhowell in the south to Wrexham in the north. It would be an impossible constituency for a Member of Parliament to represent satisfactorily.

RS Thomas wrote some lines about a Welsh farmer penning his sheep in a gap of cloud on the bald Welsh hills. It is that kind of constituency. It is very difficult to traverse the length and breadth of it, and I wonder how the Member of Parliament, even so excellent a Member of Parliament as Mr Roger Williams, would be able to do justice to the work that needs to be done in the constituency on behalf of his constituents and also to his responsibilities here at Westminster. In the south, there are the valleys, the deep valleys, each of which contains its own very distinct community. Let me again say to the House that the Reform Act 1832, which the Deputy Prime Minister cites as his inspiration, introduced into our system of parliamentary representation the principle that Members of Parliament should represent communities and interests. That way, the people of this country would know that they were represented in the House of Commons and Members of the House of Commons would know what the responsibilities of their colleagues were in terms of representing their communities. It is not wise to ask Members of Parliament to attempt to represent at one and the same time very different communities separated by geographical realities that you cannot simply or sensibly ignore.

It may also be argued by the Government that this wholesale reduction in Welsh representation in the House of Commons is the more justified because Wales has its own Assembly which exercises devolved powers of government. I must remind the House that the powers the Assembly exercises at present are powers of secondary legislation and, as my noble friend Lord Touhig explained to the House, great swathes of the policy that determines how life in Wales is to be led emanate from central government. In macroeconomic policy, Wales receives a block grant that is transferred from London to Cardiff. It is an essential responsibility of Members of Parliament representing Welsh constituencies to consider that block grant and make representations on behalf of their constituents as to its implications. Benefits policy, pensions policy, police, immigration, criminal justice, broadcasting, defence and foreign policy are not devolved responsibilities. The people of Wales accept the policy made on their behalf by the Parliament of the United Kingdom and, correspondingly, they need to have representation that enables their interests to be articulated and allows them to make their contribution to our debates. The Welsh nation has a right to see its interests protected through adequate representation in the House of Commons.