(13 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
18:58 - The House divided: - Ayes: 331 / Noes: 238 - Question accordingly agreed to.
19:59 - The House divided: - Ayes: 31 / Noes: 549 - Question accordingly negatived.
21:59 - The House divided: - Ayes: 321 / Noes: 264 - Question accordingly agreed to.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr Mark Harper)
I beg to move Government amendment 18, page 3, line 1, leave out subsection (4) and insert—
‘(4) The polls for—
(a) the referendum,
(b) the general election of members of the Northern Ireland Assembly to be held on 5 May 2011, and
(c) the Northern Ireland local elections to be held on that date,
are to be taken together.’.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: Government amendments 19 and 44 to 46,
Amendment 222, in schedule 7, page 212, line 36, leave out from ‘combination’ to end of line 38 and insert
‘is to be the sole responsibility of the United Kingdom Government’.
Government amendments 47 to 179 and 22 to 43.
Mr Harper
These amendments update the combination provisions in the Bill to reflect the following draft orders, which were laid before Parliament by the Scotland and Northern Ireland Offices on 25 October: the Scottish Parliament (Elections etc.) Order 2010; the Northern Ireland Assembly (Elections) (Amendment) Order 2010; and the Local Elections (Northern Ireland) Order 2010.
The purpose of the amendments is to ensure that the combination rules in the Bill work effectively with the rules governing elections to the Scottish Parliament and the Northern Ireland Assembly, and local elections in Northern Ireland, in the event that the draft orders are approved by Parliament, as the Government hope. No amendments have been necessary in relation to the combination provisions for Wales. Although the rules governing elections to the National Assembly for Wales will be updated by the National Assembly for Wales (Representation of the People) (Amendment) Order 2010, if approved by Parliament, none of the amendments to be made by this order affects any rules relevant to combination with the referendum. This order was also laid in draft before Parliament on 25 October.
The majority of the Government amendments make technical changes to the Bill to pick up minor consequential amendments that have emerged in relation to the numbering, cross-referencing and terminology following the laying of the draft territorial orders on 25 October.
Amendments 18 and 19 are consequential on the laying of the Local Elections (Northern Ireland) Order 2010, which fixes the date for the 2011 local elections in Northern Ireland. There is no intended change in the effect of the provision; rather, the amendment brings the wording of subsection (4) more into line with that of subsections (2) and (3), which is possible now that the date of the elections has been set.
Amendments 22 to 30 and 32 to 41 are not consequential on the draft territorial orders, but are technical changes to ensure that it is clear which set of postal voting provisions applies when polls are combined in Wales and in Scotland. The provisions in schedule 4 to the Bill will not apply, because, following our amendments in Committee, the same job is now done by the combination schedules. Amendment 43 corrects an omission in schedule 4 to the Bill about the marking of postal voters lists and proxy postal voters lists in Northern Ireland.
While the majority of the amendments are minor and technical, the key exceptions are amendment 172 and amendments 177 to 178, which, for the first time in the combination provisions, set out the details of the joint issue and receipt of postal ballot papers in Northern Ireland. The chief electoral officer, with the agreement of the chief counting officer, will be able to decide to take postal ballot proceedings together in the three polls taking place in Northern Ireland. These amendments make the necessary provision for that process to work. If the chief electoral officer decides to deal separately with postal ballot paper proceedings in the three polls, the existing legislation, as amended by the two Northern Ireland Orders, will apply, largely unaffected by the Bill.
The amendments give effect to our agreed policy that when the chief electoral officers decides, with the agreement of the chief counting officer, that the issuing and receipt of postal voting ballot packs is to be combined for the referendum and the relevant elections in Northern Ireland, he can ask the relevant registration officer to produce a combined postal voters list and combined proxy postal voters list. The amendments also make clear who is entitled to be present at proceedings on the joint issue and receipt of postal ballot papers. They provide for all the ballot papers to be sent out and returned in the same envelopes, and they set out the procedure for forwarding and retaining documents related to the joint postal voting process—for example, declarations of identity, the proxy postal voters list and the postal voters list.
The postal voting amendments for Northern Ireland also include the creation of two new forms of declaration of identity that can be used for Northern Ireland Assembly and local elections, when proceedings on the issue and receipt of postal ballot papers are not combined. Equivalent forms already exist for England, Scotland and Wales.
Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)
When people receive the envelope containing their postal vote, will they therefore need just one person to attest to their signature for all three votes, or will three separate witness signatures be required—one for each ballot paper?
Mr Harper
There are two stages to the process. If the chief electoral officer and the chief counting officer agree to combine the issue of the postal votes, which is a new procedure in Northern Ireland, everything will be sent out in the same envelope, and the same person will then be able to attest on the ballot paper. The whole point is to make the combination of the two elections and the referendum in Northern Ireland work as smoothly as possible. That is the most significant change in these combination provisions, and I hope that it will help the proceedings in Northern Ireland.
Amendments 156 and 157 include revised forms for the postal voting statement for the Scottish Parliament election, when the issue and receipt of postal ballot papers is not combined, and for the statement on the postal ballot papers that have been issued and received in Scotland for the referendum on the voting system. This takes into account the changes that were made to the forms for Scottish parliamentary elections by the Scottish Parliament (Elections etc.) Order 2010.
The rules relating to the conduct of the elections next year are governed by the elections orders I have set out, and they will be debated in Parliament, following the usual procedures, in the near future. If Parliament agrees the orders, the relevant changes to the combination provisions enabling the referendum to be combined with them are in these amendments, which I shall ask the House to agree.
Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)
Do the amendments take into account the possibility of the Scottish parliamentary general election next year not being held on Thursday 5 May?
Mr Harper
If that election were not held on the same day, we would not be combining the referendum with the Scottish Parliament election. The combination provisions will be required if the elections take place on the scheduled day and if the referendum is also held on that day. The elections can then be combined so that they are more efficiently run and provide a considerable cost saving to the taxpayer.
Mark Lazarowicz
The Bill provides for the polls for the referendum and the Scottish Parliament general election of 2011 to be taken together. If, under the Scotland Act 1998, the Scottish Parliament election were to be held in March next year, would the referendum in Scotland be held in March as well?
Mr Harper
The provisions enable the referendum to be combined with the election, if they are taking place on the same day. Given that they are scheduled to take place on the same day, the provision is clearly sensible. If an eventuality arose under the Scotland Act causing the Scottish parliamentary elections not to be held on that day, the two would not be combined. The Bill does not change those provisions in any way. Indeed, the conduct of the elections is to be determined by the elections orders, which this House and the other place will debate in due course. These provisions are about how to combine the referendum with the conduct of those elections. I hope that that is clear.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
I notice that the instructions set out in amendment 156 ask voters to complete the ballot paper and form “in black ink”. Is the same instruction in the original Bill, and by building this provision directly into the Bill would we invalidate the ballot papers or forms of voters who chose to use another colour of ink?
Mr Harper
The proposed forms are set out in the Bill, but some changes are necessary to reflect the changes in the election orders. I have the provision in front of me, and it says:
“Please write clearly in black ink.”
We had this debate earlier and I have said that if a clear intention has been set out by the voter, the returning officer—or, in the case of the referendum, the counting officer—will allow the vote. The view is usually taken that voters should be included rather than excluded. Clearly, the instruction is intended to make it as easy as possible to read the votes.
Kevin Brennan
I appreciate that. The Minister might be able to elucidate later whether the requirement for black ink was part of the original instruction. My fear is that when something is written directly on the face of a Bill, it is sometimes open to a more literal interpretation than the Minister has indicated would be the normal practice. If not now, perhaps he could clarify the point later.
Mr Harper
All the forms for elections are usually set out in secondary legislation, but we have set them out in primary legislation. The legal effect, however, would not be different. Another provision we adopted earlier to make the forms more understandable and accessible to disabled people was to allow the Electoral Commission to vary not the ballot paper, but the forms, to make them easier to use. If the Electoral Commission felt at a later stage that any of the forms were difficult for people to use, it would be able to amend them. As I said, however, that does not apply to the ballot paper.
Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister gave evidence to the Welsh Affairs Committee. Has he any comments on the concerns that were expressed about the possible coincidence of the alternative vote referendum and the Welsh Assembly and parliamentary elections, given that some people might choose to have a postal vote for only one of those? Officials feared that that would generate horrendous administrative problems that would undermine the democratic process on the day.
Mr Harper
I do remember giving evidence to the Welsh Affairs Committee and I enjoyed it tremendously. I was sorry only that the experience was too short.
I do not remember whether the hon. Gentleman was present when we debated the postal vote provisions in Committee, but the Government decided that the most sensible arrangement would be for standing postal vote provisions for a United Kingdom parliamentary election to kick in automatically for the referendum, but for that not to apply to people with postal vote provisions for a different election.
When voters receive their polling card, it will helpfully set out for them the elections and the referendum to which their voting entitlement applies—that will deal with the circumstances in which there are different franchises—and will also make clear how their postal vote has been set up. They may not have one set up for the referendum, for instance, but they may have one set up for a local election. That will enable them to take action at that stage and, if they prefer to vote by post, ensure that they can do so in the elections and the referendum.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
Form 4, which appears on page 245 of the Bill, results from an amendment that the Minister tabled to the original Bill. There is now a new form, which appears in amendment 156. Why did the Minister not simply table amendment 156 in the first place, given that the forms are very different?
Mr Harper
As I said earlier, the changes that we have tabled today to the combination provisions reflect the changes in the conduct of the election orders that were laid before the House. We wanted to ensure that it was as easy as possible to combine the polls, and that the instructions given to voters for the referendum and the elections were aligned with each other. The original amendments and combination provisions were based on the law as it was before the territorial orders had been laid. I think that that is quite straightforward.
Chris Bryant
Obviously I understand the process—as I am sure the Minister has foreseen, it is one of the matters on which I shall express my disagreement with him—but the requirement for people to write in black ink, which was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan), is not included in the form that appears in the amended version of the Bill, but is included in the form that appears in the amendment. Why was that change made?
Kevin Brennan
I do not want to push the point too far, but it is a serious point. Normally, people are issued with a pencil at polling stations. Given that, as the Minister has confirmed, the “black ink” instruction did not appear in the original version, I am intrigued that it has suddenly found its way into this version. Will people be required, or instructed, to use black ink at polling stations? I fear that that could lead to unnecessary confusion: that is the only point I am making.
Chris Bryant
Let me deal first with the process. The Minister referred to statutory instruments. All the amendments we are discussing, bar the one tabled by members of the Scottish National party, were tabled by the Government, and they cover some 28 pages of the amendment paper. They were not tabled because the House demanded amendments, or because the Government said in Committee that they would consider probing amendments and return with further amendments on Report. They have been introduced because the Government have gone through a process of putting various carts and horses in the wrong order. I fully recognise that I am not as versed in country ways as the Minister, who represents the Forest of Dean, but I recognise when parliamentary procedure is being put in the wrong order, and it would have made far more sense to have proceeded with pre-legislative scrutiny and proper consultation with the devolved Administrations in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and then to have proposed legislation in draft form. We should bear it in mind that not a single devolved Administration wants a combination of polls next May, but if the Government’s view is nevertheless that they wish to push forward with that, against the wishes of the three devolved Administrations, they can then introduce statutory instruments to make provision under the Scotland Act 1998, the two Wales Acts of 2000 and 2006 and the Northern Ireland provisions. They would do that first, and the proposals would then be considered in this House and the House of Lords and, if agreed to, the Government would introduce the final version of their Bill. Instead, because the Government are running at an inappropriately fast pace for this kind of legislation, there has been no consultation whatever with any of the devolved Administrations—with either the Assemblies or the Parliament or the Executives or Governments in each of those nations.
There has been no process of consultation on the Bill, but there has also been no process of consultation on the orders. The Scottish Parliament (Elections etc.) Order 2010 is some 205 pages long; it is not a minor tome. It includes measures on election expenses, disputed claims, corruption, entreating, the control of donations to candidates, the appointment of election agents, the requirement of secrecy, the breach of official duty, tampering with nomination papers, and personation and other voting offences. I am sure the Government will say that this entire matter is a reserved responsibility and that it is for the Westminster Government to decide, but it would have showed greater respect for the devolved Administrations if they had consulted them before the orders were laid.
Mr Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)
On the consultation issue, I know from experience that regular meetings used to take place, and presumably still do, between the First Minister in Wales and the Secretary of State for Wales, and I guess that the situation in Scotland is the same. The meetings take place frequently—sometimes once a week, or even more—so there is no reason why there cannot be dialogue and consultation at a relatively early stage. Can my hon. Friend explain why even the most basic communication has not taken place?
Chris Bryant
I cannot give any explanation for that. All I know in relation to the Secretary of State for Wales is that, with regard to another matter, I asked on the Floor of the House in June for a meeting with her on a cross-party basis and she said she was quite happy to have one as soon as possible. The first date that was provided was this afternoon. The Secretary of State did not turn up and her officials had booked the wrong room. It is therefore quite possible that if any consultation on the matter under discussion had been planned, it would not have actually taken place.
Mr David Hamilton (Midlothian) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that nowhere will he find a requirement that a discussion should be held if the boundaries in Scotland have to change—yet again? There should also have been a discussion with MSPs about the Scottish boundaries, and about local authority areas. That would have made more sense in terms of our working together and coming up with a solution that is not a patchwork quilt.
Chris Bryant
Or, indeed, just a muddle. One of the things that Welsh Members have been trying to say during the discussion of this Bill is that on the combination of polls, lessons need to be learned from the situation in Scotland, where the boundaries for MSPs are no longer coterminous with those of Members of Parliament. In addition, in Scotland but not in England or in Wales, wards are being split between constituencies because of the local government arrangements that have been made as a result of large single transferable vote wards.
Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)
My hon. Friend, like many others on the Opposition Benches, will have sat through proceedings on large Bills with a huge number of clauses and schedules. When a lot of late amendments are tabled, that is, in general, a tribute to the civil service, who are working through the night and burning the midnight oil to draft them. However, we have come to recognise that it is also a symptom—not unique to this Bill—of legislation that is not ready. My concern, which I hope is also the concern of those in the other place, is that this may not be the last we will see of batches and pages upon pages of amendments. I hope that those in the other place will act on that concern, because this is rushed legislation.
Chris Bryant
My hon. Friend, and near neighbour, is absolutely right about that. Interestingly, the Scottish Executive have made direct representations to the Secretary of State for Scotland about the statutory instruments, as has the convener of the Local Government and Communities Committee in the Scottish Parliament. So it was a bit disappointing to see the reply from the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland , which said:
“I would however like to personally reassure you that Scotland Office officials are working closely with the Cabinet Office; the Electoral Commission; the Interim Electoral Management Board for Scotland; and electoral administrators to ensure that both the referendum and the Scottish Parliament election will run smoothly on 5 May next year.”
I do not think that that represents the respect agenda originally referred to by the Prime Minister, and it does not really represent new politics either. I fully understand that the hon. Members for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath) and for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) complained bitterly about the way in which we introduced legislation, but introducing it in a way that does not allow amendments to be properly considered in a timely fashion or in the proper order is a ludicrous way of doing business.
Kevin Brennan
My hon. Friend knows it is unwise not to give way to me, because it might end up in a point of order. I have described this Bill as a Wallace and Gromit Bill because of the way in which, rather like Gromit in “The Wrong Trousers”, the Government are laying down the track as they go along. Indeed it is worse than that, because this group of amendments is consequential on a set of statutory instruments that this House has not yet even considered. If that is not getting things back to front, I do not know what is.
Chris Bryant
I do recall my hon. Friend raising the matter of “The Wrong Trousers” and Wallace and Gromit, but I think his metaphor does not work in this case. Gromit was laying down pieces of track ahead of him, whereas the Government are laying down pieces of track behind them—pieces of track that they have not been over; this is putting the horse before the cart before the horse before the cart. There is a real problem in the process that the Government have adopted, and I very much hope that their lordships will want to examine it carefully.
What is also wrong is that because the Government have tabled 28 pages of amendments that we have to debate on Report, they have had to set aside a chunk of time for us to do so. That has been done not because the House wanted it, or to bring about greater consensus on the Bill, but to meet the Government’s own business needs, and as a result of their own haste. The fact that we have not had a single moment’s debate about the decoupling of seats in the Welsh Assembly and their coterminosity with Westminster seats is a disgrace. If, as we had requested, a knife had not been put in yesterday night’s proceedings, it would have been possible for us to have debated that matter now, rather than the measures that we have to debate at this point.
Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)
Does the hon. Gentleman agree when a clause is specific to a constituent part of the United Kingdom, there should be allotted time to debate that clause?
Chris Bryant
I am afraid that I sort of disagree with the hon. Gentleman. It is important that there should be time to debate such a clause. We tabled an amendment yesterday that a clause should be deleted from the Bill, just so that we could have that debate. On Report there is no other way of having that debate—but I am not sure that it is always right to put in knives, because that leads to some complexities in the management of time. That is why we argued that we should not have knives.
Mr Harper
While the hon. Gentleman is replying to the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards), will he explain something to the House? It is true that we did not get to the debate on the decoupling provisions, but he will know that the provisions to decouple the Welsh Assembly constituencies from the Westminster ones are supported by the First Minister of Wales. The First Minister has written to the Secretary of State to state that in terms, so it is surprising that the Labour party in Westminster is taking a different position from the Labour party in Wales.
Chris Bryant
It is surprising that a Government that consists of Conservatives and Liberals is taking a view on the number of seats in Parliament that is different from what was in both parties’ manifestos at the general election. The point is that we should have had time to debate these matters, and we have not had a single moment to debate them. I would merely say that I hope that their lordships will take the opportunity to debate the matters that it has not been possible for us to reach.
Let me swiftly deal with some of the amendments. The Minister is absolutely right that the vast majority of the amendments are relatively technical. However, that does not mean that we should be able to agree them today, because we have not agreed any of the statutory instruments on which they depend—he said “if” the statutory instruments are approved by Parliament. There is an enormous presumption in tabling amendments to meet a piece of legislation that has not yet been agreed. That treats this House with a degree of disrespect that is inappropriate.
Amendment 222, tabled by the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil), is about the costs of running the polls being met by the UK Government. The Minister is right to say that the costs are all met by the Consolidated Fund, but I presume that the hon. Gentleman’s amendment has been tabled to make the point that he thinks that the responsibility for running the Scottish parliamentary elections should be the responsibility of the Scottish Parliament—[Interruption.] He is not nodding; he is looking inscrutable at the moment. That is unusual for him, because he is normally extremely scrutable. Perhaps we will have to wait for his contribution to the debate.
The vast majority of these amendments make changes such as substituting “2010” for “2007”, because of the different statutory instrument that would be referred to. Although I suppose it would in theory be possible for us to vote on all of them, because we think that it would be inappropriate to decide on them until the statutory instruments have been decided on, we will none the less want to press at least one to a vote simply to make the point that the process has not been sensible.
Government amendment 78, however, refers to the abandonment of a poll in Scotland. When the Minister sums up, will he explain precisely why he has moved in that direction? The amendment relates to line 3 of page 226, in schedule 7. The Minister also referred to Government amendment 177, which is, as he says, a quite substantial amendment. It runs to several pages and concerns Northern Ireland. It runs from page 1047 of the amendment paper onwards. Proposed new paragraph 40(2) states:
“The following provisions have effect as if the persons listed in them included persons who would be entitled to be present at the proceedings on the issue or receipt of postal ballot papers in respect of the referendum or a relevant election if those proceedings were taken on their own.”
I wonder why the Minister has chosen that precise wording. Likewise, paragraph 42(2) states:
“Otherwise, the provisions listed in sub-paragraph (3) have effect as if the words before ‘the colour’ were omitted.”
It may be that I am very dim, but I simply do not understand that provision in relation to Northern Ireland; it will be for the House’s convenience if the Minister explains it.
Similarly, paragraph 44, on spoilt postal ballot papers—again in relation to Northern Ireland—states at sub-paragraph (2):
“The spoilt postal ballot paper may not be replaced unless all the postal ballot papers issued to the person are returned.”
I do not understand why, if a voter has been given three ballot papers and has spoilt only one of them and therefore wants a replacement only for that one, they have to return the other two as well. Will the Government explain that? I ask about this because some people believe we should make postal balloting more difficult.
In Northern Ireland there has been a tradition of separate rules and regulations for postal voting, because of concerns about corruption. In case the Government are considering substantially restricting the use of postal voting in England and Wales, I must tell the Minister that the current provisions have made it far easier for a large number of my voters to vote in any election. Previously, people had to get a member of the medical profession to sign them off as ill to get a postal ballot. In many cases, my voters were charged £6 a head for the right to vote in an election by post, which I think is completely wrong. Of course we want to ensure that there is no opportunity for corruption in the use of postal ballots, but my experience is that many elderly and other people, particularly those who cannot predict the precise timing of their work commitments, value the current provisions on postal voting.
Finally, I am deeply grateful to the Minister for sending me an e-mail today about the definition of newspapers and periodicals, but unfortunately the parliamentary system would not let me open the attachment, so I do not have the faintest idea what it says. I would be grateful if he could find some means of letting me know what he was trying to communicate.
Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)
I hear about amendments that are probing, wrecking and reasoned, but amendment 222, in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards), is simply protesting. It is protesting about what could have been achieved with a lot less resistance had the Government been reasonable and not tried to usurp Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland’s day of democracy—a day that was set in stone, in legislation anyway, 12 years ago.
The Deputy Prime Minister has stuck his neck out on this—indeed, I wonder whether he is prepared for the consequences as it will be his neck on the block if things go wrong—and the Government have proceeded at breakneck speed, disregarding people’s feelings and beliefs as well as the important issues that will arise in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales next May. That is not a slight against the two Ministers present—the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) and the Parliamentary Secretary, Office of the Leader of the House of Commons—who have been handling a very sticky wicket quite well indeed.
No time has been taken to consult the devolved Governments on the Bill. However, that was also a mistake of the Labour party in government when it delivered devolution to Scotland and Wales almost in direct correlation to the strengths of the nationalist parties in those countries. [Hon. Members: “Rubbish!”] That is not rubbish: it is absolutely right. We in Scotland got our Parliament because the Scottish National party is stronger than Plaid Cymru, which is why Wales got an Assembly. I often wonder why Scotland does not have even the powers of the Isle of Man—population 100,000.
In the past several weeks we have had five days to discuss the Bill in Committee. When the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) was not speaking, we even had some time to get the odd word in before the guillotine. The debate was cut off at important points and some very interesting and reasonable amendments were put on to the waste heap of parliamentary time. One of the most interesting amendments came from the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George), who tried to ensure that all the Bill’s measures, not only those on the voting system but those on the changes to boundaries and the number of Members, would have depended on gaining a positive result in the referendum.
