House of Lords
Introduction: Lord Loomba
Introduction: Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
Introduction: Lord Flight
Clerk of the Parliaments
(13 years, 9 months ago)
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The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Strathclyde)
My Lords, I informed the House on 8 November of Michael Pownall’s intention to retire from the Office of Clerk of the Parliaments with effect from Friday 15 April. A trawl for Michael Pownall’s successor has now been held. There were four applicants, all of whom were interviewed by a board consisting of myself, the Lord Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition, the Leader of the Liberal Democrats, the Convenor of the Cross-Bench Peers and the noble Baroness, Lady Fritchie, who is a former Civil Service Commissioner and Commissioner for Public Appointments. The unanimous recommendation of the board is that David Beamish should succeed Michael Pownall. I am sure your Lordships would wish to join me in congratulating David on his appointment. We will have an early opportunity to pay tribute to Michael Pownall’s career in the House nearer to the date of his retirement.
The board also considered applications for the post of Clerk Assistant, which will fall vacant on David Beamish’s appointment as Clerk of the Parliaments. The board unanimously recommended that Edward Ollard should succeed David Beamish as Clerk Assistant. The Lord Speaker will move a Motion to appoint him to the post at the appropriate time.
Legislation
(13 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Phillips of Sudbury
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what proposals they have to reduce the volume and complexity of new legislation.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord McNally)
My Lords, the Government are committed to simplifying and improving the quality of legislation. We will improve quality by publishing in draft for pre-legislative scrutiny, where possible, and through post-legislative scrutiny. We have established a mechanism to prevent the proliferation of unnecessary criminal offences and introduced a one-in, one-out rule for regulations which impose costs on business or civil society.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury
My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for that reply, but is he aware that we legislate at between 200 and 400 per cent the rate of any comparable country in Europe? Is he aware that the cumulative effect of making legislation at the rate of between 11,000 and 13,000 pages a year over the past 15 years has been a state of indigestion in this country that some might call citizen constipation, which has parlous consequences? If I cannot ask him for a moratorium for a year on all legislation to allow us to catch up and see to implementation, will he at least consider introducing a provision, as in the Charities Act 2006, requiring a report to Parliament within four to five years of enactment of legislation in order that Parliament can consider its effectiveness and take necessary measures?
Lord McNally
My Lords, I think there is general agreement around the House about the necessity to legislate less, but the problem is—and I have heard this throughout my time around Whitehall and Westminster—that although Oppositions have the absolute determination to legislate less, when they get into government they find that every department has at least two or three, or perhaps even more, good ideas they want to legislate on. Indeed, every Secretary of State who followed my noble friend’s advice would start reading in the gossip columns that he was for the chop, because he was a do-nothing Secretary of State. It is a dilemma, but my noble friend is pointing us in the right direction.
Lord Anderson of Swansea
Did I overhear the noble Lord correctly, when he said that the Government were committed to improving the quality of legislation by pre-legislative scrutiny? Tired people make tired laws. How does he reconcile that with what the Government are doing today?
Lord McNally
Because sometimes, my Lords, the procedures of the House do not allow for non-tired Lords, but I cannot believe that a piece of legislation the total number of hours for which it has been scrutinised by this House will, at some time tonight, exceed the total time for which it was scrutinised in the other place has been subject to any abuse whatever on this side of the Chamber.
Lord Lloyd of Berwick
My Lords, are there any plans, as there once were, to consolidate the mass of recent legislation on terrorism? That would be a great aid towards simplification.
Lord McNally
I cannot give an instant response but, as so often with the noble and learned Lord’s interventions, it is a good suggestion, not least because I understand that some of the pieces of terrorism legislation passed over the past decade were never actually put into practice.
Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve
Would the Minister consider recommending to his colleagues that departments of government receive a budget for drafting future legislation at a stage before it is known whether it will form part of the Queen’s Speech, so that the good ideas may be more adequately translated into prose?
Lord McNally
Again, I will take that sound suggestion back. From my limited experience, if I had my time over again, I would become a parliamentary draftsman, because it seems to be a well protected trade.
Lord Grabiner
Does the Minister think that the quality of scrutiny of legislation would improve if we had an elected upper House?
Lord Marlesford
My Lords, when it comes to constitutional legislation, what lessons does my noble friend take from the fact that only 27 amendments to the United States constitution have been made in the past 200-plus years, two of those being prohibition and a reversal of prohibition? Will he take into account such lessons when bringing forward any legislation on House of Lords reform?
Lord McNally
Indeed, that is why I am very enthusiastic about the concept of pre-legislative scrutiny for a Bill, because it will give an ample opportunity for all sides and opinions to be heard.
Baroness Royall of Blaisdon
My Lords, there are two parts to my question. First, the noble Lord talks passionately about the need for pre-legislative scrutiny, so why was the Bill before us today not subject to pre-legislative scrutiny? The Minister also talks about the need for less complex Bills to come before us and for pre-legislative scrutiny, yet we are told that this week a Bill with 400 clauses will come before the House of Commons. It is a Bill on the National Health Service that was not proposed in the manifesto of either party; and it was specifically stated in the coalition agreement that there would be no major Bill to reorganise the NHS. What is the rationale for that Bill?
Lord McNally
I thought that the Prime Minister explained that excellently on the “Today” programme this morning. It was a most impressive performance. One of the problems about the commitment to pre-legislative scrutiny is what happens in the first year of a radical and reforming Government. That is one of the things that we run against. A Government who are determined to hit the ground running, with radical reforms, are bound to run into some problems on this. I have explained where we are going on legislation, and we will make efforts to make sure that both Houses are fully involved in the pre-legislative scrutiny and—the point made by my noble friend—that there is the opportunity for both Houses of Parliament to take a second look, in the form of post-legislative scrutiny, to see whether we have got certain legislation right.
Post Offices
Lord Naseby
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how they will ensure a viable local network of post offices.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Baroness Wilcox)
My Lords, we have made it clear that we are committed to the long-term future of the Post Office. We will provide £1.34 billion of funding for the Post Office over the next four years. This will enable the modernisation of the nationwide network of around 11,500 branches and the development of new revenue streams, longer opening hours and reduced queues. We are clear that there will be no programme of post office closures under this Government.
Lord Naseby
I thank my noble friend for that extremely encouraging Answer. However, is she aware that in 2010 nearly 1,000 sub-post offices were up for sale because they are unviable, and that hundreds, if not thousands, of small businesses use these local post offices every day? In particular, 300,000 pensioners use the green giro. Can she make sure that this problem is addressed urgently and that within, I hope, the current Session, we will see some positive action in this area?
Baroness Wilcox
My Lords, I am glad you have given me an opportunity to address the point about the closure of post offices. Most, as you know, are privately owned businesses and it is inevitable and normal that there will be some changes in ownership. It is a condition of the £1.34 billion we have provided that the Post Office will continue to provide a network of at least 11,500 branches.
The noble Lord's second question was about collecting pensions from post offices. This will continue. People will be able to use the Post Office card account to withdraw money from a basic or current account free of charge and, for a small proportion of them, by cheque.
The noble Lord’s third point was about small businesses using post offices. It is clear that we should keep post offices alive and well close to the people who need to use them, particularly people such as me who live in rural areas and villages, and small businesses. They provide an enormously good service and we are very happy to support them.
Baroness Knight of Collingtree
My Lords, does the Minister agree that “viable” can be interpreted as a public service that is available to members of the public who use it? Is she aware of the great difficulty that many people in rural areas have experienced because of the closure of local post offices, particularly young mothers with children who have to be pushed in a pram, and pensioners? Will she concentrate on the difficulties that these areas are experiencing?
Baroness Wilcox
That is always a worry and a difficulty, particularly, as my noble friend has pointed out, for young families. The Post Office Ltd network works hard to try to secure new ownership for a post office when it is going to close. As noble Lords will know, the access criteria specify that 99 per cent of the population should be within 3 miles of a post office, and in inner cities they should be within 1 mile of one. If the post office closes in an area like that, it causes hardship. Post Office Ltd is very keen to get the churn better handled. It is natural for someone who wants to open a post office to be fully enthusiastic. I have a goddaughter who has just opened one. She has a very young family herself, and is struggling and finding it difficult to keep the business running. She thought it would be much easier than this. When things are difficult like that, we need to give all the help that we can.
The Countess of Mar
Does the noble Baroness appreciate that some sub-post offices in rural areas also act as sorting offices? Last Christmas, I had reason to complain about the activities of a postman. I found it impossible to do so. I phoned a national number and was referred to the internet. On the internet they have someone called, I think, Sarah who will answer your questions, but she did not respond to mine. How can one speak to a person in a post office to file a complaint?
Baroness Wilcox
The noble Countess makes a valid point. We will certainly look into this.
Lord Myners
Will the Minister endorse the view that the Post Office should be able to obtain a banking licence in its own name, thereby allowing people to bank with an organisation that is universal in its coverage, that, unlike banks, is not closing branches, and, importantly, that is trusted?
Baroness Wilcox
The noble Lord knows this subject very well. I have a long note here on how complicated, expensive and difficult it is to set up one of these licences. We have looked at the idea of a state-backed post bank, but it would be simply unaffordable in the current financial climate.
The Lord Bishop of Wakefield
Will Her Majesty’s Government give assurances that where a post office is threatened with closure, perhaps because it is part of a small shop, pressure will be put on Post Office Ltd to make sure that it works with community groups to find an alternative location, as is suggested by the notion of the big society?
Baroness Wilcox
As the right reverend Prelate will know, a Bill on the privatisation of the Royal Mail will come to the House on 25 January. Postal services will be discussed then, and it would be a good time to bring up the question again.
Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe
Is the noble Baroness content that many post offices are now applying for licences to sell alcohol and displaying it on a wide scale immediately alongside the areas in which giro payments are made? Are the Government prepared to do something about it?
Baroness Wilcox
That is a very interesting question. I have not come across it before and will look into it. I can see where the noble Lord is coming from. Youngsters come in to buy sweeties et cetera and see alcohol very close to them. As with the big society, we will look to see what is going on.
Tourism
Lord Addington
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to support tourism throughout the regions of the United Kingdom, particularly in the run-up to the Olympics and other international sporting events.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
The Government are creating a new overseas marketing fund and a new tourism strategy in order to create a sustainable legacy for tourism from the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, and from other major events such as Her Majesty’s diamond jubilee. The overseas campaign aims to deliver 1 million additional overseas visitors in each of the next four years and £2 billion in extra visitor spend.
Lord Addington
I thank my noble friend for that response. What structure is in place to encourage people who are attending events that may last several weeks to travel, for example, outwith and between matches in the international rugby union world cup, and to see other cultural events and sites around the country during that experience?
Baroness Garden of Frognal
My noble friend raises a very important issue to do with tourism. Major events give communities the opportunity to promote their regions on the world stage. VisitEngland is working with the regions to highlight our heritage and culture, as well as the wonders of the towns and countryside, and it is hoped that the major sporting events will give a boost to particular areas. People will have every encouragement and publicity to venture further afield.
Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall
My Lords, does the noble Baroness agree—I think that she does, because I have asked her before—that the arts and cultural sectors of the UK are an extremely important draw for tourists? Is she aware that Arts Council England is engaged, as a result of cuts to its funding, in a major review of its entire portfolio, and has made it fairly clear that at least some organisations that provide important artistic events across the country will cease to be funded in the next two to three years? What impact will that have on tourism?
Baroness Garden of Frognal
The noble Baroness is quite right; I agree with her once again that culture and the arts are vital. She will also remember that when the coalition Government came into office, they did not inherit the most favourable economic situation, and unfortunate cuts have had to be made in all sorts of areas. Certainly, support is available for the arts and heritage, and major funds are being set up to ensure that we do not lose the treasures of this country.
Lord Higgins
Does my noble friend agree that it is also very important to encourage tourism and sporting events after the Olympics? In that context, will she give an assurance that the Government will do all they can to ensure that an athletics track remains a permanent feature of the Olympic stadium, regardless of to whom it is sold?
Baroness Garden of Frognal
My noble friend will be aware that there are extensive plans to ensure that the legacy from the Olympics continues well into the future, and the facilities that have been set up specifically for the Olympics will be of great benefit as the years go by. The track will obviously be an important part of that.
Baroness Grey-Thompson
What consideration has the noble Baroness given to using the Games to ensure that disabled tourists have equal access to shops, attractions and hotel rooms, bearing in mind that disabled people have money to spend and that businesses not far away from here are blatantly ignoring current disability access legislation?
Baroness Garden of Frognal
I am concerned to hear the noble Baroness's last point. That is something that we would wish to investigate in great detail because, as she rightly says, all those attending the Olympic and Paralympic Games, particularly those who are disabled, will need additional resources and specific information about where appropriate accommodation is and what the events and venues are. Over the years, we have taken strides to ensure that our venues are fully accessible to those who suffer from a whole range of disabilities.
Baroness Billingham
The Question links sport with tourism. Does the Minister agree that both those activities would benefit enormously by having more light at the end of the day rather than at the beginning of the day? We return to that issue time and time again. She might also be well aware, because we have debated it here, that 82,000 new jobs would be provided in the tourism industry if that were enacted at a time when jobs are being lost from every sector of our country. How on earth can her Government refuse to consider this seriously at long last to enable those jobs to be provided—jobs that more than likely would go to young people and women, the very people who are more likely to lose their jobs in a recession?
Baroness Garden of Frognal
The noble Baroness will be aware that a Private Member’s Bill on daylight saving is currently going through the other House. This issue comes up regularly and there seems to be growing enthusiasm for it. It is a matter for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, and ultimately a matter that all parts of the United Kingdom need to subscribe to before we can change the system.
Lord Lee of Trafford
My Lords, the five destination management organisations in the north-west are at present significantly funded by the regional RDA. With the RDA being phased out and the development of the LEPs being patchy and embryonic, will my noble friend tell us what transitional plans the Government have to provide support for the DMOs during this period?
Baroness Garden of Frognal
I pay tribute to my noble friend’s expertise in tourism and, indeed, to his commitment to the north-west. This region has a great many natural attractions. With a proactive strategy to encourage tourism, he will be aware that the DMOs are taking on tourism activities, and VisitEngland is actively helping to ensure continuity. The north-west might also consider applying to the regional growth fund, which is a fund of £1.4 billion and which will be open for tourism-related funding applications.
Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale
My Lords, the Minister will be aware that the Commonwealth Games are coming to Glasgow in 2014. Can she give an assurance on behalf of the Government that this forward-looking tourism strategy will take into account the importance of that event not just for Glasgow and Scotland but for the whole of the United Kingdom, and that the Government will work with the Scottish Government to ensure that it is a success for the economy as well as for sport?
Baroness Garden of Frognal
I would sincerely hope so. The tourism strategy is currently at a far stage of development. It has not yet been announced but will be shortly, and I am quite sure that the Commonwealth Games will feature very strongly.
EU: External Action Service
(13 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Lamont of Lerwick
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many British embassies they intend to close as a result of the deployment of the European Union External Action Service.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Howell of Guildford)
My Lords, there are no plans for any British embassies to close as a result of the deployment of the European External Action Service. The European External Action Service is about supplementing and complementing, not replacing, national diplomatic services.
Lord Lamont of Lerwick
My Lords, accepting that part of our foreign policy is now governed by the Lisbon treaty, does my noble friend, with all his experience, really think that it is necessary and appropriate to have an EU diplomatic service with a budget starting at £400 million a year, rising to €3 billion a year, with 6,000 staff—114 of them are paid more than the Foreign Secretary—in 137 countries, including 49 in Burkina Faso, 46 in Barbados, 32 in the Dominican Republic and six in Vanuatu, which has a population of 250,000? If, as the Commission says, all this has been done on a neutral-cost basis, deploying resources from one area to another, does that not show that there is a massive opportunity for economy and cutting spending in the EU?
Lord Howell of Guildford
My Lords, I am sure that my noble friend is correct on that last point, but the global figure for personnel that I have is not 6,000 but 1,625, which is rather different from what he says. On the general question of the usefulness and worthwhile need for a combined diplomatic service, we take the view that this can help and, indeed, even save money in certain areas where combined efforts to deal with great international strategic issues are valuable. That is not every area. In some areas we want our own bilateral developments, but in some it is clearly more economic and effective to act together. We believe that this service will help, provided that it is carefully controlled, particularly on the cost side.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick
Will the Minister tell us what proportion of the figures rattled off by the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, include Commission officials already in those posts who are busy trying to disburse the development programmes of the European Union? The noble Lord included some small developing countries, where I suspect that that is the case. Can the Minister give a little more specificity to his excellent point on the EAS being able to do certain things more effectively and economically than 27 member states each doing their own thing?
Lord Howell of Guildford
On the question of the global totals, it is a fact that a great deal of the personnel and cost diversion comes from existing activities being amalgamated under the new system. Of the 1,625 personnel whom I mentioned, 1,114 are existing personnel acting on external matters and will be brought together into one grouping, which we hope may save money. That is a sensible move, provided that costs are most carefully controlled. Will the noble Lord repeat his second question, as I have forgotten it?
Lord Hannay of Chiswick
I asked whether the Minister could follow up his excellent first answer, when he said that the EAS ought to be able to conduct certain forms of diplomatic activity collectively for the 27 member states more efficiently than the member states can do severally themselves and whether he had any suggestions. I suggested in a debate three months ago that things such as the analysis of the economy of the country where the post is could well be conducted in that way.
Lord Howell of Guildford
With respect to the noble Lord, the governing word is “ought”. This is a new institution and it has to prove its worth. It will no doubt be subject to some elements of conducibility like any other new organisation. It will have to establish its worthwhileness. There are areas where, by combining with our neighbours and other European member states, we can do much more, but we have to move carefully. We cannot assume that it will be a positive in every area. In some areas we can clearly do things much better by ourselves.
