Fixed-term Parliaments Bill
Richard Shepherd Excerpts(14 years ago)
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Jonathan Edwards
In our view, the decision should be made at the appropriate level.
There are four-year electoral terms for the National Assembly for Wales, the Scottish Parliament, the Northern Ireland Assembly and all other devolved bodies and councils. The arrangements should be the same for the UK Parliament. We do not yet know when we will be voting for the House of Lords, a principle whose implementation we have been awaiting for quite some time, or for our police commissioners—an idea that excites no one save those on the Government Benches. The five-year terms of the European Parliament are an aberration from our electoral norm. The proposals in the Bill would also be an aberration.
A four-year Parliament beginning in 2014 would have the advantage of avoiding the problems associated with clashes between UK general elections and those of the devolved legislatures, which are many. The Bill has been presented to Parliament as a fait accompli, with no good reason as to why the next election must be in 2015 and why there must be five-year Parliaments. Political expediency is not the best principle on which to base good law-making. I fully support the concept of fixed-term Parliaments, but I cannot support a five-year fixed-term Parliament that will have strongly negative effects on democracy. I hope that the UK Government will see sense on this matter and respond positively to this suggestion, rather than putting their head in the sand and trying to brazen through a five-year parliamentary term without consensus in this House or among the other Parliaments in the UK. We shall be pressing amendments 11 and 12 to a vote, and we will not support clause 1 if it remains in its present format.
Mr Richard Shepherd (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)
I shall support all those amendments that propose a four-year fixed-term Parliament, and in so doing I shall invoke someone who when I was growing up was considered a great Liberal. Mr Asquith spoke in the Chamber that preceded this one, and, in a recent debate on 21 February 1911 on the Parliament Bill which was to change the Septennial Act 1715, he said:
“In the first place we propose to shorten the legal duration of Parliament from seven years to five years, which will probably amount in practice to an actual legislative working term of four years. That will secure that your House of Commons for the time being, is always either fresh from the polls which gave it authority, or—and this is an equally effective check upon acting in defiance of the popular will—it is looking forward to the polls at which it will have to render an account of its stewardship.”—[Official Report, 21 February 1911; Vol. XXI, c. 1749.]
Asquith’s reasons have been borne out in all the years since then. The average length of a Parliament is not far off four years, and his points relate to the electorate. None of the constitutional proposals of the Deputy Prime Minister—who I again note is not following his own Bill on the Floor of the House of Commons—strengthens the position of the electorate versus the Crown as represented by the Government. The proposals are therefore abandoning the principle that a Government have the authority to govern but must be mindful that there is a time after which the electorate should make a judgment on the actions, activities and success of that Government. That is all being cast out for what I believe to be a profoundly cynical purpose: the entrenchment, or attempted entrenchment, of a particular Parliament for five years. That requires a Bill. I do not know whether it is possible to present clause stand part arguments on the basis of parliamentary privilege and the series of very serious arguments that lie behind what we are discussing.
Mark Tami
The hon. Gentleman hit the nail on the head when he said that the Bill was really all about the current Parliament, and about holding the coalition together. No thought has been given to what it actually means for the future; it is just about holding the coalition together today.
Mr Shepherd
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his support. I believe that that will be the wider judgment. What was reflected in a previous Bill is emphasised in this Bill.
The Bill has not, of course, received pre-legislative scrutiny in the traditional way, but nor did Asquith’s Bill. That Bill was an attempt to bring together the threads of our constitutional history. What distresses me most about this constitutional arrangement, and the actions of the coalition Government, is that they think that we are all back-of-the-envelope legislators who set aside the traditions and history of our own constitution. They are trying to legislate for something that I believe is unnecessary. A Government last for as long as that Government can command a majority in the House of Commons: that is a fundamental constitutional proposition in the Parliament Act.
Mr Mark Field
My hon. Friend will know that I share many of his fears about the Bill, along with the other constitutional change that has been proposed. However, in so far as we are to have fixed-term Parliaments, might it not be regarded as even more cynical if we moved away from the five-year norm which has, as my hon. Friend says, been in place for the last 99 years, even if that five-year norm is a maximum?
Mr Shepherd
The point is that the coalition Government have set their heart on five years, so that is the proposition that we are examining. I was trying to advance the arguments that were presented to the House as recently as 1911, but the post-1945 chart, featuring 17 or 18 elections, shows that, in all but four cases, the average length of a Government has been about four years. The principle behind that is fairly closely related to what Asquith said. It is right that there should have been a recent renewal of a Government’s mandate; it is right that a Government should be mindful that they face an election. But if we are to adopt fixed-term Parliaments, what is the right period, given that the Government concerned command a majority in the House?
Mr Mark Field
In fact, there have been 17 elections since 1945, and the average length of a Government has been three years and 10 months. Does my hon. Friend agree that when the four-year term has been the norm, that has been because a Government have gone to the country at the time that they feel is best for them, whereas when a term lasts for the full five years, that has generally been because the Government in question had very little choice? In other words, there has been an element of expediency—one might even call it cynicism—behind the actions of Governments who have used the maximum five-year term for their own benefit.
Mr Shepherd
There is, of course, no question about that in my mind. Governments will try to engineer an election at the moment that is most convenient for them, although it may not be the best point in the cycle of public opinion, or relate to the sense of the House as a settled House.
Mr MacNeil
The hon. Gentleman said that Asquith’s Bill did not receive pre-legislative scrutiny. Does he agree that we might be more relaxed about a lack of pre-legislative scrutiny if the Government were willing to reach out, listen, and take ideas on board—considered ideas that were not on the back of an envelope? May I suggest, in the context of new clause 4, that whether we support four years or five, it makes sense to allow other legislatures in the United Kingdom to alter, or tweak, what they are doing in relation to either Westminster or a five-year term?
Mr Shepherd
There is a simple amendment which the hon. Gentleman did not table, and which was not discussed in the lengthy and closely read speech of the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards). That amendment would state that the general election must take place on, let us say, the first Thursday in October. That would meet the point for which the hon. Gentleman argued at such great length—that he should not have to deal with the coincidence of elections on the same day. He did not table that simple amendment, however, and as it is not on the amendment paper I cannot speak to it.