Chris Bryant
The hon. Gentleman just slipped in, I hope, a reference to a voting system that will be used only every five years. I hope he will not support a five-year fixed-term Parliament, and that I might be able to entice him towards a four-year fixed-term Parliament, which would be a means of guaranteeing that the UK general election did not fall on the same day as a Scottish or a Welsh general election.
Mr MacNeil
The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. The salient point is not whether the election takes place every four years, five years, three years or whatever, but that the referendum coming up next May is usurping the day of democracy and affecting issues over four years. The Minister said that the UK will be solely responsible for the costs, which implies that the amendment has, in effect, been accepted. I welcome that.
When the referendum comes around, I cannot see parties such as the Scottish National party campaigning very strongly for or against. We will have more important things to do. I would encourage the Liberal Democrats to campaign on the referendum, because we will then go and hoover up their seats. A massive mistake is being made by holding that poll on the same day as the elections in Scotland. That is why I am making the protest, and I hope it is being heard. I do not know what will happen in another place, but it should change the provision.
Gate-crashing Scotland’s day of democracy shows a lack of respect on the part of the Government. They say that they would have respected the devolved Administrations, but when pressed they tell us that the opinions of the governing parties of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland do not matter—a case of words and actions diverging greatly.
The Government need our input. They need all our voices. We need to present issues to the Government and make sure that they do the right thing.
Ms Louise Bagshawe (Corby) (Con)
Surely the hon. Gentleman cannot have it both ways. We have heard much from the Opposition Benches about respect for the devolution settlement. This is an issue reserved to the Westminster Parliament, so the question of extensive consultation does not arise. This is a Westminster issue for the Westminster Parliament under our settlement.
Mr MacNeil
That is why respect is important. The day has been set in legislation for the Scottish Parliament for more than a decade. All of a sudden, somebody wanders in, gate-crashes the party and takes the media caravan on to the lawn. Hon. Members cannot imagine that people in Scotland will not be upset or annoyed that that is happening.
Cathy Jamieson (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (Lab/Co-op)
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is a disgrace that the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Government were not consulted? To compound that disgrace, the Government claim that they would pay no attention even if the Scottish Parliament passed a motion in this regard.
Mr MacNeil
The hon. Lady is right. I wish that the status that the Scottish Government, the Welsh Assembly Government and the Northern Ireland Government should have were enshrined in legislation.
Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for speaking to the amendment. On the respect agenda, can he explain to me, because I do not understand, why the UK Government are against holding a referendum on further powers for Wales on the same day as the Welsh Assembly elections, yet are in favour of the referendum on AV? Obviously the referendum on further powers is far more relevant in terms of the Welsh Assembly elections.
Mr MacNeil
My hon. Friend makes a very good point, because that is an example of a lack of joined-up thinking, and, if the Government were to undertake this process again, they would not start from here, as it were. They find themselves where they are and have to employ the best arguments, regardless of how sticky the wicket might be.
This Bill, like the spending cuts, has moved fast, and had some respect been shown, we might have supported it to a far greater extent than we have been able to. I shall not push my amendment to a vote, because I am sure that the Government have heard my point. Indeed, I think that the Minister has confirmed that the relevant costs will be the sole responsibility of the UK Government, and that makes me very pleased. However, it is my sincere hope that, until Scotland gains its independence, the Government will give us the respect that we truly deserve—the respect that was shown today to France and on other days to Norway.
Mr Dodds
On the respect agenda, and further to the intervention by the hon. Member for Corby (Ms Bagshawe), there is a question not just about interfering with the date of the elections in the devolved regions, but about the changes to the boundaries in Northern Ireland. They will have a direct impact on the boundaries of Assembly constituencies, on which we were not consulted at all. This legislation has a direct impact on the Northern Ireland Assembly and its membership. It is not just a question of the date; the legislation has a direct impact on Northern Ireland, and for that reason there should have been consultation.
Mr MacNeil
The right hon. Gentleman makes a very good point for the north of Ireland.
Mr MacNeil
Northern Ireland. I did notice that the right hon. Gentleman said the regions of the UK—
Mr MacNeil
I’ve got the north to my left; I’ve got Northern Ireland to my right. I’m stuck in the middle with you, Madam Deputy Speaker.
Huw Irranca-Davies
Well, not to Wales, but to a UK parliamentarian. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the interesting intervention by the hon. Member for Corby (Ms Bagshawe), which was—I am not being patronising in any way—very well meaning, shows the difference in understanding on the part of those who are in the devolved nations and have a Parliament or an Assembly about how respect cuts both ways? Although we did not always get it right in government, we certainly tried as Ministers to ensure that there was full dialogue and consultation even if we disagreed with the issue. If this Government should learn one thing from this debacle, it is that from now on they need to consult the devolved institutions properly.
Mr MacNeil
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. He makes a very good point and leads me to reflect that perhaps I was a bit harsh on the hon. Lady. Perhaps there is simply a lack of understanding, rather than a lack of respect. If we think back, we find that yesterday was really—I think that I can safely use this term—“all-points Celtic”. It was Cornwall. It was Wales. It was Northern Ireland?
Mr MacNeil
My “all-points Celtic” is checking out. It was also Scotland. It was a Celtic issue, and it hit across the nations and a region of the UK—he says, looking around him! However, there are very serious and important points here, and I hope that the Government will listen. At this late stage, it is not too late.
Kevin Brennan
It might not have been entirely inappropriate for the hon. Lady to intervene, because, as I recall from my visit to Corby as a young man, most of it was populated by Scots and Welsh people, who were there to set up the steelworks at the time.
On the date and the combination of polls, however, is it not also an own goal on behalf of the Government and, particularly, the Deputy Prime Minister? He is demotivating those electoral reformers among us who would have been prepared to go out alongside colleagues from other political parties to campaign for the alternative vote. We will now campaign with our parties to help our Welsh Assembly colleagues get elected, and not devote the energy that we otherwise would have done to the Deputy Prime Minister’s cause?
Mr MacNeil
The hon. Gentleman is bang on. The Deputy Prime Minister, not content with having some opposition to his aspirations for a change in the voting system, has moved on to look for even more opponents to changes in the voting system, and he has succeeded in that end, because he has absolutely demotivated those people who will have greater priorities when the day comes in May. Their priority will not be the voting system for elections to the UK Parliament, and that is where the mistake lies.
Again, I ask the Minister to speak to his friends in the other place, because that might make quite a difference. Of course, there are those who might feel that there are elements within the governing coalition who are happy to see a demotivated support force for a change in the voting system. I will leave that question hanging.
Margaret Curran (Glasgow East) (Lab)
I am very surprised by the technical amendments that the Government have introduced. I have previously brought to the House’s attention the fact that, together with my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Cathy Jamieson), I am currently still a Member of the Scottish Parliament. In the light of this debate, that is a very useful experience to bring to it. For eight of my 10 years in the Scottish Parliament, I was a Minister, and I introduced a considerable amount of legislation. In my experience, if you had to table such a range of amendments, it meant one of two things: first, that something had gone very badly wrong with your legislation organisationally and it needed immediate rectification, perhaps at crisis level; or secondly, that you were wrong in the fundamentals and having to try to address that fact and clean up the mess.
Mr MacNeil
May I mischievously ask the hon. Lady if that ever happened to her?
Margaret Curran
At the risk of being incorrect on the record, I would like to think that, no, it did not happen to me, and that I was very clear about my legislation.
Tom Greatrex (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Lab/Co-op)
May I also mischievously ask my hon. Friend whether, in her experience, it has happened to Ministers in the past three and a half years?
Margaret Curran
I would have to say that the current Administration do not quite have my record and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun, who was also a Minister.
It is deeply disappointing that the only way I see this Government engaging with Members of the Scottish Parliament on matters that fundamentally concern them is here in this Chamber. The only way that this Government and this House are going to understand the experience of the Scottish Parliament is by having MSPs in the Chamber. That is deeply disappointing and speaks to the respect agenda.
I am obliged to indicate to the House the widespread concern that exists throughout Scotland, across the political spectrum, about what this Government have done. I sincerely hope that we do not get the tired old argument that somehow we are suggesting that the Scottish people are not up to making two decisions at a time or understanding what is in front of them. That entirely misses the point and entirely misunderstands opinion in Scotland.
The core of this proposal, as seen across the political spectrum in Scotland, is that you are downplaying the significance of the Scottish Parliament elections. You are detracting from it, undermining it, and failing to appreciate how important it is. I would have to say that the Tories have a better record on this, but I will leave others to draw their own conclusions. It is fair to say that across Scotland we believe that you do not recognise the authority and status of the Scottish Parliament. That is what is at risk in these proposals and what is so worrying about them.
Worst of all is the fact that there was no consultation or engagement with Members of the Scottish Parliament or members of the body politic in Scotland. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that it has the hallmark of arrogance about it. You significantly altered the arrangements for the Scottish Parliament elections, significantly altered the context in which a debate will be held in which we discuss matters of great significance to the Scottish people, and did so without a word of reference to the institution itself. As my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) has pointed out many times, there are many means and mechanisms established to have proper discussions between Governments, and the fact that you neglected to use any of them speaks ill of—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Lady in mid-flow, but she is not correct. She is addressing me in the Chair, not the Minister, so when she uses the word “you” she is accusing me as the Chair. I ask her to bear that in mind and address me directly. As far as I am aware, I have not done any of these things at all, as a Minister or anything else.
Margaret Curran
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for that correction. I had to be corrected several times in the Scottish Parliament for the same mistake, so I am clearly a very slow learner. I apologise.
Perhaps I could be so bold as to refer to the two Ministers on the Front Bench. One, I think, will remember what the last Tory Government did to Scotland; the other I am not too sure about. That Government imposed the poll tax on Scotland a year ahead of the rest of the UK. I can tell you that Scottish opinion was deeply offended, and we tried to tell the UK Government, “Don’t do this to Scotland, because we think you’re maltreating us.” The rest of the UK seemed not to listen and dismissed that, and to this day Scottish people are offended by how the UK Government behaved. I am telling you, you are in danger of making the same mistake—[Interruption.] I tell the Minister that the Government are in danger of making the same mistake again.
Mr MacNeil
The hon. Lady mentions the 1980s, the poll tax and Thatcherism. Would she not have preferred to have had an independent Scotland, and not had Margaret Thatcher and the poll tax?
Madam Deputy Speaker
Order. This is getting a little out of hand. Can we come back to the amendments? I am sure that is what the hon. Member for Glasgow East (Margaret Curran) is going to do.
Margaret Curran
I am indeed. I was simply drawing a parallel of the last Tory Government, which occurs to many Scots, between this Government’s approach and the behaviour .
The Bill’s provisions will cut across, and distract attention from, the very important Scottish Parliament election to be held next year. It is clear that they were produced in haste, with no consultation. There has been no persuasion in the Government’s arguments, just assertion. They fly in the face of Scottish experience, learn nothing from the Gould report and take nothing from what has happened in previous Scottish Parliament elections. They bear all the hallmarks of a political fix. Rather than an attempt to deliver genuine democratic progress, they are a mess, and they should be opposed.
Mark Durkan
Amendment 18 provides for the combination of three polls—the referendum, the Northern Ireland Assembly election and the Northern Ireland local elections. It will replace clause 4(4), and it provides that the polls are to be taken together on 5 May. The subsection that it replaces states:
“Where the date of the poll for”
Assembly or Northern Ireland local elections
“is the same as the date of the poll for the referendum, the polls are to be taken together”.
That would provide for the possibility that the Assembly or local elections might not be on the same day.
Clause 4(4) also allows sections 31 or 32 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998 to apply. Under section 31, even though the due date for the election would be the first Thursday in May 2011, in other words 5 May, it could take place two months either side of that. Section 32 provides for a situation in which there was something of a collapse of the Assembly, with the First or Deputy First Minister resigning and not being replaced. I do not want to speculate on that as a possibility, but it is not an absolute political impossibility. In that instance, it would fall to the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland to name another date, which would not have to be within two months either way.
It seems to me that amendment 18 flies in the face of that, because it will legislate for the three polls to be on the one day regardless. I wonder whether the Government are creating unnecessary tension with existing legislation, because the amendment removes the possibility left open in the Bill. I would appreciate the Minister addressing that point.
Amendments 158 to 179 to schedule 8, all relate to Northern Ireland. Amendment 162 states:
“The Chief Electoral Officer may not decide that the proceedings on the issue and receipt of postal ballot papers in respect of the referendum and the relevant elections are to be taken together unless the Chief Counting Officer agrees.”
The office of the chief electoral officer in Northern Ireland is a useful and important one. It normally falls to that officer to arrange Assembly elections, local elections, and—under the guidance and control of statute—any combination arrangements for such polls. Amendment 162 opens up the possibility of the chief electoral officer having the issue and receipt of the ballot papers for all three polls together. However, if for some reason the UK chief counting officer does not agree with that, it does not happen. We seek assurances on the effect of that on the two polls that are in the purview of the chief electoral officer, and that it will not mean that the chief electoral officer is somehow prohibited from going ahead with bespoke combination arrangements for the two Northern Ireland elections.
Mr Dodds
Will the hon. Gentleman confirm that he is arguing that Government amendment 18 in some way supersedes the ability of the Northern Ireland Assembly to move the election within a period of two months if they so wished? My understanding is that the amendment does not do that, but simply says that, if the referendum and the election were to be held on that date, they would be taken together. The hon. Gentleman seems to be arguing something different.
Mark Durkan
I raise this because if one compares clause 4(4) with the text of amendment 18, it does seem to make a change. The text in the Bill allows for the possibility that is provided for in sections 31 and 32 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998. The amendment presumes and requires that the referendum and election happen together. There could be tension there, so I have asked the Minister to clarify or explain that. I am just puzzled by the wording. When one sees such variance in the words, one has to ask whether it is inadvertent or whether there is an intention behind it.
Amendment 162 raises the possibility of the UK chief counting officer disagreeing with the chief electoral officer for Northern Ireland in respect of the arrangements for combining the issue and receipt of postal ballots. Hon. Members might say that that is unlikely to happen. If that is the case, why is the amendment legislating for such a possibility and what are the implications for the conduct of the other elections and the issue of the postal ballot? Again, I seek clarification from the Minister. In a UK-wide referendum on the voting system, representations could be made to the chief counting officer through the Electoral Commission and so on. There could be legal challenges and threats of legal challenges from a well-resourced campaign that wants to disrupt or create confusion during the election. The chief counting officer might be minded to say that the referendum postal ballot papers have to be handled separately, or some other pressure could cause disagreement. It could be that the chief electoral officer for Northern Ireland does not get agreement from the chief counting officer. In such cases, what is the price of that possibility and how will it impact on the arrangements not just for the referendum postal ballot papers but for the issue and receipt of the postal ballot papers for the local elections and the Assembly?
Finally, amendment 177, to which the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) referred, is a big amendment. Proposed new paragraph 44(2) to schedule 8 states:
“The spoilt postal ballot paper may not be replaced unless all the postal ballot papers issued to the person are returned.”
If we are providing for that in law, is it clearly stated in form 2—the form that is to apply in relation to a declaration of identity? The form provides advice on what to do in the case of a spoiled ballot, but it does not clearly state that one cannot return and have a spoiled ballot replaced unless all three forms are returned. There is confusion, so we need to see whether the effect of this amendment is properly covered, addressed and clearly expressed in the information that will be given to voters. It might be that voters reading the form as it is in the Bill will believe that they can have the referendum ballot paper replaced separately. If the Government are to go ahead with this amendment, they will have to make further amendments to the forms that are already in the Bill, or to the amended forms that they have provided for in this group of amendments.
Geraint Davies
As a member of the Welsh Affairs Committee, which has taken a considerable amount of evidence on this subject, I feel that I can talk about the potential confusion that surrounds the combination of polls that we face. The House may be interested in the testimony of Philip Johnson, the chair of the Welsh branch of the Association of Electoral Administrators. He said:
“The capacity for confusion is immense.”
He said that 2015, when there will be the combination of polls, could be horrendous. He is not talking about voter confusion over policy issues, which will, I think, be a significant problem for our democracy.
In Wales, where we have a Labour Government, various proposals will be made to carry on, revive and enliven the policies in Wales. Alongside that, Labour will put forward a different set of proposals on focus and investment to take to the UK Parliament. Therefore, there will be quite different proposals from the same party for different elections on the same day. What is more, there may be varying views on alternative voting. Furthermore, we will have different constituencies for the Assembly and for the UK parliamentary election. For example, I might be standing as the candidate for Swansea West and, at the same time, voters could be asked to vote Labour for the Assembly Member for Swansea Central. Obviously, that could be confusing to voters. We could have one party making different proposals in the same area.
Mrs Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, which is why we should not have the referendum on the same date as other elections. I say that not because the electorate are not intelligent enough to understand that there are different questions being asked of them, but because the system itself is intrinsically and intentionally confusing.
Geraint Davies
I certainly agree with the hon. Lady. What I have just said is a prelude to what I was going to say about the inherent administrative confusion over the combination of the polls. I only added the issue about confusion in voters’ minds over the policy, where they live and who represents them because the same party will be saying different things to them.
To start with, therefore, people will go into polling stations feeling a bit confused because of that complexity, but there is a further problem. Normally, there will be different turnouts for different elections—traditionally, the UK election turnout is higher than the Assembly election turnout, and it can be expected to be higher than that for the AV referendum. People will go into polling stations without necessarily wanting to vote in all three polls, and without a settled position on them.
Jonathan Evans (Cardiff North) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman will know that Wales has held European Parliament elections on the same day as Assembly elections. He should surely not overdo his point, because on those occasions, people were able to make a choice. It could be argued that the turnout for one election had a positive impact on the turnout for the other.
Geraint Davies
Having more than one poll on the same day is not without precedent. My point is that putting yet more questions in more elections on the same day adds complexity, which can lead to confusion and administrative problems.
Mr MacNeil
May I suggest to the hon. Gentleman that the real problem that we fear is what happened in the UK general election? The media tried to turn that into a presidential election. They skew what happens on the day by concentrating on one event and missing what is the main event to people who live in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland. That is my concern, and I think it is shared on both sides of the House.
Geraint Davies
The hon. Gentleman is right and what he says is fair. Inevitably, the media will focus on the UK election and, to a certain extent, the AV referendum. In Wales or Scotland, there are points of difference between different parties on health and education and so on, but they will be overwhelmed by the background noise of the media, which will focus on health and education in England.
As the Conservative position on health develops, they might take out the strategic centre of the NHS in favour of a more atomised view. That is in complete contrast with the more traditional NHS model in Wales. However, the media will talk about the prospective changes to England’s NHS rather than what happens on the ground in Welsh hospitals. People’s understanding of how their hospital works could be quite different from what is actually happening, and they might vote on a false pretext. The power of the media talking about the UK will overwhelm knowledge of what is actually being delivered in local schools and hospitals, particularly among those who do not use such services.
Mr David
My hon. Friend referred to the excellent report by the Welsh Affairs Committee. Does he agree that the Committee summed things up very well? The report states that
“our concerns are not, first and foremost, about the principles at stake in each of these consultations with the nation. They are about the wisdom and fairness of cramming so much debate and decision into so short a space of time”.
That is the key message. We cannot have proper debates on electoral systems or elections if we cram them together on the same day. It is a question of democracy.
Geraint Davies
My hon. Friend is completely right—obviously, I am privileged to serve on that Committee.
There is a traditional comprehensive schooling system in Wales, but the situation in England has become different from that over the years, both under this Administration and the previous one. The choices faced by Welsh and English voters are therefore different, but again, they will be slightly confused.
Ms Bagshawe
Surely that is to underestimate the sophistication of the Welsh electorate. We have seen that voters in the United States are capable of engaging in multiple elections from multiple positions at state and presidential level, and that at one and the same time, they participate in ballot initiatives and referendums. US voters take a multiplicity of decisions with no discernible effect on their democracy.
Geraint Davies
I appreciate that the electorate is sophisticated and that it is possible to have more than one poll at a time. I am simply saying that given the respect agenda for devolution, there should be space for rational discussion of the choices facing Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland without that being overwhelmed by the media noise from the UK, which will impose a template that is different from what happens in the devolved countries. That is confusing.
The testimony to the Welsh Affairs Committee on potential confusion regarding the mechanics of the polls is very persuasive. I said that voters could be confused by issues—some voters are not quite as in tune as the hon. Lady—but many will not.
John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)
Of course, in the US, elections are so complex that they have the concept of punching the ticket. A voter can simply say, “I’m a Democrat,” and vote for all Democrats in one go.
However, my hon. Friend’s question on complexity and confusion could also apply to England, because there will be different types of elections using different voting systems on the same day. Regardless of the principles of voting systems and the big decisions made on them, does he agree that the key democratic principle is that Parliament takes its time and comes up with something that is coherent overall, rather than rushing through a dog’s breakfast of a series of Bills that is inherently incoherent and divisive?
Geraint Davies
My hon. Friend is completely right on the Government’s policy, but there will also be a problem with the situation on the ground. For example, the chair of the Association of Electoral Administrators said that
“there is…capacity for the polling station staff to be confused as to which ballot paper should go to which elector.”
Why is that? The chair told the Committee that in Newport, there were 1,000 European voters, who were not eligible for all of the ballots. In some ballots, some people had postal votes, but in others they did not. Someone would come to the polling station and say, “I want my vote,” but they had already been sent a postal vote.
In Wales, for proportionality, we vote for a list for the Assembly, but we also vote for a local Assembly Member. In addition, we might vote for a UK MP and in the AV referendum. The aggregate turnout will therefore be much higher. People may say, “That’s great. That’s good for democracy,” but if all those people turn up at a facility that is expecting fewer of them, and if the arrangements are as complex as I described, there will be more queuing. People will have to find different boxes of different colours and all the rest of it, so there is quite a lot of scope for major confusion that could undermine the democratic process that we all love.
Mr Mark Williams (Ceredigion) (LD)
May I return the hon. Gentleman to what he said about the confusion on issues? There is a respect issue in relation to holding the AV referendum on the same day as the Assembly elections. However, on holding a UK Parliament election and an Assembly election on the same day, I am sure that he, like me, has received many letters on things such as the Academies Act 2010. Because of the power of the media, many in Wales were genuinely concerned about the implications of that legislation, but of course, it has no bearing whatever on Wales. That power cannot be understated in terms of holding the AV referendum and the election on the same day.
Geraint Davies
I assume that the hon. Gentleman is saying that the elections should not be on the same day. Is that right?