Lord Hunt of Chesterton
My Lords, do the Government agree that the European external service may well provide a great opportunity for UK science and industry to have projects, many of the most advanced of which are done across the EU? We really need an EU presence and promotion of these projects, which I believe should be an important part of the external service.
Lord Howell of Guildford
I very much hope so, but of course that applies to other nations and other areas of the world as well. We want close scientific links with our American friends and with the rising powers of Asia, as well as with our European Union neighbours. Certainly, this may help as far as our immediate neighbourhood is concerned.
Lord Tugendhat
My Lords, is the Minister aware that in Dar es Salaam, from which I have just returned, there is a Europe house, which contains the British high commission, the German embassy, the Dutch embassy, the European Commission office and the DfID office? Does he agree that that is an admirable example of effective co-operation and cost saving? Will he undertake to ensure that similar establishments are put into other similar capitals?
Lord Howell of Guildford
I hear what my noble friend says and hope that that will save money. As to the administration of diplomatic posts around the world and the role of the EAS posts, we must leave that to the Commission, but always within the strict framework that the budget is tight—in my view, it should be tighter still. If this is a worthwhile return and helps our national aims and diplomatic services, it is worth while pursuing.
Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead
My Lords, does the Minister welcome the fact, as I do, that, under the EAS, development policies become a shared competence between the European Commission and the member states of the European Union? Furthermore, does he agree that, under the Lisbon treaty, EU policies such as development should complement and reinforce one another?
Lord Howell of Guildford
The Lisbon treaty is a fact and these are the aims under it. However, I emphasise, and I know that the noble Baroness with her experience will agree, that these are early days. It is an advance into a new area, where we are trying both to save money and to combine our efforts with our European member state neighbours in certain areas, but not all. We welcome this as far as it goes. Clearly, we need to see how this develops from here.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
(13 years, 9 months ago)
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The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Strathclyde)
My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord McNally I beg to move that the House do again resolve itself into Committee on the Bill. In moving this Motion, it may be helpful to set out the Government's intention in relation to progress on the Bill; there has been a little recent comment in the press.
The Government announced as long ago as July last year that there would be a referendum on 5 May to decide the system to elect Members of the House of Commons at the next general election. The Government also made clear our desire to reduce the number of seats in the House of Commons at the same election. The Bill subsequently passed all its stages on the Floor of the House
In this House, we are now on day nine of Committee on the Bill. Although it is right that this House undertakes proper and detailed scrutiny of the Bill, it is also right that the House deals with legislation in reasonable time. The Bill was introduced to your Lordships' House on 3 November, and began Committee on 30 November. The Opposition's approach has been consistently and deliberately slow. This time last week, the House debated the Bill for six hours, dealing with just two amendments. That is not good scrutiny; there is no precedent for moving so slowly. I have had many representations from noble Lords on all sides of the House in recent weeks who are concerned about the slow progress on the Bill. The Opposition have dragged their heels; they have had their fun; it is now time for this House to behave responsibly.
For this House to stand in the way of a referendum on 5 May would be extremely serious. The Electoral Commission is clear that in order for the necessary provisions to be made to hold a referendum on 5 May, Royal Assent for this Bill should be granted by 16 February. In order to give proper time for Report and Third Reading, I believe that the House now expects us to make substantial progress towards completing Committee today. I beg to move.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
My Lords, perhaps I may respond briefly to what the noble Lord the Leader of the House said. The Bill has two parts: Part 1 provides for the introduction of an alternative system for electing the House of Commons, subject to a yes vote in a national referendum; Part 2 provides for the reduction in the number of House of Commons constituencies from 650 to 600 and the adoption of new rules for determining constituency boundaries that are designed to introduce equality in the number of electors in each constituency.
As Members will know, the Bill has been described by Mr Nicholas Clegg as the most important constitutional reform since the Great Reform Act 1832. There is no dispute that the Bill is of far-reaching constitutional significance. The Bill passed through all its stages in the Commons, where it was the subject of a guillotine Motion, between September and 1 November 2010. As the noble Lord the Leader said, in your Lordships' House the Bill had a Second Reading over two days at the beginning of November and has so far spent eight days in Committee before today. Six days in Committee have been spent considering Part 1. It will, as is normal, spend longer in this House than in the other place.
The Electoral Commission announced that the Bill has to have Royal Assent by 16 February 2011 to allow the referendum to take place on 5 May 2011. Last Thursday, without consultation, the Government fixed a third day on Tuesday this week for consideration of the Bill in Committee, making three consecutive days for its consideration this week. They have also made arrangements with the House authorities consistent with there being an all-night sitting tonight. I read in the Sunday Telegraph yesterday that the Cholmondeley Room and the Attlee Room are being prepared to be dormitories for male and female Peers. Your Lordships will be concerned to know that the Sunday Telegraph did not indicate which was for male and which was for female Peers.
Lord Richard
My Lords, perhaps I may say one or two words on this issue. However one looks at the position, the fact is that the Government have got into a terrible mess on this Bill. Given the history of the legislation, which my noble and learned friend has just given, it is hardly surprising. The Government should now perhaps heed the great advice of Denis Healey, which he gave to people in similar holes.
It is important that we understand what happened and perhaps analyse the reasons for it. The Government cannot expect to legislate at one and the same time on two entirely separate major constitutional issues without their being subject to detailed examination and scrutiny. Nor can they legitimately complain if that scrutiny is extensive and, indeed, extended, particularly given the size of the coalition votes in this House—a majority that seems to increase daily.
The fact is that they have chosen for their own purposes to join two Bills into one. They must have the first part, which deals with the referendum, in place by mid-February if they are to keep to their chosen date, which I totally understand. However, the other part is quite separate. Had the Bill been divided into two from the outset, the six days that this House spent on the referendum issues could not have been seen remotely as inappropriate or excessive. Indeed, it was about right.
Where it has gone wrong for the Government is in their assumption that they could tack major changes in parliamentary constituencies on to the referendum issue. They must have known that this part of the Bill would be of intense interest and that the political parties would be heavily involved. If they did not realise that, they should have consulted the large number of ex-Cabinet Ministers sitting on their side of the House. The noble Lord, Lord McNally, certainly would have realised this from previous experience.
So why did they do it? It seems to me that there is a fairly simple answer to a simple question. It was obviously a complete misreading of the situation, a political error, with which they now have to live. The remedy is quite simple, as suggested by my noble and learned friend—the Bill should be split.
The Countess of Mar
I will be very brief. Does the noble Lord agree that the House was asked—it divided on it—whether the Bill should be split, and the Opposition lost the vote?
Lord Richard
My Lords, if a Motion is put down on the Order Paper, it is debated and divided on in the usual way. That is not what I am talking about. I am talking to the Motion that the House should resolve itself into Committee. If the Bill were to be split, the Government would get their referendum and on the date on which they want it. Parliament could go on to consider in detail the proposals on the size of the House of Commons, the number of constituencies and the way in which they are constructed. We might even have pre-legislative scrutiny on that, which we should have had anyway and which the noble Lord, Lord McNally, is so much in favour of, as he has told us this afternoon.
The Government thought that they could get away with it and it now becomes clearer that they cannot. They have not attempted to produce any evidence of a link between Part 1 and Part 2 that would necessitate their being considered together. So we have the present absurdities in the way in which this House is now being asked to consider these two issues. First, there will be three days this week in Committee, which is an unprecedented move as far as I can remember. Secondly, there could be an all-night sitting tonight, with perhaps more to come. My experience of all-night sittings is that most of the time they are self defeating. They do exactly what the Government do not wish to happen: namely, they encourage Oppositions to talk, not to keep quiet. We seem to be in for a bout of parliamentary attrition at the whim of the governing party opposite.
The Government in this instance have gone far too far. They made an initial mistake, which they are not now prepared to acknowledge: hence the ludicrous way in which this House is now being asked to consider the Bill. It is unprecedented. It is not in accordance with the understandings by which this House operates. The most likely result is that scrutiny of the Bill will continue to be intense and lengthy.
I considered whether there should be a vote on this Motion. If there were to be a vote, I would vote against a decision that we should resume Committee. The Government should think about this again carefully, and think about the implications not only for the Bill but for the proceedings in this House. If they do so, I do not think that they would find this side of the House unforthcoming.
Lord Lester of Herne Hill
I have listened carefully to what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, said. He is always a powerful advocate, but he must think that we are a bunch of idiots if he thinks that those of us who have been watching what has been happening are not aware that there has been a filibuster. The Cross-Benchers will probably be in the best position to judge that. As a result of Fenian tactics at the end of the last century, a filibuster is dealt with in the other place by a guillotine and closure procedures. In this Chamber, we are fortunate because we have never had to employ those procedures, but we have never had a filibuster. In the 16 years that I have been here, I have never seen conduct like this.
I am not concerned about this Bill but about the future procedures of this House, which transcend any concern as to whether there should be one Bill, two Bills or no Bill. What matters is that we should be able to conduct ourselves in this House in a reasonable way. I do not think that we have been conducting ourselves in a reasonable way. What, therefore, is the choice now—for those on these Benches simply to collapse and give way to in effect an ultimatum or to have to use, I am afraid, the time taken night after night, if necessary, to see Committee completed?
A great leader of the Labour Party, Hugh Gaitskell, once said that we must fight and fight again for the party we love. I believe that we have to do exactly the same in this House today to save it from the kind of things that have happened in the other place and which have recently been imported to this House by some recent additions, some Ministers, who should know better.
Lord Grocott
My Lords, uncharacteristically, the noble Lord, Lord Lester, cannot have checked on the progress of Bills under the previous Government. I have the figures in front of me. I am happy to present them in the Library, should that be necessary. I shall mention just one—the Marine and Coastal Access Bill, which took 19 days to go through the House. In no way am I minimising the importance of that Bill, but I think that a constitutional Bill should involve at least as much time as that.
I recognise and understand the problems faced by the business managers on the Front Bench. It must be much more difficult in some respects when there is a coalition. It is a difficult job managing government business—I can certainly testify to that—but, certainly during the six years when I was responsible, I can find only one occasion on which we considered the same Bill on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. That was overwhelmingly because of consideration of the needs and demands of those on the opposition Front Bench, who find it extremely difficult—understandably because they are part-timers—to do the necessary revision for three days in succession in detail on a difficult Bill. On only two or three occasions did we go through the night.
On all those exceptional occasions, it was because there was the imperative of dates. Usually, the imperative is the Queen’s Speech at the end of a Session. Of course, one cannot notify the Palace a fortnight before the Queen’s Speech is due and say, “Sorry, because Report on a Bill is taking a long time, could you put the date back a week?”. That date is imperative. Alternatively, as happened quite often under the previous Government, the imperatives for Northern Ireland legislation were unarguable. They were clear and demonstrable.
I concede totally to the Government that there is an imperative in this Bill, and we are conceding that publicly today. The imperative is not one I like, and the House knows my views on various forms of electoral systems, but the imperative for the Government is to get the Bill completed by 16 February so that there can be a referendum on 5 May. I acknowledge that imperative and it has been conceded.
However, I put it to the Government and to the House that there is absolutely no imperative whatsoever about Part 2 of the Bill. But before I move on from Part 1, I have to say to the noble Lord, Lord Lester, as my noble friend has said, that if he thinks six days on the Committee stage of a Bill that potentially fulfils the Lib Dems’ dreams of a change to the electoral system is filibustering, he does not know what a filibuster is.
Baroness Butler-Sloss
My Lords, perhaps I may be permitted to put forward, with some diffidence, a perception from a Cross-Bencher, because the Cross-Benchers have been referred to. I think it is known that the Cross-Benchers actually listen to the arguments and we vote according to what we believe are the better arguments. But when a debate on one amendment takes three and three-quarter hours and is not followed by asking the House to decide on it, that is the point at which the Cross-Benchers wonder—I personally wonder and I believe I am not alone—what is actually going on.
Lady Saltoun of Abernethy
My Lords, I wonder if I could ask a brief question: what is all the hurry about? Why do we have to have a referendum this May? Why can we not wait and have it in a year’s time, or at any time? This is something that is too important to rush, as we are doing.
Lord Skelmersdale
My Lords, I have been somewhat pre-empted by the two previous speakers in asking a question of the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, although it is probably inappropriate to ask him at this juncture, so perhaps the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, would be the right person to address it. He and the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, came forward with a perfectly reasonable offer that they would agree to splitting the Bill. However, is there not a difficulty in that, as the noble and learned Lord said, we are now close to the beginning of Part 2 of this Bill, so it would be impossible to do such a thing now? It is therefore necessary, is it not, to continue with Committee until it is finished? At that point, it would not be beyond the wit of the Government to accept the noble Lords’ offer, but I do not think it is practicable at this moment.
Lord Elton
My Lords, I want to interject in support of the noble Countess, Lady Mar, and say to my noble friend that it is not as simple as that. The House is not allowed to be asked to give its opinion a second time on any issue, and the House decided that this Bill should be given a Second Reading. What is being asked for is to have two new Bills, and that is not feasible.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon
I want to make a brief point. There are precedents for splitting Bills which have got into difficulties. I refer to the 1977 Scotland and Wales Bill which, after a lot of discussion, was in fact split in the House of Commons. That enabled the Scotland Bill to go forward in that Parliament, and the Wales Bill went forward a little later. It was unfortunate for Scotland, perhaps, that the people did not want devolution at the time. A way was found to split the Bill and there is no reason why a way should not be found to split this one.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
On the question of splitting the Bill, the advice I have received is that it is not open to this House to send back to the Commons a Bill that has been divided into two unless the Government give their consent to that. That position was made clear by my noble friend Lady McDonagh and that is why there was no vote on it. The Government did not give their consent. However, if the Government consent to it, it is possible for that course to be taken.
Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, the noble Lady, Lady Saltoun of Abernethy, asked an extremely good question a few minutes ago. She said, “Why the urgency?”. Of course, the answer is that last July, when the Government announced their intention to bring this legislation forward and published the Bill, there was no urgency. There was no urgency when it was debated in another place. There was no urgency when it came here. The situation has become urgent because the Labour Party has decided to go on a marathon go-slow on the Bill ever since we started Committee.
Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall
I hope that the Leader will allow me to point out to him that that was not the question that the noble Lady, Lady Saltoun, put to him. The question was, “Why should the referendum date be the date that it is?”—not “Why has it taken so long to get to this point?”, but “Why is the date the date?”. That seems to me to be a question that he has not yet addressed.
Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, my point still stands. The Government made an announcement soon after the general election that there would be a referendum on 5 May. I really wonder whether it is right for this House to stand up and suddenly say that should not be the case, when there was plenty of time for the Bill to be properly scrutinised.
I move on to reply to the other points that were made. The noble and learned Lord said that we are trying now to rush the Bill through and that there has not been enough consultation with the Opposition. Ever since the Bill arrived in the House, the usual channels—government and opposition—have been trying to come to an agreement, but there was an absolute refusal by the Labour Party, right from the start, to engage in trying to decide the number of days in Committee.
It is said that we have been planning an all-night sitting. I have no desire to have an all-night sitting, or a very late sitting. It is entirely in the hands of the Opposition how long we stay here this evening. The noble Lord, Lord Richard, for whom, as a former distinguished Leader of this House, I have the utmost respect, said that the trouble with all-night sittings is that it encourages the Opposition—he did not quite say to behave even more badly, but it was sort of what he meant. We could not go any slower than we have done over the course of the past eight days.
Let us deal with the substantive point, the issue of splitting the Bill. The noble Countess, Lady Mar, was right in one part of her memory—we did debate splitting the Bill in a Motion put at the very start of the legislative process. That Motion was withdrawn after a debate, but I think that the noble Countess’s point stands. Both the issues that we are dealing with in the Bill are about how MPs are elected to the House of Commons. The Bill will give voters, for the first time, a say in the way in which they elect their MPs and will mean that fairer boundaries and more equal constituencies can be put in place for the general election in 2013.
Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, may I just finish this important point? Noble Lords opposite have said that we should split the Bill and that we should not have included these two issues in one Bill. Yet the last Government’s Constitutional Reform and Governance Act, introduced to this House last year, included provision on 13 different areas ranging from a referendum on the alternative vote to freedom of information, ratification of treaties and so on. It seems odd to me that, in opposition, noble Lords opposite have so quickly become concerned about these two reforms with a common theme comprising the same Bill. Even worse, we have the noble Lords, Lord Touhig, Lord McAvoy and Lord Browne of Ladyton, who voted entirely happily, without interruption, in proceedings in another place when an amendment was brought forward on Report and yet, as soon as the Bill comes here and they have been translated into Members of the House of Lords, they take an entirely different view. I now give way to the noble Lord.
Lord Hughes of Woodside
I thank the Leader of the House. He speaks about urgency in choosing 5 May of this year. That might have been reasonable in previous times, when an election could be called at any time by the Prime Minister. However, the Prime Minister has said that there will be no election for five years, so what is the urgency about having the referendum on 5 May of this year?
The Countess of Mar
My Lords, on the same subject, the Government do not govern on their own; they govern with the two Houses of Parliament and these decide whether it is going to be 5 May 2011 or 5 or 6 May 2012.
Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, that is right. Like the noble and learned Lord, I have sat through many of the debates that have taken place over the past nine days and I have sympathy for the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and other Members—not just on the Cross Benches, but in all parts of the House—who wished to take part in this debate and feel that they have become excluded from it because it has taken so long. The truth is that the Labour Party has a political objective to break this key coalition Bill, stop the referendum and stop the reduction in the number of MPs.
Baroness Royall of Blaisdon
My Lords, forgive me but, on a point of information for the House, I respectfully remind the House that the House as a whole adopted an amendment, moved by my noble friend Lord Rooker, which would enable the referendum to take place on any date before 31 October. That was the will of this House.
Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, I entirely agree with what the noble Baroness has said.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
“United Kingdom electoral quota
The United Kingdom electoral quota shall be defined as the total electorate of the United Kingdom on the designated enumeration day divided by 650.”