I find Professor Blackburn a most interesting speaker on the constitution. In the evidence he gave in a memorandum on electoral law and administration, he makes the following point:
“In the UK, there can be little doubt that the period between general elections should be four years.”
That is what we are debating now, and it is arguable. He continues:
“The proposal for fixed term Parliament as a whole should fit as closely as possible into existing constitutional expectations, and the idea that four years is about the right length of time between elections is very prevalent. It was the period expressly approved of as being normal in practice, when the Parliament Act set the period of five years as a maximum.”
That is a reference back to Asquith. Professor Blackburn goes on to say:
“In an ideal democracy it may be that there should be elections as frequently as possible—even annually as supported by the Chartists in the eighteenth century”.
The hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Austin Mitchell), who is present, has tabled an amendment proposing a period of three years, and we could refer back to the Chartists, so it is clear that these arguments were not unfamiliar at different times in the history of this country. There was an argument that we should have annual elections; that was a powerful movement in the early 19th century. It was thought that Parliaments and Governments must not move too far from the opinion of the public and the electorate.
Tristram Hunt
Professor Blackburn’s speech is particularly interesting, because he goes on to say—[Interruption.] Well, I will let the hon. Gentleman read it out then, because the key point is in the following paragraph.
Mr Shepherd
I have lost my place as a result of the hon. Gentleman’s intervention, so let me recap what Professor Blackburn said:
“It was the period expressly approved of as being normal in practice, when the Parliament Act set the period of five years as a maximum. In an ideal democracy it may be that there should be elections as frequently as possible—even annually as supported by the Chartists in the eighteenth century—but a government must be allowed a sufficient period of time in which to put its programme of public policies into effect before submitting its record of achievement, or otherwise, to the voters. Three full legislative sessions, and certainly four, is sufficient for this purpose.”
I believe that that is correct.
Chris Bryant
I agree with the point made in that quotation; indeed, I was going to refer to that passage in my speech. For the sake of accuracy, however, I should point out that the Chartists were really in the 19th century, not the 18th. I hope that that does not invalidate the historical record.
Mr Shepherd
What a trivial point, but I thought I had said the 19th century. I stand corrected if I did not, and I am sorry if I misinformed the Committee. [Interruption.] No, I do not think I was quoting at that point. [Interruption.] I said the 19th century, I think. I am well aware of that fact; it was part of my own training.
The central issue, however, is the legitimacy of Governments and the determination of what is the right period for enabling the people to have a view, and control, over the Crown as represented by the Government in this place.
Mrs Anne McGuire (Stirling) (Lab)
I apologise for interrupting the hon. Gentleman. I can see from his face that he is not particularly happy about it. However, may I ask him to make his position clear? Does he feel that there should still be flexibility in the calling of elections, or does he support a four-year term? I am a little confused as to where he is taking his argument.
Mr Shepherd
I am sorry if that is the case. I am speaking in support of those amendments that call for a four-year Parliament, as opposed to the Government’s position, which is that there should be five-year Parliaments. I accept, of course, that Governments face exigencies. We well remember that Mr Blair postponed an announced date of an election because of a nationwide country alarm over foot and mouth disease. There has to be an element of flexibility for such circumstances. War would clearly alter the schedule for elections too, and Parliament has within its means the ability to extend the period at such times, because this is the sovereign body for the United Kingdom. That point should be borne in mind: however much I may rejoice in Scotland and the Scottish Parliament, in Wales and the Welsh Assembly, and in the arrangements in Northern Ireland, the Westminster Parliament is the fount of the authority under which national elections for this place are held. Therefore, although the House should bear in mind any exegesis on inconveniences, ultimately it is for those of us who are sent here by the people to represent them to decide what is in the interests of the United Kingdom as a whole in the formation of a Parliament that holds to account the Government whose Members sit on the Treasury Bench in this House. That is all; I am, in truth, making a very simple argument. I think four years is more appropriate than five. That is what this is about. I think there is sufficient flexibility.
I have cited certain authorities, such as Professor Blackburn and Asquith. I do not want the argument to be lost to a lot of academic writers, however. Professor Hazell at University College London is a former civil servant; he worked in the Cabinet Office. I want to hear about the great constitutional writers who informed past debates, but that is singularly missing when this House comes to discuss what is right. We do not talk about the experience of previous times.
What is the reasoning behind this clause? It appears to suit the personal convenience of a coalition. Most people I meet see and understand that perfectly well. Why would we support such a measure if we are representing the people and the interests of this House of Commons? That is the burden of the arguments I am putting forward for a four-year term rather than five years.
I also want to repeat that I regret that the Government have made no case for five years. That has been a major omission in all these constitutional debates. They assert, without authority or reference to anything, that the needs are such that five years is somehow a more suitable period. By and large, I do not believe in international comparisons, but I note that most modern democracies—the United States, for instance, with its 200-year-old constitution and President—work to a four-year cycle in determining who is to be their chief executive. The United States works to a six-year cycle, with third terms, for the Senate, and a two-year cycle for its equivalent body to our House of Commons. Our tradition has been different.
Mr Mark Field
Does my hon. Friend not appreciate that if we are to have a fixed-term for this Parliament, five years is the only acceptable period? If any other term had been proposed, that would have been felt to be entirely cynical. Is not my hon. Friend’s argument essentially that these changes should be put in place only for future Parliaments? We were all elected on 6 May on the basis of a set of rules for getting rid of a Parliament and for the terms and duration of it. These proposed measures for fixed-term Parliaments should take effect for future Parliaments; they should not bind this one.
Mr Shepherd
I was elected under the law as it then stood, and I expected that the length of term in place at the time would apply. I also expected that any Prime Minister would make decisions in that context. As well as my question of the relationship of the electorate to the House of Commons to the Executive, there is another that hangs over this entire argument: why do we need any of this? What improvement does it bring to the current position?
Mr Shepherd
The proposal suits the Government for their own purposes, and that is why the nation at large is cautious, as are many Members on both sides of this Chamber.
Mr William Cash (Stone) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend appreciate that many of us may well be cautious, because although we are concentrating on the question of a fixed-term Parliament, when we move on we will be examining the question of an early general election and questions of confidence—confidence in whom and for what? We will also deal with whether such questions should be decided by a simple majority or one of two thirds. These hugely important questions go straight to the heart of the future of this Parliament.
