Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Winston Excerpts

Monday 17th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tyler]

I have sat down.

[Lord Winston]

My Lords, perhaps I may interject, although of course I have not been a Member of the other place either. This aspect of the situation strikes me as odd, and perhaps noble Lords can explain it. In every other branch of employment that I have been involved with—in education, running an embryology laboratory, running a research laboratory, running nurses within the National Health Service organisation, looking after doctors and appointing them to a particular service within the NHS—we have tried to ensure that we employ the number of people who are needed to fulfil the employment that is there. As I understand it, no one in the discussion on the Bill seems to have actually asked the important question that some of my noble friends are asking: what is a Member of the House of Commons required to do in terms of his duty in caring for his constituency and representing it? Unless we can answer that question, it seems impossible to arrive at a satisfactory number for him to represent in a constituency.

[Lord Soley]

When I come to the next amendment, Amendment 59, I want to focus on how we decide the size of Parliament, which I think is a critical issue—more important than the numbers. One of the strands running through the debate is the question, “Why 600?”. The Government have not answered that, although they have a duty to do so.

I start from a position similar to that of my noble friend Lord Wills. I have argued before that there is a case for reducing the size of the House of Commons. The noble Lord, Lord Maples, expressed a similar view. Although I do not agree with all that the noble Lord said, there is a case for it. I seem to remember the noble Lord, Lord Baker, arguing the same thing when we were both in the House of Commons. No doubt he will correct me at some stage if I am wrong, as I may be on this, but I think that he argued at the time that the size ought to be agreed by all parties concerned. That is one of the important principles that we will come to.

The issue of the figure of 600 puzzled me, and I began to look at the background to this. The issue is not new; there has been a debate about the size of Parliament for years, as people have mentioned, but it became more intense in the early part of this century. One of the people who put it in perspective was the Conservative MP, Andrew Tyrie, who in 2004 wrote the Conservative Mainstream document called Pruning the Politicians. After the expenses scandal the phrase became “culling the politicians”, which says a lot about the strength of feeling on the issue. It bubbled away along the lines of the arguments in that document. In an article in the Independent in March 2008, Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, argued that we should cut the figure by 150.

Andrew Tyrie’s document is well argued. I do not agree with a lot of the statistics in it, where I think he has left things out about the nature of how other countries represent people within their borders, but he makes a good case for reducing the size of Parliament. However, he does two things that are very important, and I hope we will cover them more fully in the following debate on my Amendment 59. First, while he does not say that there should be all-party agreement, he says that the changes should be agreed with the Labour Party; I would change that to “agreed with all parties”. Secondly, he says that if you reduce the size of Parliament, you must reduce the size of the payroll vote as well. That is very important but is not dealt with in the Bill.

My problem with the numbers issue is that, whatever number you choose, whether it is 600, 650, 550 or whatever, it is like pulling on a loose cord on a jumper—if you pull too hard, you suddenly find that you are wearing only the sleeves. The problem is that the number in your Parliament affects a whole range of other things in your constitution. That is why this issue is so important and is a constitutional matter, and it is why I would have liked the Government to have accepted the amendment of my noble friend Lord Wills, which was drawn up by someone who had the experience and knowledge of Government to do just that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

I seem to recall that I started to get into this territory last week on the same circumstances. I was quickly told by a noble Lord opposite that I speak here for the Government rather than for an individual political party. I am unaware of any modelling that shows a political bias to the Labour Party or the Conservative Party and I am certainly unaware of what bias there might be to the Liberal Democrats. I have reflected on the point that both coalition parties were committed to a reduction in the size of the House of Commons and, although that pledge was qualified by the context in which it was made by the Liberal Democrats, I think that there is a general view that that should be the direction of travel.

Another issue that has generated considerable debate is the relative increase in the workload of Members of the other place. I think that the noble Baroness, Lady Liddell, called for some scientific analysis of that, but my noble friend Lord Baker of Dorking indicated that, in his experience from having been first returned as a Member of Parliament in the 1970s, I think, there is a considerable difference in the resources that were made available to Members of Parliament by the time that he left the other place. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester mentioned that there are now opportunities for Members of Parliament to communicate electronically with their constituents in a way that has never been possible before. It is a continually changing scene.

For me, the reason why a scientific analysis could never bear fruit—apart from the fact that it would produce 650 different responses—was evident in the exchange that took place between the former, esteemed Speaker of the other place, the noble Lord, Lord Martin of Springburn, and the noble Lords, Lord Rooker and Lord Campbell-Savours. The noble Lord, Lord Martin of Springburn, indicated that, as a Member of Parliament post devolution, if he received an issue that was properly the matter of the Scottish Parliament, he passed it on to the MSP or, if it was a council matter, to council officials. He also said that he did not answer everyone on a petition. Frankly, having been a Member of the other place—indeed, for a short time, I was the Member of Parliament for Shetland but not the MSP for Shetland—I would have done exactly the same in those circumstances. I do not think—although I may have done so once or twice—I generally made a habit of responding to everyone on a petition. However, the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, immediately took issue with that point, as did the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours. If two very senior former Members of the other place can take issue with the position of the former Speaker of the other place and both sides are being absolutely honest in their approach and about how they would do their work, how in the world is anyone going to quantify or evaluate what the workload of a Member of Parliament should be? There would be a wide divergence over what individual Members of Parliament think should be the case.

At the end of the day, the judge and jury in such matters are one’s constituents, when one seeks re-election. They know how well a Member of Parliament has represented their interests over the previous lifetime of a Parliament.

[Lord Winston]

The noble and learned Lord has addressed the question that I was about to ask. Is it not the constituents who matter? Is not that one of the issues with which we are faced? Should we not try to assess this in a more rational way? I do not really think that the analysis needs to be scientific, but it should be based on evidence. Earlier, the noble Lord, Lord Baker, cited Germany and one or two other places, where there is a completely haphazard and arbitrary method of representation. Perhaps if we were to have a really satisfactory Parliament, we would try to research what would be ideal to ensure that constituents are represented and looked after better.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

In my experience, different Members of Parliament have different ways in which they think they should address their constituents’ problems and issues. It would be invidious to say that one was right and one was wrong, because different people can take a different approach. That may relate to the character and personality of the individual Member of Parliament, which may also determine what is right and what is wrong. At the end of the day, the constituents should decide.