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
My distress at the lack of interest in the substance of the Bill is a matter of some import.
Amendment 58A would replace the current proposal in Clause 11 to fix the House of Commons at 600 seats, with an alternative rule which would anchor the size of the other place at its current membership of 650.
As your Lordships’ House’s Constitution Committee made clear in its report on the Bill:
“We conclude that the Government have not calculated the proposed reduction in the size of the House of Commons on the basis of any considered assessment of the role and functions of MPs”.
That reality was exposed in the debate last Monday, when the Government again failed to provide any adequate explanation as to why 600 seats is the optimum size for the other place or, in particular, why a 600-seat Commons would serve the public more effectively than the current 650-seat Chamber.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, conceded from the Front Bench that:
“We have never suggested that there was anything magic or ideal about a House of Commons of 600 any more than the current size of 650 is ideal”.—[Official Report, 10/01/11; col. 1222.]
Is that, I ask, rhetorically, the best that the Government can do in a situation where they are using their political majority in the other place in order to push through a reduction in the number of Members of Parliament? It is obviously a dangerous precedent that is being adopted, because it involves using your political power to fix the size of the legislative chamber in circumstances where people will allege, as we do on this side, that it is being done for political advantage.
It is worth saying that that approach to the question of the size of the legislative chamber has not been adopted in this country since the Second World War, when a Speaker’s Conference agreed the arrangement that then became law in 1949 and, though there have been changes to the detail, it has never been disputed that the people who should decide the number of constituencies in the country should be the boundary commissions, which are believed—correctly, in my view—to be beyond party politics. We do not want to get into a position where, when you win an election, you then use your majority to fix the size of the House of Commons to suit your political advantage.
Lord Anderson of Swansea
Is there not, as a result of this affront to our constitution in the way that this is being done, the danger that what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander? There must be a considerable temptation for any incoming Government to do the same. I would hope that we would resist that temptation, but the pendulum will swing and the party or parties opposite will not be for ever in Government. The danger is that one hallowed principle of our constitution will be wilfully thrown away.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
I agree with all of that. I very much hope that we would not succumb to that temptation, but once the door is open, it becomes harder and harder to resist.
Lord Trimble
The noble Lord refers to this as a “hallowed principle of our constitution”, but it was not applied to the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly or the Northern Ireland Assembly. My noble and learned friend Lord Wallace said, with regard to the Scottish Parliament, that there were some really arcane discussions, which he said he might reveal to us some time, that resulted in the rather unusual figure there. I know myself, and I will not weary the House, about the political considerations that drove the size of the Northern Ireland Assembly. I confess ignorance with regard to the Welsh Assembly. But that “hallowed principle” has not been applied by Governments drawn from both sides of this House over the past few years.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
I do not want to go into Northern Irish politics because I feel that if I did, I would make a number of mistakes. I can talk about Scottish politics, and I can say this: the effect of the reduction in the number of Members of Parliament in Scotland was, in political terms, wholly to the detriment of the Labour Party. However, it was introduced by a Government with a substantial Labour majority. Yes, it was done by a Government, but it was plain that it was being done in a way that was to the detriment of the interest of that Government. So, in my view, it does not raise the issues that the noble Lord is raising.
Lord Trimble
I am afraid that the noble and learned Lord has misunderstood the point that I was making, which was with regard not to the number of Westminster Members from Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, but to the size of the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly and the Northern Ireland Assembly, which is a different matter.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
I accept that as well but I can see no process by which, when you are setting up a Parliament, you can do so except by the passage of a Bill in Parliament.
Lord Anderson of Swansea
May a voice from Wales seek to assist my noble friend in respect of what happened regarding the Welsh Assembly? There was a consensus; it was agreed that there should be 60 seats, 40 of which would be exactly the same as the Westminster constituencies, while the other 20 would be based on regional representation and on a form of proportional representation. It was done not in a partisan way at all but on the basis of consensus, which manifestly has not been done in this case.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
I think that that is fair, and it applies to the putting together of the Welsh Assembly, the putting together of the Scottish Parliament and the reduction in the number of Scottish seats in the Westminster Parliament. As I say, I defer in every single respect to the noble Lord, Lord Trimble, in relation to what happened in Northern Ireland.
We believe that the case for a 650-seat Commons has not changed since the current Prime Minister spoke in its favour—indeed, in favour of a slightly larger elected Chamber—at the 2003 Oxfordshire boundary inquiry. Opposing proposals to alter his own constituency borders, he told that inquiry:
“Somebody might take the view that at 659 there are already too many Members of Parliament at Westminster. They may take the view, depending on what happens in the European constitution, that Westminster has less to do, with less MPs—I certainly hope that is not the case. This is all some way off”.
What has changed in the mean time to alter the view that there is no need for a reduction in the size of the House of Commons? The Government have failed to answer that question.
Our amendment stems from a conviction that the current Commons of 650, which is broadly the figure that it has been since 1983, is the appropriate basis on which to stabilise the size of that Chamber. Although the membership of the House has been pretty stable over the past number of years, both rising and falling, concerns have been expressed about the potential for a ratchet effect resulting from the interplay of some of the existing rules for drawing parliamentary boundaries.
Our amendment therefore follows the recommendation of the Home Affairs Select Committee, in its 1987 report on the rules for drawing constituency boundaries, which proposed that the UK electoral quota should be calculated using the “fixed divisor” method. The Committee recommended that the divisor should be fixed on the basis of a 650-seat House of Commons.
Put simply, under our proposed alternative rules, an initial UK electoral quota would be calculated by dividing the total UK electorate by the fixed number of 650—in other words, not altering the current size of the House of Commons. This mechanism, which should be read alongside our other amendments, would not necessarily fix the House at 650 seats for ever. It would stabilise the House at around that size but with the mathematical rounding up or down involved in the calculation of seats in the four parts of the UK, and once special allowance is made for seats like the Scottish islands, it could be possible to see very minor fluctuations in the size of the Commons—one or two seats either side of 650. We see that as a virtue of the fixed divisor method and an advantage that it holds over the Government’s proposal for a fixed number of seats.
The latter approach—the fixed number of seats adopted by the Government—was criticised by the head of the English Boundary Commission when he gave evidence to the Home Affairs Committee inquiry in 1987. He warned that stipulating an exact fixed number of seats for the Commons would require the boundary commissions to use a “Bed of Procrustes” for drawing constituencies, stretching the borders of those that were too small and lopping parts off others that were too big. He warned the committee away from that method and instead urged the use of a fixed divisor, which would result in a broadly stable Commons while allowing the boundary commissions a bit of practical leeway.
Now, of course, even if we could convince the Government of the practical benefits of our amendment, we would still need to persuade them on the issue of the most appropriate size of the Commons. Before we consider the relative merits and demerits of this amendment against the Government’s proposal for a 600-seat House of Commons, though, it is worth reminding ourselves of what the two parties opposite were saying on this subject before the election.
The Liberal Democrat general election manifesto contained a commitment to creating a 500-seat House of Commons elected on the basis of the single transferable vote. The Conservative Party manifesto contained a commitment to the continuation of the first past the post system for elections to the Commons but pledged to cut the number of MPs, saying that it envisaged a 585-seat House. So why did the coalition agreement settle upon 600 seats as the perfect number, as opposed to 500 or 585? I ask the Minister, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, who I assume will be answering, to explain the reasoning behind that specific decision.
In particular, why did the two coalition partners agree on a figure that was higher than both their original proposals? Compromises usually involve a meeting in the middle—what happened here? Could the proposal for a 600-seat House have had anything whatever to do with the Conservative Party’s fears that the mathematical reality of a reduction below 600 would require the loss of seats in shire counties? Or did that have no bearing on the decision?
Leaving aside the reasons why the Government are so fixated on a 600-seat House, there is a broader question about what is wrong with the size of the current Commons. The Government claim that it is, to use their words, a bloated Chamber and that the UK suffers from something that they describe as “overrepresentation”. The facts show they are wrong on both counts. The claim that Britain is overrepresented in comparison with similar-sized countries is based on simple international comparisons of numbers of elected national representatives per head of population. In fact, the extent to which the UK has more elected representatives in the national legislature per head of population can be exaggerated. As a briefing note from the House of Commons Library makes clear, the United Kingdom has roughly the same ratio as France and Italy. However, the central point is that these calculations take account only of national legislatures and do not include any reference to levels of representation beneath that tier.
Lord Rooker
It is interesting that my noble and learned friend mentions France. In France, one in 100 adults is an elected official of some kind, whereas in this country the figure is about one in 1,600, if we take into account parish councils and urban districts. France is remarkably democratic and has less pressure at a national level because there is so much devolved democracy—16 times more so than here.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
That is an interesting point and, significantly, my noble friend Lord Rooker has prefaced the point that I was just about to make. As I said, the central issue is that the calculations of the numbers of national representatives per head of population take account only of national legislatures and do not include references to levels of representation beneath that tier. If we look below the national level, the United Kingdom has far fewer elected officeholders per head of population than almost all comparable countries. An academic study by Democratic Audit found that, at local government level, the population per elected member is around 2,600 in the United Kingdom, 250 in Germany and 116 in France. Therefore, when sub-national elected representatives are factored in, as my noble friend Lord Rooker has pointed out, it is apparent that the UK does not suffer from overrepresentation; if anything, it suffers from the opposite.
In any event, there is a fundamental problem in seeking to draw simple comparisons between the numbers of elected representatives in different national legislatures. Some countries are unitary states, whereas others are federal states; some have a Westminster model, like that of the United Kingdom, whereas others have a presidential system, like that of the United States of America. As a consequence, their administrative and electoral systems are organised in different ways. Therefore, comparing rates of representation in one national legislature with those in another is a largely pointless exercise akin to comparing apples and pears.
A more sensible basis on which to decide what level of representation is right for the UK is to examine how the size of the House of Commons has changed over time. If the number of Members of Parliament were growing inexorably and out of all proportion to the size of the electorate, there would clearly be a problem. However, the evidence shows that that is not the case. The Commons has not grown disproportionately in size over recent years. The size of the Commons has increased by around 3 or 4 per cent, or by 25 Members, since 1950, but the electorate—and, therefore, the average size of constituencies—has increased by 25 per cent over that period.
There has also been a significant increase in the case load of Members of Parliament, which has grown out of proportion to the size of the population as a consequence of changing social norms, political developments and new forms of communication. According to the Select Committee on Modernisation of the House of Commons, in the 1950s and 1960s Members received on average 12 to 15 letters per week. Today, the average is 300 per week—I am still quoting figures from the Modernisation Committee—and then there are e-mails, faxes and telephone calls to take into account. There is no evidence that having fewer MPs will reduce the demand for their services. Assuming that that remains the same, the pressure on the remaining Members and their staff will increase.
If the service that Members of Parliament provide to their constituents is not to deteriorate, and if MPs are to be able to take part in Select Committees and Public Bill Committees, which have become considerably more active in recent decades, Members of Parliament will need greater resources to employ people as caseworkers and secretaries. The savings made through a reduction of 50 Members of Parliament would inevitably be lost, which would undermine the argument that this is a worthy, cost-cutting measure.
The provision on the size of the House of Commons is one of the most important in the Bill. We are being asked to cut 50 seats from the primary political body in the United Kingdom and to fix its size in statute, in perpetuity, at 600, but we are not really being given any proper explanation as to why that is the most appropriate size for the House of Commons. Does anyone in this Chamber honestly think that this is the right way to enact such a fundamental constitutional change? What, I ask the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, is the justification for reducing the size of the House of Commons and increasing the size of this place?
In conclusion, one of the central arguments that can be made in support of an unelected House of Lords is that its Members are able to exercise a greater independence of thought than representatives who are elected—they are that bit freer of the party constraints that have a more restrictive impact on the actions of colleagues in the other place. That is one reason why, down the years, your Lordships have been able to act as the guardians of the constitution and face down Executive moves that are rooted in party interests and not the national interests.
The new era of coalition government is a challenge to your Lordships’ House—a challenge as to whether it is willing and able to act as an independent-minded revising Chamber. The alternative is to become a rubber stamp for the Executive. This Bill, and this issue perhaps more than many others, will serve as an important litmus test on how your Lordships’ House intends to respond to that challenge.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Viscount Simon)
I must advise your Lordships that, if Amendment 58A is agreed to, I cannot call Amendments 59 to 63ZA inclusive and Amendment 66B due to pre-emption.
Lord Maples
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, asks why it should fall to Parliament to make this decision. It seems to me that it must, and that ultimately the will of the House of Commons should prevail but that obviously our views should be sought too. The nature of the rules that the Boundary Commission operates at present involves an inevitable escalation of the number of Members of Parliament at every Boundary Commission review.
I completely agree with the noble and learned Lord that there is no magic number. Those of us who sat in the House of Commons probably would not be able to agree what the optimum number should be. However, there are now 650 Members. I think that there were 625 when I first got in in 1983—or perhaps that was the figure in 1979—and there were 659 in 1997. Therefore, there has been quite a variety in the number of MPs. In the 20th century, the number rose from 615 to 659, but of course that does not take account of the fact that the number of Scottish seats fell by, I think, 13 at the time of devolution. If those are added as well, we are still talking about a number around the 660 mark.
With 600 seats, the average number of voters would be 75,000 per Member of Parliament. I should like to speak—
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
Before the noble Lord moves on to that specific point, does he not agree that, on all those occasions, the figures arose from decisions made by the Boundary Commission and were never imposed by Parliament?
Lord Maples
That is not correct. The boundary commissions legislation states the number of seats in Scotland and Wales. In fact, the legislation says that there will be a minimum of 35 seats for Wales, whereas there are actually 40, and it also gives minimum numbers for Northern Ireland and Scotland. Therefore, I do not think that it is right to say that the matter has been left entirely to the boundary commissions.
I revert to my point that there has been an escalation in the Boundary Commission process. With 600 seats, there would be about 75,000 voters per Member of Parliament. I have tabled an amendment—Amendment 63ZA—that suggests that the House should be reduced in size progressively over the next three boundary reviews to 600 MPs at the next election, 550 at the one after that and 500 at the one after that. If the number got to 500, there would be 90,000 electors per Member of Parliament. I had very nearly 90,000 electors when I was a Member of Parliament and it was not an unmanageable constituency at all. For those with very small constituencies—mostly in Scotland and Wales—frankly I wonder how theirs can be a full-time job, because it was perfectly easy for me to handle an electorate of about 85,000. It is a matter of the number of staff—a point that I shall come to in a minute.
Lord Maples
I should like to progress. This is like making a speech in the House of Commons, where people intervene the whole time. The noble Lord can make his own speech in his own time about the number of seats in Wales. Following on from my Amendment 63ZA, I have tabled another—Amendment 66B—which would reduce the denominator and the fraction for deciding the electorate for each seat.
There are several reasons for making such a change. First, we are moving towards a general feeling that the Government should be smaller. I think that the number of Ministers has got too high. Certainly, if the size of the House of Commons were to be reduced, the number of Ministers in it would also have to decrease. Secondly, there is a wide perception—this is based only on anecdotal evidence—that there are too many politicians who cost too much money. I agree that the cost of the House of Commons will not necessarily fall a lot as a result of the proposed change, but the cost has doubled in the past 13 years. The cost doubled under Labour largely because we were all given an enormously increased number of staff. That has to come to an end. Members of the House of Commons are not the most popular people in the country. If people knew that MPs were costing more, they would not be happy about it.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, said that we should not be too swayed by international comparisons, and I rather agree that we should make up our own minds. He then said that one should take account of other countries’ devolved layers of government—for example, Germany is a federal state and France, as the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, pointed out, has elected representatives at all sorts of other levels. If that is so, that is an argument for the quota for Wales and Scotland being lower than for England because England does not have a devolved Assembly. To many of us, it seems that the numerical advantage was taken away from Scotland by the devolution Act. If that argument is to hold sway, it should result in fewer Members of Parliament at Westminster for Wales and Scotland on a quota basis than for England. However, politicians in other countries find themselves perfectly capable of dealing with constituencies that are much larger than 75,000 voters. I think that constituencies in Germany have about 140,000 voters and those in France about 100,000 voters, whereas here, even under my proposal for reducing the House of Commons to 500 Members, the figure would be 90,000.
Let us look at some of the changes that have taken place and the work that is required of Members of Parliament. The devolved Assemblies have, frankly, reduced the workload of the Members of Parliament for those areas for which there are devolved Assemblies, because the work is now split between more people. It may be that Parkinson’s law is in operation and that demand is rising to meet supply, but, in objective terms, there are more elected representatives theoretically doing the same work.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, referred to the increase in constituency work, which is undoubtedly true, but an awful lot of that can be, and is, dealt with by Members’ staff. In most of the run-of-the-mill cases with which Members of Parliament have to deal—which they should not have to sort out, as the bureaucracy should be more responsive than it needing a letter from a Member of Parliament to break some bureaucratic impasse—all that they need to do is sign the letter. They do not have to involve themselves in the details of every case.
We have moved to a House of Commons in which the vast majority of its Members are now professional politicians—it is a full-time job for MPs, who do not do anything else—but the Chamber has become less relevant in holding the Government to account. I suppose that the Chamber is where politicians make their reputation, but, apart from that, the game is so heavily skewed in the Government’s favour that the Chamber is not really where the Government are held to account; that is in Select Committees.
If the House of Commons is to develop, as I hope, in a way that makes it as constitutionally important in the future as it has been in the past, it will be through the work of Select Committees. We do not need a 600 or 650-Member House to staff those. It is my experience from the past 13 years that an enormous number of Members of Parliament, particularly those with marginal seats, have been encouraged to spend less time at Westminster and more in their constituencies. That is another area in which work has expanded to fill the time available in which to do it.