Mr Shepherd
My hon. Friend is, of course, right. This is a hugely important constitutional Bill and we should not doubt that. Every commentator of any serious worth has noted that this is an enormously important constitutional issue and we will try to tickle out its ramifications, including for parliamentary privilege, within our very tight timetable. What he says is true and just, and we should listen to it.
Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)
I note my hon. Friend’s observations about America. Of course, its terms really are fixed: the Senate cannot alter its six years, the President cannot alter his four years and Congress cannot alter its two years. What we are saying, which is consistent with the Parliament Act 1911, is that five years would be the expected norm. As my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash) notes, at least two mechanisms could bring an end to a Parliament should this House decide, so we are stopping the Prime Minister from having an election early for expedient purposes. Instead, we are saying that there should be a five-year term, as suggested in 1911 and as used by several Parliaments afterwards—
Mr Shepherd
I make the gentlest of suggestions to my hon. Friend that he misleads himself. I provided the quote from Asquith which set out the position as the House then understood it, and it has turned out, by and large, to be correct over the intervening years. I do not want so to close down the options of this House that when a Government fail or cannot command a majority there is not a general election, as such an election is necessary for the public will. However, as the long title makes clear, we are looking at a Fixed-term Parliaments Bill and the suggestion on the table is for the term to last five years. I do not understand where my hon. Friend is coming from if he thinks that in 1911 the proposal was for a full five-year term—it was not.
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
This is a most intriguing debate and my hon. Friend speaks with great passion and impartiality about these important matters. Surely this Parliament can opt for a five-year Parliament but it cannot bind future Parliaments. Should those Parliaments wish to change the arrangement, they will be able to opt for a four-year or a three-year Parliament, or whatever they should wish for at the time.
Mr Shepherd
But the options are closing. This measure is part of a constitutional package. We passed a piece of legislation that may introduce a new electoral system and that may ensure that no one party has an overall majority in the future, so to say that we are able to change something will be a matter of great negotiation across the Floor of the House. That is why I am very cautious about accepting changes to established norms and constitutional practice as we have experienced it over my lifetime and since 1911.
Pete Wishart
The hon. Gentleman talks of Asquith, but may I bring him up to date with perhaps a less illustrious modern Liberal, the Deputy Prime Minister? Does the hon. Gentleman agree that this measure is all about survival? It is about a Liberal deal to try to get this coalition through and not at all about any great, grand constitutional reform. It is about the survival of the Liberals in this Government.
Mr Shepherd
We all draw our own conclusions, and I suggested something. What we are clear about is that the Deputy Prime Minister has just repudiated Liberal Democrat—as they now call themselves—fixed positions on two Bills. The first was the voting system, and the Liberals are doing the same on this measure; they had a fixed position but it is gone. We ask what the motives are, but there is no point in my attributing motives—the world and its wife will do that for us, so we do not need to worry about it.
What we want to maintain is the constitutional right of the people we represent and the balance of power within this Chamber between the Opposition and the Government, and between Front Benchers and Back Benchers. All that is now at risk and has been for a long time. We have to have that respect in ourselves back in this House; we have to believe that we can talk to Government freely and frankly. The purpose of my speech was, in part, to create a debate, rather than just to make a statement of fixed positions, because the calibration of each Member of Parliament is an important right in itself. This House must find that when dealing with something that most of us have not experienced before: a coalition. One party of that coalition took no part in the negotiations that formed what I call the “image of gold” but what is known as the coalition agreement; no one on my side formed that, other than those who are now in the Executive. So this matter is very difficult and very sensitive, which is why people are very delicate about it. However, we are now dealing with the substance of our old constitution and the merits of that, and it is its merits that I believe are stronger than the proposals put forward by the coalition.
Austin Mitchell (Great Grimsby) (Lab)
I rise to speak to amendments 7 and 8, which stand in my name and ask for triennial Parliaments. That makes me feel positively like a constitutional Trotskyite, coming forward as the blazing radical in this song and dance for a five-year or four-year term. Amendment 11, which proposes a four-year term, is perfectly acceptable as it is a good amendment. The hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr Shepherd) quoted from Asquith’s powerful and effective speech. I was going to refer to it at length, but I shall not now do so because he has given us it pretty well in full. That speech set out that in legislating for five-year terms the then Liberal Government were actually saying that the expectation would be for earlier elections, so that was to be a maximum term, not the norm. The provision before us attempts to create a norm of five years.
Austin Mitchell
None, but perhaps people will not vote for a candidate because he is too old and might not last a full term. The hon. Gentleman is right to say that the issue is not frequently raised, but there is a feeling, and there was at the end of the previous Government and at the end of the Major Government, that the Government have gone on too long. That is what I want to avoid.
There is a feeling among the public that they want us to go back to them more frequently. They want to meet us more frequently. They want us out there in the streets, canvassing more frequently. That is why I say that more frequent and regular elections are basic to democracy. They put the people in power and they make the politicians prostrate before the people. The people can tell us what they want, and that is what it is all about.
The role of the House, as the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills said, is to hold power to account—to hold the Executive to account. We do not do it very well because, with a party majority, the Executive and the Prime Minister drive a steamroller through the House. Mrs Thatcher would shout down at us “Get out of the way,” and we would tremble. With John Major, the steamroller wandered all over the place, but the Executive are still powerful.
The only real way of holding power to account in this country is to put it before the people more regularly in triennial elections and give them the power to throw the rascals out—give them that choice every three years. That is basic to democracy.
Mr Shepherd
And does not the Front Bench demonstrate the point that the hon. Gentleman is making? There is not one Cabinet Minister in attendance on an issue of constitutional principle. There is no one arguing or representing the Administration in a proper sense on a major Bill. As he well knows, I respect the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), but the point is made.
Austin Mitchell
I accept that point from my hon. Friend. It is a shame that even the Deputy Leader of the House has gone out to check whether he supported four years when he was a constitutional affairs spokesman—or was it three and a half? He is probably on his BlackBerry now, checking the figures. It is demonstrably wrong that a Government should propose to the House a basic alteration to the constitution, which has enormous constitutional repercussions and which has not been discussed or properly assessed or pre-digested, force it though by a party majority, and not bother to attend the debates to speak in favour of it.