Geraint Davies
I am glad the hon. Gentleman believes that, because he is completely right. People are very influenced by the media—that is how they get information—but there is a lot of confusion. When Labour was in power in the UK Parliament, certain innovations in Wales were not carried out in England and vice versa. There was a slightly different policy on prescriptions, for instance. People would wonder, “What am I voting for? It says here that I’m voting for this, but the competition says that Labour is doing something different,” but they would be comparing literature for different elections. If people are unclear what is being said by different parties, they will be unable to make a rational decision or to say, “I will vote for this party because I prefer its proposals to those of other parties.” That undermines democracy itself.
Mr Williams
The capacity of the Welsh media to respond has been severely hampered, whether we look at the position of Sianel Pedwar Cymru or the loss of pluralism—[Interruption.] It is S4C, the Welsh language media—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. A Member who is making an intervention cannot take an intervention.
Mr Williams
I apologise, Mr Deputy Speaker.
My point is that the Welsh media are in a parlous state, so we cannot take for granted their capacity to respond to the UK media at election time.
Geraint Davies
If we had the traditional Sky debate, with the three leaders—or two leaders, now—and ignoring the nationalists, during Assembly elections, they would be even more annoyed, and they would have reason to be so. Indeed, they might even intervene.
Huw Irranca-Davies
Does my hon. Friend agree that this is not a question of underestimating the capacity of the electorate to make well-informed decisions on myriad voting papers and through different voting methods on any particular date? It is actually a question of overestimating the capacity of party workers to elucidate two or three different arguments at one time on the doorstep. This will lead to a dumbing down of the message from us to the electorate—
Huw Irranca-Davies
It could happen, unless Ministers have some secret plan and a network of workers who can explain two or three different messages on the doorstep. I do not have such an army of people.
Geraint Davies
The difficulty that we all have, as elected Members, is inspiring people who understand the issues to come out and vote one way or another. If there is general confusion, it will not engender confidence in the whole system.
Mr David
Like my hon. Friend, I do not underestimate the ability of the electorate to understand the complexities before them, but does he agree that it may be difficult to explain to people why they are voting on AV—which is not proportional representation but a version of first past the post—at the same time as they are voting in the Assembly elections with two votes, one for first past the post and the other in a proportional system in which votes will be allocated using a top-up list and the d’Hondt system?
Geraint Davies
It will be very complicated to explain to people in Wales why, when they already have a proportional representation system that is fair, they should opt for the alternative vote, which is not fair. The people in favour of AV will argue—although I do not agree—“Well, AV is better than first past the post. It may not be as good as what you already have in Wales, but we still want you to vote for it. By the way, we also want to talk about parking in hospitals”. People might also want to talk about the fact that Sky Television does not allow the nationalists to speak—although as I am being sponsored by Sky, I will not mention that. That was a joke.
Mr MacNeil
I come from the west of Skye, but that is another story.
Valid points have been made by hon. Members on both sides, but we should bear in mind—if we want a participative democracy—the attention span of voters, who will give only so much of their time to the message from politicians, whether it is dumbed down or quite complicated. They might do the American thing, where they slam down 140 ballots—or however many they are doing on one day—and vote the same way on a slate. We do not want that because, for example, Labour’s plans, and the big holes in its spending, should be scrutinised hard in the coming election.
Geraint Davies
I am certainly grateful that we will have a lot of scrutiny in Scotland. I agree that there is scope for confusion even though, as many hon. Members said, we cannot underestimate the sophistication of the electorate. However, one in five people in Britain are functionally illiterate and find it difficult to fill in forms. If they face four or more ballot papers, and a multiplicity of different questions in different areas and zones, it will be confusing. If we want to increase rather than decrease participation—and for people to vote how they intended to vote, and not vote the wrong way—we should make it easy for them by having a coherent system, with the choices being sequential rather than coincident.
Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)
Can my hon. Friend foresee a situation in which two Labour supporters were campaigning for an Assembly candidate and a voter asked, “What do you think about AV?”, and they had totally different viewpoints. They might get into an argument, which would help no one—[Interruption.] My hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) obviously thinks that that is highly unlikely to happen.
Geraint Davies
I wish that we had enough party workers for that to happen. However, theoretically, the people campaigning in elections in an area may not agree on AV. In my city, we have several MPs, and it is possible that one of them—say, me—might not agree with AV, but another Labour MP might agree with it. If it was reported that Labour was in favour of AV, I would say that I was not in favour of it. All those problems will be superimposed on the Assembly and parliamentary votes, alongside shifted boundaries and some people losing their postal votes, leading to mass confusion and excessive cost.
Huw Irranca-Davies
Moving from policy, the mechanics of the proposal and the possible conjunction of elections, we have all been in the homes of elderly people who perhaps have difficulties filling in forms. We have rightly tightened the rules on the ability of politicians such as me to influence those decisions in any way, although we can try to help with guidance. On that basis, does my hon. Friend share my worry that, one way or the other, we could see a lot more spoilt ballot papers in those elections? If so, has he heard anything in any of these discussions about an increase in resources for electoral registration officers?
Geraint Davies
I certainly agree that it is very likely that the number of spoilt ballot papers will increase. We all know that some spoilt ballot papers—a very small proportion—are intentionally spoilt. People write a load of rubbish, which is clearly intentional. However, with the extra complexity, my judgment is that people will think that they have voted one way, but then change their minds and cross something out. Obviously the returning officer will say, “Well, that’s not a valid vote,” but if there are large numbers of such votes in those polls, which might have large or small turnouts—these are difficult things to judge—that will be unfortunate.
I have a concern, in that people have talked about the electorate as if they were a homogenous group, but in certain areas there will be less educational opportunity, inter-generational poverty and a lack of capability to fill in lots of forms, along with under-registration. When those factors are overlaid, it shows a built-in institutionalised discrimination against people who may be poorer or may have had fewer educational opportunities, and who may therefore be more likely either not to participate or to end up spoiling their ballot papers, and democracy would be the poorer for it.
I am sure that the Minister will respond to the point about the financial facilities made available to cope with the extra administration. Clearly there will be an enormous burden on local authorities. I know that the Boundary Commission for Wales has been given £1.9 million for redrawing the boundaries, as opposed to administering the election. Let us remember that only 3 million people live in Wales, yet an extra £1.9 million has been given for starters. When we aggregate that, adding the legal costs and so on, the sum involved will be enormous. Some of these proposals were sold to the media in the name of addressing all these costly MPs buying duck houses, or whatever they are supposed to have done, but the reality is that the cost of change will completely dwarf the savings on MPs. It is completely ridiculous. We are spending millions and millions of pounds setting up administrative complexity. Effective democracy will fall on its face, leading to legal challenges and a fall in confidence in the system, all of which is being railroaded through by a party that does not seem to care.
John Mann
My hon. Friend mentions the cost and expense of MPs. With an independent body setting MPs’ salaries, has he considered the certainty that if the Bill proceeds into law, it will inevitably increase the salary of MPs? The argument will be put—and doubtless accepted—that there is more work per MP, and that there should therefore be a certain rate for the job. Therefore, this Bill will not cut pay; it will in fact increase the pay of MPs.
Mr Deputy Speaker
Order. We are now clearly straying from the amendments before us.
Geraint Davies
I am grateful for your guidance, Mr Deputy Speaker. What we are talking about is the combination of polls and the confusion that this could cause. My hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies) suggested in his intervention that combining the polls should require extra money. I completely agree with that, and was simply making the point that the Boundary Commission for Wales has already been given £1.9 million just for redrawing the boundaries, let alone for carrying out the work on the political machinery, which will be enormous. My hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) has simply made the point that those enormous costs will dwarf any prospective saving and that, in fact, there will probably be no saving at all.
I will bring my comments to a close. [Hon. Members: “More!”] Hon. Members should not encourage me, because I might end up reading the whole of the Welsh Affairs Committee report.
Geraint Davies
I know that you have read the report a number of times already for your bedtime reading, Mr Deputy Speaker, and I do not want you to fall asleep again.
In conclusion, a combination of polls will be expensive and confusing, and will undermine democracy and lead to legal challenge. The Bill does not factor in the problems of having postal votes for some votes and not for others, the different systems superimposed on the same day, and the fact that the media might dwell on one election rather than another, thereby undermining the ability of local parties to send discrete messages to discrete audiences. It is a sad day for democracy.
Kevin Brennan
I will attempt to be reasonably concise. It is worth returning to the amendments, which are about the combination of polls, and reminding ourselves—and the literally dozens of people who I am sure are still watching on the BBC Parliament channel, after our deliberations so far—why we are discussing combining the referendum in the Bill with the Welsh Assembly, Northern Ireland Assembly, Scottish Parliament and local government elections.
The only reason we are doing that is down to one man, who has been completely invisible during our deliberations, namely the Deputy Prime Minister. The only reason we are discussing this issue is that the Deputy Prime Minister is convinced that his best chance of winning the referendum on the introduction of the alternative vote will be if it takes place on the same day as the elections to the devolved Assemblies and the local government elections. As the amendments in the group show, this is not a matter of finance, although that argument is sometimes put forward. It is nothing to do with that; rather, it is entirely to do with a belief that the alternative vote is more likely to be supported in a referendum if it is held on the same day as those other elections.
In that sense, this is one of the most surreal debates in which I have ever participated in the House of Commons, because the Deputy Prime Minister will not come here himself to make that point. Instead he sends along the Parliamentary Secretary, the hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), who comes along to make the case, even though he does not himself believe that the alternative vote should be passed into law. In fact, this is the second time in one day that he has had to come forward to promote Liberal Democrat policy in the House. After the duffing up that he got in the Tea Room after the first time, I hope that he is a bit safer now.
Mr Deputy Speaker
Order. We are talking about the combination of polls, not the Deputy Prime Minister. I would be grateful if the hon. Gentleman now directed himself to the amendments before us.
Kevin Brennan
Of course, Mr Deputy Speaker. The point that I was making was that the very reason for the amendments that are before us, about the combination of polls, is to do with the beliefs of one person, who has put up the Minister, as it were, to come along and defend those amendments.
A lot has been made of the potential confusion that could arise. I take the point made by the hon. Member for Corby (Ms Bagshawe), whom I commend for taking a lot of interest in these proceedings. I take her point about American elections; in fact, my wife is an American citizen and still votes in American elections. We get the very lengthy ballot papers that people receive through the post in California, and which do indeed combine polls on many different issues on one day. I am less disturbed by my constituents’ ability to distinguish between different issues on the same day than I am by the contempt that the Government have shown. I am disturbed by the contempt shown for the devolved Administrations by he who must not be named—I am not going to mention his name again, for fear of upsetting you, Mr Deputy Speaker—when, although he represents a party that claims to be a party of devolution, he completely ignores the wishes of the devolved Administrations in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Mark Lazarowicz
Like my hon. Friend, I think my constituents will be able to cope with the technical difficulties of dealing with two or three ballot papers on the same day. The problem is not confusion on the part of electors, but that the focus of political debate in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will inevitably be on what will be general elections in those countries. That is what will distort the reality, not the two votes on the same day. Newspapers and the media will focus on the general elections, not on the alternative vote referendums, so that matter will not receive the sort of scrutiny that it should.
Kevin Brennan
My hon. Friend is entirely right, and that point has been clearly made during the debate. We know that that is the reality. Debates on national elections in Scotland and Wales, and elections in Northern Ireland, will be swamped in the general UK media by discussion about the referendum on the alternative vote.
The hon. Member for Corby was right constitutionally and technically to say that such matters, with the exception of a couple, are reserved. First, the UK Government have generally agreed through their various protocols with the devolved Administrations to consult on matters directly affecting them, and protocols exist in the civil service to enable those consultations to take place, but they are being abandoned because of the desire of he who shall not be named to meet the deadline to enable the measure to be rushed through.
Kevin Brennan
I will give way in a moment, but first I want to make my second point, about why I think the hon. Lady is wrong. One of the first actions by her leader, when he became Prime Minister—many of us thought it was commendable at the time—was to visit the devolved Administrations and to make it clear that the interaction between the UK Government and those devolved Administrations would be based on respect. In this instance, the Government have fallen far short of the Prime Minister’s aim and his promise at that time.
Ms Bagshawe
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his generous comments earlier. It is regrettable that the catchphrase—the respect agenda—about which we hear so much from Opposition Members, does not seem to work two ways. The matter is a devolved one for the United Kingdom Government, and Opposition Members have failed to realise how strongly voters in England feel about the democratic deficit to which they are subjected, which the Bill aims to remedy.
Kevin Brennan
We have found out what respect means to the hon. Lady. For me it means having mutual respect, and when the previous Administration offered devolved government to people in England, they turned it down. It is a matter of respect that if people in England do not want devolved government, that is a matter for them. My point is that the Prime Minister took the trouble to visit the capitals of Wales and Scotland, as well as Belfast, to talk to the devolved Administrations. He promised a relationship of respect, despite the fact that the Conservative party was originally vehemently opposed to devolution, and said that things had changed and the relationship was new. However, because of the needs of he who shall not be named, the Government had to abandon that respect agenda and provide for the combination of polls.
Mark Durkan
I thank my hon. Friend for emphasising the principles of the respect agenda concerning the devolved Administrations, but it should also apply to this Chamber. Is it not odd to have a Deputy Prime Minister who relies on deputies to appear in the Chamber more than he does?
Kevin Brennan
I fear that I will test your patience, Mr Deputy Speaker, if I make a further reference to he who shall not be named, but clearly my hon. Friend is absolutely correct. My point, Mr Deputy Prime Minister—I mean Mr Deputy Speaker; that was a Freudian slip, and he shall be named after all. My point, Mr Deputy Speaker, is that many Labour Members are favourably inclined towards electoral reform, but others are not. Many of us would have looked forward to the opportunity—it was in our manifesto—of putting the question to the British people and allowing them to decide in a clean, clear referendum for which that was the sole focus of the discussion. That could easily have happened, and that is exactly what should have happened.
As that did not happen, many of us who are favourably inclined towards electoral reform are severely demotivated in terms of putting our weight behind what seems to be a venture with no respect for those of us who might support that agenda. That may suit many hon. Members on both sides of the House who do not agree with electoral reform, but I think it is a terrible shame, because we will all devote our energy to the important national elections in the devolved Administrations, and the referendum will be ignored during those elections. I shall vote in favour of the alternative vote in the referendum, but I fear that it will be lost. Boy, won’t that be awkward for he who must not be named!
Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)
I want to speak about the complexity, confusion and unfairness that have so often been referred to in this debate, and that comes from the perspective of having suffered the ignominy of a proposition for regional government for the north-east of England, which I vehemently supported, being lost in a referendum, almost six years ago to the day. Part of the reason for that, although not the only one by any stretch of the imagination, was the fact that the question of regional government for the north-east of England was combined on the same ballot paper with a question about what form of unitary local government was wanted.
Although 70% of electors in the north-east of England were not subject to any change in local authority, the then Office of the Deputy Prime Minister sent out a six-page supplement to every voter in the region, four pages of which were about local government reorganisation. Many of my constituents rang me asking whether the proposal would mean the end of Gateshead council. It had no impact on Gateshead council, other councils in Tyne and Wear, or councils in Teesside, but the six-page document had four pages about local government reform, and of course the whole concept of regional government for England was lost at that stage.
When addressing the issue of complexity, confusion and fairness, we must look at the coalition Government’s stance. They have repeatedly told us that their actions in passing legislation and making ministerial judgments must pass the acid test of fairness. So is the proposed measure fair or is it not? In fact, the junior coalition partners have almost made it their mantra that they will support their senior coalition partners as long as measures are seen to be fair. The Bill clearly fails that test in many ways, yet the “fairness party”, as the Liberal Democrats see themselves, is still voting in the Lobby to support it—with a handful of notable exceptions on some clauses and amendments. Citizens’ capacity to vote in a referendum is vital, and part of the unfairness to which I refer is the fact that the arbitrary nature of the Government’s proposal disregards the geography and natural togetherness of local communities. I envisage that virtually every constituency in the country will be subject to change—with the exception, of course, of the two constituencies exempted because of their peripheral geography, and because they encompass so many islands.
It is difficult to fathom a scenario in which, in order to meet the twin criteria of ending up with exactly 600 constituencies that must all comprise exactly 76,000 electors, plus or minus 5%, there will be knock-on effects across county boundaries and even regional boundaries—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. I am also a little concerned that the hon. Gentleman is going wide of the subject of the combination of polls. Perhaps he could stick to the confusion that he spoke about earlier. This sounds a bit like a speech for a Third Reading debate.
Ian Mearns
Mr Deputy Speaker, the unfairness to which I want to address my remarks mainly relates to town and city dwellers. I am not for one moment implying that the people whom I speak of do not exist in the countryside; they do, of course, but not in anywhere near the same kind of numbers as in our towns and cities. The calculations that the Government have made in drawing up their criteria totally disregard the 3.5 million people who are not registered to vote or to take part in the referendum—
Mr Deputy Speaker
Order. Yet again, I think that the hon. Gentleman has not really paid due attention to the amendments before him. He is entering into a much wider debate. I ask him to look again at the subject of the combination of polls, please.
Ian Mearns
Not only will those people be unable to vote in the elections; they will also be unable to vote in the referendum on our voting system. There are many reasons why people will be unable to enfranchise themselves, and it is important to have regard for such people. Some might be in debt and trying to escape from their creditors. Others might be trying to avoid violent loan sharks. They will not be enfranchised to take part in a referendum because they are trying to escape from the people who are pursuing them. Some might be victims of domestic violence hiding from violent former partners—
Mr Deputy Speaker
Order. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman can help me a little. Which amendment is he speaking to?
Ian Mearns
Mr Deputy Speaker, I am happy to return to this matter on Third Reading, but there are some important points about the Bill that need to be made.
Mr Harper
I did not detect any focus on the amendments in the last few speeches, so I shall not address the points that were made in them. I shall focus instead on those Members who troubled themselves to speak to the amendments and raised sensible points, as did the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant). He and others mentioned that the orders relate to the elections and not to the referendum. The conduct of the elections is not devolved, as my hon. Friend the Member for Corby (Ms Bagshawe) said. The hon. Gentleman will know that, under the Calman proposals, we propose to move the administration of those elections to the Scottish Parliament.
The orders that the hon. Gentleman mentioned are not amendable, and I hope that the House will support them. If it does not, I have already said that we will revert to the original provisions in the Bill, which have been debated and voted on by the House. Either way, the House of Commons will have had the opportunity to consider both scenarios—without the new orders and with them—and to pronounce on them. I am therefore confident that the House and the other place will have taken those decisions, whatever they might be.
Chris Bryant
When the hon. Gentleman says that the Government would revert to the previous provisions, I presume he means that he would table amendments in the House of Lords, because he would not be able to table them here. In that case, he would not have met his own criterion that matters relating to the elections would be decided on here.
Mr Harper
No, not at all. If Parliament did not adopt the orders, we would indeed have to table the amendments in the House of Lords, but in so doing, we would simply be bringing the Bill back to the stage that it is at with the amendments that have already been debated and voted on by this House. Either way, it would be this House that had effectively decided on the machinery for our electoral arrangements. I hope that I have set that out clearly, even though I know that the hon. Gentleman does not agree with it.
I listened carefully to the speech by the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil), who is no longer in his place, or, indeed, any other place—[Hon. Members: “He must be somewhere!”] Well, he is not in the Chamber. He must be somewhere, but he is not here. He talked about the respect agenda, and he and others talked about holding elections and referendums on the same day. We have had this debate before, Mr Deputy Speaker, so I will not try your patience.
The hon. Gentleman made some sensible points on the coincidence of elections, notably of a UK general election and devolved elections. He knows that that matter has been highlighted—although not actually put in place—by the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill, and we have already said that we are thinking about possible solutions. When the Government have settled on a position, we will consult parties in each of the devolved nations—not the devolved Administrations, because they only represent one or more parties—to come up with a solution. That relates to the coincidence of elections; the Government do not think that the combination of a referendum and elections will have the same qualitative impact.
Tom Greatrex
Surely the solution is to have four-year fixed-term Parliaments. The UK and Scottish parliamentary elections would then never happen on the same date.
Mr Harper
I will not dwell on that point at length, because you would rule me out of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Briefly, however, I will say that it would be possible, if there were an early UK general election or if the devolved Administrations’ cycles changed, to have four-year terms for both Administrations. That could result in coincidence on every occasion, rather than just once every 20 years. I will not pursue that, however, as it relates to a different piece of legislation, which the House will have the chance to debate in due course.
Chris Bryant
I know that the Minister will not want to dwell on this point either, but he was talking about process, and about the amendments that he might or might not have to table. If the Government change the law on prisoners’ voting, they will have to do so in primary legislation. Will the Minister make it clear that he would not do that by tabling amendments to this Bill in the House of Lords?
Mr Harper
The hon. Gentleman is getting ahead of himself a little. I made it clear in the statement that the Government had not yet made any decisions on how to implement that judgment. We have made it quite clear on a number of other issues relating to this Bill that it is about the referendum. Indeed, we have resisted amendments in which people have tried to make changes that would have a wider policy impact and that should be made elsewhere. For example, we had a debate on the appropriate age at which people should be able to vote. There was a general view on the Government Benches, even among those who support that provision for elections in general, that this Bill was not the right place in which to make those arrangements. I think that I can give the hon. Gentleman the assurance that he seeks.
The hon. Gentleman asked why the form for the postal voting statement to be used for Scottish Parliament elections in which the issue and receipt of postal ballot papers was not combined had been changed. The Scotland Office has updated the form in the 2010 order, and we have followed that in the Bill for the purposes of the Scottish Parliament elections next May.
The hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) asked why, in Northern Ireland, all postal ballot papers had to be returned if one was spoiled. In cases of a combined poll, there will be a pack containing all the ballot papers, and another pack would have to be issued in such circumstances. Someone could end up with multiple ballot papers for the same election, if the first set were not returned. That is also the long-standing practice in England, Wales and Scotland. I shall come to the hon. Member for Foyle’s other points in a second, and he can come back to me if he does not think that that answer is appropriate.
The hon. Member for Rhondda also asked why proposed new paragraph 42 in amendment 177 referred to the words before “the colour” being omitted. The words are being omitted when the poll at one election is taken with the poll at another election. The reason that we have omitted them is because, if the elections happen on 5 May, we know that there will be combinations and that the words will be redundant. He also asked why amendment 78 changed the wording in line 3 of page 266. It is a consequential minor change—consequential to the drafting change made to the order governing the Scottish Parliament elections—and it is not intended to have any practical effect.