What do you need in the House of Commons? Well, you need a Government. At present, there are 95 Members of the House of Commons in the Government. If the House of Commons were reduced in size along the lines that I suggest, that number should be reduced. However, let us say that you would still need 85 Members in the Government. You would need a similar number in the Opposition to shadow them. You would need some alternatives in both the Opposition and the Government, so that when people either want to resign or have resignation forced upon them, there would be somebody else to take their place. There will be new people at each election. If you add all that up, you come to about 300 people.
Then you need Select Committees, of which there are 17 at the moment. I do not think that 12 or 14 Members are needed on a Select Committee; I have sat on committees of various sizes and would have thought that 10 is about right. Some of the people who sit on Select Committees would also be in one of the other categories in the House of Commons. Opposition spokesmen do not sit on Select Committees, nor do Ministers, but people in the other place who hope to become opposition spokesmen or Ministers are very often on Select Committees—only about 150 people are precluded from being on them.
I would have thought, therefore, that a House of Commons of 500 would be more than enough to satisfy those requirements. That is too big a reduction for one Parliament—it may be too big a reduction for three—but I would be grateful if my noble and learned friend on the Front Bench could respond. Particularly in light of how painful and time-consuming it has been to get this reduction through, perhaps it would be a good idea to build in future reductions as well.
Lord Lipsey
My Lords, I should like to bring to light some of the facts that should come to bear on this decision. I do not think that anybody on the government side has yet spelled out a very good reason for thinking that 600 is the magic number and that 650 is the wrong number. That is a subject on which a judgment can be reached only in the light of all the facts about what is going on and what is likely to happen if we do not do anything about it.
One of the underlying assumptions made by the Government in all their speeches on prior clauses of the Bill is that there has been a tendency for the number of Members of Parliament to increase. Let us look at the facts. Yes, it is true that if you choose as your base date 1950 there has been a small increase from 625 Members of the Commons then to 650 today. It is an increase. But why take 1950? You might, for example, take 1983, which is, after all, more than a quarter of a century ago. Since 1983, the number of Members of the House of Commons has not changed; it has remained at 650. Alternatively, and this is a historically-minded House, one might go back to 1918, when the number of Members of the House of Commons was 707. I readily accept that there are explanations both for the increases and decreases, to some of which I shall come shortly, but this is a case not of an upwards trend ad infinitum but of fluctuations based on various things. One of those things which has tended to force the number perhaps to be higher than might be essential is Welsh representation—we shall come to that later in the Bill; I think that the proposal to cut it from 40 to 30 is too draconian, but, equally, 40 may be rather too many and there might be a saving to be made there.
It has to be accepted that, in the previous rules of the Boundary Commission, which have to be put right, there has been a contradiction which has caused some small change in the rise in the number of Members of the House of Commons. As I understand it, rule 1 requires that the House of Commons does not grow in total size, and rule 5 requires indivisible units—for example, counties—to be allocated the number of seats which makes each constituency as near as possible to the desired quota. This, in technical language, requires rounding-off at the harmonic mean, which is always beyond the arithmetic mean. If anyone wants me to go into that in more detail, I can guarantee to take up all day and all night in doing so, but I very much doubt that it would greatly be for the elucidation of the Committee. I am sure that the noble and learned Lord on the Front Bench would suggest that I do not do any such thing since it would cut across our desire to give this Bill the correct scrutiny in the minimum time that is necessary. Without going into those conflicts in the rules, I suggest that it would be possible to amend the rules in a quite a minor way to reduce that inflating factor in so far as it exists.
I have said that the number of MPs has not increased much. What has indisputably and hugely increased is the number of electors each MP has to service. Let us take 1950, which is the basis for comparison that is most favourable to the Government’s case. As my noble and learned friend said, the number of MPs is up 3 per cent and the electorate is up 25 per cent. If my schoolboy arithmetic is correct, electorate per MP is up 22 per cent. Let us again, because this is a historic House, take the longer perspective. In 1918, the average MP represented 30,000 electors. In 1950, the number was 55,000 electors. In 1983, it was 65,000 and, in 2005, it was 68,000. Under this Bill, that will go up to 75,000 electors. That is an increase two-and-a-half times over. It is possible that that is not right, but it seems a pretty big increase, the last bit of which is entirely due to the reduction brought about by this Bill.
That of course is electors per MP. However, the MP’s workload—and there are many former Members of another place who will no doubt give the House the benefit of their own experience—does not just depend on the number of electors, it depends on how many people live in their constituency. There are some very large discrepancies between the number of people and the number of electors. I have not been able to find, given the truncated timetable we are working to, an actual figure of number of people per electorate since 1918, but I can absolutely guarantee, I think, that it will have grown faster than the number of electors per MP, with immigration and the lack of people registering as a result. It is population that is the generator of workload.
Then, workload per person in your electorate has increased. Last time I spoke on a related matter in this House I mentioned that when I started work for Tony Crosland back in 1972 we got 30 letters a week from his Grimsby constituents and they could all be happily dealt with by an excellent part-time secretary in consultation with the local party. The situation today is nothing like that. It is not just numbers—the 300 letters my noble friend cited—but it is the sheer complexity of the cases. The complexity of an immigration case is enormous, which is of course why the cost to the Commons has gone up. It is not that there are more MPs—that has been a trivial factor. In order to perform the services that the people of this country expect them to perform, MPs need far more caseworkers to help them with constituency cases.
There is another factor which is much less remarked on but I think is quite important. The psephological evidence, until reasonably recently, was unambiguous. It did not matter how hard an MP worked or how lazy he was; there was practically no incumbent effect on subsequent general elections. Whether you won or not depended nearly entirely on the popularity of your party and not on how good a job you did. I hate saying it because I know it might offend some people who were MPs many years ago when that was so. However, I am afraid that the psephological evidence is unambiguous. That evidence has now changed. I will not go into the full detail—I would advise noble Lords that they can read the Curtice appendix to the Cowley and Kavanagh book on the 2010 general election. You will find that even MPs who had been at the heart of expenses scandals did better than new candidates who had not been in the House before. It is absolutely unambiguous evidence. I do not think that anybody in this Chamber would doubt for a minute that the great majority, even near to saying all, Members of Parliament, whatever their other faults and virtues, are deeply assiduous in servicing the needs of their constituencies and constituents. It is a plus factor for me that they get a bit of appreciation for that. I have known Members who lost their seats who were deeply upset for years afterwards because they thought their constituents had not shown them the gratitude they felt they had earned. Well now, their constituents are starting to show gratitude and that is a great thing.
Then there is the question of workload other than constituency work. There are 240 places now to be filled on departmental Select Committees—they did not exist really when I started in business—and 227 other places in committees. There is the sheer volume of legislation, I admit often guillotined down the other end, but you have to read the thing if you are going to take any part. The size of Bills has increased exponentially, largely as a result of the demise of the typewriter and the growth of the word processor which means there is no incentive whatever for draftsmen to cut anything out and every incentive to put things in because nothing has to be retyped. There is the huge effort of looking after our demanding press. There is the huge effort of dealing with the new profession of public affairs consultants, all of whom have good reason to come and see you about matters of one kind of another. The average MP today works far, far harder than the average MP did in the past. That is not going to change and it is the reason why most MPs today have to be full-time Members of Parliament. It makes me wonder whether it is a good idea to cut their numbers when they are having to work very much harder.
Then there is the question, which was again raised by the noble Lord, Lord Maples, of the ratio of members of the Government to Back-Benchers. This measure would make that ratio worse at a stroke. At the moment, the number of Ministers and Whips in the lower House is roughly just over a third of the number of Back-Benchers. This legislation would change that to 40 per cent. Among the remaining Back-Benchers there are some who are essentially the equivalent of Ministers, in the sense that they will do whatever the Government ask, however awful, in the hope of getting promotion out of the Prime Minister. Therefore, the number of independent Back-Benchers in another place, on whom we rely so much to hold the Government to account, is going to diminish. We have heard airy words that perhaps Prime Ministers in future will appoint fewer Ministers. I have been hearing them for 25 years too and of course it never happens because by appointing somebody a Minister a Prime Minister can bind them to him. On top of that there is the increased number of victims these days of sexual scandal or alleged blunder of one kind or another appearing in the newspapers. There is a greater turnover of Ministers as a result and, in my opinion, the Prime Minister will continue to appoint just as many. Whether all of them have full jobs to do is another matter, but there are good reasons to do it. He also has to maintain party balance and now, coalition balance, because some of the most fed up people with the emergence of this coalition Government are those people, mostly in the Tory party, who thought before they would get jobs and now find themselves on the Back Benches. Disgruntled does not begin to describe their mood. So there will not be fewer Ministers; it is a pity therefore that there will be fewer Back-Benchers. It also reduces what Professor Anthony King in a notable phrase has called the “gene pool” that is available. The fewer Back-Benchers available to promote the less possibility there is of new and excellent talent emerging to replace talent that is exhausted, talent that has destroyed itself and so on. That is another cost of the diminution.
Finally, we come back to the last argument which is extant of those who say that there is an evident case for reducing the number of MPs—and that is money. They say they will save money by doing it. That is not obvious to me because if the work has still to be done, it has still to be paid for. You may have fewer MPs but you are going to have more constituency workers per MP. You must do in order for them to cope with the sheer volume of correspondence and so on. The only saving I can see is that there will be the saving of 50 MPs’ salaries—that comes to a little over £3 million a year. Of that, £1 million will be lost in income tax so that is about £2 million. You could raise that by a decent tax on one banker’s bonus. This makes me feel that the money argument is really just a populist argument, as indeed is the whole argument for reducing the number of MPs. It is not based on fact, it is not based on analysis, it was pulled out of a hat in an attempt to satisfy a popular anti-MP mood, and it is your Lordships’ duty, and a duty in which we should take pleasure, to say hold on, let us look at the facts, let us see whether this decrease is really justified. If it is not, we are entitled to ask the House of Commons to think again.
Lord Anderson of Swansea
Is there not a danger that if the workload remains the same and the number of MPs is reduced there will be an increase in the number of Members’ staff, which will in itself almost certainly lead to less of a direct contact between the Member and those he seeks to represent, which cannot be a good thing for democracy.
Lord Lipsey
My noble friend is absolutely right about that. It will also mean that the queue of people waiting to become MPs will be even longer since in my experience most of these MPs’ staff are waiting only for the moment when they can jump into the shoes of the man whom they so loyally serve.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
My Lords, I have two questions for the Government about their proposal to reduce the number of seats. Do the coalition parties have the same commitment to increasing the number of women in the other House as the Labour Party has had in its various policy documents for some time? Furthermore, has there been any assessment of the effect of the reduction of the number of seats on the likelihood of achieving an increase in the representation of women in the other House?
The Labour Party has not achieved what a number of us—and I sit by some of them here—have been committed to for a number of years, which is to move from 40 to 50 per cent of our party’s representation in the other House being women. It is no secret that even when we came to all-women shortlists it was possible to move on that only when there was a vacancy, because no party was willing to kick out the male representatives to make room for a new shortlist that could be an all-women shortlist. In our experience—I do not think that I am giving away all our secrets, which were probably covered in the press anyway—because we did not have enough retirements, we could not make the progress that we wanted to make on all-women shortlists. There were no vacancies and therefore there were no shortlists, so we could not put women in.
Noble Lords will understand quickly the concern that women will have that, when we reduce the number of seats, as the Government want, there will be no retirements, only some forced retirements, given that there will be fewer seats. Labour Members may well fight other Labour Members for those seats and I imagine that Conservative Members will fight other Conservative Members for those seats. So there will be very few vacancies. New blood, either men or women, will be extremely hard to bring on.
My second question, having asked how the parties in the coalition are committed to increasing women’s representation, is whether they have done any sort of impact assessment of reducing the number of seats and of what it would mean for the likelihood of bringing on a new generation—partly of young people but even more so of women, which is my particular interest—into the other House.
Lord Desai
My Lords, I always get excited when I see a mathematical formula in a Bill. The formula of U over 598 appears in the Bill. The idea, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, said, is to have an arrangement whereby each vote counts equally towards electing an MP. That is a very worthy aim, with which I have no quarrel. It is like a programming problem, whereby you minimise the distance between the sizes of different constituencies, subject to various considerations. That is a perfectly good aim.
Where I fail to understand the Government’s approach is why they are adding another completely artificial constraint by at the same time reducing the total number of seats by 50. You can achieve equalisation of votes and seats and achieve the aim of having each vote count equally with 650 seats. It would be absolutely no problem. It might even make it easier for the Government to achieve their aim if they did that. We already know that they have a problem in having to set aside two seats. There may be many more seats, as noble Lords have said, and other peculiar constituencies that would rather not be broken up or merged. There are lots of constraints that the Government are trying to ignore. If they had 650 seats, they would be able to achieve their aim of reducing the anomaly between the size of the seats and the number of votes required for a candidate to be elected and to solve the problem of all the other constraints, such as the peculiarity of certain constituencies.
When most other countries redraw boundaries or do redistricting, as it is called in America, to make adjustments for population changes, as happened recently in India and as happens periodically in the United States, they do not change the total number of seats. They change only the drawing of boundaries between constituencies. With a system whereby you are trying to do several things at the same time, you end up with a very inadequate solution to the problem.
The Government may have a perfectly good, non-political reason for reducing the number of seats to 600, but that has not been stated. One problem that we are facing is in knowing whether the Government’s main aim is to reduce the number of MPs, in which case why make the figure 600? Why not 550 or 500—why not half the House of Commons? We do not know. Are the Government trying to increase the load for MPs, which will clearly be a result of this measure? That surely cannot be the aim.
Are the Government trying to do their best to achieve justice whereby each vote has the same value? Yes. Since every other country that has tried to solve the problem has solved it without reducing the total number of seats, I fail to understand why the Government have added that additional constraint. We could go back to the Boundary Commission solution and adopt it and not put a constraint of 600 seats but try as best as possible to equalise the size of seats and electorates. Then we could see what the number would be. We could see whether we could reduce it slightly within certain limits. That may be possible. Right now we are trying to do something that is very worthy, but the way in which it is being done—hedged in by other constraints—will prove counterproductive.
Here in this Committee stage we are having a discussion of the various conflicting objectives that the Government are trying to achieve in a very narrow and constricted framework. If the framework had not been so narrow and constricted, the solution would have been much easier.
Lord Wills
I support the amendment, in the sense that I understand it to be a probing amendment about the Government’s decision to reduce the size of the House of Commons to 600 Members. I do not have a problem about reducing the size of the House of Commons, but I have a problem when it is not done on the basis of principle and when the process by which the new figure is arrived at has been opaque. That is precisely what we have seen here. In this context, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Maples, on a thoughtful and analytical attempt to pursue precisely that sort of argument on the basis of principle. I do not agree with everything that he said but, for the first time that I can recall from the government Benches, we had an analytical approach based on principles, which the noble Lord set out very persuasively in many cases. What I want to know from the Government—and I shall come to this in a moment—is why we have not heard that sort of quality of speech from them on this issue.
I hope that I am not misrepresenting Ministers when I say that, in previous discussions on this issue, they have rather airily waved aside the question of the size of the House of Commons, as if it was a piffling matter. It needed to be reduced and whether it was reduced by a bit or a bit more did not matter very much. But it really does matter, because the size of the House of Commons shapes the size of each constituency, even more so when we are looking to equalise the size of these constituencies, as this Bill seeks to do, and with certain qualifications. Most Members of both Houses of Parliament would support that aim. The size of the constituency crucially determines the nature of the relationship between the Member of Parliament and their constituents. That lies at the very heart of our democratic arrangements. I have touched on this issue in previous debates and Ministers have more or less ignored what I have said, so I hope that they will forgive me if I spell it out in just a little bit more detail now in the hope that they will now engage with this issue, even if they do not particularly agree with the view that I take on it.
When I was the Member of Parliament for Swindon North, I used to deal with about 200 to 300 e-mails and letters every week. I was helped by outstanding staff, but I had to deal with those letters and e-mails, as they were on issues of such importance to my constituents that they were not delegated to staff. I was helped, but I dealt with each of them. Most of those letters—around three-quarters, on one estimate that I took about three years ago—came about because of the problems that my constituents had with Swindon Borough Council. Most of the rest were on problems that constituents had with various agencies of central government. Most MPs, including former Members of the other place in this House, will probably have had similar, if not identical, experiences. That casework is detailed and complex, which is why, in the end, I felt that I had to take responsibility and be directly engaged with it.
It follows logically from that that if any constituency were to be increased significantly in size it would be that much more difficult for any conscientious MP to deal with that casework in exactly the same way. It would be equally hard if further decentralisation of power to local authorities increased the workload of MPs trying to sort out constituents’ problems with local authorities, such as Swindon Borough Council. Those facts may argue for even smaller constituencies and therefore more of them. On the other hand, it could be argued that, should decentralisation result in more powerful, effective and competent local authorities—and, indeed, local councillors—it would lighten the casework of Members of Parliament, leaving MPs freer to concentrate on work at Westminster. That might argue for fewer constituencies; I think that the noble Lord, Lord Maples, was arguing for that. These are important issues and he made the case for having a significant reduction in the number of constituencies perfectly well. I do not altogether agree with him, as the work that MPs do for their constituencies is profoundly important in a healthy democracy, but he made a cogent case.
The crucial point is that we have had no realistic, sensible discussion about how far the ability of an MP to manage their casework effectively and personally matters. This is an important issue for debate. We may come to different conclusions, but proper public debate on this is surely important. Even the Government could not deny it, yet they have denied the public and both Houses of Parliament any proper opportunity to debate it. Moreover, as I have said, there is no question but that the increasingly plural levels of government, with a complex and constantly evolving mix of local authorities, devolved Administrations and national and European institutions, are reshaping the nature of the MP’s relationship with their constituents. That must have significant implications for the appropriate size of the constituency and so for the size of the House of Commons.