Thomas Docherty
I welcome you to the Chair, Miss Begg. As I sat here this afternoon and this evening, I saw my hon. Friend the Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan), my right hon. Friend the Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan), my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) and hon. Members on the Government Benches, and I had a feeling of déjà vu. I felt that we had been here quite recently, and it occurred to me that that was so.
We had a debate in Committee just three weeks ago—[Interruption.] As the hon. Member for Foyle said, it was to discuss a Bill with a different title, but one that also sought to change our parliamentary system. There are perhaps only two reasons why the Government did not amalgamate them in a single Bill. First, this is a back-of-a-fag-packet rushed job that they have pulled together, but they could not get their civil servants to work fast enough for the Deputy Prime Minister. I note that he is not here tonight, and I can only assume that after his 70-minute contribution to our eight hours of debate on the other Bill he is exhausted. I am sure that Opposition Members wish him all the best in his recovery from that exhaustion. The second reason could be that the Minister so enjoys spending time on Bills that he has been bouncing around all week in eager anticipation of listening to me and my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda giving him an interesting lecture on constitutional history. Without further ado, I will indulge not that fetish, but that fantasy.
I was lucky enough to go on the visit by the all-party British-American parliamentary group to the United States some two months ago, and spent a lot of time studying the US constitution, and especially its constitutional convention, which is particularly apt given the comments by the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr Shepherd) about interesting parallels between our parliamentary system and that of our colonial cousins across the water. I have to confess to being something of an anorak in these matters. In fact, I have been described as the Leonard to my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda’s Sheldon when it comes to the constitutional process.
I should like to recommend to the Committee an excellent book by Professor Robert Beeman called “Plain, Honest Men: the making of the American constitution”, which I would be happy to lend to the Minister and to the Deputy Leader of the House if they would like to study it. They might be interested to know that when the Americans came to draw up their constitution and were considering the lengths of terms of office and the roles of the upper and lower Houses and of the Executive, they held a four-month constitutional convention in 1789. They brought together some of the great minds of the day, including Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and one James Wilson, who was a native of Fife and educated at St Andrew’s university, and who emigrated to the colonies in the 1750s. They spent four months debating those matters, and only at the end of that time, after a proper detailed debate, did they deign to bring forward detailed proposals for their terms of office, fixed terms and so on.
Mr Shepherd
I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not forget one of the very important constituent parts of that whole debate—namely, the federalist papers. They laid out the arguments for the wider public, which were fiercely debated with proposition and counter-proposition. That was a formidable ingredient that involved an awful lot of people.
Thomas Docherty
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that point, and I apologise for not having touched on it. He is entirely right to say that the work of the likes of Madison and Hamilton was crucial, but that there was also a great debate. They did not try to rush their proposal through.
Mr Harper
I am not going to give way to the hon. Gentleman. He has not been here for most of the debate, so he can just stay in his seat.
The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) effectively makes the case for Prime Ministers being able to cut and run. The current Prime Minister is the first one who has put aside that ability in the move to a fixed-term Parliament.
Mr Shepherd
My hon. Friend sets aside the words of Asquith, who predates any shenanigans on the matter, but will he consider the fact that the longest-serving Prime Minister of the last century was Lady Thatcher? She had four-yearly elections like a metronome, so there is experience of the concept of Prime Ministers believing that four years is an appropriate time.
Mr Harper
I am glad that my hon. Friend mentions Baroness Thatcher, who of course was a great Prime Minister and served this country well. I remember the elections that she called in 1983 and 1987, which she won with resounding majorities and continued to serve the country. I am sure that if she were here, she would agree that when she asked Her Majesty the Queen to dissolve Parliament, she thought about the likely consequences of those elections and the likelihood that the Conservative party would be returned to office. She was a politician—a very successful one—and I do not think I do her a disservice if I point that out.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
Richard Shepherd Excerpts(14 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
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.
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.
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.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
Richard Shepherd Excerpts(14 years, 1 month ago)
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Natascha Engel
I thank my hon. Friend and neighbour for that intervention; he is absolutely right. By a happy coincidence of timing, on Friday week—on 29 October—the UK Youth Parliament will, for the second time, have its annual sitting on these Benches. Last year, when the UK Youth Parliament so controversially sat on these Benches, it debated four subjects and had a vote at the end to decide which subject was the most important to it. The subject that came out on top by a long way was lowering the voting age to 16. Those are 11 to 18-year-olds who are democratically elected through their youth services, and who have a lot to say on the issue. A lot of us who were here and who heard them speak were very impressed, but the issue has not gone anywhere.
The Youth Parliament is about to return, and it would speak volumes if we said to them, “We heard what you said last time round. We know that this matters to you, and we have today voted to ensure that 16-year-olds can take part in this unique referendum. We will give people the vote at 16, at least partially, on this one-off occasion.” The 16-year-olds can then demonstrate themselves that the move strengthens democracy, rather than undermines it.
To end on a positive note, I really hope that we all vote for the amendment, especially those parties which had votes at 16 written into their manifesto and campaigned on the issue at the general election. I hope that those people, at least, will find their way into the Aye Lobby. I hope that they understand how important the issue is to those who are 16 on the day of the referendum, and who really care about the issue and about having their voices heard on that day, so that when they take part in the general election at the age of 18, they will have voted for the system in which they are taking part.
Ms Primarolo, I hope that you understand how important the issue is. We are in a new Parliament, and we have lots of Members who are much closer to the age of 16 than Members were in the previous Parliament. It would be great to test the mood of the Committee, just to see where people stand on the issue, because it really matters. This is the last act of discrimination that we really need to get rid of. We need to widen the franchise, and this is a fantastic opportunity to do so.
Mr Shepherd
This is an important group of amendments, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale West (Mr Brady) and those who signed up to them. It seems extraordinary to most people when one says, “But you don’t have to be a British citizen to vote in a national election in Britain.” It is, by and large, a remarkable thing. It may be a post-imperial legacy, or there may be other reasons, but that is what this issue is about.