I was asked about amendment 78 and the changes to provisions on abandonment of poll in the Scottish parliamentary elections. Again, this follows changes to the 2010 order, which separates out for the first time provisions dealing with the death of a candidate in a regional election from those dealing with the death of a candidate in a constituency election. This means we have to amend the provision, making it clear how the abandonment of either poll would affect the referendum. The policy remains that the referendum poll would continue.
Chris Bryant
Does that meet the requirements of the later amendment that deals with the equality of votes where a candidate has died?
Mr Harper
They are about different things; they are not linked. [Interruption.] No, the later amendment is about how the AV rules would work, whereas this one is about the working of the elections taking place next year. They are separate issues.
I was also asked about the use of black ink on the postal voting statement. Because it is for the postal voting statement, it is not relevant to the forms used in the polling station. My understanding and my advice is that the use of black ink is to make the document easier to verify when it is checked and scanned when the postal vote identifiers are being checked. I will make further inquiries, however, and write to the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) if this proves not to be the case.
Kevin Brennan
Will the Minister confirm now—or, if not, later in that letter—whether, if an elector does not use black ink, the postal vote will not be invalidated?
Mr Harper
I will look further into that. The real issue is the ease with which returning officers can validate the identifiers. I understand that, where that is not able to be done automatically, it means in practice that it has to be done manually. As I say, however, I will check, write to the hon. Gentleman, copy it to the hon. Member for Rhondda and place a copy in the House of Commons Library.
The hon. Member for Glasgow East (Margaret Curran) said that there were a significant number of amendments. That is true, although as I think the hon. Member for Rhondda acknowledged in his remarks, a lot of them are very technical. They consist of replacing 2007 with 2010, for example, and use straightforward language to reflect what has been changed. The issues of substance, particularly those affecting Northern Ireland—where significant changes have been made to postal voting—have been discussed.
The hon. Member for Foyle raised a number of issues. He asked whether the chief electoral officer could still combine working on local and Assembly elections. Yes, he can. I was asked why the chief counting officer and the Northern Ireland chief electoral officer need to agree on the issue of the receipt of postal ballot papers. The chief counting officer co-ordinates the referendum nationally, so he has the general power of direction. The chief electoral officer of Northern Ireland obviously knows that situation on the ground, so it makes sense for them both to agree on whether to issue combined postal votes. The same position applies in the rest of the United Kingdom. We were urged at an earlier stage of our debate to make this mandatory, but combining the postal ballot papers would sometimes not be practical. Legislating for something that proves not to be practical is not very sensible.
The hon. Member for Foyle also made a point about amendment 18. My advice is that it is not intended to—and, we understand, it does not—change the position on the ability of the Northern Ireland Assembly to change the date. He raises a good point, however, and if he is concerned about it, it is worth my reflecting on it further. I will do so and write to him when I have thought more about it. I repeat that it is not the intention to change the position and we do not believe that it does. The point is nevertheless worth dealing with, and I will write to the hon. Gentleman, if that is acceptable.
Mr Harper
Yes, of course. I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving me the opportunity to confirm that. I will write to the hon. Member for Foyle, copy my reply to the hon. Member for Rhondda and place it in the Library for the benefit of all hon. Members. [Interruption.]
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. A number of private conversations are going on, and I am finding it difficult to listen to the Minister. If Members want to have a chat, will they please go outside the Chamber?
Mr Harper
I am grateful, Mr Deputy Speaker.
I have just one further point. The hon. Member for Foyle also raised an issue about whether the language on the forms was clear enough about spoiled ballot papers. The form mentions the need to return all the spoiled papers, but that might leave some ambiguity, so I will reflect further on it. There are two things worth saying. We have an opportunity to deal with the issue, but the hon. Gentleman will know that at an earlier stage of our proceedings, the House agreed to an amendment that gave the Electoral Commission permission to make the forms—but not the ballot papers—more accessible for disabled people and easier for voters to understand. To be clear, if, after the Bill receives its Royal Assent, as I hope it does, any further issues are raised as to whether the forms are as clear as they could be, the Electoral Commission will have the power to make those changes to facilitate accessibility or make the forms easier to use.
Mark Durkan
I thank the Minister for those particular assurances, but on my reading, form 3A under schedule 8 does not explain that if one ballot is spoiled, they all have to be returned. That is not at all clear in the wording. Any effective amendment would need to lead to a change of wording on the form, perhaps through the channel that the Minister has described.
Mr Harper
I agree. I said that I thought the hon. Gentleman made a fair point. I will go away, think about whether it is a real concern—it is a good point—and decide on the best way to deal with it. I hope that that is helpful. I believe that I have addressed the points made by hon. Members and I hope that the House will agree to the Government amendments.
Amendment 18 agreed to.
Amendment made: 19, page 3, leave out lines 31 and 32.—(Mr Harper.)
Schedule 7
Combination of polls: Scotland
Amendments made: 44, page 212, leave out lines 10 and 11 and insert—
‘“the 2010 Order” means the Scottish Parliament (Elections etc.) Order 2010;’.
Amendment 45, page 212, line 15, leave out from ‘Article’ to ‘Order’ and insert ‘14 of the 2010’.
Amendment 46, page 212, line 32, leave out ‘2007’ and insert ‘2010’.
Amendment 47, page 212, line 41, leave out ‘19 of the 2007’ and insert ‘18 of the 2010’.
Amendment 48, page 213, line 9, leave out ‘20 of the 2007’ and insert ‘19 of the 2010’.
Amendment 49, page 213, line 19, leave out ‘2007’ and insert ‘2010’.
Amendment 50, page 213, line 31, leave out ‘2007’ and insert ‘2010’.
Amendment 51, page 214, line 34, leave out ‘2007’ and insert ‘2010’.
Amendment 52, page 215, line 5, leave out ‘2007’ and insert ‘2010’.
Amendment 53, page 216, line 1, leave out ‘second sentence of’ and insert ‘requirement for separate ballot boxes in’.
Amendment 54, page 216, line 33, leave out ‘and (12)’.
Amendment 55, page 216, line 40, leave out ‘(13)’ and insert ‘(12)’.
Amendment 56, page 218, line 18, leave out ‘46(7)’ and insert ‘46(6)’.
Amendment 57, page 218, line 35, leave out ‘46(7)’ and insert ‘46(6)’.
Amendment 58, page 218, line 38, leave out ‘2007’ and insert ‘2010’.
Amendment 59, page 219, line 11, leave out ‘47(5)’ and insert ‘47(4)’.
Amendment 60, page 219, line 21, leave out ‘48(7)(a)’ and insert ‘48(6)(a)’.
Amendment 61, page 219, line 35, leave out ‘48(9)’ and insert ‘48(8)’.
Amendment 62, page 220, line 5, leave out ‘49(8)’ and insert ‘49(7)’.
Amendment 63, page 220, line 7, leave out ‘49(12)’ and insert ‘49(10)’.
Amendment 64, page 220, line 24, leave out ‘“constituency returning officer”’ and insert ‘“CRO”’.
Amendment 65, page 220, line 29, leave out from ‘53(1)’ to first ‘reference’ in line 30 and insert ‘and (2) of the Scottish Parliamentary Election Rules, a’.
Amendment 66, page 220, line 31, leave out from ‘referendum’ to ‘does’ in line 32 and insert—
‘( ) Rule 53(2)(g) of those rules’.
Amendment 67, page 220, line 37, leave out ‘53(1)(a)’ and insert ‘53(2)(a)’.
Amendment 68, page 220, line 38, leave out paragraph 40 and insert—
‘40 Rule 53(2) of the Scottish Parliamentary Election Rules has effect as if “counting officer” were substituted for “CRO” in each place.’.
Amendment 69, page 221, line 2, leave out ‘53(3)’ and insert ‘53(4)’.
Amendment 70, page 222, line 27, leave out ‘2007’ and insert ‘2010’.
Amendment 71, page 222, line 33, leave out ‘2007’ and insert ‘2010’.
Amendment 72, page 223, line 8, leave out sub-paragraph (5) and insert—
‘(5) The counting officer must, on request, provide an election agent for the Scottish parliamentary election with a copy of the statement relating to that election.’.
Amendment 73, page 224, line 12, leave out ‘2007’ and insert ‘2010’.
Amendment 74, page 225, line 16, leave out from ‘the’ to ‘and’ in line 17 and insert ‘polling register (within the meaning given in Article 2(1) of the 2010 Order),’.
Amendment 75, page 225, line 24, leave out ‘69(1)(e), (f) and (h)’ and insert ‘69(1)(c), (d) and (f)’.
Amendment 76, page 225, line 27, leave out from first ‘the’ to end of line 28 and insert ‘CRO were to the counting officer’.
Amendment 77, page 225, line 36, leave out ‘72’ and insert ‘72(4), 75(2) or 77(1)’.
Amendment 78, page 226, line 3, leave out sub-paragraphs (2) and (3) and insert—
‘(2) Rule 78 of the Scottish Parliamentary Election Rules has effect as if it were amended in accordance with sub-paragraphs (3) and (3A).
(3) In paragraph (2), after “ CRO” insert “or counting officer”.
(3A) For paragraph (3) substitute—
“(3) After the close of any polls that are being taken together with the poll that has been abandoned, the counting officer must—
(a) separate the ballot papers for the abandoned poll, and
(b) deliver or cause to be delivered to the CRO the ballot papers and other documents relating to the abandoned poll.
(3A) Paragraphs (4) to (9) apply in relation to the poll that has been abandoned.”’.
Amendment 79, page 226, line 28, leave out ‘72(8)’ and insert ‘78(10)’.
Amendment 80, page 226, line 32, leave out ‘Scottish Parliament (Elections etc.) Order 2007 (S.I. 2007/937)’ and insert ‘2010 Order’.
Amendment 81, page 227, line 1, leave out ‘20A(4) or 20B(3)(a)’ and insert ‘20(4)(b), 21(4)(b) or 22(3)(b)’.
Amendment 82, page 227, line 2, leave out ‘2007’ and insert ‘2010’.
Amendment 83, page 227, line 4, leave out ‘28’ and insert ‘30’.
Amendment 84, page 227, line 5, leave out ‘2007’ and insert ‘2010’.
Amendment 85, page 227, line 9,, leave out ‘(9)’ and insert ‘(10)’.
Amendment 86, page 227,, leave out lines 22 to 25.
Amendment 87, page 228, line 8, at end insert—
‘“proxy postal voters list” includes the list kept under paragraph 8(6) of Schedule3 to the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2010;”;’.
Amendment 88, page 228, line 27, leave out ‘“constituency returning officer”’ and insert ‘“CRO”’.
Amendment 89, page 228, line 35, leave out ‘constituency returning officer’ and insert ‘CRO’.
Amendment 90, page 228, line 40, before ‘In’ insert—
‘In sub-paragraph (1)—
(a) for “CRO” substitute “relevant returning or counting officer”;
(b) for “CRO’s” substitute “relevant returning or counting officer’s”.’.
Amendment 91, page 228, line 40, leave out ‘sub-paragraphs (1) and (2), for “constituency returning officer”’ and insert ‘sub-paragraph (2), for “CRO”’.
Amendment 92, page 229,, leave out lines 24 and 25 and insert—
(a) the CRO and members of the CRO’s staff;’.
Amendment 93, page 230, line 13, leave out ‘“constituency returning officer”’ and insert ‘“CRO”’.
Amendment 94, page 230, line 18, leave out ‘(8)’ and insert ‘(9)’.
Amendment 95, page 230, line 18, leave out ‘“constituency returning officer”’ and insert ‘“CRO”’.
Amendment 96, page 230, line 21, leave out ‘(5)’ and insert ‘(6)’.
Amendment 97, page 230, line 22, leave out ‘(8)’ and insert ‘(9)’.
Amendment 98, page 230, line 23, leave out ‘“(8A)’ and insert ‘“(9A)’.
Amendment 99, page 230, line 24, leave out ‘(6) or (9)’ and insert ‘(7) or (10)’.
Amendment 100, page 230, line 28, leave out ‘(10)’ and insert ‘(11)’.
Amendment 101, page 231, line 14, leave out ‘32(5)’ and insert ‘31(5)’.
Amendment 102, page 231, line 29, leave out ‘32(5)’ and insert ‘31(5)’.
Amendment 103, page 231, line 21, leave out ‘constituency returning officer’ and insert ‘CRO’.
Amendment 104, page 232, line 15, leave out ‘7(7)’ and insert ‘9(7)’.
Amendment 105, page 232, line 17, leave out ‘constituency returning officer’ and insert ‘CRO’.
Amendment 106, page 232, column2, leave out lines 19 and 20.
Amendment 107, page 233,, leave out lines 4 to 10.
Amendment 108, page 233, line 36, leave out ‘“constituency returning officer”’ and insert ‘“CRO”’.
Amendment 109, page 233, line 42, leave out ‘“constituency returning officer”’ and insert ‘“CRO”’.
Amendment 110, page 234, line 3, before ‘In’ insert—
‘“In sub-paragraph (1)—
(a) for “CRO” substitute “relevant returning or counting officer”;
(b) for “CRO’s” substitute “relevant returning or counting officer’s”.’.
Amendment 111, page 234, line 3, leave out ‘sub-paragraphs (1) and (2), for “constituency returning officer”’ and insert ‘sub-paragraph (2), for “CRO”’.
Amendment 112, page 234, line 7, leave out ‘“constituency returning officer”’ and insert ‘“CRO”’.
Amendment 113, page 234, line 10, leave out ‘“constituency returning officer”’ and insert ‘“CRO”’.
Amendment 114, page 234, line 12, leave out ‘“constituency returning officer”’ and insert ‘“CRO”’.
Amendment 115, page 234, line 15, leave out ‘“constituency returning officer”’ and insert ‘“CRO”’.
Amendment 116, page 235, line 35, leave out ‘20A’ and insert ‘21’.
Amendment 117, page 235, line 36, leave out ‘20B’ and insert ‘22’.
Amendment 118, page 236, line 18, leave out ‘“constituency returning officer”’ and insert ‘“CRO”’.
Amendment 119, page 236, line 29, leave out from ‘sub-paragraph (4)’ to end of line 30 and insert
‘(a) for “CRO’s” substitute “relevant returning or counting officer’s”; (b) after “then” insert “lock the ballot box (if it has a lock) and”’.’.
Amendment 120, page 236, line 31, leave out ‘“constituency returning officer”’ and insert ‘“CRO”’.
Amendment 121, page 236, line 35, leave out ‘“constituency returning officer”’ and insert ‘“CRO”’.
Amendment 122, page 236, line 41, leave out ‘“constituency returning officer”’ and insert ‘“CRO”’.
Amendment 123, page 236, line 43, leave out ‘(7)’ and insert ‘(10)’.
Amendment 124, page 237, line 2, leave out ‘“constituency returning officer”’ and insert ‘“CRO”’.
Amendment 125, page 237, line 3, column2, at end insert—
‘In sub-paragraph (4)(c), for “CRO’s” substitute “relevant returning or counting officer’s”.’.
Amendment 126, page 237, line 5, leave out ‘20A’ and insert ‘21’.
Amendment 127, page 237, line 5, leave out ‘“constituency returning officer”’ and insert ‘“CRO”’.
Amendment 128, page 237, line 6, column 2, at end insert—
‘In sub-paragraph (4)(c), for “CRO’s” substitute “relevant returning or counting officer’s”.’.
Amendment 129, page 237, line 9, leave out ‘20B’ and insert ‘22’.
Amendment 130, page 237, line 9, leave out ‘“constituency returning officer”’ and insert ‘“CRO”’.
Amendment 131, page 237, line 10, column 2, at end insert—
‘In sub-paragraphs (3)(c) and (5), for “CRO’s” substitute “relevant returning or counting officer’s”.’.
Amendment 132, page 237, line 13, leave out ‘lock and’.
Amendment 133, page 237, line 16, leave out ‘21’ and insert ‘23’.
Amendment 134, page 237, line 16, leave out ‘“constituency returning officer”’ and insert ‘“CRO”’.
Amendment 135, page 237, line 19, leave out ‘22’ and insert ‘24’.
Amendment 136, page 237, line 19, leave out ‘(3), for “constituency returning officer”’ and insert ‘(2), for “returning officer”, and for “CRO”,’.
Amendment 137, page 237, line 24, column2, at end insert—
‘In sub-paragraph (3)—
(a) for “CRO” substitute “relevant returning or counting officer”;
(b) for “CRO’s” substitute “relevant returning or counting officer’s”.’
Amendment 138, page 237, line 25, leave out ‘23’ and insert ‘25’.
Amendment 139, page 237, line 26, leave out ‘constituency returning officer’ and insert ‘CRO’.
Amendment 140, page 237, line 30, leave out ‘24’ and insert ‘26’.
Amendment 141, page 237, line 30, leave out ‘“constituency returning officer”’ and insert ‘“CRO”’.
Amendment 142, page 237, line 35, leave out ‘25’ and insert ‘27’.
Amendment 143, page 237, line 35, leave out ‘“constituency returning officer”’ and insert ‘“CRO”’.
Amendment 144, page 237, line 38, leave out ‘26’ and insert ‘28’.
Amendment 145, page 237, line 38, leave out ‘“constituency returning officer”’ and insert ‘“CRO”’.
Amendment 146, page 237, line 41, leave out ‘27’ and insert ‘29’.
Amendment 147, page 238, line 2, leave out ‘28’ and insert ‘30’.
Amendment 148, page 238, column2, leave out lines 2 to 48 and insert—
‘In sub-paragraph (1)—
(a) for the words before sub-paragraph (a) substitute “The relevant returning or counting officer shall retain, together with the documents mentioned in rule 69(1) of the Scottish Parliamentary Election Rules and rule 49 of the referendum rules”;
(b) in paragraph (a), for the words from “the election to which” to the end substitute “the election or referendum to which it relates and the area to which it relates”;
(c) in paragraph (b), at the end insert “in respect of the election, and a completed statement in the form set out in Form 10 in Part 3 of Schedule 7 to the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2010 in respect of the referendum”.’
Amendment 149, page 239, line 3, leave out ‘53(1)(g)’ and insert ‘53(2)(g)’.
Amendment 150, page 239, line 6, leave out ‘“constituency returning officer”’ and insert ‘“CRO”’.
Amendment 151, page 239, leave out lines 9 to 12.
Amendment 152, page 239, line 13, leave out ‘68 and 69’ and insert ‘68, 69, 70 and 71(1)’.
Amendment 153, page 239, leave out lines 29 to 38 and insert—
‘(i) in relation to a document or packet relating to the Scottish parliamentary election, rules 68, 69, 70 and 71(1) of the Scottish Parliamentary Election Rules;
(ii) in relation to a document or packet relating to the referendum, rules 50 and 51 of the referendum rules.”’.
Amendment 154, page 239, line 39, leave out from ‘sub-paragraph (4)’ to end of line 42 and insert ‘for “CRO”’.
Amendment 155, page 240, leave out line 9.
Amendment 156, page 245, line 5 (Form 4—Form of postal voting statement (to be used for Scottish parliamentary election where proceedings on issue and receipt of postal ballot papers not combined)).
Amendment 157, page 251, line 9 (Form 10—Statement as to postal ballot papers for the referendum).—(Mr Harper.)
Schedule 8
Combination of polls: Northern Ireland
Amendments made: 158, page 255, line 6, at end insert—
(ba) Part 5 of the Representation of the People (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2008 (S.I. 2009/1741) or Part 3 of Schedule 2 to the Local Elections (Northern Ireland) Order 1985 (S.I. 1985/454) (issue and receipt of postal ballot papers);’.
Amendment 159, page 255, line 25, at end insert—
(0) rule 16A (corresponding number list);’.
Amendment 160, page 255, line 36, at end insert—
( ) a provision referred to in sub-paragraph (1)(ba), (3)(c) or (h) or (4)(b),’.
Amendment 161, page 255, line 39, leave out paragraphs (b) and (c) and insert—
( ) rule 16A of the Local Elections Rules to the extent that it relates to ballot papers issued in pursuance of rule 21(1) of those rules, or’.
Amendment 162, page 255, line 44, at end insert—
‘( ) The Chief Electoral Officer may not decide that the proceedings on the issue and receipt of postal ballot papers in respect of the referendum and the relevant elections are to be taken together unless the Chief Counting Officer agrees.’.
Amendment 163, page 256, line 2, leave out ‘, 3’ and insert ‘to 3B’.
Amendment 164, page 256, line 13, at end insert—
( ) rule 16A of the Local Elections Rules.’.
Amendment 165, page 256, line 16, at end insert—
( ) rule 16A(2) of the Local Elections Rules.’.
Amendment 166, page 256, line 25, at end insert—
( ) rule 26(1) of the Local Elections Rules.’.
Amendment 167, page 256, line 31, at end insert—
( ) rule 16A of the Local Elections Rules.’.
Amendment 168, page 257, line 31, leave out ‘this paragraph’ and insert ‘sub-paragraph (2)’.
Amendment 169, page 257, line 33, at end insert—
‘(4) The declaration of identity to be used by those entitled to vote by post in the Assembly election must be in the form set out in Form 3A in Part 2 of this Schedule.
(5) Sub-paragraph (4) applies instead of the requirement in rule 24(1) of the Assembly Elections Rules for a declaration of identity to be in a particular form.
(6) The declaration of identity to be used by those entitled to vote by post in the local election must be in the form set out in Form 3B in Part 2 of this Schedule.
(7) Sub-paragraph (6) applies instead of the requirement in rule 21(1) of the Local Elections Rules for a declaration of identity to be in a particular form.’.
Amendment 170, page 258, line 16, at end insert—
(0) rule 26(3)(e) of the Local Elections Rules.’.
Amendment 171, page 258, line 18, at end insert—
( ) rule 26(3ZC) of the Local Elections Rules.’.
Amendment 172, page 260, line 38, at end insert—
22A (1) This paragraph applies where the Chief Electoral Officer decides that the proceedings on the issue and receipt of postal ballot papers in respect of the referendum and the relevant elections are to be taken together.
(2) If the Chief Electoral Officer thinks fit, he or she may require the relevant registration officer to produce—
(a) a combined postal voters list, consisting of the things that would otherwise be included in—
(i) the postal voters list for the referendum;
(ii) the list under paragraph 2(4)(a) of Part 1 of Schedule 2 to the Local Elections Order;
(iii) the list under section 7(4)(a) of the Representation of the People Act 1985 as applied for the purposes of Assembly elections by Article 3(1) of, and Schedule 1 to, the Northern Ireland Assembly (Elections) Order 2001;
(b) a combined proxy postal voters list, consisting of the things that would otherwise be included in—
(i) the proxy postal voters list for the referendum;
(ii) the list under paragraph 4(8) of Part 1 of Schedule 2 to the Local Elections Order;
(iii) the list under section 9(9) of the Representation of the People Act 1985 as applied for the purposes of Assembly elections by Article 3(1) of, and Schedule 1 to, the Northern Ireland Assembly (Elections) Order 2001.’.