I discussed all those issues in the amendment that I put forward last week. I hope that the House will forgive me, but earlier in today’s debate a noble Baroness from the Cross Benches—I am afraid that I did not catch who she was—made some comments about that amendment. I fear that she was in danger of misrepresenting my position, so I hope that I will be forgiven if I put on record what my exact position was. She concluded her remarks by asking why we had had that lengthy debate on my amendment, which was then not put to the vote. That was my decision as a Back-Bencher. She then said that Cross-Benchers could be forgiven for wondering what was going on. I will catch up with Hansard tomorrow and perhaps write to that Cross-Bencher as well about this, but perhaps I might inform the Committee what was going on.
Lord Campbell-Savours
My noble friend will know that I was one of those who were pressing him to have a vote. I have indeed changed my mind because he was, quite rightly, arguing privately that there was a need for the House to have the time to gestate and understand the implications of that amendment. Another reason for changing my mind was that there were a lot of Cross-Benchers in the House—more during that debate than on any other issue that we have discussed on the whole Bill. Some of us realised that it was important that we gathered their support over the following days, this being one of them. I am sorry that my noble friend was criticised as he was.
Lord Wills
I am extremely grateful to my noble friend. All that I ask the Government to reflect on in approaching this is that these issues are profoundly important. They are difficult and complex and there will, inevitably, be valid points of view on all sides on all these issues. If they will not listen to me, I hope that they will take an example from the admirable speech of the noble Lord, Lord Maples. That was the sort of debate of which we could have had far more thus far from the other Benches. In whatever time is left for us to debate the Bill, I hope that we will see more contributions such as the noble Lord’s from his colleagues on those Benches.
Any responsible legislative process would have set out these and all the other relevant issues and then consulted on them and come to a decision on the optimum size of a constituency and so of the House of Commons. Allowing the British people themselves to have a say in this would have been desirable, but the Government have not done that. Instead, they have determined a figure, for which they have failed so far to produce any good reason, and then shaped everything else around it. This is not just a wasted opportunity but a lazy and irresponsible way in which to approach legislation of such importance. It is also damaging to our democratic process—all the more so, I have to say in passing, because of the way in which the Government seem intent on getting this legislation nodded through this Chamber.
Why have the Government failed to produce any coherent explanation for how they arrived at this figure of 600? It is curious, as other noble Lords have pointed out, that before the election both the Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrats had decided on a figure lower than 600 and had arguments for doing so, which we have heard today from the noble Lord, Lord Maples. So why did they change their minds? There is a coherent case for keeping to the pledges that they made to the electorate before the election. That coherent case was made by the noble Lord, Lord Maples, today. Why did they not stick to it? They will not say.
In an attempt to elucidate this information, I put in a freedom of information request, as I have already told the House. The last time I mentioned this in the House, I mentioned that I had not yet had a response, but such is the power and influence of this House that the next day I got a response, for which I am delighted. The response that I received from the Cabinet Office, dated 11 January, confirmed that the modelling that I was looking for on the impact of a reduction to 600 and to lower figures exists but that some of that information is being withheld under Section 35(1)(a) of the Freedom of Information Act. I think that the Government have ignored the existence of Section 35(2) of the Freedom of Information Act, which would remove their justification for exempting the information that I requested, so I have put in a request for an internal review of the Cabinet Office’s decision and I look forward with great interest to seeing the results of that review.
Leaving aside the legislative niceties of this, I believe that the public should know how and why the Government went back on the promises that they made to the electorate at the election and decided to increase the size of their reconstituted House of Commons to 600. The public want to know how the Government think this will affect their relationship as voters with their MPs. I think—and I say this in kindness to Ministers—that the public want to be reassured that, in reaching that figure of 600, the Government were not motivated in any way by the pursuit of partisan advantage. They will want to be reassured about that. The Government must realise that, as long as they fail to come up with any coherent argument for why that figure of 600 was arrived at, the suspicion must remain. They cannot avoid this. I know that it is unwelcome.
I see Ministers sitting on the Benches opposite and I know that they are without exception decent and honourable men and women. It is with some trepidation that I keep coming back to this point, but they must realise the cynicism that exists about all politicians at the moment. They must realise that the suspicion that they are motivated by nothing but partisan self-interest exists and they should be doing everything that they possibly can to dispel it, so I hope that when the Minister concludes the debate on this amendment he can provide some reassurance about that.
On Thursday last week, I wrote to the noble and learned Lord’s colleague, the noble Lord, Lord McNally, asking whether he could release the information that I had requested. When you put in a freedom of information request, it refers only to work that has been done within the Executive by government, not to work that clearly feeds into the process of formulating legislation that is done by special advisers and Conservative and Liberal Democrat party officials. I have therefore also asked the noble Lord, Lord McNally, in the interests of openness and transparency and of reassuring the public about the Government’s motivation in alighting on this figure, whether he can confirm—it may be that the Minister can confirm this in his remarks at the end of this debate—whether any modelling has been done on the differential impacts of different sizes of the House of Commons on the party composition of the House of Commons, either within government or by the Liberal party, the Conservative Party or special advisers. He can confirm or deny it. I very much hope that he will take this opportunity to start clearing up this issue once and for all. It is an important issue and we need to move forward from it. We can do so only if he can provide us with the reassurance for which I am asking.
Lord Anderson of Swansea
My Lords, I join my noble friend in trying to answer the question he raised about why the numbers have changed from the electoral commitments made by the two parties opposite to the grand round figure of 600. Perhaps the answer may be found in part in the adage of US politics that an election platform is something to run on, not to stand on. I join my noble friend in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Maples. If we are to have a debate, here is someone who has, as always, in a radical and rather wonderfully iconoclastic way made his own contribution to the debate. I hope that there will be a contagion and that Members alongside him will adopt what he said and at least join in the debate, not just on this magic number of 600 but on the way in which this Bill has been handled. I had the privilege of serving with the noble Lord, Lord Maples, for eight years, I think, on the Foreign Affairs Committee in another place, and I can say with deep sincerity that I valued very much the independent, non-partisan contributions that he made. I think that for at least part of the time he was vice-chairman of his party, but he is very ready to join independently in debate. I disagree with one or two points that he made about the numbers, but at least it was an honest contribution.
When I approached the House this morning, I was reflecting on what I might say, having packed my toothbrush. I picked up, as I normally do, the Daily Telegraph, and came across page 23, which reminded me that today has been called “suicide Monday”. The headline is:
“How to get through Blue Monday”—
that is today—
“Lovebomb your partner, take up salsa or sing to the skies—these are just a few of the expert tips for beating the blues”.
Nothing was said about how to face a long, dark night and still be sufficiently alert to make what one hopes will be a coherent contribution.
I am certainly not wedded to any particular number—600, 650—but the onus, as always, is on those who wish to make a change to make the case not only for reducing the number below 650 but for why this magic number of 600 has been selected. It is not good enough to say, as I think the Leader of the House did, that it is a nice round number. No doubt there will be some advantages, but there will also be many disadvantages, and there is no way in which there has been a testing of the arguments for and against by any independent experts. There is an unseemly haste about the way in which the Government have moved.
I think a number of noble Lords will remember with affection Lord Weatherill, who was a very distinguished Speaker and the Convener of the Cross-Bench Peers. I see another distinguished Speaker close by. Lord Weatherill began in the family business with an apprenticeship as a tailor. He told me that on the first day he was there, he was apprenticed to an old Jewish tailor who was asked to make a suit from the cloth very speedily. The old, tried tailor said to his boss: “Do you want it quick or do you want it good?”. There is a certain lesson for us in legislation. Do we want it quick or do we want it good, particularly when there is no objective reason for speeding along on this? This is not a national emergency or something relating to an external threat or internal terrorism; this is something that the Government have chosen according to their own timetable in a fairly authoritarian way.
I go back long enough in politics to remember, again with affection, Lord Hailsham. I sat behind him on occasion when he was a very robust and amusing Queen’s Counsel. I also watched him in action in the House. At a certain stage, he defined a term—I think it was called elective dictatorship or the dictatorship of the majority. He was, as always, extraordinarily eloquent about elective dictatorship and carried us along quite far. However—surprise, surprise—when he and his party got into government, he forgot all about elective dictatorship. He was there for at least part of the time of the noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher, when she abolished the old GLC because she did not like it, and when she took away many local government powers. Gone was the eloquence about elective dictatorship. He had a remarkable, almost Damascene, conversion. I hope I can spirit back Lord Hailsham, who I admit was a great parliamentarian and for whom I had great affection.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
Does my noble friend know that Lord Hailsham’s qualities were hereditary? His son became very similar. When he was a Minister in the House of Commons he refused to answer any questions during Department of Trade and Industry Questions. I was constrained to call him an “arrogant little shit”. The then Speaker, Bernard Weatherill, said that I should withdraw. I asked which word he wanted me to withdraw and he told me that I knew. That is the kind of behaviour that we do not want to get into in this House. Is that not a good point to make?
Lord Anderson of Swansea
I have known my noble friend for a long time. We were in a team together for much of the 1980s. I have never known him to be constrained by anything. I am glad to hear that he was at least constrained on that occasion.
I start with this preliminary point about the style of government. If the Government are serious about democracy and listening to the arguments for and against, they will not juggernaut the Bill through at odd hours of the night when, as my noble friend the Leader of the Opposition has said, there will be a differential turnout in any vote, depending on who is more tired than anyone else. There will not be the sort of objective discussion that we would hope for. I was thinking of paraphrasing Bob Marley about how a hungry man is an angry man. A tired man is not a good legislator. I recall, on one occasion in the other place, having three all-nighters in succession on the Steel Bill. No one, anywhere in the House, can think that the Steel Bill was at that time a proper piece of legislation. However, sheep-like, we went through the Corridor. It was done mechanically, with no serious debate. I hope that, as in the spirit of this place, we will reject that sort of movement.
Turning to the numbers, the central question, which has not received an answer is: why 600? There is clearly an argument for a certain flexibility, as the noble Lord, Lord Maples, has said. Perhaps I can share some degree of experience on this. I had the privilege of representing two very different constituencies in the other place. One was the constituency of Monmouth, which at that time had not been won by my party previously and had been represented by a great parliamentarian, Lord Thorneycroft, although he was not called that then. It was a typical county seat with quite a sizeable electorate. I was able to manage it reasonably well because it was a highly educated constituency. The sort of problems that were brought to me were, as often as not, those of planning permission. I recall one village meeting when there was a question as to whether a local bus should be discontinued. The grandees in the village said, “No one takes the bus anyway. Why should we bother?”. Only afterwards did a couple of rather poor people detach themselves and think, “We use the bus”. They just did not, alas, have the self-confidence to make that point. That was one constituency, which was quite manageable. If the electorate had been not 75,000 or 78,000 but 100,000, I could still have managed the constituency effectively.
I then had the good fortune to move to the much safer seat—the electorate chose, not me—of Swansea East, which is a seat of multideprivation. In the schools there are many statemented pupils, and special needs are substantial. Often, folk did not have the self-confidence of those in the traditional county seat. I had been a diplomat or a civil servant for some time, so if nothing else I had learnt how to write a letter. Sometimes I felt that in trying to represent my own people—I was born in a working-class street and brought up in the city of Swansea—I had a role like that of the letter-writer in an Indian village. I was able, because of my privileged background, to write letters on behalf of these people. There has to be a personal touch.
One of my sons worked for an American Representative. He hardly met this Representative at all because the office was so large. The US Representative had an automatic signing machine. I very much hope that these have not reached Westminster. They have, have they? Certainly, they had not come when I left the other place in 2005, as far as I can recall. It meant that people in his constituency or district received letters that had had no personal attention at all from the Representative. As a matter of honour, I made sure that I was in my constituency on Saturday mornings, sometimes for six or seven hours. I made it a point of honour to walk, as often as I could, through the market in Swansea to meet people and learn about their problems. That local touch is so important. Clearly, as night follows day, the larger the constituencies are, the less there can be that local touch, which humanises government, makes people feel less alienated, and makes them feel that the Government—indeed, Westminster and the whole establishment—are on their side and doing their best to help them.
Therefore, drawing this odd figure of 78,000 out of the air and stretching it in this way—I think my noble friend mentioned a Procrustean bed—can have malign effects. I am certainly convinced not only of the arguments for democracy generally but of those for fitting an electorate according to the needs of particular people. I fear that this figure of 600—chosen from the air and for which no explanation has been given—will certainly not do that.
Wales will be hardest hit. I will not dwell on this because I know that other amendments will allow me to wax, I hope rather eloquently, on Wales and my own city. Wales, by any rule, is hit by far the hardest by this proposal. It is likely that the number of seats in Wales will be reduced from 40 to 30. Wales is a relatively disadvantaged part of the United Kingdom. I know that my noble friend Lord Touhig, if he is able to make a contribution and who has experience of the western valley of Monmouthshire, will make the same sort of point. We are relatively disadvantaged; therefore, there is a greater need for that human touch.
We all accept that, just as the number of seats in Scotland was reduced when primary legislation passed to the Scottish Parliament, the same must happen in Wales when it follows the Scottish precedent. However, there is no case for moving from 40 to 30 seats now. Wales has always been slightly privileged in this way for good reasons and that should continue. I will not develop the point, but my own city of Swansea has three seats at the moment, each one of roughly 60,000 people. If we were to go to an average mathematical formula of 76,000 or 78,000, there would be rather less than two and a half seats in my city. That means that it would have to scrabble around for areas that have no natural affinity with the city but which would satisfy some mathematical formula of 78,000 people. In my judgment, that again ignores the human aspect, but I hope to develop the question in relation to Welsh constituencies rather later.
In my judgment the Government are going ahead in a rather draconian way. If they want a Passchendaele, they will have a Passchendaele. Lip service is given to accountability but the timetable set for the Bill is not warranted by any objective criteria. Why is it so urgent to get the number of seats reduced from 650 to 600? Is there any objective urgency about that? Is there any reason why there should not be proper debate? Is there any reason why we should not—as the noble Lord, Lord Maples, has done—put across our own arguments and perhaps convince one another of the virtue of those arguments? Although an argument might be made in relation to the referendum on the alternative vote—that is a rather orphan concept because no party in this House wants the alternative vote—by no stretch of the imagination can an argument be made for urgency in respect of the reduction of seats, whether it is from 650 to 600 or, under the timetable set by the noble Lord, Lord Maples, from 650 to 600, 600 to 500, or 500 to 400. At least let us debate that. That could well be compensated for in democratic terms by building up the intermediary bodies, be they the Welsh Assembly or the Scottish Parliament. Clearly, the English electorates have rejected regional assemblies, but that is another argument. Why not give more powers to local government and try to have more parish councils or urban parish councils? I had the privilege of serving on the first ever urban parish council and in my judgment that was almost as close as one could get to Rousseau’s forest clearing of democracy, whereby the people who know one another get together and make decisions related to their locality. Why not have this Bill accompanied by a massive devolution to local authorities—les corps intermédiaires, as the French would say? But no, there is none of that.
As regards the numerical range 650 to 600, there is a deep suspicion that 600 has been chosen for wholly partisan reasons. I interjected in the speech of my noble and learned friend to say that what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. This is not the way in which we in this country carry out constitutional change. The pendulum will swing. Over the years I have frequently lectured on behalf of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association. I have run groups for new Members of Parliament in a number of African countries such as Somaliland. Apart from urging the case for more female representation in those Parliaments, as I am sure noble Baronesses would accept, one of my themes has always been that the majority should not force through constitutional amendments and should not fix amendments which happen to suit their own interest. When I next have the privilege of lecturing to Commonwealth parliamentarians—it is fair to say that they still, for the most part, refer to our own legislative body as the mother of Parliaments—I will be rather reluctant to talk about the principle that the majority should not fix constitutions in their own interest. There should be proper debate and an independent, outside body to monitor this legislation. It should be done not in unseemly haste but properly. If that is not the case, almost certainly one of those Commonwealth parliamentarians will use this as an example of what should not be done.
Lord Elystan-Morgan
My Lords, at Question Time this afternoon the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, asked a very pertinent Question of Her Majesty’s Government concerning what proposals there were to limit the amount of legislation that is churned out by government. As far as I am concerned, he was speaking of Governments of all colours. I did not take part in that debate because so many other distinguished Members had more to contribute, but I feel that one solution to the problem is that there should be a general presumption against legislation unless, on a balance of probabilities, that presumption can be overthrown by showing that it is better to have that piece of legislation than not to have it. That would be a not unreasonable test for legislation in the months and years ahead.
If one holds up this issue to that template, the case against this part of the Bill is very clearly made out. We are told that the number of constituencies shall be reduced from 650 to 600. It seems to me that the arguments that are put in favour of that are woefully inadequate and, indeed, very thin on any account. It is said that it would save £12 million per annum. That is a vast amount of money as far as individuals are concerned but it seems to me that you can never guarantee that £12 million would be saved, or even that there would be any net saving at all, because if you change the rules to that extent one never knows what the costs of the other system—the alternative system—would be unless those have been calculated to a very fine degree, which is not the case.
The other argument deployed is that many other European parliaments have fewer than 650 Members. Of course they have, because two-thirds of them have a population that is a half, a third, a quarter or even a 10th of our own, so what sort of argument is that? When one compares the number of Members of Parliament in the House of Commons with the comparable situation in Italy and France, one finds oneself very much on a par. Therefore, it seems to me that there is no real argument at all in favour of a reduction. That, I suggest, is the real issue here—not whether the reduction should be X or Y but whether there should be a reduction at all.
The noble Lord, Lord Anderson, whose speech greatly impressed me, as always, made it clear that a decision should have been taken on the basis of evidence. He and I have lived in a world where people have been determined on the basis of evidence, and on inferences that can be drawn from evidence. Where is the evidence here? You would not hang a dog on these arguments—the £12-million argument and the argument of comparability with other countries. It is perfectly clear that in the past 60 years the number of Members of Parliament has increased—not by much, by 4 per cent—and that during that period the population has increased by 25 per cent.