We are holding this debate on the Floor of the House of Commons because it is a constitutional debate, and it therefore affects our rules and our sense of self-governance. I am particularly grateful for the amendments because in his remarks my hon. Friend mentioned the various criteria that enable people to vote in very important elections in this country.
Mr MacNeil
I am listening with interest to the hon. Gentleman. I have already given an example to which there has not yet been an answer—of the Irish citizen from Northern Ireland living in Scotland. What about the children of those who have left the islands of Scotland and gone off to Australia or New Zealand? I know some people who have done so. Those children are the children of UK subjects and have the title of British citizen. Are they entitled to vote, although they have never lived in the UK, when those who have come here and are materially affected by what is happening would not be allowed to vote?
Mr Shepherd
As for those who have emigrated, and possibly even taken up Australian citizenship, I would say no. Why should they? They have made a declaration.
Mr Shepherd
I do not want to engage in an exchange across the Chamber of the kind that we have just had. I respect the hon. Gentleman’s opinions, but it seems that we are talking about a central, small part of an issue: what constitutes British citizenship? It is not as defined in 1947 any more, and there has been a whole series of extensions to that definition. Now, European—not British—citizens can determine how local taxes are arranged in the borough or elsewhere.
This is a question that would, frankly, have been startling to many people, certainly when I first came to the House. The numbers are huge: 3 million new British citizens have been created since 1997, and I do not see them returned on the electoral register. It has not leapt by that number. I want to assert the essential concepts of citizenship, because the Bill is, in the end, about our citizenship; it is about voting processes and how we elect a Government, and it explores the idea of a five-year mandatory Parliament. However, the essential issue here is who should vote. That is all it is about.
Mr MacNeil
Is the hon. Gentleman saying that somebody who holds British citizenship because of their UK-subject parents—I know that these are funny terms that are kind of inconsistent—and who has never lived in the UK should be able to vote in the referendum and that those who live here should not?
Mr Shepherd
I am using common terms, and I hope the hon. Gentleman will forgive me for that. I understand British citizenship as a link by birth to a country. I also see it as the sentiment of the individual. As I said, there have been 3 million new British citizens in 13 years, and it is not impossible for them to express that sentiment and qualify for citizenship. I did not want to be distracted down the routes along which the hon. Gentleman was trying to lead me. I feel that we have started on a question and answer session, and that was not my intention.
Sammy Wilson
I understand what the hon. Gentleman is saying, and I totally agree with him. One of the prices for taking part in elections in the United Kingdom ought to be that someone is a citizen of the United Kingdom. Given that principle, with which I agree, does he consider that amendment 60 sits uneasily with it, in so far as we are making exceptions for people who opt for Irish citizenship and yet would be entitled to take part in the referendum to decide on the kind of voting system that there should be for British elections?
Mr Shepherd
In a sense, there are two parts to that. One is sentiment. Let me illustrate that the other way round. I take the Crossland example. It is not a bad one, and concerns the American wife of a British politician. She lived here for many years, was married to a British citizen and wanted to vote in British general elections, her husband being a leading Labour politician. That was impossible for her under her citizenship of the United States. It was absolutist. The United States has given way on that and recognises that American citizens can retain their American citizenships while voting, in certain circumstances, in a British election. There is their concept of citizenship. Where is ours?
What is the basis of our great universal appeal? It is the formation of our own society and its integrity—the integrity of our view of the rule of law, the constitutional tradition, the way in which we change our laws, and so on, which are mostly unknown to those who come from foreign parts, who are here temporarily, but qualify under the terms of our existing arrangements.
The Government have opened up this great can of worms, in the sense that by putting the Bill on the Order Paper as a constitutional measure, they are inviting people who do not necessarily have any attachment to the concept of the United Kingdom or the integrity of its institutions to vote. Why? If we were to do a poll on this—my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles) seems to rely on the stars of polls—most people would be very confused by what my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale West said as he listed the various categories which, on the various sections, may vote for this, that and the other.
The amendment is important and I will most certainly vote for it. There should be a duty to ensure that everybody is validly on the electoral register. That is not funded properly. Local authorities maintain that they cannot afford to do it. Mine are already allocating numbers, because they have a small grant, of those who should go out to get people to register. One can look at any electoral register—I see it in my own constituency—and two missing residents jumps to eight, which jumps to 10 or perhaps 14. There are all those missing residents, and not just residents, but citizens.
When constructing the boundaries that will come from the Bill, we do not know what that will mean in terms of equality of boroughs. Some 95% of immigration into the United Kingdom is into England. It is concentrated in cities and in certain areas. Illegal immigration, as we know, is very high. Statistics are adduced for that. Immigrants who come from a Commonwealth country and speak English often apply to go on to an electoral register. They need it for other reasons, to show that they are householders and so on. Under the terms of the Bill, they will vote. It may not be lawful that they should vote, but there is no mechanism by which we can identify whether they are entitled to vote. I shall support the amendment.
Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)
I shall contribute briefly in support of amendment 332 proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel). Like her, I speak as a former 16-year-old, and also as a former chair of the all-party group on youth affairs. It is important that in this debate, hon. Members in all parts of the House are listening to the organisations representing young people who, as she said so eloquently, have been campaigning for many years for the principle of votes at 16.
I was 16 in 1983, and there was a general election that year which some of us remember only too well. I stood in a mock general election in my school and I came fourth as the Labour party candidate, although 14 years later perhaps made up for it by winning in that same constituency in 1997. I cite that because in my experience 15, 16 and 17-year-olds are often extremely interested in politics. The case that has been made for votes at 16 is about recognising the rights of citizenship that include the right to vote in elections.
The referendum gives us a first opportunity to try out the notion of giving votes to 16 and 17-year-olds. As a supporter of that, I am confident that it will work and that many 16 and 17-year-olds will choose to participate, for the reasons that my hon. Friend gave. Those who are more sceptical will have the opportunity to see whether it might not be quite so successful in practice.
My hon. Friend, who was subject to many questions and interventions, made the case clearly as to why it makes sense for 16 to be the age at which the limit is set. Of course, as she said, it is to some extent an arbitrary age, as is any age. An age lower than 16 would be problematic and would raise practical issues about the registration process, as hon. Members have said, whereas we already ask 16 and 17-year-olds to put their names down when placing people on the electoral register each year. As my hon. Friend the Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) said, it is a straightforward proposition to suggest that 16 and 17-year-olds should be entitled to vote in the referendum.