Amendment 173, page 265, line 41, at end insert—
‘( ) Where lists are prepared as mentioned in paragraph 7(2), 8(2) or 16(1)—
(a) rules 49(1)(b) and 51 of the referendum rules apply to the packets of those lists;
(b) rule 58(1) of the Local Elections Rules applies as if sub-paragraph (da), so far is it relates to those lists, were omitted.’.
Amendment 174, page 266, line 6, after ‘rule’ insert ‘60 or’.
Amendment 175, page 266, line 9, after ‘61’ insert ‘or 63’.
Amendment 176, page 266, line 42, leave out ‘61(2)’ insert ‘64(1) to (6)’.—(Mr Harper.)
Amendment proposed: 177, page 266, line 42, at end insert—
Part 1A
Postal voting
Interpretation
39 In this Part—
“the 2008 Regulations” means—the Representation of the People (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2008 (S.I. 2008/1741) as applied for purposes of the referendum by Part 3 of Schedule4, and those regulations as applied for the purposes of Assembly elections by Article 3(2) of, and Schedule 2 to, the Northern Ireland Assembly (Elections) Order 2001 (S.I. 2001/2599);
(a) the Representation of the People (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2008 (S.I. 2008/1741) as applied for purposes of the referendum by Part 3 of Schedule4, and
(b) those regulations as applied for the purposes of Assembly elections by Article 3(2) of, and Schedule 2 to, the Northern Ireland Assembly (Elections) Order 2001 (S.I. 2001/2599);
“the Local Elections Order” means the Local Elections (Northern Ireland) Order 1985 (S.I. 1985/454).
Attendance at proceedings on issue and receipt of postal ballot papers
40 (1) This paragraph applies where the Chief Electoral Officer decides that the proceedings on the issue and receipt of postal ballot papers in respect of the referendum and the relevant elections are to be taken together.
(2) The following provisions have effect as if the persons listed in them included persons who would be entitled to be present at the proceedings on the issue or receipt of postal ballot papers in respect of the referendum or a relevant election if those proceedings were taken on their own.
(3) The provisions are—
(a) regulation 72 of the 2008 Regulations;
(b) paragraph 3(1) of Part 3 of Schedule 2 to the Local Elections Order.
Procedure on issue of postal ballot papers
41 (1) This paragraph applies where—
(a) the Chief Electoral Officer decides that the proceedings on the issue and receipt of postal ballot papers in respect of the referendum and the relevant elections are to be taken together, and
(b) a combined postal voters list or proxy postal voters list is produced by virtue of paragraph 22A.
(2) In a case where a postal ballot paper is issued at the same time in respect of the referendum and the relevant elections, a single mark must be placed in the list under the following provisions—
(a) regulation 76(2) of the 2008 Regulations;
(b) paragraph 6(1) of Part 3 of Schedule 2 to the Local Elections Order.
(3) In any other case, a mark must be placed in the list under those provisions identifying the poll to which each postal ballot paper issued relates.
Provisions requiring declaration of identity to indicate colours of ballot papers
42 (1) The provisions listed in sub-paragraph (3) do not apply where the Chief Electoral Officer decides that the proceedings on the issue and receipt of postal ballot papers in respect of the referendum and the relevant elections are to be taken together.
(2) Otherwise, the provisions listed in sub-paragraph (3) have effect as if the words before “the colour” were omitted.
(3) The provisions are—
(a) regulation 76(4) of the 2008 Regulations;
(b) paragraph 6(3) of Part 3 of Schedule 2 to the Local Elections Order.
Envelopes
43 (1) This paragraph applies where the Chief Electoral Officer decides that the proceedings on the issue and receipt of postal ballot papers in respect of the referendum and the relevant elections are to be taken together.
(2) The same covering envelope and ballot paper envelope must be issued to a voter under the following provisions in respect of the referendum and the relevant elections.
(3) The provisions are—
(a) regulation 78 of the 2008 Regulations;
(b) paragraph 8 of Part 3 of Schedule 2 to the Local Elections Order.
(4) The number of each of the postal ballot papers issued must be marked on the ballot paper envelope unless the envelope has a window through which all of the ballot paper numbers are displayed.
(5) The following provisions do not apply—
(a) regulation 78(4) of the 2008 Regulations;
(b) paragraph 8(2) of Part 3 of Schedule 2 to the Local Elections Order.
Spoilt postal ballot papers
44 (1) This paragraph applies where—
(a) the Chief Electoral Officer decides that the proceedings on the issue and receipt of postal ballot papers in respect of the referendum and the relevant elections are to be taken together,
(b) a person returns a spoilt postal ballot paper under regulation 81(1) of the 2008 Regulations or paragraph 12(1) of Part 3 of Schedule 2 to the Local Elections Order, and
(c) a postal ballot paper has been issued to the person in respect of one or more of the other polls.
(2) The spoilt postal ballot paper may not be replaced unless all the postal ballot papers issued to the person are returned.
(3) Where an unspoilt postal ballot paper is returned as mentioned in sub-paragraph (2), the 2008 Regulations or Local Elections Order apply to it as if it were a spoilt ballot paper.
Opening of postal voters’ ballot box
45 The following provisions have effect as if for the words after “opened” there were substituted “at the counting of the ballot papers”—
(a) regulation 85(3) of the 2008 Regulations;
(b) paragraph 16(3) of Part 3 of Schedule 2 to the Local Elections Order.
Opening of ballot paper envelopes
46 (1) This paragraph applies where the Chief Electoral Officer decides that the proceedings on the issue and receipt of postal ballot papers in respect of the referendum and the relevant elections are to be taken together.
(2) The following provisions have effect as if after “number” there were inserted “(or one of the numbers)”—
(a) regulation 88(2)(a) of the 2008 Regulations;
(b) paragraph 17B(2)(a) of Part 3 of Schedule 2 to the Local Elections Order.
(3) The following provisions have effect as if at the end there were inserted “or, where more than one number appears on the ballot paper envelope, a sufficient number of ballot papers (marking the envelope to indicate the missing ballot paper)”—
(a) regulation 88(2)(c) of the 2008 Regulations;
(b) paragraph 17B(2)(c) of Part 3 of Schedule 2 to the Local Elections Order.
Countermand or abandonment of poll for relevant election
47 The following provisions do not apply where the Chief Electoral Officer decides that the proceedings on the issue and receipt of postal ballot papers in respect of the referendum and the relevant elections are to be taken together—
(a) regulation 90 of the 2008 Regulations;
(b) paragraph 18 of Part 3 of Schedule 2 to the Local Elections Order.
Retention of documents
48 (1) This paragraph applies where the Chief Electoral Officer decides that the proceedings on the issue and receipt of postal ballot papers in respect of the referendum and the relevant elections are to be taken together.
(2) The Chief Electoral Officer must—
(a) endorse on each of the specified packets a description of its contents, the date of the poll and the name of the area to which the packet relates;
(b) complete a statement as to postal ballot papers in relation to each poll;
(c) retain the packets and statements.
(3) The specified packets—
(a) in relation to the referendum and the Assembly election, are the packets made up under regulations 79, 81(5) and 89 of the 2008 Regulations;
(b) in relation to a local election, are the packets made up under paragraphs 11 and 17C(b) of Part 3 of Schedule 2 to the Local Elections Order.
(4) A statement as to postal ballot papers—
(a) in the case of the referendum and the Assembly election, must be in the form set out in Form N in Schedule 3 to the 2008 Regulations;
(b) in the case of a local election, must be in the form set out in Form 2 in Part 3 of Schedule 2 to the Local Elections Order.
(5) Where—
(a) any covering envelopes are received by the Chief Electoral Officer after the close of the poll,
(b) any envelopes addressed to postal voters are returned as undelivered too late, or
(c) any spoilt postal ballot papers for the referendum or Assembly election are returned too late to enable other postal ballot papers to be issued,
the Chief Electoral Officer must seal those envelopes or postal ballot papers up in a separate packet, endorse the packet as mentioned in sub-paragraph (2)(a) and retain the packet.
(6) A copy of the completed statements as to postal ballot papers for the referendum and for the Assembly election must be provided to the Electoral Commission.
(7) The following rules apply to any packet or document retained under this paragraph—
(a) rules 51 and 52 of the referendum rules;
(b) rule 56 of the Assembly Elections Rules;
(c) rule 59 of the Local Elections Rules.
(8) In its application by virtue of sub-paragraph (7)(c), rule 59 of the Local Elections Rules has effect as if references to the proper officer of the council were to the Chief Electoral Officer.
(9) This paragraph applies instead of regulation 91 of the 2008 Regulations.
(10) Paragraph 19 of Part 3 of Schedule 2 to the Local Elections Order has effect as if—
(a) in sub-paragraph (1), the reference to paragraphs 11 and 17C(b) were omitted;
(b) in sub-paragraph (2), the references to envelopes were omitted.’.—(Mr Harper.)
Question put, That the amendment be made:—
Mr William Cash (Stone) (Con)
I beg to move amendment 7, page 6, line 10, at end insert ‘, and
(c) the number of electors casting a vote in the referendum is equal to or greater than 40 per cent. of those entitled to cast such a vote.’.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 197, page 6, line 10, at end insert
‘, and
(c) the number of electors casting a vote in favour of the answer “Yes” is equal to or greater than 25 per cent. of those entitled to cast such a vote.’.
Amendment 8, page 6, line 12, after ‘“No”,’, insert
‘or if the number of electors casting a vote in the referendum is less than 40 per cent. of those entitled to cast such a vote,’.
Amendment 198, page 6, line 12, after ‘“No”’, insert
‘or if the number of electors casting a vote in favour of the answer “Yes” is fewer than 25 per cent. of those entitled to cast such a vote’.
Mr Cash
The question of threshold is the second most important issue after the question of whether we agree to this Bill on Second or Third Reading. We have Third Reading to come, and I admit to having voted with some enthusiasm against the Bill on Second Reading, as did a number of my colleagues. We did so because of our inherent objection to the principles that underlie it. I objected to the alternative vote in the wash-up, and I have no reservations about my objections to it. Indeed, I have consistently objected to variants of the proportional representation system ever since I entered the House.
That principled objection has been adopted by Members throughout 150 years of our parliamentary democracy. Many, including Gladstone, Disraeli and even Lloyd George, have objected to the whole idea of undermining the first-past-the-post system. I am reminded of what Disraeli wrote in his novel “Coningsby”. At the time of the Reform Act and the repeal of the corn laws, he wrote in a brief chapter of just one-and-a-half pages:
“There was a great deal of shouting about Conservative principles, but the awkward question naturally arose—what are the principles we are supposed to conserve?”
I believe this Bill is inherently contrary to Conservative principles for the reasons I have given.
Indeed, I would go further and say that I fear that we have not really heard the full reality— the actualité—of what is going on here. Failure in that regard makes it all the more necessary to have a threshold, because if we do not tell the British people the entire truth, which Churchill said we had to do, I fear they will be misled in the referendum campaign. My belief that a threshold is necessary is based in part on the fact that at least that would enable a percentage of the population to be the determining factor as to whether or not the vote is valid.
Mr Cash
Actually, I set it at over 60% until we had the shenanigans on, I think, 18 October. We were effectively deprived—I will not say cheated—of the opportunity to debate this matter in our deliberations on clause 6. The chicanery, as I called it, that we engaged in on that occasion resulted in the threshold being negatived under the procedures of the House. I am not going to go back over that territory however, because I am delighted that we are now having an opportunity to debate this topic.
The threshold question is very important and we were previously deprived of an opportunity to discuss it properly because of the programme motion and other activities that I regarded as rather disreputable. I believe the Bill is being severely vitiated, and I think it is very important that the people of this country know that threshold is a key issue. Indeed, threshold and the 40% figure are regarded by all commentators as having significance across the international scene as well as for the United Kingdom.
Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)
The hon. Gentleman mentions the international evidence. Italy has a provision that is similar to the one he is proposing and the effect is that those who favour a no vote in referendums simply campaign for them to be boycotted. If the hon. Gentleman’s amendment is successful, will he campaign for a no vote or for people to boycott the referendum?
Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend accept that the problem identified by the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) is not one that applies to amendment 197, because it proposes a support threshold, rather than a turnout threshold.
Mr Chope
I see the hon. Gentleman nodding. If amendment 197 were to be accepted, at least one in four electors would have to support the proposed change, and that is very different from what my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash) is talking about, which is a turnout threshold.
Mr Cash
We were all much more in agreement about this in Committee. All I can say to my hon. Friend is that I believe very strongly, for the reasons I have given and because of the principles I have enunciated, that the 40% threshold is desirable. Incidentally, on the majority provisions prevalent in other democracies in the west, Denmark’s requirement on constitutional change is for 40% of registered voters and, as the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) implied, Italy has a turnout requirement of 50% of registered voters. Indeed, this country used something not similar, but parallel in the 1979 vote, when the requirement was for 40% of registered voters saying yes.
Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
All these amendments on thresholds are eminently sensible, but does my hon. Friend agree that there is no chance of their being accepted because the Government will not accept them and that is because there is such profound apathy about this measure among the British people that if any kind of threshold was in place, there would be no chance of the proposal in the referendum being accepted? That is the reality.
Mr Cash
I understand what my hon. Friend is saying, but the problem arises if he simply takes the view that, for one reason or another, either in this House or outside it, there is apathy. I simply refer him back to all the great constitutional problems that have arisen in the past 150 years, when there has also been a problem of apathy, because the constitutional arguments are difficult to get across. I think of this on the basis of, for example, the preference arrangements where a person votes for only one candidate, which will mean that a large number of people will, in effect, be disfranchised—they might be very concerned about that. Some 1.5 million people voted for the UK Independence party and the British National party, and one might say that they may well not vote for anybody else. The other thing, which goes with that, is that if one is faced with a choice of Liberal and Labour, there may be an increased likelihood of people voting Liberal Democrat.
Mr Cash
Wait a minute. That is so for the very simple reason that many people have a visceral hatred of both parties and therefore think, wrongly, that they are voting for another party that will do them some good—we have a different view about that.
I regard this as a lambs-to-the-slaughter Bill—this is why I insist on the threshold—because of what would happen under these arrangements to a number of Conservative MPs if they were to get less than 50% of the vote, as they did in the last election. I have calculated that 60 Conservative MPs had Liberal Democrats in second place. My sense of friendship for my colleagues suggests to me that putting as many as 60 seats on the line is a very high price to pay for the purposes of something so central to the coalition. The figures I have show that those who would be affected range from my hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Richard Harrington), who got 34.9% of the vote, to my hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes), who got 49.7%. All those Members would be largely at risk, although some more so than others, and something will depend on the boundary changes. I cannot understand how my party can make arrangements that take those lambs to the slaughter. This is extraordinary and I would be interested to hear the Minister’s reply.
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
I am very interested in the hon. Gentleman’s point. I agree that turkeys do not usually vote for Christmas. Does he perhaps think that his leader has a plan for his party that he is obviously not party to?
Mr Cash
I have voted consistently against this Bill and I will continue to do so, for the reasons that I have given. It behoves some of us to act both with consistency and in principle against things that were not in our manifesto—in fact, it is the opposite because our manifesto declared that we were not in favour of the alternative vote. Furthermore, there was complete silence on the question of threshold until we received the Bill.
Thomas Docherty
The hon. Gentleman is probably one of the longest-serving parliamentarians. Will he clarify whether he believes that the House of Lords should be bound to follow the manifesto commitment convention or, given that this provision was not in his party’s manifesto, that the House of Lords is perfectly entitled to disregard that convention?
Mr Cash
That is a very good question.
My final point is that leaving this ultimately House of Commons issue—it is about voting here in the House of Commons—to the House of Lords is absolutely disgraceful. This issue should not be resolved in the House of Lords. I have heard a number of my hon. Friends, for whom I have the greatest respect on most matters, churning this out and I simply think it is unacceptable. This is a matter for the House of Commons; it is about our electors, our constituencies, our constitution and the freedom of choice at the ballot box. I utterly reject this Bill and I utterly reject the idea of AV. I strongly urge hon. Members to vote with me on the threshold provision that stands in my name.
Chris Bryant
The hon. Member for Stone (Mr Cash) knows that I have great respect for him. He is adamantine in his positions, holding to them with consistency and firmness, and I respect him for it enormously. Often I disagree with him, but I almost entirely agree with him on this Bill, and I also think that he has made a good case this evening. He referred to Conservative principles, so I wish to nick a few words that the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Mr Williams) reminded some Welsh colleagues of this morning in Westminster Hall. As he said, Evelyn Waugh asked what the point of a Conservative Government is if it does not turn the clock back, and I am sure that the hon. Member for Stone will agree with that.
However, I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman about thresholds in referendums because, broadly, they are not a good idea. As these amendments have shown, it is difficult to know whether the threshold should relate to the turnout—the number of people who vote—or the turnout of those who express a preference. In other words, should it leave out or include those who spoiled their ballot paper? Alternatively, should it relate to those who vote yes to change? Obviously, in countries that have written constitutions all this tends to be laid down; it is one of the key elements that is written down. If someone wants to change any element of the constitution in Germany, Spain or many other countries, they have to obtain a fixed percentage—normally greater than an absolute majority—to be able to effect change. In the German constitution, any change has to be given a successful mandate after two subsequent general elections. I do not believe that that is the way we have tended to do things in the British system.
Mr Leigh
I am curious to know why the Labour party takes the attitude it does. Is it because it is, in principle, opposed to thresholds or is it because it is scarred by its experience in 1979, when the referendum would have gone through but for the threshold, which ushered in the vote of confidence, 18 years of Tory role and all the rest of it? Does Labour have a principled objection or is it just history?
Chris Bryant
The scars of history can give us principles—that is the truth of it. That may well apply to the Conservative party too in relation to some of the things it has had to change in recent years. I point out that if there were to be a threshold for election to this House or to council seats, especially in council by-elections, there would undoubtedly be some occasions when people would not be returned, because voters might choose to do precisely what happens, as my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) has said, in some countries where there is a threshold.
Chris Bryant
I will give way in a moment. In some countries that have thresholds, people are persuaded to boycott. If people felt that they did not like any of the candidates, they might decide that the best way not to return a candidate was to boycott the election.
Chris Bryant
I had offers from Labour Members, so, tempting as the hon. Lady’s offer is, I am going to give way—
Chris Bryant
I am not so sure actually. No, I give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer).
Graham Stringer
I cannot imagine why my hon. Friend is not so sure about that. I would be grateful if he told us where in the Labour manifesto—or anywhere else in Labour party policy—there is a commitment against thresholds. More importantly, is not the serious argument for the Labour party, the Conservative party or any other party in this Chamber the question of what we would do if there was only a 15% turnout? What would the Government do and what would the House of Commons do? Surely we could not accept that.
Chris Bryant
My hon. Friend is absolutely right that there is no fixed determined policy that we are completely and utterly in all cases implacably opposed to thresholds. Nor, for that matter, is there a belief that we ardently should have thresholds. However, I suspect that the hon. Member for Stone has tabled this amendment in some sense as a wrecking amendment, in that he does not really want AV, and that is part of his intention.
Chris Bryant
I shall not give way to him, because there is very little time for debate. I accept that that might not be his intention, but none the less it might be the result of such a thing.
Chris Bryant
I ought to give way, in fairness, to one of the hon. Ladies opposite.
Dr Wollaston
Does the hon. Gentleman have any threshold at which he thinks we would be completely without any validity at all? Perhaps he would like to suggest a threshold.
Chris Bryant
I was actually trying not to suggest a threshold. The hon. Lady is right in one sense, of course. I hope that this might appease my hon. Friend the Member for Blackley and Broughton as regards some of what he said. There is a complexity about the referendum that we might have next May, because we might have very differential turnout in Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and England.
If, for instance, there were to be a very low turnout in England that returned a no vote and a very high turnout in the other places—there is a Scottish parliamentary election, in Northern Ireland there are two other sets of elections and in Wales there is the Assembly election at the same time, and in Wales and Scotland those feel in many senses like general elections—returned significant yes votes, people might start to question the validity of what we were doing. This is all the more important because the referendum is not just an advisory referendum—as referendums have always been in the past—but an implementing referendum. In other words, if there is a yes vote, it comes into law. It happens, and the next general election will be held on the basis of the alternative vote.
I am not convinced by the arguments that are being advanced in favour of thresholds. I personally will be voting yes in the referendum. I do not believe that there should be a referendum, but there is a legitimate argument that others might want to consider about whether the fact that we are combining the polls will produce a differential turnout in different parts of the country that might make a necessity of a threshold.
Mr David
As well as making a powerful comment—and judgment, really—on the proposal for a threshold, is my hon. Friend not harking back to what we talked about earlier, making a convincing case not to have the elections in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland on the same day or to have the AV vote on the same day?
Chris Bryant
Absolutely. As somebody who supports alternative vote, which I know my hon. Friend does not, and as somebody who will want to see a yes vote in the referendum, I find that one of the most depressing things—I think this is true of others in the Chamber who want to see change to the electoral system—is that the way in which the Government and, in particular, the Deputy Prime Minister have proceeded with this has made it more difficult for many to advocate that cause and to push for reform. Now, I shall give way to the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing)—
Chris Bryant
She no longer wants me.
As the hon. Member for Stone said earlier, two different thresholds are proposed. One is that there will be a 25% yes threshold—that is, that we would have to secure 25% of the electorate to count for a yes, and that can be found in amendment 197. The other is the turnout referendum of 40% that the hon. Gentleman has already proposed. I think that it would be inappropriate to move forward with either of the two thresholds and I urge hon. Members to vote against them.
John Mann
Like my hon. Friend, I am a supporter—and always have been—of AV. He mentioned the Labour party, and of course the Labour party has no policy, but has not the Labour movement long held the principle that in trade union rule changes there should be a threshold precisely because rule changes are irreversible, in that they must be implemented? Should not the principle of a threshold mean that the Government should be looking for significantly more than 326 votes on Third Reading tonight to demonstrate any kind of support for this rotten Bill?
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.
Chris Bryant
I am very keen to abandon the Dispatch Box as soon as I possibly can, but I shall give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan).