The noble Lord, Lord Anderson, advocates an independent examination by the great and the good. I would dearly welcome that. I made my next point last week and apologise for repeating it but that body might come to the conclusion that there should be a reduction. On the other hand, it might come to a conclusion that there should be more Members of Parliament. As we have heard from many noble Lords, Members of Parliament are far more get-attable in this modern, electronic age than they ever were. I was a Member of the other place 40 years ago, and I had a very literate and, if I may say so, literary constituency. I had to reply in my own impossible hieroglyphic hand to dozens of letters nearly every day. I shudder to think what the situation would be now with electronic communication.
One does not need any great imagination to ask the question: upon what real evidence is a diminution in the number of Members of Parliament based at all? Is it based on party considerations? I hope not. That would be very unworthy of any of the persons concerned. Is it based upon populism? It may well be. If this issue had been raised perhaps five or 10 years ago, before there was the general opprobrium in which, rightly or wrongly, so many Members of Parliament are held, would the attitude have been the same?
Some years ago, a distinguished Conservative Member of Parliament was giving evidence to the Boundary Commission. I do not have the exact wording, but I can guarantee that this essentially is what he said: “Some of my colleagues are in favour of reducing the number of Members of Parliament, but I am not”. That was Mr Cameron, the Member for Witney. What has changed in the past five or six years? Do the Government really believe that there is a genuine case—a case in reality and in integrity—for a reduction in the number of Members of Parliament? It is only the Government themselves who can answer that question; and it is a vital question.
I make no apology for having taken part in this debate. I wish to mention one matter before I take my seat. My noble friend Lord Thomas of Swynnerton and I were suspected last week of having taken part in a filibuster. We spoke very briefly. We made very different points. His were at least as good as mine, but they were pertinent to the issue. I do not think that it came within a thousand miles of a filibuster. To my mind, a filibuster is what happened in the House of Commons at the very end of the 19th century. A Member by the name of Tim Healy—an Irishman who was a brilliant Member and was the first Speaker of the Dáil in the 20th century—had spoken for two and a half years—
Lord Elystan-Morgan
Two and a half hours. To the Speaker of the House of Commons, it may have seemed two and a half years. The Speaker got to his feet and said very politely to him, “Mr Healy, for quite some time now I have been trying to associate your argument with the matter before the House”. Healy said: “Mr Speaker, sir, I apologise profusely. In which case, I have no alternative but to repeat the whole of my remarks”. Nothing like that has happened in this place, and I certainly, apologia pro vita mea, et the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Swynnerton, plead that we did not come within a thousand miles of doing that.
Lord Graham of Edmonton
What we have listened to for the past hour and a half is a simple question: what is the evidence? Where are the facts? Quite frankly, I am as puzzled now as I was then, because we have heard only one contribution from the whole of the Benches opposite. Perhaps on this side of the Chamber there are more contributions because this House and the other House always relish people who speak from their own experience. What we are discussing is the impact upon not only Parliament but Members of Parliament, if the change takes place.
We can all speak from our own experience. I became a Member of the Commons in 1974. It is now more than 35 years since then. All I can say is that the workload for a Member of Parliament has grown from the days, for instance, when MPs could say to their friends: “I have to go down to the constituency this month. It is the quarterly meeting of the constituency party and they will expect to see me”. There are some constituencies—I will not mention the political party—which relished the fact that their MP did not live in the constituency. Not any more. The demands of the constituency party on the Member of Parliament are such that he not only lives there, but when they want him, they expect to see him there.
I once sat down to a meal in my first year, in 1974, when I happened to be an official on one of the all-party committees. Our guest was Sir Roy Strong, who lived in my constituency, Edmonton. He said, “Ted, I often see your name doing things in the constituency. That is marvellous. How often do you come there?”. I said, “I live there”. He said, “How often do you meet your constituents?”. I said, “I meet them every day, because I come up from Bush Hill Park station to Seven Sisters and change. I speak to my constituents”. He said, “Yes, but what happens about their problems?”. I said, “Every Friday morning, I go to Edmonton Green market and they stop to tell me their problems. If they are complicated, I say, ‘Come down to my surgery’”. He said, “How often do you meet your constituents in the surgery?”. I said, “Once every fortnight, without fail; but I deal also with big postbags and small”. I said I remembered that I once, from one fortnight to the next, dealt with 100 cases. I listened to them; it was not a case worker or researcher who did that for me. I did it for myself. He said, “That is impressive”. He turned to my other colleague and asked, “Do you have something like Ted’s record in this?”. The other parliamentarian said, “Perhaps I do not go down as often, but I meet my constituents about 15 times a year”. I asked, “How does that happen?”. He said, “I have five towns in my constituency. Three times a year, the Saturday before Parliament meets, I have a surgery. It is advertised. I am there at 9 o’clock, 10 o’clock and 11 o’clock. I have five places where I meet my constituents and I am there three times a year each. That is 15 times”. I said, “Do you mean that you give up three Saturday mornings?”. He said, “Yes, but it is not too far to come to Westminster by train. They can come and see me”.
I reflected upon the different ways in which a constituency MP looks upon his job. Some look upon it as literally being a shepherd—someone who is there to lead the flock, but is always to be there. I listened, as we all did, to the wise words of the noble Lord, Lord Maples, who obviously spoke on behalf of the whole Back Benches on the government side, because we have not heard another contribution to this debate from them. He made me think, because he said that among his ambitions would be to reduce the amount of money spent on staff for Members of Parliament, who do all sorts of things that other people could do. You cannot have it both ways. If a Member of Parliament needs the assistance that Members of all parties have enjoyed for the past 10 or 15 years and this cannot be sustained, that means that the Member of Parliament will take on a heavier workload. I wonder what the Government are intending to do here. Do they just want to save money? Are they reorganising matters so that they are less costly? What will be the impact and effect of that on the quality of democracy and service that we as parliamentarians give?
Baroness Liddell of Coatdyke
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow such a distinguished parliamentarian as the noble Lord, Lord Graham at Edmonton. His remarks exposed the cynicism of the Bill. We are talking in essence about the relationship between the elected Member and their constituents. I am in a unique position as the only Member of the House who has ever taken action to reduce the size of the House of Commons. I was responsible for the legislation that reduced the number of Scottish Members of Parliament following devolution. One reason that I refer to that relates to what the noble Lord, Lord Graham, said about the usual channels. It was done as a result of consensus. The only lack of consensus that I found was from my own colleagues, because I was putting a number of them out of a job. However, the importance on a major constitutional issue of seeking consensus cannot be overstated. In this House, as distinct from the other place, we are appointed and not elected Members, so the quest for consensus should be even greater.
I was very disappointed to hear the Leader of the House criticise our debate the other night on the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Wills, on account of the length of the discussion. He implied that there was a filibuster. Frankly, the amendment went to the root of the issues that we must address. It concerned the complete inability of the government Front Bench to answer the question: why 600? If I have asked once, I have asked half a dozen times: why not 500, which is the Liberal Democrat position; or 585, which is the last known position of the Conservative Party? When I probed this with the Leader of the House, he laughed and said that it was a nice round number. That is an affront to democracy, as is the failure to address some of the substantive points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Wills, about the need for scientific analysis of the job of a modern Member of Parliament. How much time is needed to conduct constituency work?
I return to a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Maples. He is not in his place, but I hope that he might read this tomorrow in Hansard. He referred to the change in the number of Scottish MPs after devolution, when we had 129 Members of the Scottish Parliament. It is interesting that the workload of Westminster Members of Parliament did not markedly change. For a start, constituents are not meant to be experts in the constitution. They would come to whoever they wanted to talk to about issues such as education, social services, the local authority and housing. I worked closely with my Member of the Scottish Parliament. If somebody came to me with a problem, I would not tell them to go away because I was not a Member of the Scottish Parliament. I would take on the case and pass it to my colleague in the Scottish Parliament, and she in turn would do the same to me.
It was also interesting, following the reduction in the number of MPs, that all of us who remained had to get to know new parts of our constituencies and new people. The workload did not diminish, but changed in nature. I mentioned the other night, after an excellent speech by the noble Lord, Lord Boateng, about ethnic minorities, that I represented a seat that I had been born and brought up in, which was a white seat. I did not take on an immigration case probably until 2000. To some extent, that was because of demographic movement. People moved into the constituency and suddenly I found myself having to deal with immigration matters that I had never dealt with before. I had to deal with matters relating, for example, to forced marriage. The socio-economic structure of the constituency affects the nature of the work that a Member of Parliament does. I had two towns and 19 villages. Most of them were mining communities. In the areas of multiple deprivation, my workload was much greater than it was in the more middle-class areas of the constituency. This was, first, because the confidence levels of my constituents varied according to their socio-economic background. You cannot take a rule of thumb and say, “This is a constituency with lots of trees, so there will not be problems of multiple deprivation”. The nature of the workload of a Member of Parliament changes in relation to the socio-economic shape of that constituency.
One of the reasons why we had devolution in Scotland—I mention this point because it relates to what we will be going through tonight—was because Scotland had a smaller constituency electorate for its Members of Parliament prior to devolution. At the time of the Act of Union, separate legislation was enshrined in our constitution. At the time of devolution, the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, was the Secretary of State for Scotland and the then Scottish Office was the equivalent of 13 different government departments. Scottish Members of Parliament might finish an education Bill in the other place and vote at 10 o’clock at night, then start a Scottish education Bill at 11 o’clock that night. One of the criticisms made of the arrangements at the time was in asking how you could you get proper scrutiny of legislation in the middle of the night. Those who have been Scottish Members—I only had a short spell at that—learnt how to scrutinise legislation in the middle of the night. If we need to do it, we will do it.
I go back to the point made by my noble friend Lord Wills about the pressing need to have some scientific analysis of what should be the ideal size of the House of Commons. It is almost as if people are picking up the pin numbers on their mobile phones in dreaming up the number of MPs that there should be in the other place. There is a need to look at the constituency work of Members of Parliament; there is also a need to look at the parliamentary work of Members of Parliament, whether they serve on select committees or whether they are taking through specific legislation. That is an opportunity that has again been missed. There was an opportunity in this legislation to consider whether people genuinely felt that the time had come to look in detail at the relationship of a Member of Parliament to his or her constitutional and constituency roles. There should have been some proper, defined research on it across the House. It should not be something that has been dreamt up for what can only be defined as an extremely cynical reason.
This Bill is not about improving the constitution of the United Kingdom. It is about buying off two parts of a coalition. That is one of the real reasons why there is such cynicism about the Bill and one of the reasons why it is an aberration on our constitutional arrangements that we should be criticised for seeking to scrutinise the Bill in such detail. I will no doubt return to this matter again and again. My noble friend Lord Graham of Edmonton put it into context. If we lose sight of the people whose interests we are here allegedly to look after—the constituents and citizens of this country—then we have done no service to this House and we certainly have done no service to parliamentary democracy.
Lord Howarth of Newport
My Lords, I rather differ from my noble friends on the Front Bench. I could not support this amendment were they to test the opinion of the House because I do not think that it is right for government to fix the size of the House of Commons, which would be the consequence of this amendment. However, I think that it is a valuable amendment if it has been tabled as a probing one, as we need to get at some principles on how the size of the House of Commons should be determined. Like my noble friends, I have sought in vain so far to understand the principle that is animating the Government’s policy in this Bill.
The Liberal Democrats, in opposition, took a principled position. They proposed that the size of the House of Commons should be reduced to 500 Members but that would be on the basis of their being elected on the single transferable vote system and of more extensive devolution and the creation of regional assemblies. On that basis it was entirely reasonable that they should argue for a reduction in the number of Members of the House of Commons. Before the election, the Conservative Party proposed that there should be 585 Members of the House of Commons, and it was more difficult to ascertain the principle underpinning that proposition. My noble friend Lady Liddell has already referred to the observation of the noble Lord the Leader of the House that a 10 per cent reduction was a nice round figure, just as he said that 600 in the House of Commons was a nice round figure. Both 585 and 600 are nice round figures, but we would all agree that that is an insufficiently convincing basis for introducing a very major constitutional change that would weaken the capacity of the House of Commons and would tilt the system of parliamentary representation by favouring the Conservative Party and disfavouring the Labour Party. We therefore need to find better reasons.
We have not yet heard any good reasons for reducing the size of the House of Commons. At least the noble Lord, Lord Maples, had a go at trying to persuade us that it would be a good idea. Conservative arguments, such as they are, have been that the House of Commons is expensive and that the British people are overrepresented in the House of Commons compared with representation in other legislatures. Those reasons simply do not stand up to scrutiny. The argument that you should take 50 Members out of the House of Commons to save £12 million is risible. It would be risible even if you would save £12 million, but as a number of my noble friends have already explained, we will not save £12 million because the costs for a reduced number of Members of Parliament serving larger numbers of constituents would be no less. Possibly, when the Minister winds up this debate a little later, he would be kind enough to remind us what proportion of the fiscal deficit is £12 million.
Lord Howarth of Newport
Let me finish my sentence and I will give way. When the Bill was introduced, if I remember rightly, the deficit was running at about £180 billion, so how significant is the saving of £12 million?
Lord Glentoran
I am wondering what the constituents of the House of Commons have to do with this House. Why are we debating the numbers, finance and funding of the other end in this Chamber?
Lord Howarth of Newport
It is part of the constitutional function of the House of Lords to scrutinise legislation. We are a bicameral Parliament. We have two Houses of Parliament and a duty in that respect. Moreover, the noble Lord is, as I am, a citizen of this country and we are entitled to take an interest in the development of the constitutional structure of this country. It is legitimate for us to raise some of these issues.
Lord Kinnock
Perhaps my noble friend could usefully redirect the noble Lord’s perceptive question to the government Front Bench. Perhaps the Government could tell us why there is a Part 2 to the Bill and why, therefore, we are discussing matters related to the elected part of these Houses of Parliament, instead of spending a short time additionally on the referendum and the alternative vote, and providing the Government with their legislation in good time for that referendum on 5 May.
Lord Howarth of Newport
My noble friend is, as always, very wise. It would have been greatly for the convenience of both Houses of Parliament had this legislation been segmented and introduced on the sensible basis suggested by my noble friend.
Lord Campbell-Savours
The intervention from the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, was very interesting, because that is the question that is being asked by many Members on that side of the House, but they never intervene during the course of debate. We would welcome an intervention from the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran. Perhaps he would like to embroider his comments, because he would be speaking on behalf of all his colleagues on the Back Benches.
Lord Howarth of Newport
I think I could even be persuaded by the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, to sit down a little earlier than I otherwise would in anticipation of hearing him develop his thoughts at rather ampler length. I think that the whole House will look forward to that.
Lord McAvoy
Bearing in mind the comment of the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, I remind my noble friend of the point made by the Cross-Bench Peer, the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan: perhaps he should start his speech again.
Lord Howarth of Newport
There are all sorts of possibilities. Happily, the Government’s business managers have ensured that we will not be excessively constrained for time as we debate these issues, so we can look forward to many noble Lords opposite helping us to understand, if they will, the case for what the Government are doing.
It is perplexing. Ministers have suggested that the size of the House of Commons has crept up—that phrase was used in previous debates. One hundred years ago, the House of Commons consisted of 670 Members of Parliament; it now consists of only 650, and a few years back, it was 659, as some of my noble friends have already mentioned. It is particularly interesting to see how the ratio of Members of Parliament to electors has deteriorated since 1950. There are now 25 more Members sitting in the House of Commons than in 1950, but in that period the size of the electorate has increased by no less than 10 million. The average electorate per constituency, which was 55,000 in 1950, is 70,000 now.
I do not know how Ministers can with a straight face tell the House of Commons and this House that the number of Members of Parliament has crept up and suggest that we are overrepresented. We are not democratically overrepresented in this country. Unlike the Federal Republic of Germany, we have no länder; unlike in United States of America, there are no states. Indeed, in all of our political lifetime, we have seen a weakening in local government in this country and a diminution in the number of local authorities. If, as the Liberal Democrats have proposed, there should be a large-scale redesign of patterns of representation at the different tiers of government in this country, you could make a serious case for reducing the size of the House of Commons. Unless and until that is done, you cannot.
The Government are setting about reducing the size of the House of Commons in a manner that will be to the party political interest of the dominant party in the coalition, the Conservatives, and, at the same time, increasing the size of the House of Lords in order to increase the majority on which they believe they can rely in this House, with no serious attempt to explain to us what the sound democratic principle can be in those processes. That is to let members of the Government open to the kind of criticism that we are more accustomed to hearing levelled at those who wield power in countries such as Kenya, Rwanda or even Zimbabwe. It will be very interesting as we begin to hear what international observers and professional and academic students of democracy in foundations and think tanks in this country and across the world have to say about the policies that we are experiencing at the hands of this Government.
It is absolutely right to ask two basic questions to try to establish a ground of principle on which to evaluate the Government’s propositions. We should ask: what are the requirements of a properly functioning House of Commons and how many people does it need serving in it to acquit itself of those responsibilities; and what are the properties of a Member of Parliament in his or her constituency? Until there has been a serious, rational and, as far as possible, objective analysis of both those issues, we should resist the suggestion that the number of Members of Parliament should be reduced. As we start to examine those issues, I think that we will find that, so far from there being a decent case for reducing the number of Members of Parliament, there is actually quite a strong case for increasing their number.
I do not want to speak for excessive length at this stage of the evening. We will have further opportunities to examine these matters as our discussion develops so, for the time being, I will not weary the House any longer.
Lord Martin of Springburn
I have listened to the debate on the amendment, and it is the amendment to which I wish to speak, not the Bill in its entirety, although I have expressed concern about some parts of the Bill. I listened to the noble Lord, Lord Maples. We shared membership of the House of Commons around the same time. He mentioned finance, the cost of the running of the House of Commons. It might be worth mentioning that when he came into the House in 1983, Denis Healey, now the noble Lord, Lord Healey, was the deputy leader of the Labour Party. The funds available to him were such that he had to share one researcher with another member of the shadow Cabinet. Everyone agreed that that was unjust, and the Short money has now been increased to a fantastic amount.