Mr Harper
Fiji has been suspended from the Commonwealth, and the usual practice is that in such cases we do not take steps to remove the right of qualifying citizens from those countries to vote in our elections.
It is worth saying that the right of Commonwealth citizens to register to vote is restricted in electoral law to qualifying Commonwealth citizens—those who do not require leave to enter or remain under the immigration legislation, or those who do require leave but have it. I say that because my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills suggested that in some constituencies significant numbers of illegal immigrants had managed to get themselves on to the electoral register and that there was no duty on electoral registration officers to do anything about that. But that is not the case. Electoral registration officers have a duty to maintain an accurate and complete register and to inquire whether people are eligible to be—
Mr Shepherd
Of course, there is no money. The state of the register is as I reported in my speech. There are many people in that situation, and he cannot disprove that—any more than I can prove it—because no efforts are made to identify whether a Commonwealth citizen who applies to go on the register is here lawfully.
Mr Harper
I would say two things to my hon. Friend. First, money is provided to local authorities as part of their normal funding, and it is a matter for the local authority to decide on priorities. In his own case, if he is dissatisfied with how the electoral registration officer is conducting himself, I suggest that he speaks to the chief executive of his local authority and makes those strong representations.
Secondly, given our proposals to move to individual voter registration in 2014, we will be improving the registration system and making it much more difficult for people who are not entitled to be on the register to be on it. I have written to local authority chief executives to ask them to take part in data-matching pilots in which we can, first, identify those who are more likely not to be on the register who should be, enabling authorities to target their resources on them and, secondly, target voters who should not be on the electoral register, to enable authorities to ensure that the register is not just complete but accurate. So there are two avenues there that my hon. Friend can pursue.
I want to address the argument made by the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel), whose amendment 332 would extend the franchise to 16 and 17-year-olds. As I said, our approach has been that the people voting in the referendum should be those entitled to vote in a Westminster election. She, perfectly reasonably, is continuing her long-running campaign, supported by a number of hon. Members, to lower the voting age. As I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale West, I do not think that experimenting with the franchise in this Bill is the right way to go.
Many hon. Members will know my views on lowering the voting age, but—on a note of agreement—my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol West (Stephen Williams) is right. He is a firm advocate of lowering the voting age in elections in general, but he acknowledges that trying to do that in this Bill, for one specific referendum, is not the right thing to do.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill (Programme) (No. 2)
Richard Shepherd Excerpts(14 years, 1 month ago)
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Mr Richard Shepherd (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)
It is a bit rich that the hon. Gentleman should repeat the same arguments as those that he listened to and swept aside when he was in a position to affect the outcome of such a debate.
I am going to reflect on an irony. Along with every other Member, I participated in the last general election. The Deputy Prime Minister—who at the time was leader of the Liberal Democrats—repeatedly made a point about the “same old politics”. That became a mantra, and I remember that his poll rating went up when he referred to it. Yet here we are having the same old politics announced from the Front Bench under his direction; this is his Bill. This is a constitutional measure, which we all understand is of considerable importance. It affects the constituencies, their nature and the nature of representation, and the way in which a Member is elected to this place. I can think of nothing as constitutionally profound as this—leaving aside European legislation—in all the time that I have been here. In addition, it is intended not to be unwound if it is won—that is the point behind it—so why are we looking at the same old politics?
This motion is a guillotine: that is what it is, straight and simple. We need not waste time debating whether it is half an hour short here or two hours short there, or whether we lose part of the debate because of the importance of various clauses. This should have been allowed to roll in this House for as long as it took. That was the constitutional rule almost—
Mr Shepherd
Yes, it was the convention, but conventions have been swept away. Again, that was largely done by the Labour Front-Bench teams of the past 13 years, and one does not now hear the word “convention” used in the House. We have no cause, urgency or reason to accept a guillotine such as this. I must tell the Deputy Prime Minister, through my hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), who is a very respected member of the Conservative party, that I shall not hesitate to vote against the Deputy Prime Minister’s guillotine motion.
Fixed-term Parliaments Bill
Richard Shepherd Excerpts(14 years, 2 months ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister
We are seeking to strengthen and reinforce the powers of this House. The motion of no confidence will be passed by this House, and it will be up to this House to decide whether any subsequent Government constituted within a very short period of time—within two weeks—deserve to continue to be supported by this House. If Members of the House do not wish to provide that support to that Government, the House can say no. That seems to me to be strengthening the powers of the House.
Mr Richard Shepherd (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)
I am obliged to the Deputy Prime Minister. Will not all we have in those 14 days just be an auction of offices and promises and the usual making of a Government? [Interruption.] No, I did not mean it in that sense.
In Gibbon’s “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, a succession of Caesars were bought and sold by the praetorian guard. Is that what this constitutional reform programme amounts to?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I really think that my hon. Friend is reading too much into the provision. The existing arrangements on votes of no confidence are fairly similar to what we are proposing. First, the vote will be precisely as it is now—50% plus one. Secondly, a new Government can be asked to be formed after that vote of no confidence.
The Deputy Prime Minister
No, not necessarily; that is not an automatic consequence of the existing provisions. We are giving the House a new power, passed by two thirds, that would force an early election and the Dissolution of the House.
Mr Straw
Let me say first, for the avoidance of doubt, that I have made no protestations of virginal innocence, and would never seek to do so.
The two Bills are certainly not cognate, but they are linked in the sense that they are the price that the Conservative party agreed to pay in order to stitch together this very curious coalition. I am glad, in saying that, to receive the approbation of many right hon. and hon. Members on the Government Benches. In any event, the idea that this Bill had to be bashed through very quickly was blown away by this morning’s announcement.
Mr Shepherd
Given that the right hon. Gentleman is giving us a catalogue of what is wrong with the Bill and what is difficult about it, how can he vote in favour of the principle of the Bill as drafted and lying in front of the House of Commons, rather than voting against it as a matter of principle? It does not strike me as amenable to satisfactory changes in Committee, even if the good will of the Government were there for the purpose. Why is the right hon. Gentleman not standing by that principle, and demonstrating that this is an unsatisfactorily prepared Bill?