Mark Durkan
Does the hon. Gentleman recognise that the impact of thresholds on referendums—remember that we are told that the whole issue of constituency changes in this Bill is about creating equal votes—is that they create unequal votes? Those who do not vote—even those who do not vote because they are dead—have more influence and more say than those who go to the bother of voting. Is not the real issue that people want to learn the lesson from Irish referendums? As well as creating confusion and saying, “If you don’t know, vote no,” they will say in some places, “If you don’t know, don’t vote.”
Chris Bryant
My hon. Friend made that point in a previous discussion, and he is absolutely right. We should have a straightforward system where people fight to win their side of the argument. They win that side of the argument by getting people past the ballot box to vote either yes or no. That is why I am, broadly speaking, opposed to referendums.
Let me issue one tiny note of caution, which comes from the problems that the Government are giving us by combining the polls on 5 May. As the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing) said earlier, this has absolutely nothing to do with whether people are bright enough or stupid enough to understand two different propositions that might be put to them—the voters are perfectly intelligent enough to be able to do that—but we will have different turnouts in different parts of the country, which will cause a significant problem. When my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) said earlier that a no vote in the referendum would be a significant problem for the Deputy Prime Minister, the Deputy Leader of the House said from a sedentary position, “No, it wouldn’t really.” So the cat is out of the bag: the Deputy Prime Minister could not care less whether the referendum is successful—whether it leads to a yes or no vote. I think, as do many Members on both sides of the House who would really like a reform of the electoral system, that that betrays the cause that many people had thought essential to the Liberal party. That is why many of us have a profound suspicion that the Deputy Prime Minister is in this less for sound principle than for self-advancement.
Mrs Laing
By tabling amendments 197 and 198 I am again trying to help the Government. The Minister made it clear when we tried to debate this matter in Committee on 18 October that he wanted a debate and a vote on the vital issue of thresholds. He, we and the House were denied that opportunity in Committee so I hope that I am being helpful in giving him the opportunity to debate it now. Alas, however, because very long speeches were made by Opposition Members earlier, we do not have long to debate this matter.
The amendment that my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart) and I submitted in Committee was for a turnout threshold not of 60%, as I have been derided in the press for suggesting, but of 50%. [Interruption.] Not by the shadow Minister, no—by The Daily Telegraph. There is a surprise! I would never have suggested 60%. However, I have listened to the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) and I have listened, surprising as it might seem, to the Deputy Prime Minister.
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.
Thomas Docherty
My maths is not fantastic, but does the hon. Lady accept that she is talking about a turnout of up to 49.9% with 25% voting yes and 24% voting no, and that many constituencies do not get such turnouts at general elections?
Mrs Laing
The hon. Gentleman anticipates my next point. A referendum is not an election; it is a completely different part of the democratic process. The hon. Member for Rhondda and others have compared turnouts in general and local elections, in which voters choose between three, four or five candidates, with referendums, but they are not the same. If they were, a referendum would be called an election. A referendum is a plebiscite. In a referendum, the people are consulted on a particular issue on a yes or no vote; that is not the same as an election and comparisons between the two regarding turnout or other aspects are therefore irrelevant. The simple, inescapable principle is that a change to the voting system is a significant constitutional change; that is why the Government have decided to have a referendum—and rightly so. The outcome of a referendum to change our constitution must be, and must be seen to be, decisive. It must command confidence and respect and it should not be challengeable. If there is a derisory turnout, the result will not command respect or confidence. Indeed, it is worse that that.
Mr Leigh
Is not the virtue of my hon. Friend’s amendments, compared with those of my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash), that hers would not encourage abstention? With hers, everyone who wanted AV would go and vote for it and everyone who did not would vote against it.
Mrs Laing
I thank my hon. Friend; that is exactly the point of my amendments on having a threshold for those voting yes. Any constitutional change that will have an enormous effect on the composition of the House and of Parliament ought to be brought about in a way that commands confidence and respect. In tabling my modest amendments, I am trying once more to help the Government.
What if the referendum takes place and 15% of people vote yes? In a local election, we normally get about 29% and, as the hon. Member for Rhondda has rightly said, there is likely to be differential turnout throughout the country, which is likely to add to the confusion and the likelihood that the result of the referendum will not command respect and will be questionable. If the outcome does not command respect—if only 15% of those entitled to vote actually go out and vote for constitutional change—that result will be derisory and will mean that all future general elections under the AV system will be open to question. I have every confidence that the British people will have the sense to vote against AV, but just in case they do not—this is a serious matter—I put it to the House that if 15% or so of the population vote for a constitutional change that brings about a new AV system for elections to the House, the entire validity of our electoral system will be open to question and the very integrity of our democracy will be undermined.
Mr Harper
The amendments moved by my hon. Friends seek to specify certain thresholds. They are very different, as has emerged from the debate. The amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash) would impose a simple turnout threshold. At least 40% of those entitled to vote would have to cast a vote, or the result would not be valid.
I should take this opportunity to put my hon. Friend right on the form of the alternative vote system that we propose in the Bill. I do not know if he was present for the debates that we had on it. His concern, I think he said, was that people would be forced to vote for all the candidates on the ballot paper, and if they did not, their vote would not be valid. He referred to some parties for which people would not want to vote. I can reassure him—
Mr Harper
Okay, but under our system of optional preferential, we are not forcing anybody to vote for anyone. Voters can vote for one candidate, all the candidates or any number in between, so the form of the alternative vote that we are putting to the electorate next year does not raise any of the concerns that my hon. Friend touched on. I am sorry if I overstated his argument.
The reason we have not specified a threshold in the Bill is, as a number of hon. Members said, that we want to respect the will of the people who vote in the referendum, without any qualifications. The argument against my hon. Friend’s amendment is that specifying a threshold for voter turnout—on this I agree with the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg)—is that it makes every abstention effectively a no vote.
People may choose to abstain, but the amendment would create an incentive for people who favour a no vote to abstain. So people would not campaign, as they rightly should, for only yes or no votes in the referendum. We would have people campaigning actively for voters not to participate. We debated this a little on Second Reading, and as I said in my speech then, I do not think that is right. We need to encourage participation in the referendum. We want people to take part, and putting in a rule that encourages at least one side to campaign actively for voters not to take part would do our democracy a disservice.
I am not concerned as some colleagues are about what the turnout will be. As we have said in previous debates, both in Committee and in the House, there are elections for the devolved Administrations—for the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly and the Northern Ireland Assembly—but there are also elections scheduled next year for 81% of England. The percentage turnout in English local elections varies, but it is usually in the mid to high 30s at least. I am confident that with the additional publicity and the awareness of the referendum, and the fact that it is an important decision, we will indeed get a good turnout.
Previous referendums in this country have either had good turnouts or, where the turnouts have not been that high, they have produced decisive clear results from the electorate, so I do not share that concern. We should not go against our tradition and practice in this country by setting turnout thresholds.
Let me now focus on the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing). She is right to say that it proposes a completely different, outcome-specific threshold. It is worth saying to colleagues on the Government Benches who support the Government’s proposals and respect the coalition agreement that my hon. Friend’s amendment is not compatible with what we set out in the coalition agreement, which was a simple majority referendum, without an outcome-specific threshold. Colleagues who are reconciled to a referendum being held should bear that in mind if they are tempted to vote for my hon. Friend’s amendment.
Mr Harper
I do not think my hon. Friend’s point holds a great deal of water. I think I am right in saying that the decision of the Liberal Democrats, although I am not an expert on their internal party mechanisms, was unanimous or almost unanimous. That does not take us an awful lot further forward.
Mrs Laing
I thank my hon. Friend for pointing out to me that I have made a mistake. I have said in the past that I respect the coalition agreement, and I would not go against it. I understand what he has just said about the exact terms of the coalition agreement and amendment 197. I therefore will not press that amendment to a Division this evening, as it would be inconsistent of me to do so—but of course I will then have to support my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash).
Mr Harper
I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I do not think I have ever been quite so persuasive with any of my arguments as to persuade one of my hon. Friends not to press an amendment. [Interruption.] I hear the opposition, so I shall put that one away and take it as a victory.
My hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest made it clear to the House that she does not think that referendums should be compared to elections in any way, but it is worth saying to hon. Members that if we were to adopt a similar process for elections, the House would be spared the services not of the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) but of, among others, Mr Deputy Speaker’s colleague the right hon. Member for Bristol South (Dawn Primarolo), the right hon. Member for Doncaster Central (Ms Winterton), who is the Opposition Chief Whip, and—most tragically of all for our side of the House—my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), who in his by-election on 10 July 2008 sadly polled only 24.4% of the electorate. We on the Government Benches would be sadly lacking if we had been deprived of his services.
Mr Leigh
I am now totally confused. Generally, I find it is a big mistake to attend debates, because one gets tempted to vote against the Government. Is my hon. Friend the Minister saying that the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing) is contrary to the coalition agreement, but that the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash) is not?
Mr Harper
No, the amendment is not contrary to what is in the coalition agreement, but we do not agree with it, and I have set out clearly why. We do not, in this country, have a tradition of turnout thresholds. The one experience that we have had of an outcome-specific threshold was in a Scottish devolution referendum in 1979. That threshold was put there to deny Scottish devolution.
That leads us to the heart of the argument. My hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest made it clear, as she has done throughout, that she was confident of the decision that the British people would come to—but then she said she wanted to introduce her amendment, just in case. My hon. Friend the Member for Stone, in a revealing response to an intervention from the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby, said that we should trust the people. That is an expression that I used in my Second Reading speech, and it is right.
There are different views in both parts of the coalition and in the Opposition parties, but whatever our views, we should not set artificial limits that encourage people not to participate in the referendum. Whichever side of the argument we are on, we should have the courage of our convictions. We should get the Bill—or the part of it that we agree with—on to the statute book, make our case, engage with the people, explain to them the rights and wrongs of the cases, and trust the people, as the hon. Gentleman said, to make the right decision, to come out and vote, and to make a clear decision. Then the House will be able to proceed. That is the best way, so I urge my right hon. and hon. Friends not to press their amendments—and if do they press them, I urge the House to vote against them.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
The Deputy Prime Minister (Mr Nick Clegg)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
First, let me welcome the scrutiny that the Bill has now undergone. I know that there has been vigorous debate on all the Bill’s provisions, which is only right for a measure of such importance not just to this House but to the people we represent. It was also right that we should spend eight days on the Floor of the House debating the Bill, and that the House should have the opportunity, which it has taken, to divide on the key provisions before it goes for consideration to the other place.
The Deputy Prime Minister
I should like to make a bit of progress.
The Bill has been amended during its passage through this House. The Government accepted the Electoral Commission’s findings on the question—something that found support right across the House. The Bill also now includes detailed provision for the combination of the referendum with the other elections on 5 May, making the poll easier to run and allowing savings to be made.
Many Members have drawn attention to the constitutional importance of the changes that we propose: changes to deliver more equal constituencies, a House of Commons of reasonable size, and a referendum to give people a choice over their voting system. The Government recognise the significance of these measures. We also recognise that Members are not simply being asked to vote on these matters in the abstract, but that the changes have real consequences for Members of this House and for their constituents.
Thomas Docherty
I am grateful to the Deputy Prime Minister, who has joined us for the first time after eight days of debate. Can he confirm to the House whether he read the Gould report personally before he picked the date of 5 May for the referendum?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I read reports of the Gould report. I did not read every single word of the Gould report itself, but I read enough to tell me that it conclusively showed that the problem with the combination of votes in Scotland arose because of the unique nature of the ballot papers in those local elections, which were extremely confusing to voters who were voting in two elections at the same time. By contrast, next May I think it will be uncomplicated for people to vote in devolved elections, in local elections in England, and on a simple yes or no answer to the referendum question.
The Deputy Prime Minister
I would like to make a little progress.
At the heart of this Bill are some simple principles. It is right that constituencies are more fairly sized, so that the weight of a person’s vote does not depend on where they live. It is right that we reverse the unintended trend that has seen this House grow in size and cap its membership at a more reasonable number. It is right for people to have their say on the extremely important question of which system voters use to elect MPs, and crucially, it is right that, at a time when people’s trust in Parliament has been tested to destruction, we act to renew our institutions.
Mr Cash
I am most grateful to the Deputy Prime Minister for giving way and hope not to detach him too long from his speech. Would he be good enough to explain to me, in the light of the announcement earlier today on votes for prisoners, whether under the Bill prisoners who are currently disqualified from voting in parliamentary elections will be unable to vote in the referendum? Do the Government propose to change that to bring it into line with today’s announcement?
The Deputy Prime Minister
As the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), explained this afternoon, we have made no decision on the matter other than to state the obvious point, which was first stated by the previous Government, that we will need to act in accordance with the law. We are still debating exactly how and when to do that, and we will make announcements as soon as we can.
I am sure I do not need to remind Members of the damage that was done by the expenses scandal, which lifted the lid on a culture of secrecy, arrogance and remoteness right at the heart of the democracy. The coalition Government are determined to turn the page on that political culture and give people a political system that they can trust. That is why we have set out a programme for wholesale political reform. We are starting with this Bill, which, through its commitment to fairness and choice, corrects fundamental injustices in how people elect their MPs.
Ian Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)
The Deputy Prime Minister makes the important point that we need to ensure that we reconnect with communities. How will the removal of public inquiries, and therefore of the right of individuals and communities to make oral representations on the most profound boundary changes for 150 years, reconnect Parliament with individuals and communities?
The Deputy Prime Minister
As the hon. Gentleman knows, the Bill provides for a significant extension—actually a tripling—of the time during which people can make written representations.
The Deputy Prime Minister
The hon. Gentleman might shake his head and dismiss the idea of people making written representations, but they will not end up in the bin. They are an effective means by which people can make their views heard, and I am sure he will take up that opportunity if he wishes to.
Combined with our other reforms—fixed-term Parliaments, a new power of recall, and reform of the other place—the Bill will help us close the gap between people and politics, ensuring that our institutions meet expectations and are fit for a modern 21st-century democracy.
Mr Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con)
I do not doubt the Deputy Prime Minister’s sincerity, but he used to be very keen on reducing the number of Ministers in this place. Why is he not so keen on that measure now?
The Deputy Prime Minister
There may well be a case for looking at the number of Ministers when the size of the House of Commons is reduced, but that is not happening now. It would happen only in the next Parliament. We would need to keep it under constant review, and—dare I say it?—future Governments might wish to act upon that idea. I do not dispute at all the principle that as the Commons is reduced in size, so should the number of Ministers be reduced.
I understand that some Members continue to have specific concerns about the detail of the Bill. That was clear, for example, during the thorough debate on the date of the referendum. I know that Members from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland in particular continue to worry about the implications of combining different polls on 5 May, but I believe that our decision is right and that voters are able to distinguish between elections to local government or devolved institutions and a straightforward yes or no question on a completely different issue. However, the Government remain alive to the concerns and will continue to work with the Electoral Commission and administrators across the UK to help ensure that combined elections run smoothly.
Mr MacNeil
One of the major concerns about having elections on the same day is that the media, rather than the voters, may be unable to cope. We have all accepted, both in Committee and on Report, that that is where the difficulty lies. There is a problem with the registration of the yes and no sides of the campaign. How will that affect access to the media, particularly in the run-up to Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland elections? That is an important consideration.
The Deputy Prime Minister
As the hon. Gentleman knows, registered and designated organisations in the referendum campaign will have access to broadcast time. I do not see why that should make it in any way impossible for voters—they are the ones who count—to distinguish between their choices in the devolved elections and in the referendum contest.
The Deputy Prime Minister
Members are jumping up with great excitement, but if I can make a little headway I will give way in a minute.
On the boundary review, I recognise that some Members are nervous about the implications for the areas that they represent. We have taken those concerns seriously. For example, the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean, visited the Isle of Wight to meet people with views on both sides of the argument. However, the Government’s view, and the position that has withstood sustained debate, is simple. Fairness demands constituencies that are basically equal in size. Of course the boundary commissions must have some discretion to vary from absolute equality to take account of local factors, and the rules set out in the Bill provide flexibility in that regard, but there can be no justification for maintaining the current inequality between constituencies and voters across the country.
Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)
I entirely agree, of course, with the principle that we should have more equal constituencies, but not the regimentally and statistically equalised ones proposed in the Bill. That will create homogenised, pasteurised constituencies of bland uniformity. If the Bill returns from the Lords with amendments to establish a reasonable balance between equalisation and a recognition of tradition, culture and local authority boundaries, will the Government resist the changes?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I admire my hon. Friend’s commitment to his constituency, of course, and he argues his case with great conviction, but I disagree with the characterisation of the Bill as an attempt to “pasteurise” constituencies. After all, one third of the Members in the House already represent constituencies within the size quota that we are setting down, so it is hardly a revolution. It is very much an evolution, building on arrangements that are already in place.
My hon. Friend talks about the rigidity of the constituency size set out, but there will actually be a 5% margin either side of an ideal size. As he also knows—I have discussed it with him previously—it builds on a provision already present in existing legislation. The Bill merely prioritises the matter in a way that is not currently the case. So no, we would not be minded to accept amendments that reopened the fundamental question of fairness and equality in how constituencies are drawn up.
I urge Members to remember that if the Bill passes, as I hope it does, it will be then that the real decisions on constituency boundaries begin. They will be up to the independent boundary commissions, and Members and communities will have plenty of opportunity to have their say.
Mark Tami
Does the Deputy Prime Minister not think his argument would be stronger if he did not make an exception for a certain number of seats in Scotland, to his own political advantage? They are being treated completely differently, and without the equal value that he pretends to believe in.
The Deputy Prime Minister
As the hon. Gentleman may know, two constituencies are treated differently from others. One is held by the Scottish National party. [Interruption.] No, two. The other one is a Liberal Democrat constituency. Both constituencies have been recognised in previous regulations and legislation as having a unique status. I know that the hon. Gentleman has about 60,000 people in his constituency. [Interruption.] The Prime Minister himself has looked up the statistic, so we are talking about a very good authority. Other colleagues represent 20,000 more voters. Surely that cannot be right.
The Deputy Prime Minister
Before apoplexy breaks out on the Opposition Benches, let me try to bring this to a close.
Where there has been a reasoned case for amendment, we have accepted the arguments and acted. The Bill is almost ready to go to the other place for further scrutiny, which will undoubtedly add to the debates that we have been having here. Before that, the Commons will have its final say tonight.
The Deputy Prime Minister
I will not give way, because I want to conclude.
The elected Chamber will, I hope, agree these extremely important changes to the very elections that put us here. Fair constituencies and choice for people over their voting system will prove unambiguously that the House of Commons is dedicated to real and meaningful reform, including of the very system that put us here.
Sadiq Khan (Tooting) (Lab)
I welcome the Deputy Prime Minister to the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill. He may have missed the contribution made by the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing), who reminded us that the first and only time that he graced the Chamber with his presence was on Second Reading on 6 September 2010. He reminds us of Alfred Hitchcock in those classic films in which he has a walk-on part and then comes back at the end for a bow. However, unlike Hitchcock, the right hon. Gentleman brought a posse with him for fear of being lynched—lynched by either that lot, the Liberal Democrats, or that other lot, the Conservative Back Benchers, never mind us lot in the Opposition.
Ironically, the Deputy Prime Minister, who was so keen on this Bill and who directed it, has made no attempt to play a role in it. The real reason, of course, is that he is not the architect. The architect is his chum the Prime Minister, who has just walked out, now that he has seen that his friend is safe.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
As the right hon. Gentleman is less than overwhelmed by the prospect of this Bill, would he care to say which Hitchcock film he has most in mind? Is it “Vertigo”, “Sabotage” or “Psycho”?
Sadiq Khan
It is all the films that have a bad ending. Most right hon. and hon. Members will agree—some publicly and others privately—that as things stand, this is a deeply unsatisfactory piece of legislation. It has its genesis in the party political horse-trading that characterised the coalition talks and which is all too evident. I remind the House and those in the other place of what this Bill means unless the other place overturns some of the clauses passed here: a referendum on AV on 5 May 2011, which was not in the manifesto of either of the coalition parties, so there is no mandate for it; a reduction of elected Members in this House from 650 to 600, which was not in the manifesto of either coalition party, so there is no mandate for it; the abolition of public inquiries for boundary commission proposals, which was in neither of the coalition parties’ manifestos, so there is no mandate for it; holding the next general election with new boundaries based on purely mathematical formulae, save for two exceptions, of 600 seats, which again was in neither of the coalition parties’ manifestos, so there is no mandate for it.
We will soon have before us a new Bill that will set in stone the date of the next general election—5 May 2015. Once again, that was in neither of the coalition parties’ manifestos and there is no mandate for it. The Prime Minister and his chum, the Deputy Prime Minister, will sell these reforms in public as democratising measures that herald the dawn of a new politics. Behind closed doors, however, they offer a different rationale, as was revealed by the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr Field). On the day of Second Reading—the last time the Deputy Prime Minister came to this Chamber for this Bill—the hon. Gentleman said that
“the current proposals for AV and the reduction in number of parliamentary constituencies are being promoted by party managers as an expedient way to prevent our principal political opponents from recapturing office.”——[Official Report, 6 September 2010; Vol. 515, c. 47.]
I know that the Whips have kept the hon. Gentleman out of the Chamber this evening.
This Bill is the product of a straightforward political bargain. In exchange for a referendum on the alternative vote, which the Conservatives opposed, the Liberal Democrats signed up to a review of constituency boundaries that the Conservatives favoured. As such, it has come to be regarded by the leadership as an unalterable document that must be accepted totally and unquestioningly.
Mr Brian Binley (Northampton South) (Con)
Is all of this peroration meant to defend the 4.2% built-in bias for the Labour party in elections? Is that what this is about?
Sadiq Khan
The hon. Gentleman, who is a friend, has been absent for the past few days, and I am not quite sure what point he makes.
Sensible, neutral suggestions that have commanded support on both sides of the House, such as the proposal to ensure that the Executive do not grow disproportionately powerful as the legislature is reduced in size, have been dismissed. As any independent observer who has followed the passage of the Bill to date will readily admit, that unbending attitude deprives the Bill of the adjustments and improvements it sorely needs.
The scrutiny process has suffered from being rushed. It is a convention that major constitutional matters are debated here, but it is also a convention that they are given sufficient time.
Mr Cash
On constitutional conventions, is it not the case that in many countries, including ours, Bills of this kind are subject to thresholds because they ensure that enough people have voted? On the abstention argument, do the Opposition believe that people have a right not to vote? Otherwise, do they believe that voting ought to be compulsory?
