Constitutional Law

Debate between Tom Greatrex and Alan Reid

Wednesday 24th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Tom Greatrex (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is always a pleasure to follow the Minister. As he explained, this order has been in preparation for a considerable time and it forms the final part, I think, of the Government’s response to the report undertaken by Ron Gould on behalf of the Electoral Commission following the 2007 Scottish Parliament elections. The length of the measure, at more than 200 pages, is explained by the fact that it is a consolidating measure, and much of its content is uncontroversial and, I am sure, will assist the various interested parties required to implement its provisions. However, we have concerns about the manner and timing of the measure’s introduction to the House and about the fact that it is being manipulated to form part of a wider legislative change that has been marked by excessive speed, political opportunism and a concerning scarcity of competence.

The measure—all 200-plus pages of it—should have been in place prior to the six month pre-election period as specifically recommended by the Gould report. I noted that the Minister in his opening remarks danced around the Gould recommendation about when it should have been in place by referring to consultation, but as the Minister well knows, the recommendation was that it should be in place, rather than it should have been published or made available to various individual electoral administrators. I also recall that the Minister was fulsome in his welcome for that recommendation in a previous life.

We are considering this measure in the final week of November, despite the fact that the Government have had since mid-May to take it forward and, as the Minister said, much of the work on the measure was in train under the previous Government. The Minister failed to explain satisfactorily why that is the case, and perhaps I can venture to suggest that it may be something to do with the yellow rush of spurious and ill-conceived constitutional change the Government are rushing through before their implications are widely realised. It is therefore little wonder that solid and necessary measures such as this one do not get priority treatment, even though Government Members have been aware for more than three years that it should be in place six months ahead of the Scottish Parliament elections.

In between reading this order in detail this morning, I read some of today’s newspapers and learned that in what will no doubt come to be considered our esteemed Deputy Prime Minister’s seminal Hugo Young lecture yesterday, he declared in his typically erudite, modest and understated way that he is the intellectual driving force of the “new progressivism”, an idea that will, perhaps, eventually catch on.

New progressivism is, it seems, a new name for the old expediency of rushing through constitutional change without draft Bills, without pre-legislative scrutiny and without consultation with affected bodies, all of which are also features of what is no doubt the old progressivism of which the Deputy Prime Minister and his small band of followers were supporters prior to the general election.

[Mr Alan Reid (Argyll and Bute) (LD)]

I draw the hon. Gentleman’s attention to what happened when his party was in power. At the very last minute, just two months before the election, we had an order like this one that totally reorganised the ballot paper so that there were two columns on it. A complete mess was made of things, and the Labour Government were responsible for the biggest election fiasco ever in the history of this country.

[Tom Greatrex]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his excitable intervention. I am sure that he, in common with many other Liberal Democrat Members, was at the last election and previously a great fan of pre-legislative scrutiny and consultation, although I note that he now seems to be less enamoured.

Although we are considering this statutory instrument for the first time this evening, it is referred to, and already amended by, the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill, which has completed its Commons stages and is now being scrutinised in another place. The Bill—which, as I have said, refers to this statutory instrument—will permit the Scottish Parliament elections to coincide with the date of a referendum on AV, something which just about everybody other than members of the Government think is a bad idea. As the Minister noted in the latter part of his remarks, even the esteemed Ron Gould expressed his doubts on that matter. So the Commons has considered the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill prior to the statutory instrument to which it refers having been approved by the House of Commons. That is not only completely illogical, but it is contrary to standard parliamentary practice and represents a worrying precedent. The Minister was careful not to seek to explain it, perhaps because he is embarrassed at such a blatant political fix. Perhaps he will explain it in more detail in his later remarks. I am not an experienced Member or an expert on parliamentary process by any manner of means, but if this is a measure of the tactics used, it leads me to wonder how we are expected to undertake our role in scrutinising the Executive properly.