That Short money goes on to the costs of the House of Commons. When I left, the Conservative Party in opposition benefited greatly from Short money—I think that the noble Lord would acknowledge that. That was so much so that when the coalition was created, there was deep concern among members of the Liberal party that they would not get a share of the Short money, because that would have a profound effect on how they got researchers for their Front-Benchers. I do not know how they got on with that argument. When noble Members talk about the cost of the House of Commons increasing, they cannot have it every way. You do not get democracy for nothing. Everybody praises the great Portcullis House.
Lord Anderson of Swansea
Perhaps I may give an illustration of the poverty of the Opposition at that time. When my noble friend Lord Foulkes and I were in Denis Healey's team, I once travelled with my noble friend Lord Healey, who had been Chancellor of the Exchequer and Secretary of State for Defence. We wanted to go to South Africa, which was highly in the news. My noble friend had to travel in economy class with Air Zambia. Those were the straits we were in at the time.
Lord Martin of Springburn
I agree with the noble Lord: it was ridiculous, and it has improved, especially for the Leader of the Opposition.
When we talk about finance, it should be remembered that in the other place, every honourable Member has the equivalent of two and a half members of staff. That does not come cheaply. Then there are premises. If we were to supply Members’ staff with premises here in Westminster, the most expensive square mile in the world, it would be far more costly than allowing them to go to their constituencies to get premises. They cannot get any old premises; there must be security because we have already had members of staff attacked. There has even been a fatality, as one noble Lord on the Liberal Benches will be able to testify. When we talk about the cost of computers and broadband, it should be remembered that it is not free.
Lord Rooker
I am reluctant to intervene on a former Speaker, but I can assure the noble Lord that when my majority was 495, I dealt with everything. I answered everything and I did not use any subcontractors whatever because that is what people expected. I still did that when my majority was 18,000 because that was how I worked. Every MP does the job in a different way. I do not think that rules can be laid down in the way in which the noble Lord is setting out. However, I agree that I am 10 years out of date now.
Lord Martin of Springburn
I agree with the noble Lord, but if a Member of a devolved Parliament was paid to deal with health, prisons and social work, while the noble Lord quite rightly would not turn a person away he would find a way of notifying his constituent that the democratic process meant that some matters were devolved to another elected Member. That is the point I wanted to make.
As a trade union officer I noted that no two officers worked in the same way, and it is the same with Members of Parliament. What I am trying to say is that there are ridiculous practices and that I have highlighted one of them. There is no point in honourable Members saying that they are overburdened when they create rods for their own backs.
Lord Campbell-Savours
I have to say to my noble friend that I am slightly disturbed by his comments about petitions. If I remember rightly, my noble friend’s constituency was an inner city seat in Glasgow, but what if he had been in a seat in rural Scotland and the village school was about to close and 500 constituents wrote to him about that closure? It would be a highly contested issue in that part of the constituency. Does my noble friend not feel that perhaps in those circumstances each of the 500 petitioners should receive a communication from their Member of Parliament? It makes them feel that they are participating in the debate and that their Member of Parliament is actually responding and not just taking them for granted.
Lord Martin of Springburn
All I can say to my noble friend, as he has called me, is that if three of the names on the petition were from the same household and they were sent three individual letters, something would be wrong. I say as well that something would be wrong if £13,000-worth of envelopes were being used. The point I wanted to make was that something was wrong with that.
Let me make another point about pressure. I thoroughly enjoyed listening to the noble Lord, Lord Graham. As the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, will remember, he was our Chief Whip between 1979 and 1981. I was sad to see him leave the House. He kept us until 10 o’clock on a Thursday night in the Commons. I know that to be the case because a whole load of us went up to Glasgow on the sleeper train. For years now, unless it has changed since the last election, debates on a Thursday are non-voting. That begs the question: is every Member of Parliament right there in the House of Commons, to which they were elected, on a Thursday, or are they elsewhere? I would hazard a guess that they are elsewhere. I am not criticising them because that is their business, but the case has been put that there are more pressures on this generation of Members of Parliament than there were on the old.
There was a fairly hefty pressure on Members of Parliament, if they were lucky, to leave on a Thursday. The Minister could not even take the sleeper train because of the distance to his constituency. He would not have been able to get back by the Friday. I was lucky enough to get to mine by the following morning. Also, constituency engagements were such that it was not pleasant to travel overnight. You would have surgeries and meetings with various organisations.
There are other amendments that I can comfortably support, and I know that this is a probing amendment, but there is no point in us being here if we do not express our views. I do not see that we need great academic bodies to do a study on whether we should have a reduction of 10 per cent.
Lord Baker of Dorking
My Lords, I am goaded to intervene in this debate because the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, said that no one had spoken from this side of the Committee today, or that very few had done so apart from my noble friend Lord Maples. I made it clear at Second Reading that I support this Bill largely because of Part 2. I have not been in the Chamber, but I have heard every speech made during this debate because I have been watching it on my computer. I have heard the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, the noble Lords, Lord Lipsey, Lord Anderson and Lord Graham, who are not in their places, the noble Lord, Lord Wills, who is in his place, and the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, in the flesh. I can recommend to colleagues that watching the debate on one’s computer is a very good way of keeping up with the debate. I find that each speaker has a good first five minutes. There is no question about that; they put their arguments succinctly. But after that—I must choose my words carefully—there is what I would say is an elaboration of those first five minutes. Very little new is added, so you can switch to doing other things on your computer and return when the next speaker turns up. That way, you get the general thrust of the debate.
When it comes to a reduction in the size of the House of Commons, I have something approaching an impeccable pedigree in that even when I was a Member of the House, I felt that it was too large. In the 1990s, I made speeches and wrote articles about it, but they, like most of my speeches and articles, have disappeared into the mists of history. Some Members may recall that three years ago I introduced a Bill in this House that sought to reduce the number in the House of Commons by 10 per cent, which would have meant a reduction of 65 Members, not the 50 Members we are considering today. It went through this House with great ease. It got to the other place and was debated, but of course private Bills from Peers die in the House of Commons after a debate.
During the debate, people asked why there should be a reduction of 10 per cent. Here the noble Lord, Lord Wills, asked why there should be 500 rather than 65 and so forth. When I introduced my Bill, some Members of this House said that a 10 per cent reduction was not enough and that they want to see a 20 per cent reduction, which would have involved 130 MPs.
I believe that one of the reasons the House of Commons became too large was this. When I was first elected back in 1960, the Commons then comprised 623 or 624 Members. It then grew exponentially for only one reason: the Speaker’s Conference of 1917. The conference was held to discuss a reduction in the size of the House to 500. Unfortunately, I should say to the former Speaker that his predecessor at that time was not as particular as he could have been. No minutes were taken of the Speaker’s Conference so no one knows what actually occurred. The only thing that did emerge was that as society developed and the population expanded, it was thought to move to an average of about 70,000 constituents per seat. That was why, in my time, the number of seats grew from 623 to just over 650. So I believe that we are over-represented in the House of Commons.
Lord Campbell-Savours
My Lords, when the noble Lord talks about the need to reduce the number of constituencies, I suggest that he would have had a very different experience in his constituency of Mole Valley compared with that of a Member of Parliament with an inner city seat, like my noble friend Lord Martin of Springburn. The intense nature of representation of an inner seat is very different indeed from what the noble Lord would have experienced in Mole Valley. I am sure he served his constituents very well, but he should remember that when he is thinking of cutting seats.
Lord Baker of Dorking
I wish that the noble Lord had considered my political career with more care. If he had, he would have known that I represented two inner city London seats, both of which were quite small. I represented Acton, which was very much a working class seat, and St Marylebone, which was not. Both constituencies were quite small, with populations of around 40,000. I then went to Mole Valley which at one time had over 75,000 constituents. I have therefore had experience of representing both an inner city seat with considerable problems, which was the case in Acton, and a large county seat in Surrey.
The noble Lord, Lord Graham, made the point that MPs are now much more stretched than they were in the past. Both the noble Lord, Lord Graham, and I were Members of the House of Commons in the late 1960s, as I believe was my noble friend Lord Howell. We had no secretarial assistance, no research assistance, no desk and no telephone. We had to sit on the green Benches in the galleries opposite to conduct our affairs, and the only free telephone call we had was to our town clerk. We were also given 800 free sheets of parliamentary paper. After that we had to buy them, as we had to pay for all our post.
I ask noble Lords on the Labour Benches to wait. Let me develop this agony column for a while before I am interrupted. I do not believe that, in those days, Members acted in any way less significantly to their constituents. The noble Lord is nodding—of course they did not. Indeed, when I had a larger constituency—Mole Valley, about which the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, reminded me—I had more than 75,000. I did not have a research assistant and I had only a part-time secretary. Were my constituents disappointed in what I gave them? Not at all; at every election, they returned me with a larger majority.
Lord Baker of Dorking
Wait a moment, please.
So I do not subscribe at all to the view that having an average seat in the United Kingdom—75,000 under the Bill; mine was slightly larger—would in any way impair the relationship between a Member of Parliament and his constituents. What it comes down to is that it depends upon the personal activity of the Member of Parliament. Is he prepared to put himself out and deal with the problems of his constituents? Of course he can and today he has infinitely greater technological means than I ever had when I was sitting there without a secretary, a research assistant, a typewriter or a telephone.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
The noble Lord has been talking for more than five minutes. Since I am not listening to him on computer, what can I do?
Lord Baker of Dorking
I am coming to more interesting points. I have only just started on my reminiscences of my time as a Member of Parliament. Let me move on to the argument of the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, who said that we in the United Kingdom are not overrepresented. May I remind the House of the extent of overrepresentation in our lower Houses? We have a population of about 60 million people and 650 or so Members of Parliament. Germany, with a population of 82 million has 600. Japan, with a population of 127 million, twice ours, has only 470. Russia, with a population of 144 million, roughly three times ours, has 450. Can those who are familiar with all the parliamentary activities in these countries say that constituents are any less well served because they have large constituencies? I do not believe that the argument holds up at all.
The noble Lord, Lord Howarth, said, “Ah, but they have länder in Germany.” He should recall that in three parts of our country we have virtually independent Parliaments. We have, in Scotland, an independent Parliament. In Wales, the Welsh Assembly is a Parliament in all but name and the situation is virtually the same in Northern Ireland, where, in fact, all local matters are dealt with by the representative Members of those Assemblies, in a very similar way to that in the länder. So, international arguments are significant. Therefore, I believe strongly that this is a good measure. I have never put it forward from the view of saving money; I simply believe that the House of Commons can operate very effectively with a smaller number of MPs. I will give way to the noble Lord, because I heard his speech earlier on the computer.
Lord Wills
I am grateful to the honourable gentleman—I am sorry, the noble Lord. I do beg his pardon. He was kind enough to refer to my speech, so, before he sits down, as I sense he is about to do, will he answer this question? He has made his case for it being wholly possible to reduce the size of the House of Commons without any adverse consequence for constituents—I accept that there is a strong case for that—but in deciding on the number to which the House of Commons should be reduced, does he think, first, that the new figure should be based on some broad principle, some broad understanding of the role of Member of Parliament? Secondly, does he think that the public should be consulted on what the size should be?
Lord Baker of Dorking
On the first question, if you look at the history of the development of the House of Commons, it has never been based on broad principles. I remind the noble Lord that in 1707 there were 513 Members of Parliament for England and Wales and that, as a result of the Act of Union, 45 were added—a figure plucked out of the air with a huge overrepresentation for Scotland in relation to its population in 1707. No principle, just practice. With Pitt’s Act of Union—disastrous, in my view, but I shall not debate that—which abolished Grattan’s Parliament in 1800, 100 Members were added; a huge overrepresentation for the population of Ireland at that time. That overrepresentation was never effectively reduced. In 1922, Northern Ireland received 12 Members, but they did not take away the 88 extra, but only 55.
So there is no principle; it is a matter of pragmatic sense. I agree entirely with what the former Speaker of the House of Commons said. It is a matter for decision, a political decision at the end of the day. My decision is for a smaller House. I respect the views of Members opposite, but I do not think that we would, in any way, impair the workings of democracy in our country by having a smaller House of Commons.
Lord Touhig
This is the ninth day of the debate and a pattern is developing. We have a Minister who will speak on behalf of the Government and usually, if we are lucky, one Back-Bencher who will speak on behalf of all the rest. Indeed, until the noble Lord, Lord Baker, decided to leave his computer and enhance our democracy by coming to the Chamber and taking part, we had only the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Maples, who made a superb contribution. I may not have agreed with many things that he said, but it was certainly a contribution that was not only worthy of him, but worthy of the other side and worthy of the House. It is important that we engage in a proper discourse on this important matter.
Lord Tyler
If the noble Lord does not take too long, I will, I hope, be able to make my usual very terse, succinct and very relevant contribution to this debate. Therefore I am relying on him not to be too lengthy.
Lord Touhig
I am overwhelmed by the noble Lord’s modesty and I shall try to reciprocate by keeping my remarks as brief as possible.
I will chide the noble Lord, Lord Maples, in one way—he displayed an extraordinary ignorance of post-devolution Wales in terms of the work of Members of Parliament. I am sure that he did a fantastic job as a Member of Parliament representing 90,000 people. I did not represent that number, but I can tell him that my workload was no less. Like many who sat in the House of Commons, I worked 70 or 80 hours a week and there was very often a huge amount of sudden extra work. When the miners were successful in winning their case for compensation for diseases acquired working underground, I had 500 constituency cases out of the blue that had built up over a period.
The work of a Member of Parliament is not being taken into account in terms of the way that the Bill has been constructed. We heard some discussions earlier today about pre-legislative scrutiny. If the Government had engaged in pre-legislative scrutiny, they might have had a better understanding of the workload of Members of Parliament. When I entered the other place in a by-election in 1995, I was told that there was one Member of Parliament who never replied to any letters from his constituents. It was perfectly logical—he said that only a minority wrote to him and it was grossly unfair to the majority, who never troubled him, to write back to those who did.
That might have been the case then, but it certainly is not the case at the present time. Members of Parliament have huge constituency workloads as well as a huge amount of work in the House as well. Because of the lack of pre-legislative scrutiny, I fear that the Bill does not take account of that. I do not know whether any noble Lords on the Government Benches have done any pre-legislative scrutiny, but when I was Wales Minister I often came to your Lordships’ House with a draft Bill to discuss with your Lordships. The noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, from the Cross Benches, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe of Aberavon, and the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, a former Welsh Secretary, always made important contributions to help us improve the quality of legislation. That is what pre-legislative scrutiny allowed us to do and it is sadly lacking in this legislation.
At the end of last week there was a brief debate on a Question from the noble Viscount, Lord Montgomery, about the conventions in this House. I think it is right, from time to time, to remind ourselves that there are proper ways to behave and to discuss and debate in this House and I have no complaints about the points that he raised. What greater convention can there be than the role of this House to defend and safeguard the constitution? That must, surely, be the most important of conventions and must be what we ought to do. I refer noble Lords to the Companion, where it says:
“The House of Lords is the second Chamber of the United Kingdom Parliament”.
That is a bit of news, perhaps, to one or two Members on the other side. The Companion continues:
“As a constituent part of Parliament, the House of Lords makes laws, holds government to account, and debates issues of public interest”.
That is why we are giving the Bill the kind of scrutiny that we are. This is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland; it is not Zimbabwe, and we do not need a Government who act like Robert Mugabe in pushing through legislation on which there has been no consultation and for which there was no widespread support across the country before it was put to Parliament.
The Bill will mean that almost boundary of every constituency in the United Kingdom will be withdrawn, and is a triumph of arithmetic over accountable democracy. Those who say that the only way to have a proper and fair electoral system is to have equal-sized constituencies are missing the point. Why is that the only argument? There are all sorts of others. We will go into the issues relating to Wales later, but the Government have already accepted that there should be exceptions to that with Orkney and Shetland and the Western Isles. I will make a case later on—I do not know at what hour—about consideration for Wales.
The fundamental point that has been missed but that is coming out from a number of speakers in this debate is that, because of a lack of pre-legislative scrutiny, no proper account has been taken of the workload of Members of Parliament. I am not against reducing the number of Members of Parliament if that is appropriate. That is proper and fair. It is right that we should take stock and judge from time to time whether the numbers are right. Without any proper consultation and discussion, the figure of 600 is flawed—we have no scientific basis or proper research to show how it has been arrived at. That is a folly and a great disrespect to our democracy.
I can only echo the point made by my noble friend Lord Boateng when he spoke last week very powerfully about what we would say if one of the countries of the British Commonwealth had a newly elected Government that used their power in that country’s Parliament to reduce the number of seats in that Parliament and thereby harm that nation’s democracy. We would have plenty to say, and rightly so.
Lord Tyler
I want to contribute only very briefly. I echo what my noble friend Lord Baker said earlier about the experience that some of us had some years ago. I do not go back as far as he does in parliamentary experience, but when I was elected in 1974 there was very limited support for the Back-Bench Member. I remember that well.
What has been interesting about this debate is that a number of colleagues—from both sides of the House, as it happens—have contributed on the basis of their experience of the other place. With the exception, I think, of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, every one of the speakers has spoken with that experience and authority.
Lord Tyler
I am so apologetic. My noble and learned friend Lord Wallace of Tankerness made this point earlier: we have all experienced the noble Lord’s considerable contribution so we have all assumed that he must have had such influence in the other place behind the scenes that he was, in effect, an ex officio Member.
My point is that over the past two hours and 46 minutes I have taken the opportunity to read the Third Reading debate in the other place. These are the real, live witnesses of the experiences of current Members of Parliament, and they have been able directly to influence the Bill, taking up the big issues, as they see them, on the basis of their practical experience. They did not spend two hours and 46 minutes discussing the reduction—
Lord Tyler
No, they could have done so if they had wanted to. In the Third Reading debate there was one mention of the reduction from 650 Members to 600. They did not see this as a big issue. The spokesman from the Labour Party’s Front Bench did not mention the issue. Why is it that your Lordships are more conscious of the strain and stress on current MPs than are MPs themselves? I am mystified by this. The only possible rational explanation is, as was pointed out earlier, that this House is enjoying itself and extending debates quite unnecessarily. With that, I am sitting down and finishing.