Sadiq Khan
The problem with the hon. Gentleman’s propositions is that the manifestos of neither coalition party contained any of the ingredients of the Bill, let alone thresholds. That is one reason why, like sheep, they have voted against proposals for more accountability, both in Committee and on Report. Any independent observer who has followed the passage of this legislation, including the Deputy Prime Minister, who might have had a chance to read some of the Hansard reports, will readily admit that that unbending attitude deprives the Bill of the adjustments and improvements it sorely needs.
Let me give some examples of Bills that have gone through the House with proper debate and scrutiny. The Government of Wales Act 1998 was taken on the Floor of the House and was the subject of more than 69 hours of debate. The Scotland Act 1998 was also taken on the Floor of the House and was the subject of more than 121 hours of debate before it left for the other place.
Albert Owen (Ynys Môn) (Lab)
My right hon. Friend mentioned the Government of Wales Act 1998, which specified, subject to a referendum, that there would be no reduction in the number of Welsh seats until primary powers were devolved.
Albert Owen
But that was the settlement given to the Welsh people, and the Deputy Prime Minister is driving a coach and horses through it with his Bill.
Sadiq Khan
We also did a novel thing in those days—Labour still does this now—of putting the things that we stand for in an election manifesto. Even if someone wins a popular mandate for that manifesto, they should ensure that there is proper debate and scrutiny on the Floor of the House. The coalition Government have a smaller majority than the previous Labour Government, but they have rushed the Bill through.
The Bill is more far-reaching than the Acts to which I referred, but there have been fewer than 40 hours of debate on it in the House before it goes to the other place. Day after day, colleagues on both sides of the House have been denied their wish to speak and deprived of the opportunity to make important points, and their speeches have been truncated when in full flow. The Liberal MPs on the Front Bench below the Gangway have had their mouths zipped because of the way in which the coalition Government have rushed the Bill through.
Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)
The right hon. Gentleman obviously has not quite understood that in a coalition, more than one party must be accommodated. The Labour party is not in the coalition. Can he be very clear whether Labour party policy is the same as it was at the election, which is to support the alternative vote? I am referring not only to the Leader of the Opposition, but the shadow Cabinet, Labour Members and the party as a whole.
Sadiq Khan
The deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats wants to start a new convention—have a manifesto, not win the election, get involved for five days in a shabby deal with the Conservative party, and reach an agreement for the sake of power rather than principle.
Mr Tom Harris (Glasgow South) (Lab)
I am always happy to come to the aid of the Liberal Democrats when they, once again, get their facts wrong. The policy of the Labour party at the last election was to have a referendum on the alternative vote and to allow the people of this country to have a say, with Labour MPs campaigning on both sides of the argument.
Sadiq Khan
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The point is what these arrogant Ministers have come to, after just five months, in this mother of all Parliaments. At a time when we are helping emerging democracies understand how democracy should work, we have a Bill that will change the voting system, reduce the number of MPs and change the way in which seats are distributed, all for the sake of political expediency and the coalition’s calculations, rather than for principle.
For the avoidance of doubt, the Labour party supports the principle of more equal seats, but that objective could be met in a more balanced and practical way than proposed in the Bill. As things stand, the requirement for every seat to fit within 5% of a UK-wide electoral quota would see dramatic changes to long-established patterns of representation, but take no proper account of geography, history or community ties. The boundary commission secretaries said in evidence—I know that the Deputy Prime Minister does not like evidence, but I will give him some this evening—that
“the application of the electoral parity target is likely to result in many communities feeling that they are being divided between constituencies…and will result in many constituencies crossing local authority boundaries.”
We will see the creation of seats that cross the Mersey, a “Devonwall” constituency that straddles the Tamar is inevitable, and then there is the Isle of Wight—a problem that called for the wisdom of Solomon has received the attention of the absent Hitchcock in the last few weeks. Against everyone’s wishes, the island will be split in two, with 35,000 electors merged with constituencies in Hampshire, producing a ripple effect that will distort the composition of neighbouring seats for miles around.
We have suggested that several areas, including Cornwall, Anglesey and the Isle of Wight, should be allocated whole constituencies, to avoid these perverse outcomes. The Government have not listened. We advocated the compromise of a 10% absolute limit on disparity, which would provide more equal-sized seats while enabling factors such as geography and community to be taken into account. The Government have not listened.
The indecent haste of the changes will also create problems. To complete a review by October 2013, the boundary commissions have been instructed to use the December 2010 electoral register, from which more than 3.5 million eligible voters are missing, as the foundation for the constituencies redesign. As the missing millions are mostly younger, poorer people predominantly located in urban areas, the calculations are bound to produce a distorted electoral map.
To compound everything, the Bill abolishes the right to hold local inquiries into boundary commission recommendations. Even critics of the inquiry process have questioned that decision, asserting that if there was ever a boundary review for which inquiries will be needed, this is it. But the Government will not listen, because consulting the public would mean delaying their politically driven timetable, designed to damage Labour’s electoral standing.
Combining the referendum with other polls next May is also clearly wrong. It increases the risk of administrative chaos and the potential for spoiled ballots. It will also cause problems with expenses, the media and the electoral rules, as other hon. Members have pointed out.
Geraint Davies
On the issue of corrupting the democracy of the Welsh Assembly and the evidence of the Select Committee, does my hon. Friend accept that Wales is a nation of 3 million people set alongside a nation 17 times its size? Wales is also exclusively reliant on a funding stream from England. The Select Committee essentially said that there will be profound constitutional consequences for the whole of the UK if this Bill is railroaded through and the democratic mandate from Wales is reduced by a quarter. We are here to be the voice of Wales, and this is a slap in the face for the Union and for Wales.
Sadiq Khan
If my hon. Friend thinks that the Deputy Prime Minister—the great reformer—has read the report of the Welsh Affairs Committee, I am afraid that he is mistaken. The Deputy Prime Minister has not even read Ron Gould’s report or been present in the Chamber since 6 September, so the idea that the Government will take into account any of the evidence is nonsense.
Mr Alan Reid (Argyll and Bute) (LD)
The right hon. Gentleman mentions the Gould report. The problems in the Scottish elections in 2007 were caused because the Labour Government decided to have a ballot paper on which people had to put two crosses in two separate columns. If he had read the Gould report, he would know that that was what caused the problem. In this case, there will be three ballot papers and people will have to put an X on each of them. That is far simpler. Clearly he has not read the Gould report.
Sadiq Khan
The hon. Gentleman is making the same mistake that the Deputy Prime Minister made, which is not to have heard the comments made just an hour ago by my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) on the same point. What the hon. Gentleman has described is not the reason why we object to the referendum and the elections being held on the same day. He really must do a service to his constituents, bearing in mind that they will suffer huge consequences, by listening to the evidence and listening to the debate. The other problem with having a referendum on the same day as national elections and council elections outside London is the differential turnout. Irrespective of the result on 5 May 2011, and whichever way the vote goes, there will be questions about the legitimacy of that vote because of differential turnouts. Who is to blame for this? The Deputy Prime Minister, the great reformer.
Labour supports a referendum on AV and agrees with the principle of creating more equal seats, but this Bill is a bad means of delivering both objectives. It is too inflexible and too hasty, and it will lead to great and ongoing political instability. This House has failed to improve the Bill because it has not been allowed to do so. To our shame, that task now falls to unelected peers in the other place, whom we must now rely on to inject some democratic principles into what, to date, has been an inglorious episode in recent parliamentary history.
Mrs Laing
We have had many, many hours of debate on this Bill— not enough, some would argue. Unfortunately, there are parts of the Bill that have not been reached and not been examined, for various reasons. The other day I found a quotation in one of those amusing books that said: “Laws are like sausages. It is better not to see them being made.”
Mrs Laing
I believe it probably was Bismarck. If ever that were true, it is true of this Bill. However, this is also a necessary Bill. I said at the beginning that I appreciated why we had to have it and that I would support it, and I will continue to do so.
The Select Committee on Political and Constitutional Reform did its best, on a rushed timetable, to perform what legislative scrutiny of the Bill we could. On behalf of the Committee, let me say that I hope that our reports and investigations, and the evidence that we have made available to Members has been useful in informing some of the debates that have taken place. While mentioning the Committee, let me say that the Chairman, the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen), will be sad to have missed this part of the proceedings on the Bill, just as he has had to miss many of the Committee’s sittings, because he has been unwell. I am sure that the House will join me in wishing him a speedy recovery, although he is not seriously ill, so I believe that he will be back soon—it is okay, I should tell Opposition Members that he will not be missed for too long. The Committee has done its best to help the House to consider this Bill properly.
The second part of the Bill is excellent—the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) will not be surprised to hear me say that. It is correct that we should at last grasp the difficult nettle of the composition of the House of Commons. It is correct that we should reduce the number of Members of Parliament to the perfectly round and reasonable figure of 600. It is correct that this House and this Parliament should make that decision, as it is doing this evening. It is also correct and inarguable that every constituency in the United Kingdom, whether in Scotland, Northern Ireland, England or Wales, that sends a Member to this United Kingdom Parliament should be of equal size.
Jonathan Edwards
Does the hon. Lady recognise that historically there has always been a weighting in favour of the Celtic nations to ensure that we do not have an England-dominated Parliament?
Mrs Laing
No, I certainly do not. The hon. Gentleman’s point has no validity whatever. This is the Parliament of the United Kingdom—of the whole United Kingdom—and every constituency in this United Kingdom should be of equal size and should have an equal number of voters. Every Member who is elected to this Parliament should come here with an equal weight of electorate behind them.
Phil Wilson (Sedgefield) (Lab)
Now that we must give votes to prisoners, will we have to have equal-sized prisons?
Mrs Laing
Mr Deputy Speaker might say that that point is not relevant to this Bill. It is not for me to argue the matter. I do not want prisoners to have the vote, but that is not the point at issue. The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) gave perfectly good responses to that this afternoon.
Labour Members have produced all the little arguments they can possibly think of to try to preserve the current unfair imbalance in constituency structures that gives the Labour party an unfair electoral advantage. Every statistic shows that, and it cannot be argued against because it is a matter of simple arithmetic. It is not a matter of opinion; it is a matter of fact—[Interruption.]
Hon. Members say, “gerrymandering”, but the gerrymandering was done by the last two Boundary Commissions under the then Labour Government. Of that there is no doubt whatever.
Sadiq Khan
Does the hon. Lady think a system that is not subject to a public inquiry is more or less likely to lead to gerrymandering?
Mrs Laing
No. I think the point is incompetent. We debated it at great length last night, and the fact is that public inquiries are not necessary. It is necessary to have a certain amount of time for consultation, and that is provided in the Bill. We do not need long, drawn out public inquiries when political parties spend weeks and months arguing spuriously about old-fashioned boundaries and traditions, and about hills, mountains and rivers, when they are concerned only about the number of Labour voters or Conservative voters who are likely to be in a constituency. Labour Members should have the courage to face up to a fair democratic system, and that is what the Bill will introduce.
Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)
Is the hon. Lady aware that in 2005, when Greater Manchester reviewed 28 constituencies, the public inquiry took three weeks, not months—no longer than three weeks?
Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)
The hon. Lady has said a lot about fairness. Does she think it is fair to pack the House of Lords with more Members in order to force this legislation through?
Mrs Laing
I assume that the hon. Gentleman is referring to the acts of the last-but-one Prime Minister, Tony Blair, who packed more members of the Labour party into the House of Lords than any previous Prime Minister had done. And no, I do not think it is fair, but that is not relevant. I am sure that his party will be pleased to hear his criticism of its hero, Mr Blair.
I have had more difficulty in supporting the first part of the Bill, although it is obvious that we have to have a referendum because it is part of the deal done between the two parties in order to form the coalition agreement. We need a coalition Government in order to give the country the stability that we require to deal with the horrific economic circumstances left behind by the last Labour Government.
Dr Julian Lewis
I am sorry to make an unhelpful intervention on my hon. Friend, whom I greatly admire, but my understanding of a deal for a coalition Government is that when a bargain is made, both sides stick to it. That is why I voted for this Bill on Second Reading, despite my objections to it. Subsequently, however, the part of the bargain that induced me to endorse the deal—namely, the fact that we were told that the Liberals would accept the renewal of the Trident strategic nuclear deterrent—was dishonoured. That is why I shall be voting against the Bill on Third Reading.
Mrs Laing
My hon. Friend makes a very good point, but it does not change my arguments about the Bill. I appreciate his point, but I still say that we should have a coalition in order to provide the stability that the country needs in the aftermath of Labour’s economic disasters. It is therefore necessary to have this Bill and to have a referendum.
It is a great pity that the referendum is to be held on the same day as other elections. We have heard many very well put arguments, particularly from Members from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, about why the referendum should not take place on the same day as their national elections. Nor should a referendum go ahead without a threshold. That could result in a vote on a derisory turnout of some 15% changing our constitution. That is quite simply wrong, but I realise that the Government are not going to accept that argument because, once again, these provisions are in the coalition agreement, by which we are bound.
Kevin Brennan
Does the hon. Lady acknowledge that the date of the referendum is not set in stone in the coalition agreement, and that it is simply a part of the Bill? Does she also agree that the Deputy Prime Minister’s desire to maximise the chances of winning the referendum by holding it on that date could well backfire on him, because of the manner in which the Bill is demotivating many of us who are in favour of electoral reform but who have consistently been appalled by the way in which it has been railroaded through, against the wishes of the devolved Administrations?
Mrs Laing
Yes, I entirely accept the hon. Gentleman’s point. He is totally correct. The fact is that some of us have tried, in all good faith, to improve the Bill, but we have failed to do so. On those matters of principle, we now have a Bill in more or less the state that it was in when it first came to the House. I must not presume what might happen in another place, but let us assume that we will now have to go ahead with a referendum on the same day as the elections in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and some local elections in England. The turnout for the referendum could be derisory, so it would not have much validity. However, I am now sure of one thing, and the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) has just reinforced my point. As this argument has gone on in the country and the media over the last few months, it has become clear—and it will become even clearer—that the British people will not be duped into voting for a voting system that is representative neither of a fair first-past-the-post system, nor of the sort of proportional representation seen in some countries, which I do not like, although I agree it has some validity. The system we will be voting on will be neither one nor the other—and I do not believe that the British people with their good sense will vote for it.
Tristram Hunt (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab)
Is the hon. Lady—[Interruption.] Wonderful? Yes, she is wonderful, but is she aware that there is no popular mandate for this referendum? It was not in the Liberal Democrat manifesto—the Liberal Democrats wanted to push this through without a popular referendum and to impose this on the British people—and it was not in the Conservative manifesto either. Does the hon. Lady think that the other place might well regard this commitment as having no validity in terms of a democratic mandate?
Mrs Laing
Yes, the hon. Gentleman is absolutely correct: there is no democratic mandate for this referendum—none whatever. If the proportion of votes cast for the Liberal Democrats in the UK as a whole during the general election in May this year were mirrored in the referendum, there would be no problem defeating the yes vote. The referendum would fail and we would be able to continue with our good, historic, solid, decent first-past-the-post system, which has served us so well for centuries.
John Thurso (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)
Will the hon. Lady give way?
Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)
I will be brief, as other Members want to contribute. The speeches this evening and other speeches in Committee and on Report have shown that this is a highly politicised issue and a highly politicised debate. When we debate changes to the voting system, major constitutional change and changes that affect the boundaries of constituencies, an attempt is usually made at least to reach some cross-party consensus. It is sometimes done through the procedure of a Speaker’s convention, for example.
Given the rhetoric of the Government parties before the election, one would also have hoped for some pre-legislative scrutiny and the proper involvement of the parties representing all regions and areas of the United Kingdom. Instead, a Bill has been cobbled together, and elements of it have received no mandate—and no mandate has even been sought in respect of them. As a result, we are in this divisive situation, in which the Government are ramming the Bill through without agreement and without consensus. That is no way to deliberate and it provides no basis for making decisions on the future composition of this House—or indeed for deciding how people should vote for Members of this House in the future.
Despite what the Deputy Prime Minister has said and despite what other Ministers—they have struggled manfully to deal with these issues—have done, it is clear that a lot of the opposition to the Bill has come from Conservative Members behind the Government Front Bench, not just from Opposition Members. From a Northern Ireland perspective, I have to say that the respect agenda that has been much talked about has not been much in evidence on this issue. Eloquent words on Wales and Scotland have already been spoken, but as far as Northern Ireland is concerned, the alteration of the Northern Ireland parliamentary boundaries has a direct impact on the Northern Ireland Assembly boundaries—they are one and the same. Those changes will happen every five years. The Deputy Prime Minister seemed to suggest that they will not happen, but given that there will be a boundary revision every five years, and given the changes in registration and the number of votes allocated to different countries and regions, it is inevitable that there will be changes in the boundaries. That will have a direct impact on the make-up of the Northern Ireland Assembly, which has multi-Member constituencies.
We have all gone through an long period during which we tried to reach a political settlement in Northern Ireland. Thankfully, we have made enormous progress. We have a reasonably, or relatively, stable political set-up, although of course challenges and difficulties remain. However, we risk upsetting that political equilibrium—that consensus—with this measure, which, as I have said, will have a direct impact on the Northern Ireland Assembly. Moreover, all this has happened without any prior consultation with the parties or the Executive in Northern Ireland. I believe, and any objective observer would believe, that that consultation should have taken place.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
Does my hon. Friend agree that the proposed boundary changes, and the continual changes that will follow, will lead to instability and uncertainty, and that that in itself does not augur well for the political process in Northern Ireland?
Mr Dodds
I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. He has experience of these matters, having been a Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly until recently.
The Deputy Prime Minister said that, as well as the changes in the Bill, the Government would introduce reforms of the House of Lords. While I welcome the proposals for House of Lords reform, I am mystified by the fact that the Bill is being rushed through without our seeing any of the details of those proposals. If the Government wish to make changes to the political system and make democracy more accountable and transparent, why do they not introduce all their reforms at once? Why can we not see the details of what will happen to the other place, as well as what will happen to the voting system and membership of the House of Commons? We have been given no explanation, other than the obvious explanation that this is being done entirely for reasons of political expediency and—as suggested by the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing)—to keep the coalition agreement alive.
It is outrageous that the Government have done away with the proposals for local public inquiries taking oral evidence. That would have allowed people to become involved in the process, to be interrogated on their evidence, and to be cross-examined. It would have enabled communities to have an input. We will experience the most sweeping changes in boundaries that we have experienced for decades, and Northern Ireland in particular will experience the impact of those changes. That is outrageous and wrong, it should be reviewed, and, at the very least, people should be allowed to have their say at local level.
Like other Members, I sincerely hope that if the Bill is railroaded through in the absence of cross-party consensus, another place will consider it extremely carefully, and will reach some wiser and more sensible decisions.
Mr Charles Walker
I shall be brief, Mr Deputy Speaker.
I could have just about brought myself to vote for the Bill, but for the fact that once again it plays into the hands of the Executive. Once again, we see the Executive seizing more powers at the expense of Parliament. The House will be reduced to 600 Members of Parliament, while the Executive will remain as large as it is now.
I really did think that we had learned our lesson in the last Parliament. I really thought that, after 100 years of giving powers away, we might do things differently in this Parliament. I now wonder what on earth is the point of being a Member of Parliament in this place. Only three hours ago, we were informed that prisoners would be given the vote. We would not have a say in it; it would be done over our heads.
Tonight, my constituents have every right to ask, “What is the point of Charles Walker? What is the point of having elected representatives?” This is an appalling state of affairs. Once again, we are increasing the powers of the Executive at the cost of Parliament, and we deserve absolutely no sympathy. Whatever befalls us over the next four years as Back Benchers, we will have brought it on ourselves. However, I say to new parliamentary colleagues in particular that it is very difficult to vote against this Bill, because their political virility will be measured by whether or not they become a Minister, and if they do not become a Minister they do not get the extra money, the car or the red box, and when they leave this place as a humble Back Bencher there will not be people queuing up to offer them jobs because companies want only politicians who have had the red box to serve on their boards. I therefore say to any Back Bencher who votes against this Bill tonight, “You are extremely brave, and if you do vote against the Bill you, like me, won’t have a career going forward, but you will have my undying admiration.”
Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. The facts show that those who rebel against their own party are more likely to become junior Ministers than those who do not.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
I thank the hon. Member for that clarification, but it was not a point of order. Have you finished Mr Walker?
Mr Deputy Speaker
Order. Many Members want to speak, and I want to call as many of them as possible. If Members are as brief as Mr Walker was, I am sure we will hear from a lot of colleagues.
Huw Irranca-Davies
I will abide by your dictum, Mr Deputy Speaker.
It is a great privilege to follow the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker) and the right hon. Member for Belfast North (Mr Dodds). The hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) and many other Members both from England and the regions have spoken extensively in the debates in opposition to the Bill for various reasons.
Let me say at the outset that I commend the Minister. I say to the Deputy Prime Minister that he should be proud of a Minister who, under fire, has completely resisted any suggestions, alternative ideas or possibility that there might be any other logic to adopt for the way forward. The Minister has done very well in that respect.
There is a difficulty in that position, however, and it involves a fundamental point of principle. I agree that equalisation is a real issue, but I honestly thought that Liberals and Conservatives understood not only this Parliament and the Union, but also the slow evolution of the Union. Issues to do with the Union have been approached incrementally by and large. Successive Government of Wales settlements, and Northern Ireland and other settlements, have been very sensitively engineered and calibrated in order that the Union is strengthened.
I am a strong Unionist, and my fear in respect of this Bill is not as the Member for Ogmore, although I know that under the maps for these proposals my constituency disappears—and I am sure it is only a coincidence that it has the biggest absolute majority of any constituency in Wales. I can take that on the chin, however.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr Jeremy Browne)
You’ve only got 52,000 voters!
Huw Irranca-Davies
The hon. Gentleman says I have a certain number of voters. What he and his Government colleagues are doing in the Bill is reductively defining parliamentary democracy as
It states:
“In this Schedule the ‘United Kingdom electoral quota’ means—
I say to the hon. Gentleman and all his colleagues that this is the ultimate constitutional fetishism, because all those individuals are people who have an identity with the community.
As people in Cornwall and Devon have recognised, one of the defining characteristics of this whole debate is that there are areas where people strongly identify not only with their region, but the locality. There is a Welsh word that the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Roger Williams), but not many other Members, will recognise. “Hiraeth” is difficult to translate, but it means longing and identity with a place, a people, a community. My constituents will be deliriously happy to know that that can be dissolved down to the formula
A Member on the Government Benches asked what was the point of his being here in Parliament and what was the point of his identifying with his area, and he is right to ask those questions. Why is one of the key figures decided on in the Bill 95% to 100% with no variation? Why do the Bill’s provisions display a singular inability to recognise the diverse nature of the United Kingdom, except in two or three specific instances?