The Executive have made much of their “respect agenda” towards the devolved Administrations and Assemblies, so why have the Minister and his Secretary of State, who is absent tonight, singularly failed to consult the Scottish Executive on the clash of dates? The Scottish Parliament’s view was clearly expressed last week when, by 89 votes to 30, it said that the elections to which this statutory instrument relates and the referendum should not be combined. It seems that the “respect agenda” has been superseded by the old and regressive new progressivism.

I ask the Minister to address a number of questions about the content of this measure. The Gould report recommended the appointment of a chief returning officer. Why is that recommendation not being followed through? Surely one of the main problems identified by Gould was the inconsistency in interpreting the guidelines. I am sure the Minister will recall that as a result of the number of list candidates who applied to stand in the 2007 elections, the returning officers in both Glasgow and Edinburgh removed a line of instruction to the voter at the top of the ballot paper but failed to consult others prior to making that decision.

Why are the UK government not considering, as the current proposal from the Scottish Government does, putting the Interim Electoral Management Board on a statutory footing, despite the fact that it is now the main source of professional advice and co-ordination for all elections held in Scotland? Do the UK Government believe that there should be two separate electoral management boards in Scotland or that it makes sense for such a board to be formed but not deal with either UK or EU elections? What arrangements will the UK Government establish to co-ordinate returning officers and chief returning officers for the 2011 elections, and for subsequent UK and EU elections?

If the Scottish Government proceed to make the IEMB a statutory body for local and Scottish Parliament elections, what do the UK Government envisage will be the relationship with it if other elections are held on same date and if the Minister’s much-vaunted consultation on what happens in 2015 does not end up in any result? Who will be responsible for what? How are we going to achieve consistency in rulings and implementation of arrangements?

Why is this statutory instrument following the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill, rather than preceding it? Surely this statutory instrument should have been presented to Parliament before the Bill was introduced—there has been sufficient time for that following the general election. Will the Minister tell us on how many occasions a Bill that includes reference to a particular statutory instrument has completed its stages in the Commons prior to that statutory instrument being approved by this House? Does he not agree that this sets a dangerous precedent and attacks the ability of this House to scrutinise legislation properly?

Why is this statutory instrument coming to the House less than six months prior to the Scottish Parliament elections, despite the Minister’s acknowledged acceptance of the Gould recommendation that the rules should now be not merely published, but in place? Why are the coalition Government continuing with a joint ballot on 5 May 2011 when evidence and expert feedback suggests that the amount of spoiled papers will be higher? Surely that mirrors the problem identified in 2007 that multiple ballot forms can confuse, particularly those who are frail, those who have learning difficulties or those for whom English is not their first language. What testing has occurred and what methodology did it use? If the joint ballot is to be held on 5 May 2011, can the Minister clarify how the ballot papers will be set out? Will they be on separate ballots? If so, will they be on separate coloured ballots that have been tested and are acceptable for people with eye conditions? What testing will take place? Have all the proposed ballot papers been tested by the Electoral Commission? Have any discussions taken place with the Interim Electoral Management Board in Scotland about the dual poll? What concerns did it raise?

This statutory instrument rectifies the inadvertent problems in the previous election rules that prevented a candidate from being able to run as a candidate with a descriptor for two registered parties and use a registered symbol of one of those parties. I declare an interest as a Labour and Co-operative Member of Parliament. Perhaps in future elections those on the Government Benches may stand as combined party candidates. I therefore ask the Minister when that situation will be rectified for future UK elections as it has been for the Scottish Parliament elections.

On prisoner voting rights, will the Minister clarify when the Government intend to amend the franchise and whether that will occur before the 2011 Scottish Parliament elections? In their explanatory notes, the Government contend that they do not need to qualify their statement on the Human Rights Act 1998 because they do not consider the Scottish Parliament to be a legislature for the purposes of article 3 of the first protocol. Specifically, they mention the Toner case in regard to the Northern Ireland Assembly, in which a ruling has been made. Does the Minister not accept that the legislative competence and power of the Scottish Parliament is considerably greater than those of the Northern Ireland Assembly, and accordingly will he clarify further why the Government have now determined that the ruling will apply in Scotland? Why have the Government not adopted a precautionary approach and what estimate have they made that their interpretation will be subject to legal challenge?