Mr Straw
It is an unsatisfactorily prepared Bill—on that the hon. Gentleman and I are in absolute agreement—but we may be in disagreement on the principle of the Bill. I have done many things from the Front Benches in 30 years to seek to justify difficult positions and have emerged upright at the other end, but with a commitment as clear as daylight in our manifesto—of blessed memory and only five months old—that said, in terms, that the Labour party would introduce legislation for fixed Parliaments, it would have been a bit tricky for me to have come to the House and opposed the Bill. [Interruption.] The Deputy Leader of the House may say that that did not worry me a week ago. But it did. [Laughter.]
There is a serious point. Had the subject of this Bill been tied up with a proposition with which we wholly disagreed—as with the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill, where the Government could and should have separated the alternative vote and boundaries issues—that would have been different. As I explained to the House this time last week, I would have been delighted to vote in favour of the Bill if all that it contained was part 1. The Deputy Prime Minister knows better than me why he has decided to put alongside that proposition—one that was broadly agreed—an entirely separate and unrelated proposition wholly to change the agreed and consensual way in which we have set boundaries in this country for many years, a manner last amended by this House not under Labour, but under the Conservatives.
Mr Howarth
It is always difficult to speculate about what would have happened at a given time if the vote had gone in a different direction. I know for a fact that the then Prime Minister, Tony Blair, had taken the view—it is now a matter of record—that he would have had to stand down as Prime Minister. That would have changed the leadership of the Executive and the political leadership of the country. How that would have affected the imminence or otherwise of a general election is impossible to judge, because the arithmetic of Parliament would have stayed the same. I am not sure whether the hon. Gentleman meant that to be a helpful intervention for the Government, but I do not think it serves that purpose at all.
Mr Shepherd
It is inconceivable and against our traditions that a Prime Minister who proposes a war with the support of his Cabinet is defeated and does not depart the scene. There would have to be a general election. That is our tradition, that is the convention, and that was our constitution.
Mr Allen
There are so many flaws in the Bill’s drafting. The Committee, on the hon. Gentleman’s behalf, has done as good a job as it can in pointing them out. I hope that all of them will be put right during the Committee stage, as they could be put right if we were to have a special Public Bill Committee or a proper pre-legislative process. However, that is currently not the case. The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point, and one that should be addressed by the Government as the Bill proceeds.
The other thing about a fixed-term Parliament is predictability and continuity. Instead of permanent politics-as-entertainment, in which there is speculation about impending general elections and people feed tittle-tattle and gossip to raise or lower the political temperature, we will know that we can get on with serious business while knowing the date of the next general election and putting such considerations aside. That is something of great importance, and would lead to us as parliamentarians being able to seize greater control of what we do in this place on a number of issues, rather than being engaged, even at arm’s length, in speculation about when an election will take place.
Mr Shepherd
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman and his Committee, and for the evidence that it has taken. However, what concerns me—one of the witnesses makes this point in a written statement—is that we are talking about piecemeal constitutional change. The Labour and Conservative parties are dedicated to an elected House of Lords, for instance. How does a five or four-year term—or whatever it is—fit into the broader picture for us? That is what bothers me, so to talk about a piece of piecemeal legislation—and to ask the question “Cui bono?”—is not good enough.
Mr Allen
Perfection may be the enemy of the good in this case. As parliamentarians, we are feeding on the crumbs from the table, and I guess that this is as good as we can do. The choice is not between the Bill and a big-bang written constitution that solves all the problems in one go; the Bill is what is on offer, and as supplicants in the process, we can only try to make it a better part of this piecemeal change. Unfortunately, we do not have the option of something much more fundamental; and indeed, I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman would really want that. However, perhaps he does, so I will follow his speech with interest.
The other thing about predictability and continuity is that they give Governments the chance to decide their programme and work through their Bills much more effectively. This helter-skelter “throw it into the mix” way of passing legislation debilitates Governments of all parties. Let there be proper evidence-based policy making—probably for the first time in our lifetime—so that the Government can put things to the House of Commons that are almost fully formed, rather than throwing them in and saying, “We’ll hope to amend them as they go through this House and the second Chamber.” Instead of saying, “Let’s botch a few things and get hundreds of amendments down to try and get the Bill into shape,” how about having proper, considered, evidence-based policy making from the Government, which would then be immensely strengthened by proper scrutiny by the House? Who loses in that process?
Some might say, “It’s going to delay things,” but we did this. Indeed, a classic example from when Labour was in power was criminal justice Bills. We popped them out virtually once a year because we had not got it right the first time, but we also had to get something before the House and show that we were fighting crime. I think we can all do better than that. If we used the process that is readily available to us to consider legislation carefully, the Government would amaze themselves at the Bills they could produce for the House and the House would amaze itself at the contribution it could make by having proper scrutiny of how legislation develops.
We have proposed, on an all-party basis, that there should be 12 weeks of pre-legislative scrutiny. To his great credit, the Leader of the House has written to the Liaison Committee saying that Bills should normally have a 12-week evidence-taking pre-legislative scrutiny period. If we can get the so-called new politics to deliver on that, so that every Bill goes through that process, we will produce much better law. However, if we just ram things through the House of Commons, it will be business as usual and legislation will be flawed. Those who throw in the bogey of the courts coming and lurking in the corridors of the House of Commons will find their wish fulfilled, because there may indeed be flaws in the legislation. I hope we will iron out all those wrinkles this week and in the days on the Floor of the House, but if we are not careful and if we do not have the right level of scrutiny, we may get what we wish for.
Mr Richard Shepherd (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)
Four minutes to go. Thank you, Sir.
Bills of this nature rankle. If I think about it seriously, this looks like an attempt to entrench a Government. On that basis alone, I would vote against it, as it is not my intention to prolong beyond its natural life, the life of any Government. I have listened to two interesting speeches, which I contrast. The first was that of my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg), which took me back to the schoolroom. I listened carefully; this was the constitution I learned as I was growing up. The speech also reminded me of my undergraduate years, and of when I came here and saw all those things cast aside by a simple vote.
Tony Benn has articulated more clearly than anyone else that it is no longer the monarch that is crucial; the Crown resides in Downing street. That is what this Bill is about and, in a sense, has always been about. We changed our Administrations by slaughter on battlefields and then we evolved a constitution. I will follow that constitution to the end.
