House of Lords Reform Bill

Debate between Nick Clegg and Lord Blunkett

Monday 3rd September 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman seems to be delivering answers to his own questions, so I might be redundant in this, but he is correct that, unlike on House of Lords reform, where we had a commitment to deliver legislation, and indeed elections, come 2015, in the coalition agreement we are sticking to retaining legislation on boundaries, for which, by the way, as I know he is meticulous about such things, there was no timetable stipulated in the agreement. On boundaries, we are, I suppose, strictly speaking, adhering to the coalition agreement, unlike on Lords reform—[Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman wants a detailed answer and I am giving it to him. There is little else going on this first afternoon back at Parliament.

The hon. Gentleman is right to say that, because the primary legislation is still on the statute book, there is nothing in my power to stop the work of the boundary commissions, but I have made it clear that, since I think I reasonably believe that the constitutional reform package was exactly that—a package—and since this is the first time that either of the coalition parties has been unable to deliver on a major coalition agreement commitment, it is therefore right to rebalance things and not to proceed with an unbalanced package.

[Mr David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

Substantial reform of the House of Lords, way beyond that proposed in the Steel Bill, could have been possible with 100% agreement across the House, had the Deputy Prime Minister chosen to take that route. I ask him this simple question: as the boundary changes have been linked to dropping the House of Lords Reform Bill, will Ministers under Liberal Democrat auspices—his Ministers—be asked to abstain or vote against boundary changes?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I have made it very clear that all Liberal Democrats, whether Front Bench or Back Bench, will vote against the changes coming into effect before 2015. On the right hon. Gentleman’s first point, I wonder whether he could advise the House on what more the Government could have done to seek to understand what a cross-party approach would be. We convened cross-party discussions on seven occasions when the coalition Government were first formed. We published a White Paper and a draft Bill. We convened a Joint Committee, allowed it to continue its work for months and months, and adopted the vast majority of its recommendations. We chopped and changed our legislative text, taking on board suggestions from Opposition and Government Members. For the right hon. Gentleman to say that that was a capricious exercise unilaterally conducted by the Government ignores the painstaking work put in by the Minister with responsibility for political and constitutional reform, my hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), me and many others to try to generate proper cross-party support for this now long overdue measure.

House of Lords Reform (Draft Bill)

Debate between Nick Clegg and Lord Blunkett

Tuesday 17th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

We discussed this in the cross-party Committee. It is precisely to avoid competition between the two Houses that the Bill and the White Paper propose different systems of election, different geographical constituencies—the Lords would not represent constituencies in the way that we understand in this House—and non-renewable 15-year terms. Bicameral systems in other countries show that, as long as the mandate and the term in one House are very different from those in the other, an asymmetrical relationship can be preserved.

[Mr David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

The stated aims of the proposal are clearly legitimacy and accountability. How would an election system that leaves the electorate unable to understand who they have elected add to legitimacy, and how would accountability be aided by 15-year non-renewable terms, during which there would be no power of recall for the electorate? Is it not true that a mandate given to the second Chamber would reduce the mandate of this House?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I remind the right hon. Gentleman that the insight that it is best to have long non-renewable terms in the other place in a reformed House of Lords precisely to avoid such conflict with the other place was not established by the present Government or the cross-party Committee I chaired; rather, it is an idea that has enjoyed consensus from the days of the Wakeham commission onwards. If we look at the proposals from a cross-party group of MPs, which were given considerable support by the previous Labour Government in 2005—the “Breaking the Deadlock” proposals—we find that a preference was made not only for non-renewable terms of between 12 and 14 years, but for the single transferable vote. These are not new proposals: they are drawn from a lot of insights identified by others from all parties in the past.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nick Clegg and Lord Blunkett

Tuesday 27th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I agree with my hon. Friend that far too little progress was made by the previous Government in dealing with this issue. We will accelerate the process of individual electoral registration, and we will make announcements about that shortly. Our whole approach to this is governed by two principles: first, to bear down on fraud in the system, of which individual electoral registration is a key component; and secondly, further to improve the completeness of the register itself. If Members in all parts of the House have particular ideas about how the annual canvass can be improved, the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), who is responsible for constitutional reform, will be keen to hear their views. That is why we are having the pilot scheme this autumn to allow electoral registration officers to compare the register with other databases, go to the homes of people who are not on the electoral register and ensure that they get on to the electoral register.

[Mr David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

Perhaps the Deputy Prime Minister would turn his mind to the reality of what is about to happen with the boundary changes that we have been discussing. Is it not a fact that this is a straight gerrymander, and that if he meant what he said, he would delay the boundary changes until there was a full 100% compulsory register based on the reality of where people actually live so that we do not end up with the distortion of taking away seats in inner-city areas?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

The right hon. Gentleman talks about straight facts; here are some straight facts. Last December, Islington North’s electorate was 66,472. Just 10 miles away, East Ham’s electorate was 87,809. It cannot be right to have constituencies in which the worth of people’s votes is so very different from place to place. Fairness is a simple principle that should operate in our democracy. He should also be aware that 218 of the existing constituencies are already within 5% either side of the 76,000 threshold that will operate when the boundary review is conducted. In other words, more than a third of Members here are already in line with the new rules. What on earth is wrong with fairer votes across the whole of the country?