Disraeli has been mentioned in our debate. When Disraeli was in a heated discussion with Gladstone across that Dispatch Box and was being defeated by the incessant logic being deployed he told him not to desist in the fanatical application of his sterile logic. That is what we are confronted with here, and I genuinely hope that when this Bill goes to the other place they who have a respect for our constitution, our devolution settlement, and the role of this Parliament and of elected representatives will stop this in its tracks, because our electorate—the people we represent—deserve a lot more.
Mr Alan Reid (Argyll and Bute) (LD)
The Bill is a compromise brought about by the coalition agreement and it contains two different parts: the AV part, which I wholeheartedly support; and the part about reducing the number of MPs and imposing the 5% straitjacket. I am perfectly supportive of reducing the number of MPs, but I have difficulties with the 5% straitjacket.
Tristram Hunt
Will the hon. Gentleman explain the rationale behind the choice of 600 Members, given that the Liberal Democrat manifesto proposed 500 and the Tory manifesto proposed 585? What was the thinking process involved in getting to 600?
Mr Reid
The Liberal Democrat manifesto’s proposal for 500 Members was based on the assumption that the single transferable vote system would be used—our proposal was combined with that. Coalition involves compromise, and I was not present at Chequers when the Deputy Prime Minister and the Prime Minister negotiated the fine points of this Bill. The coalition agreement said that there would be
“fewer and more equal sized constituencies.”
So there was no need to go for this 5% straitjacket.
This country is fortunate in having an independent Boundary Commission, which in the past has always acted truly independently and has never been subject to political influence. We should be grateful for that and we should give more powers for flexibility to our independent boundary commissions. In the Bill, the 5% straitjacket is not an absolute principle because, as has been pointed out, there are some exceptions. There is an exception for islands, and I support that. It is perfectly right that Orkney and Shetland and Na h-Eileanan an Iar should have their own constituencies. However, I also draw the Government’s attention to the fact that other constituencies contain islands, for example, the Isle of Wight and Anglesey. My constituency contains 13 islands that can be accessed only by ferry or air, which compares with the three in the Western Isles. My constituency has four times as many islands as the Western Isles, twice the land area and three times the size of electorate, so I would hope that we could have some more flexibility.
Elsewhere, on the highland mainland, the Government have introduced the 13,000 square kilometre rule. It will not result in the creation of any constituency that is more than 5% under the quota. What it will do is create three strange constituencies, because in order to get both within the quota and under the 13,000 square kilometre rule the Boundary Commission will have to create three strange constituencies, each containing a part of Inverness. One will comprise one part of Inverness and will go all the way up to Cape Wrath. Another will contain a part of Inverness and will go all the way west to Skye. A third will contain a part of Inverness and will go south and east. Those will be three strange constituencies and there is little community interest for them. We are supposed to be representing communities, but there is very little community link between somebody on the north-west of Sutherland and somebody in Inverness. I hope that this part of the Bill will be re-examined in the House of Lords and the Government will be amenable to accepting amendments that will give the Boundary Commission a bit more discretion. We are fortunate in having an independent Boundary Commission, and we should give it more discretion.
Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)
It has been a long seven-and-a-half-hour wait and I did have a 10-minute speech, but I shall cut that down as much as possible. It is obvious to anybody of independent mind that this legislation is being pushed through with unseemly haste, although perhaps not so quickly that the manifold flaws, inconsistencies and illogicalities in part 2, with its utterly arbitrary “reduce and equalise” agenda, have not been suitably identified and exposed.
I would write it all off as incompetence, were it not for the Government’s wilful refusal to make improved voter registration a priority and precondition for reform, their reluctance to make a commitment to an appropriate and proportionate reduction in Cabinet posts and their determination to leave common sense out of the boundary review process, which will reduce constituencies to little more than arithmetical units.
As always—I make no apologies for this—I am particularly concerned about the ramifications for Merseyside. The sub-region has coped well in the face of the recession, but analysts suggest that it is likely to be extremely and disproportionately hard hit by the Government’s slash-and-burn policies. However, at a time when the people of Merseyside will increasingly be looking towards their MPs to fight their corner, the sub-region looks set to lose at least two parliamentary seats. That puts paid to the myth that lofty ideals, social conscience and progressive thinking underpin the Government’s electoral reform agenda.
Let me, if I may, jump on the number-crunching bandwagon for a couple of minutes. Currently, my constituency—Liverpool, Walton—has one MP for 89,732 citizens or 62,612 registered voters. In the year—[Interruption.] Someone is questioning the figures, but I live there. In the year of the constituency’s creation, 1885, the population of Liverpool stood at about 614,000 and the city was split into no fewer than nine parliamentary divisions. That equates to one MP for every 68,228 citizens, but—note—for far fewer registered voters, given that, among other things, women had not yet achieved suffrage. Had the registered electorate in Walton represented 69.8% of the constituency population, as it does now, John George Gibson MP, the first Member for Liverpool, Walton—a Tory, no less—would have represented only around 47,000 registered voters. In reality, the electorate minus women represents a smaller percentage of the Walton population, and thus the figure would have been considerably lower—perhaps 24,000.
This is not just about numbers. It is true that the composition of parliamentary seats back in the 19th century was arguably as arbitrary as it is now, so I am not for a minute suggesting we use any point in history as a blueprint, but let me tell the House why that example from our local history is important and matters. The Government intend every MP to represent an electorate of at least 72,000. Leaving aside the issue of non-registration, which further skews the figures, what equips a 21st-century MP, in these complex times, to represent three times as many individuals as his or her Victorian predecessor? What is progressive about a modern-day voter having approximately a third of the democratic clout of his or her ancestor?
Equally illogical and disingenuous is the so-called “equalise” agenda. I struggle to understand how numerically homogenising seats has anything to do with “fairness” or “equality”—those much vaunted and abused buzz words of the coalition Government. On the face of it, my constituency would appear to be pretty evenly matched with that of the Bill’s chief flag bearer, the Deputy Prime Minister. Their populations are similar and their registered electorates both stand around the 60,000-plus mark, falling short of the 72,000 lower limit proposed by the Government, but that is where the similarity ends. In my constituency fewer than 9% of the population are graduates, whereas in Sheffield, Hallam 35.6% of the populace have graduated from university. In my constituency, 32% of households have no central heating or private bathroom; in Sheffield, Hallam the figure is 4%. In my constituency, 45% of adults have no qualifications at all, whereas in Sheffield, Hallam only 17% of adults are disadvantaged in that way.
I have another major concern. In the most recent periodic boundary review there were absurd suggestions about Merseyside, including one for a constituency straddling the River Mersey. Fortunately, that did not come to pass, but an expert recently concluded that
“the spectre of a cross-Mersey seat would rise again”
under the proposed legislation. In July I asked the Deputy Prime Minister for assurances that the River Mersey would be recognised as a natural boundary, to which the Minister responsible for political and constitutional reform, the hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), gave a decidedly evasive reply. He passed the buck to the Boundary Commission but stressed that the “electoral quota” requirement would take precedence. That paves the way for all manner of insensitive, inappropriate and impractical boundary changes on Merseyside and elsewhere that will result in even greater political confusion and disaffection than already prevails.
Part 2 of the Bill is based on a version of reality that is quite at odds with the reality on the ground. It presumes a politically engaged electorate, and that the average voter is indignant that his or her vote might be statistically worth a fraction less than the vote of a counterpart elsewhere in the country. It implies that granting votes parity and thus achieving democratic equality will somehow render life in Britain more equitable and fair. But the “Animal Farm” argument that we are all equal, but some are more equal than others, will not wash. More than 3.5 million people in England and Wales alone are not even registered to vote, and most people do not fret about the statistical weighting of individual votes.
Steve Rotheram
No; I am short of time and I am being encouraged to hurry up, so I am trying to speak as fast as I can.
The reality is that millions of voters in many constituencies do not have the luxury of dwelling on their democratic parity with their peers elsewhere: they are too busy simply trying to stay afloat. They approach their MPs for practical support, guidance and intervention more than they do for high-minded ideological representation. There is nothing equal or fair about this reality, and the proposed constituency changes, which are unwarranted, ill-conceived, poorly evidenced and politically pernicious, will do nothing to address it.
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.
Mr George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)
It is a great privilege to follow the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr Shepherd), who has demonstrated two things about his character and his political principles: first, he is a man of great independence; and secondly, he is a greatly passionate politician. He has made a great speech, and I am proud to follow it.
The Deputy Prime Minister, in opening this Third Reading debate, said that he thought that in the wake of the expenses scandals of the previous Parliament, it was important to bridge the gap between the remoteness of Members of Parliament and the electorate. I think that those were the words that he used. That is a laudable objective, and there cannot be any Member who would not agree with it, but, before we decide how we vote on Third Reading, we have to judge the extent to which the measures in the Bill make us less remote from the voters.
Let us take three important issues that have not been addressed satisfactorily, if at all. First, what does the Bill do about the 3.5 million people who are not even on the register, and even though we know that they qualify for it? [Interruption.] Hon. Members laugh, but it is a serious issue. How could one be more remote than not even being on the electoral register? Yet nothing in the Bill will bridge that gap.
Secondly, there is the issue of the alternative vote system or, as Government Members somewhat misleadingly refer to it, “making the voting system fairer”. I listened with great care to the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes).
Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)
Will my right hon. Friend give way?
Mr Howarth
I will not, because I do not have much time and I need to allow others to speak.
The hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark is a long-standing supporter of proportional representation, and I respect that but do not agree with him. Now, I do not intend to get into an argument about the merits of PR and first past the post, but I think that he said, “It’s a coalition. There has to be give and take.” The hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Mr Reid) made the point slightly differently, saying that there has to be compromise. However, I ask the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark: who is giving and who is taking? It amazes me that he, as a supporter of proportional representation, feels able to support the Bill, because it does not include proportional representation, as he well knows. It does not even include the corrective of top-up seats, so we will end up with a system scarcely more proportional—and in some circumstances even less proportional—than our current system.
Finally, I ask the Deputy Prime Minister, how does taking away the right of people to appear at a public inquiry and argue the case for a different set of boundaries from those that have been proposed make this Parliament or any other less remote from the people? It does not at all. In fact, it makes Parliament even more remote. I have to say to the right hon. Gentleman that this Bill is a complete mess. I have to ask those on the Liberal Democrat Benches: how can you support this system? It is not a compromise; it is give and take: they are taking everything and you are giving everything. I say to the Liberal Democrats, you have sold yourselves very short on this legislation. This is a Bill that you will come to regret, and I hope that the House will vote it down tonight.
Simon Hughes
I will deal straight away with the remarks of the right hon. Member for Knowsley (Mr Howarth). This is not a perfect Bill—I am not pretending that it is—but it is a good Bill, and the two things that it does needed to be done.
First, we needed to give the British people a chance to improve the electoral system. The alternative vote is not a proportional system—I have never claimed that it is—but it has two advantages that our current system does not have. I appeal to anybody who is a progressive politician in any party to come to the view that we should support a system that, yes, keeps single-Member representation, but sends us here with a majority of support from those of our electorate who vote—
Simon Hughes
Yes it does, compared with the current system. [Interruption.] If the hon. Gentleman will just calm down—he is far too overexcited most of the time.
Secondly, the system allows people to express preferences—it is positive, not negative, voting that allows them to say what they really want politically as opposed to being forced to say what they do not want politically. That is definitely progress.
There is another practical consideration, as the right hon. Member for Knowsley knows. This House does not have a majority in favour of a proportional system at the moment—I accept that. I want a proportional system. Personally, I prefer alternative vote plus, because it has the balance of a single-Member seat plus top-up. But there is not a majority for those things. This measure allows Parliament to come to a view, as put forward by the Labour party in the general election, that the British people should be given the option of moving to a better system. It is not the perfect system—there is no such thing as a perfect system—and not the best system, but it is a better system. I hope that this House and the other place will allow the great British public to decide on this. Then, if the referendum comes up with a yes vote, as I hope it will, we will have a better political system and a better democracy.
I share one of the views of the right hon. Member for Knowsley and the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram). It is a scandal and a shame that in this country, throughout the time of the Labour Government and now, 3 million or more people are not on the electoral register when they should be. I have made it clear to my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister and colleagues that there is a duty on our Government, just as there was a duty on the Labour Government that they did not discharge, to work across parties and outside parties to ensure that we get all those registered who should be registered.
Simon Hughes
No, I am trying to be very quick.
I will go on arguing from these Benches that the Government need to do more to increase electoral registration. Yesterday, with my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister, I urged our party members to do more, and I hope that the Labour party and the other parties will do more as well. I hope that the Government will assist in every way—this month, before the December register comes into force—to ensure that the maximum number of people are on the electoral register. There are all sorts of ways of doing that, and the sooner we can start sharing our wisdom, the better.
I want to make one more substantial point. There is an absolutely overwhelming argument for more equally sized constituencies. The disparity between the number of voters per constituency is scandalous. I speak as somebody with Welsh, Scottish and English roots. It is no longer justifiable for Wales or Scotland to be over-represented in this place when England does not have any devolved government at all and is therefore already relatively under-represented.
Simon Hughes
No, I am not giving way.
Nobody argues that there should not be exceptions in extreme cases, which is why two seats have been singled out. That has never been in dispute. There is an argument, which has been tested, as to whether there should be other exceptions, such as other island communities. That is an argument that will not go away in the debates up the corridor, and nor should it, because there are reasonable arguments for an extension down that road. However, I hope that we accept the principle that, wherever humanly possible, the number of electors should be similar, because that is the only way to ensure that this place can proportionately reflect the views of the electorate and that we can all be elected in a similar way.
Mr Winnick
What possible justification can there be for the boundary changes taking place without any public inquiry at all? Is that not a travesty of democracy? The hon. Gentleman should be ashamed of defending and justifying what is intended.
Simon Hughes
I will give the hon. Gentleman the answer, having appeared at inquiries in the past. The justification is that the job will be done by an independent set of boundary commissions, which are no more or less likely to treat people and arguments fairly by receiving representations in writing than in oral evidence. Often, the main argument at public inquiries has been not among real people about their communities, but among political parties’ paid officers.
One argument that has been made is that we cannot reform one part of the constitution without reforming the others. I say gently to colleagues in the Labour party that unlike them, we will secure a predominantly elected House of Lords, which they did not do. Unlike them, we have on our agenda a reduction of the number of Ministers in future. [Hon. Members: “No you don’t.”] Yes, we do. We have it on the agenda—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. I have never known a situation in which the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) is virtually shouted down. It is not only unprecedented, it is unacceptable. We must hear the hon. Gentleman, notwithstanding the strong feelings.
Simon Hughes
This is the first of a series of radical constitutional reforms that Labour never delivered, and that the coalition is willing to deliver. I hope that the House is radical enough to support it, and that the House of Lords does a proper job of ensuring that we have the best possible form for the two proposals that I have mentioned. It does Labour no good to argue against changes none of which it introduced in 13 years.
Ian Lucas
When Labour came to power in 1997, it began a major programme of constitutional reform. At its heart was devolution in Scotland and Wales. Labour’s proposals in Scotland were based on the cross-party constitutional convention. In both Scotland and Wales, after referendums, it introduced voting systems that guaranteed representation for the Tories in the Scottish Parliament and the National Assembly for Wales at a time when they had no representation there in Parliament. The political system also ensured that the Liberal Democrats had representation.
We may contrast that with the approach that we have seen from the Tories and their Liberal Democrat lapdogs in this disgraceful Bill. It has no basis in manifestos, and there was no draft legislation, no consultation with Opposition parties and no discussion with the elected representatives of devolved institutions. It removes the right of constituents to make representations on the biggest ever change in the boundaries relating to their communities. That is an absolute disgrace and a catalogue of decisions that the coalition parties should be ashamed of. Fundamental constitutional change is being imposed for partisan political reasons, with a timetable devised to secure maximum political advantage for the Tories and the Liberal Democrats.
The consideration of the Bill has been a cynical outrage. We have had Liberal Democrats voting against the single transferable vote and Tories voting in favour of taking away the right of local people to speak out in public inquiries when fundamental changes are made to their boundaries and communities. What does that say about Tories and Liberal Democrats empowering individuals and communities? As an MP from Wales, albeit an English one, I have seen the contempt for Wales that drives Welsh people into the arms of nationalists.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), and the Deputy Leader of the House have no understanding of the constitution of the United Kingdom. They ignore the asymmetric devolution that we have in the United Kingdom, and they take no account of the views of the peoples of the devolved nations who have voted in different referendums—in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales—to establish our constitution and they are now being ridden roughshod over without any electoral mandate.
What is even worse is that the supine Secretaries of State for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and, yet again, the Welsh Ministers do not care. Where are they? The reason they do not care is that Wales and Scotland are irrelevant to the Tories. The Tories do not care what Welsh MPs think. This Bill will be pressed through. It does not matter what MPs, Assembly Members or Members of the Scottish Parliament say.
This Bill is contemptuous. It is designed to secure partisan advantage for the Tories and their allies. It has been railroaded through on a timetable constructed to maximise political advantage, and to ensure that it gets through before the next general election, and that is all that the Government care about. It changes the constitution for short-term political gain, without the consent of the peoples of the UK. The coalition parties will rue the day that this Bill was ever passed. It is the antithesis of everything that good legislation should be about. It shows this Government for what they are—dissembling, self-serving and dictatorial. Those who support them should be ashamed of themselves.
Mr Cash
I have opposed this Bill from the beginning because I do not believe that it is based on any sensible constitutional principle whatever. It is in defiance of our own manifesto. It supports the process of a coalition, which, given how this Bill came to be part of the coalition agreement, is itself subject to questioning. We have heard from the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) and others as to the manner in which this Bill, or this proposal for this Bill through the coalition agreement, was devised. I do not need to rehearse all that. This is something that is a matter of grave concern to many of us. The question of principle and conviction, which ought to underlie any major constitutional issue, is wholly lacking in respect of this Bill.
I heard many of the arguments from the Labour party. I have to say that irrespective of what Labour Members do in the vote tonight, I cannot honestly say that I believe that they stand on any principle that is worth considering. They have not had any mandate for their vote as far as this Bill is concerned. The idea that a threshold should not be inserted as being the only protection for the people of this country, who are being taken to a referendum—a poll—largely because this Bill is being so heavily whipped, is in itself a matter of the gravest concern. This Bill violates constitutional principle. It violates the manner in which for 150 years we have conducted our parliamentary processes by first past the post. That is a principle that was upheld by people such as Disraeli and Gladstone, and even Lloyd George until the Liberal party decided, under his leadership or his influence at the time, that it might not be so convenient because the votes would not follow what he had to say.
In a nutshell, this Bill is unacceptable, which is why I, and I hope as many colleagues as possible, will vote against it. It is unprincipled. It is without a mandate and it is wrong.
Julie Hilling
I wanted to make a number of points, but with the shortage of time, I will keep my comments brief. Like many other hon. Members, I have tried to make points before, but because of the conduct and timetabling of the Bill, I have been unable to speak on my deeply held beliefs.
Let me take just one element of the Bill and try to correct some of the errant nonsense on independent inquiries. In 2005, an inquiry was held into the boundaries in Greater Manchester, because it was decided that after the application of the electoral quota, there should be 27.25 MPs rather than 28. However, because nobody could have the spare quarter of an MP, the number went down to 27 MPs, and something similar may happen in the near future. There were 384 written submissions before the decision to hold an independent inquiry. Once the inquiry was called, there were more than 600 written submissions and 190 people spoke to the inquiry. Sixteen alternative proposals were made.
I do not know of 190 political parties in Greater Manchester, so I would conclude that those submissions were from ordinary citizens. As I said, the inquiry took three weeks, not the many months that Conservative and Liberal Democrat Members would like us to believe inquiries take. Constituents individually or collectively put forward their views on how they wanted to be represented.
The Bill is deeply flawed on many levels. Not only does it reduce the number of MPs, potentially ignoring historical links, splitting wards and removing the right of people who are affected by changes to have their say, and not only is it gerrymandering of the worst kind, but it runs counter to all the Government’s grand statements on the big society, local decision making and empowering local people. The Bill shows that those are simply words, and that the Government have no intention of localising power. The Bill may be cost saving, but at what cost? It should not pass.
Ms Bagshawe
As Opposition Members will know, I have sat through most of the debate, and I have been astonished at their cant and hypocrisy—[Interruption.] Have they forgotten that among the nations—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. I apologise for interrupting the hon. Lady, but she must be heard.
Ms Bagshawe
Have Opposition Members forgotten so completely that among the nations of the United Kingdom is the nation of England, which has been badly served by the democratic deficit? Again and again we have heard from them arguments over geography.
Ms Bagshawe
I have but three minutes and I regret that I cannot give way.
We have heard arguments over valleys and rivers, but never have we heard arguments in favour of people. The Bill seeks to remedy an ancient wrong.
I say this to my hon. Friends who are worried about the AV referendum: take heart. I believe that the referendum is something of a miscalculation by my right hon. and hon. Friends in the Liberal Democrat party, but I am quite happy and content to trust the people. Let us lay it before the people and let them decide.
Opposition Members have become convinced of the doctrine that what is traditional is therefore right. I welcome their eleventh-hour conversion to that doctrine, but they cannot get away from the fact that the boundaries in this country are incredibly unfair. The votes of those in Corby and east Northamptonshire should be worth exactly the same as those in the constituency of the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant). No matter how they run and no matter how they hide, they cannot make the argument that equality is bad for democracy.
That sums up Opposition Members’ arguments. I hope that the House supports the Bill in numbers, as it deserves.
Question put, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Today I received two letters about transferring parliamentary questions. One was from the Solicitor-General’s office telling me that my question on human trafficking had to go to the Home Office. The other was from the Home Office and said:
“The Home Secretary has asked me to let you know that he has arranged for the Question”
to be transferred. That is a different question, but it is about human trafficking and has been transferred away from the Home Office. Will you advise me, Mr Speaker, on who the new Home Secretary is, and what I can do about my questions being messed around with?
Mr Speaker
I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s point of order. On the first matter, his sense of humour never deserts him, and I do not think he requires any advice on that matter. However, the Home Secretary may want to have a word with her officials about this important issue. She has some reason to feel aggrieved.
On the second point, the hon. Gentleman will understand that it would not be right for me to comment on the detail of the matter. Suffice it to say that he is an ingenious parliamentarian, and he has put his views on the record very clearly and forcefully. They will be heard by the people whom I know he adores—the Whips on the Treasury Bench. I hope that that is helpful.