I have no problem with fixed-term Parliaments, but how does the Bill relate to the constitutional programme put forward by an inept Deputy Prime Minister who cannot bring coherent constitutional measures to the Floor of the House? How does this Bill integrate with the supposed reform of the House of Lords, which is going to be elected? All these issues need to be thought through, but that is not happening. That is why it is legislation on the back of an envelope. There is a cheerful cynicism about it, as my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles) suggested, and he is talking the truth.
This has always been a place that has had its machinations and purposes, with Governments striving to last for longer. Everything said by the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen), the Select Committee Chairman, was in a sense trying to identify what was the ideal. I have reverence for the constitution that was, but that went. We had 13 years of the Labour party bringing forth constitutional measures on the back of an envelope time and again. I saw the corruption of this Chamber. I saw the spirit of this House, which the Select Committee Chairman wants to revive. This House still holds all the power and sovereignty of this country should it wish to exercise it. That is all it has ever been about. If we conspire and work together, we can overthrow Governments, or Governments can come to the end of their time.
As I said last week, I support this coalition because it is the agent by which I hope to see sensible economic, budgetary responses to the dire situation we are in. However, we are confronted with the cheerful cynicism of the Front Bench: “How do we protect ourselves in office?” That is what I feel that this is about. I do not want the people of Aldridge-Brownhills, who sent me here, to be forced to live under a Government extended by an artificial device when that Government’s time has gone. The Government have the Parliament Act 1911, which gives them five years if they can make the course and hold the attention of each of us as individual Members from constituencies across the country—and I hope they can. However, they can do it without this half-baked legislation.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
Richard Shepherd Excerpts(14 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Richard Shepherd (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)
I am obliged to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. The point just made is crucial to the equation. Clearly, if we reduce the number of Members of the House of Commons, and not the size of the Administration, their control over the size of the House of Commons increases. That is the very thing that the House is struggling to address in the wider context of constitutional reform.
Mr Straw
I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman. I recall that when that point was put to the Deputy Prime Minister in the debate on the Queen’s Speech and he was asked whether he accepted that there should be a pro rata reduction in the number of Ministers and aides, he refused to give any commitment at all.
Let me return to the issue of public inquiries. Back in 2003, when the present Prime Minister supported the system, he had an opportunity to have his case put before a local inquiry. Under the Bill, no such right will exist in the future. Instead, all that the public are offered is a longer period for written representations, which is no substitute whatever for a proper examination, including oral evidence, before a judicially qualified chairman.
The Deputy Prime Minister said in the House a few minutes ago that there was no evidence that such local inquiries had changed the original proposals from the Boundary Commission. Again, he is not woefully ill-briefed, because he has a fine set of officials, but he is woefully ill-informed. The Boundary Commission’s fifth report for 2007 reported that local public inquiries had led to change in the original recommendations in 64% —two thirds—of the cases where proposals had initially been made. The right hon. Gentleman shakes his head. That happens to be the case, and the source for that is the Boundary Commission.
Mr Richard Shepherd (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)
When it comes to electoral systems, the question that I am most concerned about now, in this later phase of my membership of this House, is what system best secures the sovereignty of the people as expressed through Parliament. There is only one.
Since 1997, the extraordinary development of the constitution—often unconsidered and, in many instances, certainly without pre-legislative scrutiny—has been rammed through by a majority, and we now have, somewhere in the United Kingdom, one of the following systems of election: the single transferable vote system, the additional member system, the closed party list system and the supplementary vote system. If this Bill gets through Parliament, we will then have the alternative vote system in place of the first past the post. We have had all those developments, but there is no satisfaction.
Over a lengthy period, I have watched the parading of princes in this House of Commons. I have seen Governments come and Governments go, so my objective is the system that best protects the sovereignty of the people. I profoundly believe that it is first past the post, for the simplest and most obvious reason of all—you know how to get rid of the Member of Parliament. [Laughter.] No, I do not find that funny. It is one of the most important features of an electoral system. Furthermore, we best know how to get rid of a Government. To me, that is the conclusion of the whole argument on voting systems.
I remember fighting the then Conservative Government —Mr Major’s Government—over Maastricht. I watched a political class across Europe assert that it was a matter for the political class and not for the people. That is very much a German position. I watched as subsequently Mr Kohl lost his constituency seat, but still remained a member of the Bundestag because he was head of his party’s list.
That was the fault and the difficulty that confronted Roy Jenkins when he looked at electoral systems for this country. He found that the alternative vote system could be less proportionate than first past the post, so he came to the conclusion that alternative vote-plus was the answer, which meant that there would be an element of the party list system—the very thing that most throttles the dynamics of democratic expression in the European continent, yet that was the system he promoted. He spoke in Westminster Hall to try to seduce members of the Conservative party; he was singularly unsuccessful.
I will, without hesitation, vote against the Bill on that issue, if that is what I am required to do. There is no dancing around about supporting the coalition. I believe that the coalition was supported in my constituency when it was formed, as it was by me, because it had in its charge one central purpose: to restore the public finances and reduce an unsustainable burden of debt. That is what it was about. I was party to some of the discussions, only in the sense that we were hastily convened at odd hours to be told the latest draft of where the coalition was going. This measure was not part of that, so I shall vote against it.
On boundaries, as was well said by my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker), what is central is that the power of the Front Benches is increasing unstoppably. We now have a greater concentration, through that device, on our Front Bench, as well as on the Labour Front Bench. We can see that the free radical Back Bencher is an endangered species. That is why there is sourness across the nation, and that is why I will not vote for a reduction that would lose the continuity of counties, cities, towns and boroughs—the distinctiveness of the United Kingdom.
Finally, this measure is no constitutional process, it has not been seen in the round and it does not relate to what will happen in the House of Lords in four, five or six years. But we have been through all that. I urge colleagues to remember that we are all elected representatives. How can it be right to say, “I vote for this because of loyalty to the Fuhrer, the leader of a party”? Our loyalty is to the people who sent us here. That is in first place, so it seems to me inconsistent to say, “I damn the Bill, but I will vote for it in the hope that something turns up.”