Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Richard Shepherd Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

The difficulty about thresholds in the Labour movement is that, for instance, I suppose one could have said that there should be a threshold for the election of candidates for the Labour party—or, for that matter, for the leader of the Labour party. I think that that would be inappropriate. When we have an election, we in the Labour movement have always proceeded on the basis of alternative vote—[Interruption.] To be fair, in the past, for a brief period, we used a single vote but then there was a run-off that was used for several years. For several years now—for several decades, in fact—we have used the alternative vote to select candidates when there is a single member standing. When there are multiple members, we use first past the post. The point that I want to make is that I do not think that it is appropriate to bring in a threshold at this time, but I fully understand that there are others who say that because of the way in which the Government are pushing forward with this legislation and because it is an implementing referendum, a threshold would be appropriate.

I think I can see the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr Shepherd) cogitating, so I shall give way to him.

[Mr Richard Shepherd (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)]

I was not cogitating—I was bemused by the rationality of the hon. Gentleman’s argument. If I understood it correctly, he was saying that there was a level of turnout that would not authorise, essentially, so dramatic a change in the public mind. If it does not have the authority of a certain percentage enabling us to claim that it was the will of the people, at what level does he think that should be set? There must surely be a level for such a profound constitutional change to be authorised, as was suggested with reference to the union movement, for instance.

[Chris Bryant]

To be honest, I would prefer us to have a written constitution in which all those elements were laid out, but that is not what is before us tonight. One could go around this Chamber and see on what proportion of the vote of the total electorate any one of us was elected—after all, the proposition in amendment 197 is that one would have to be elected by a proportion of the electorate. I think that that would be inappropriate. We have a system in this country where someone either wins or loses the vote. There would be a strong point in arguing that this should not be an implementing referendum, but merely an advisory referendum. The House would therefore be able to take a decision on the basis of what turnout there had or had not been. I would hate to see the campaign simply to boycott the referendum that would almost certainly arise from those who are opposed to a change.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Laing]

He is never here for these debates—never at all. The Minister has entirely taken the responsibility for all this and the Deputy Prime Minister has been here only for the first half hour of Second Reading—that is all—and I do not suppose we will see him at any other point in the debate. I have listened to him however, and he has said, as the hon. Member for Rhondda has said this evening, that it would not be fair to count potential electors who do not vote as no votes. The hon. Member for Rhondda has also said that those boycotting the poll would be counted as no votes, and I entirely accept that.

[Mr Shepherd]

This is a very important point. There was an old rule right through history that with proposals for a big change, those who did not vote were expressing that they were satisfied with the existing arrangements. Does my hon. Friend agree that if one believes in change, one votes for change, and that if one does not believe in change there is no incentive to do so because one is consenting to the existing arrangements?

[Mrs Laing]

That is the crux of the matter. People who want a change in our constitution will go out on 5 May—I suppose that it will be 5 May—and vote for change. People who do not go out to vote for change can reasonably be presumed not to want change. However, I accept that the issue could be made clearer, rather than allowing the argument about boycotts and no votes, so we have tabled amendments 197 and 198, which would require 25% of those who are entitled to vote—just a quarter—to vote yes for the referendum to be binding. That is a very modest requirement and a very low threshold.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Shepherd]

The only question that has really worried me in the middle phase of my parliamentary career is the extent to which the constitution has changed in my time in this place. This Bill represents the old politics as we know them, and it is extraordinary for those whom we represent to hear the expression “new politics” while the same old methods, the same old tricks, the same old imposition of will and the same number of guillotines pour out of the Executive. That is rich, because it happens each time the House changes. The right hon. Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan) has made the most important point of all in the old discourse: all this has no mandate. No one in the electorate has expressed a view on it, and no one even raised it with many of us during the course of the general election.

I pay tribute to the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) for carrying this Bill. I have never been present during deliberations on a Bill when its protagonist or originator does not deign to attend the Commons—[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”] No, let us get to the point: not only that, but he is incapable of making the argument for it. We have been left with my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary having to refer to the coalition agreement—the image of gold. There will be some in the house who remember the story of Nebuchadnezzar, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. They created an image of gold. And what is the image of gold? It is the coalition agreement. It did not serve them right, and it does not serve us right.

My question is, as always on constitutional matters: in what way does the Bill enhance the position of the electorate vis-à-vis representation in the Commons and the Executive? I do not find that the Bill enhances that in any way. In fact, it goes out of its way to ensure that that is not enhanced. It reduces the number of elected representatives, for a start. That, as has been pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing), means that the influence of the Executive vis-à-vis the Commons as a whole is increased.

Behind that, as we know, there are more captured people than merely those who aspire to the Executive. There is the Opposition, with their regiment of Whips and those who are expected to follow their own parties into the Lobby. There are very few independent souls in the House, and we have heard them in the course of the discussion of the Bill. That is the one good thing about the Bill.

I do not recall a Minister who has so cavalierly dismissed his responsibilities to the House—[Interruption.] I do not want to over-emphasise that point, but the country should know that we have never had such a poor demonstration on a major constitutional Bill. Furthermore, this was as guillotined a Bill as we could arrive at. We had what we now politely call a timetable motion—No. 4, only yesterday. That is the way the passage of the Bill has been run.

Hundreds of amendments have been pushed in because the Bill was incomplete and not thought through. The consequences were not weighed. How could they be weighed? The Minister leading on the Bill, the Deputy Prime Minister, is unaware of the arguments that take place here. The Bill will be sent down to the House of Lords, and there is an argument that was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest—what business is it of the Lords, the electoral rules and regulations of the House of Commons?

Yet I am on my knees, and freethinkers in the House are on their knees, hoping that the Lords will have a view on whether there was propriety in the purposes behind the Bill. That is why I want to see—I hope to see—that House rise up and say, “This coalition image of gold is rubbish. The Bill does not reflect the settled will of the House of Commons”—that is what it amounts to—“nor does it reflect the needs of our people to have their own distinctive form of representation.”

These islands, these countries that form this Great Britain, have different traditions, different allegiances. My father said a long time ago that there are many Englands, just as there are many Scotlands, many Waleses, and so on. Each is particular. I represent the west midlands, which was the manufacturing heartland of the United Kingdom. For a brief moment this was the greatest, richest, most powerful nation on earth. Those are the same people whom we represent. Have we enhanced their rights, their power over the decisions of Government, their influence in the House? The Bill has not done that; in fact it diminishes those. I shall gladly vote against it, and I hope the House will join me in the No Lobby.