Lord Winston
My Lords, perhaps I may interject, although of course I have not been a Member of the other place either. This aspect of the situation strikes me as odd, and perhaps noble Lords can explain it. In every other branch of employment that I have been involved with—in education, running an embryology laboratory, running a research laboratory, running nurses within the National Health Service organisation, looking after doctors and appointing them to a particular service within the NHS—we have tried to ensure that we employ the number of people who are needed to fulfil the employment that is there. As I understand it, no one in the discussion on the Bill seems to have actually asked the important question that some of my noble friends are asking: what is a Member of the House of Commons required to do in terms of his duty in caring for his constituency and representing it? Unless we can answer that question, it seems impossible to arrive at a satisfactory number for him to represent in a constituency.
Lord Soley
When I come to the next amendment, Amendment 59, I want to focus on how we decide the size of Parliament, which I think is a critical issue—more important than the numbers. One of the strands running through the debate is the question, “Why 600?”. The Government have not answered that, although they have a duty to do so.
I start from a position similar to that of my noble friend Lord Wills. I have argued before that there is a case for reducing the size of the House of Commons. The noble Lord, Lord Maples, expressed a similar view. Although I do not agree with all that the noble Lord said, there is a case for it. I seem to remember the noble Lord, Lord Baker, arguing the same thing when we were both in the House of Commons. No doubt he will correct me at some stage if I am wrong, as I may be on this, but I think that he argued at the time that the size ought to be agreed by all parties concerned. That is one of the important principles that we will come to.
The issue of the figure of 600 puzzled me, and I began to look at the background to this. The issue is not new; there has been a debate about the size of Parliament for years, as people have mentioned, but it became more intense in the early part of this century. One of the people who put it in perspective was the Conservative MP, Andrew Tyrie, who in 2004 wrote the Conservative Mainstream document called Pruning the Politicians. After the expenses scandal the phrase became “culling the politicians”, which says a lot about the strength of feeling on the issue. It bubbled away along the lines of the arguments in that document. In an article in the Independent in March 2008, Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, argued that we should cut the figure by 150.
Andrew Tyrie’s document is well argued. I do not agree with a lot of the statistics in it, where I think he has left things out about the nature of how other countries represent people within their borders, but he makes a good case for reducing the size of Parliament. However, he does two things that are very important, and I hope we will cover them more fully in the following debate on my Amendment 59. First, while he does not say that there should be all-party agreement, he says that the changes should be agreed with the Labour Party; I would change that to “agreed with all parties”. Secondly, he says that if you reduce the size of Parliament, you must reduce the size of the payroll vote as well. That is very important but is not dealt with in the Bill.
My problem with the numbers issue is that, whatever number you choose, whether it is 600, 650, 550 or whatever, it is like pulling on a loose cord on a jumper—if you pull too hard, you suddenly find that you are wearing only the sleeves. The problem is that the number in your Parliament affects a whole range of other things in your constitution. That is why this issue is so important and is a constitutional matter, and it is why I would have liked the Government to have accepted the amendment of my noble friend Lord Wills, which was drawn up by someone who had the experience and knowledge of Government to do just that.
Lord Clinton-Davis
My objection to the present proposal is the evidence that the Government are relying on for the figure of 600; indeed, some people are suggesting a figure in excess of that. Should that not be tested by evidence? Is there not a clear case for an inquiry into this issue?
Lord Soley
I think that my noble friend is anticipating the debate on the next amendment, which stands in my name. A lot of the debate within the Conservative Party arises from the document written by Andrew Tyrie. It is a good document and worth reading, but the interesting point for me is that he argued that the number of MPs should be reduced by 120—that is, by 20 per cent—and that that reduction should be carried out over 10 years in two five-year periods. That is where the figure of 60 comes from—it was going to be the amount of the reduction in the first five years. I forget which noble Lord intervened to question whether this was a matter for the House of Lords, but one reason why it is a matter for the Lords is that there is a clear statement in Mr Tyrie’s document that the redundant MPs, as I think they were described, could be sent to the House of Lords. Of course, when you reduce the number of MPs, you have a big fight over who inherits the constituency and what the constituency boundaries are. The suggestion was that those who did not succeed in retaining a seat should be considered for a peerage. Therefore, there is some background to this matter.
The interesting point is that that figure of 120 was quoted quite frequently. I do not know where Nick Clegg got 150 from—he seems to have plucked it out of the air. However, the thing that troubles me most, and the reason why the number is important, as well as the way in which we decide these things—a matter that we shall come to when we deal with the next amendment—is that the figure of 60, mentioned in this document and in subsequent speeches by David Cameron when he was the leader of the Opposition, relates to the advantage to the Conservative Party in terms of winning more seats. It was not put like that directly. It was said that there was unfair representation and that the Labour Party had too many seats. The other reason given was finance.
However, for the moment let us focus on the fact that Andrew Tyrie based his conclusion on the number of electors in an area. He argued that a vote in one area was not worth as much as a vote in, say, a Labour constituency because of the number of electors in the constituency. However, as has been pointed out in many previous debates on this matter, everything hinges on voter registration and the socioeconomic factor of turnout. Those things matter, but the problem is that Andrew Tyrie does not take them into account. The Committee may be pleased to know that I am not going to go into great detail about MPs’ constituency work but, as we know, there is a difference in a constituency where, regardless of who represents it, registration is much lower. In many cases, the MP will be representing people who are not on the register.
Perhaps I may refer briefly to my own experience of this matter. Very few research projects have been carried out on MPs’ constituencies. One such project was carried out on my constituency over a period of a year and it threw up two things that are relevant to this debate. One was that an awful lot of people would say, “I supported you”, but, when you looked at the electoral register, they were not on it. In other words, what they really meant was, “I supported Labour”, or, if it was a Conservative MP, they would have said that they supported the Conservatives. However, that did not necessarily mean that they voted, because often they were not on the register. At times, that situation applied to 50 per cent of the people who turned up at my advice surgeries.
Another thing troubled me, and this is why I think that there is a case for looking at how MPs do their job and the numbers involved. Whenever anyone came with a council problem—my noble friend Lord Martin referred to this—we asked why they had not gone to see to their elected councillor first. Almost invariably, the answer was, “I thought I’d go to the top”. In other words, people view political power as a sort of pyramid. They think, “The MP’s at the top, so I’ll go and see him”. I have always been troubled by this problem of undermining local authorities. It is one reason why I began to question whether there are too many MPs. If you take cases away from elected councillors, you are in effect saying to them, “You don’t have to do your job. I’ll do it for you”. That is undesirable. However, if you go down the road of saying that MPs should not take council cases or Scottish Assembly cases or whatever and you enhance devolved power—something that I greatly support—you then have to ask: who does the MP represent?
One reason why I have been tempted to go for a smaller number of MPs is that, particularly over the past 40-odd years, MPs have largely become councillors and social workers, and that is not desirable. At the same time, MPs have paid less attention than they might have done had they had more time to the national and international issues with which our Parliament is rightly concerned. Therefore, there is an imbalance.
Lord Davies of Stamford
My noble friend has done a great service to the Committee by bringing to our attention the pamphlet of Andrew Tyrie—I remember it coming out, but I think that it has since slipped the memory of many of us. As he said, Andrew Tyrie laid down as a condition of a reduction in the number of MPs a proportionate reduction in the payroll vote in the House of Commons. Is it not the case that the Government have no intention as far as we know of reducing the size of the payroll vote but are going in the opposite direction? When I was in the Ministry of Defence, I thought that we could do better with one fewer Minister. Although the Government have come through with utterly irresponsible cuts in defence capability, they have increased the number of Ministers by one. That is quite extraordinary and shows that the Government are moving in totally the wrong direction.
Lord Soley
My noble friend puts his finger on a critically important point, which I want to cover, along with other related issues, in Amendment 59.
Lord Campbell-Savours
Before my noble friend sits down, will he comment on the intervention from the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, who said that there had been no debate on the figure 600 at Third Reading in the House of Commons? I have with me Hansard from 20 October 2010. It shows that the debate started at 5.29 pm—
Lord Campbell-Savours
I am intervening on my noble friend; I was asking him to comment on this matter. The debate started at 5.29 pm and ended at 9 pm. That was under a guillotined proceeding on the Bill.
Lord Soley
I do not have detailed knowledge of that matter, but I know that my noble friend pays great attention to these things. I also know, not least from letters that I and, I think, others have seen, that Conservative MPs complained that insufficient time had been allowed to discuss issues relating to the size of constituencies. I shall give way to the noble Lord, Lord Tyler. I just hope that I know enough about this issue to be able to give him an answer.
Lord Tyler
My Lords, I have the greatest respect for both noble Lords, with whom I have worked in the past, and I would hate either of them to mislead your Lordships’ House. I referred very specifically to the Third Reading debate, when any issue could be raised, and the fact is that nobody raised this matter for more than one minute. The spokesman on the opposition Front Bench did not refer to it at all. I simply said that I thought that MPs might be better witnesses on this issue than Members of your Lordships’ House, however distinguished.
Lord Soley
I shall say only two things in response. First, far too little time was given in the House of Commons—I do not think that there is any dispute about that. Secondly, my predicament here reminds me of the film “The Go-Between”. The person who was the go-between suffered psychologically, and I am already feeling vulnerable.
The Lord Bishop of Chester
My Lords, I was going to end this very brief speech by saying that I thought that it was now time, as we entered our fourth hour of debate, for the Minister to respond. If the House will bear with me for less than the five minutes that the noble Lord, Lord Baker, would allow me, perhaps I could make a comment as someone for whom the other place probably means the General Synod of the Church of England rather than the House of Commons.
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Winston, who is not in his place, that the absence of pre-legislative scrutiny and the speed with which the Bill is being put forward, with 5 May as a date to work towards, cast an unfortunate shadow over the whole discussion. However, the thought that, if there had been that scrutiny, all parties would reach agreement on such a contentious issue seems exceedingly fanciful. At the end of the day, a judgment has to be made. The fact that the Prime Minister made it quite clear that this would be among his proposals seems to undermine the criticism that it is profoundly undemocratic.
I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Martin of Springburn, is not in his place, because his speech was important, indicating that there is a tendency in our society towards mission creep in all sorts of areas, not least in the role played by Members of Parliament. Something that has not been mentioned in the debate so far but which is very important is the development of the internet. If we go back over a long period, as we have done in our debates, we see that the relationship between constituents and their Members of Parliament was totally different before modern communications developed. Any reflection on the ideal size of a constituency must take into account a completely new arrangement. It means in some ways that individual representation of an area is not so important, as an MP can communicate with people very much faster and multiply those communications to a large number of people.
Lord Wills
Does the right reverend Prelate recall that the Prime Minister’s commitment during the election was not to a figure of 600 but to a lower figure? That is the source of so much unease, certainly on this side of the House.
The Lord Bishop of Chester
I think that it was to a 10 per cent reduction. I suppose that I am used to nice round figures from the Bible, but that is another matter altogether. If it was a radically different figure, the noble Lord’s point would have greater power.
Lord Anderson of Swansea
I was going to coin a phrase and talk about a “preferential option for the poor”. Are not the most vulnerable less likely to have access to the internet than the more prosperous? If the right reverend Prelate wants in our democracy to relate to the less privileged, does he not agree that the old ways are probably the best?
The Lord Bishop of Chester
In the year of the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible, I am sure that the old ways often are the best. My only point is that the arrival of the internet has changed much and that that should be the subject of reflection. However, the thought that an agreement would be reached by some scientific, objective process is fanciful. As the noble Lord, Lord Baker, wisely said, there is a judgment to be made. My judgment is that, into the fourth hour of this debate, the law of diminishing returns suggests that the Minister should now speak.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
My Lords, I am pleased to take the cue from the right reverend Prelate, because it is fair to say that, while not everyone has yet had the opportunity to speak—
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
My Lords, I think that the cue was given to me by the right reverend Prelate and I intend to respond to it. I think that the Committee has heard sufficient—
Lord Bassam of Brighton
Does the Minister not recognise that the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, has not had the opportunity to make his intervention?
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
When I rose earlier, there seemed to be a mood that I should perhaps give way to the right reverend Prelate, which I was happy to do—
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
But, equally, I think that there was feeling around the Committee that the time had come when this matter—
Lord Bassam of Brighton
This is an iterative conversation. The noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, has not made a contribution to this debate. It is entirely in order for him to speak at this particular moment.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
My Lords, it is entirely in order for me to speak at this moment. This being a Committee of the House, no doubt the noble Lord can speak afterwards. I do not think that anyone would suggest that it is not in order for me, having heard three hours and 10 minutes of the debate, to try to respond to some of the points that have been made.
The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester said that, being a theologian and a bishop, he was used to round numbers. I am only delighted that I do not have to argue a case for increasing the size of the House of Commons to 666.
The proposal of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, is for a House of Commons of around 650 seats rather than the 600 set out in the Bill. His amendment would not, however, set a fixed size for the other place; he used the word “anchored”, which is different and relates to the fact, as one or two noble Lords have indicated—possibly even the noble and learned Lord himself and indeed the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey—that there has been, over a period of years, a ratcheting up in the number of Members as the present arrangements are applied. It is possible that that could continue under the system proposed in the amendment, although the number would start at 650.
We are entitled to draw attention to the executive summary of the report that the British Academy commissioned on the Bill, which indicates:
“This new set of rules that the Boundary Commissions must apply is clear and consistent, and will ensure that equality of electorates predominates in defining Parliamentary constituencies while the frequency of redistributions will ensure that general elections are not held in constituencies defined on electoral data as much as 18 years old.”
The Bill’s proposal that the number of seats should be fixed such that the number could not increase over time is one benefit that will flow from our proposal.
Lord Wills
The noble and learned Lord is right that the Answer goes some partial way towards reassuring me, but I am afraid that it does not go all the way because he has not actually answered all the questions that I asked him. I also asked him about modelling that might have been done by the Conservative Party or within the Liberal Democrat Party. Can he confirm or deny that point? Equally, if he wants to have a look at the issue—I will accept his own reassurance on this, just as I accept the reassurance given by his colleague the noble Lord, Lord McNally—and make inquiries of those political parties and then come back to me, I would be perfectly happy with that. Can he address those particular questions now please?
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
I seem to recall that I started to get into this territory last week on the same circumstances. I was quickly told by a noble Lord opposite that I speak here for the Government rather than for an individual political party. I am unaware of any modelling that shows a political bias to the Labour Party or the Conservative Party and I am certainly unaware of what bias there might be to the Liberal Democrats. I have reflected on the point that both coalition parties were committed to a reduction in the size of the House of Commons and, although that pledge was qualified by the context in which it was made by the Liberal Democrats, I think that there is a general view that that should be the direction of travel.
Another issue that has generated considerable debate is the relative increase in the workload of Members of the other place. I think that the noble Baroness, Lady Liddell, called for some scientific analysis of that, but my noble friend Lord Baker of Dorking indicated that, in his experience from having been first returned as a Member of Parliament in the 1970s, I think, there is a considerable difference in the resources that were made available to Members of Parliament by the time that he left the other place. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester mentioned that there are now opportunities for Members of Parliament to communicate electronically with their constituents in a way that has never been possible before. It is a continually changing scene.
For me, the reason why a scientific analysis could never bear fruit—apart from the fact that it would produce 650 different responses—was evident in the exchange that took place between the former, esteemed Speaker of the other place, the noble Lord, Lord Martin of Springburn, and the noble Lords, Lord Rooker and Lord Campbell-Savours. The noble Lord, Lord Martin of Springburn, indicated that, as a Member of Parliament post devolution, if he received an issue that was properly the matter of the Scottish Parliament, he passed it on to the MSP or, if it was a council matter, to council officials. He also said that he did not answer everyone on a petition. Frankly, having been a Member of the other place—indeed, for a short time, I was the Member of Parliament for Shetland but not the MSP for Shetland—I would have done exactly the same in those circumstances. I do not think—although I may have done so once or twice—I generally made a habit of responding to everyone on a petition. However, the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, immediately took issue with that point, as did the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours. If two very senior former Members of the other place can take issue with the position of the former Speaker of the other place and both sides are being absolutely honest in their approach and about how they would do their work, how in the world is anyone going to quantify or evaluate what the workload of a Member of Parliament should be? There would be a wide divergence over what individual Members of Parliament think should be the case.
At the end of the day, the judge and jury in such matters are one’s constituents, when one seeks re-election. They know how well a Member of Parliament has represented their interests over the previous lifetime of a Parliament.
Lord Winston
The noble and learned Lord has addressed the question that I was about to ask. Is it not the constituents who matter? Is not that one of the issues with which we are faced? Should we not try to assess this in a more rational way? I do not really think that the analysis needs to be scientific, but it should be based on evidence. Earlier, the noble Lord, Lord Baker, cited Germany and one or two other places, where there is a completely haphazard and arbitrary method of representation. Perhaps if we were to have a really satisfactory Parliament, we would try to research what would be ideal to ensure that constituents are represented and looked after better.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
In my experience, different Members of Parliament have different ways in which they think they should address their constituents’ problems and issues. It would be invidious to say that one was right and one was wrong, because different people can take a different approach. That may relate to the character and personality of the individual Member of Parliament, which may also determine what is right and what is wrong. At the end of the day, the constituents should decide.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean
Is not the different behaviour of the Members of Parliament determined by the size of their majority? When I had a majority of 503, I would have written to everyone whose name appeared on a petition. If you have a safe seat, you take a different view. Generally speaking, I think that all Members of Parliament work for their constituents, but it does not half concentrate the mind when you have a small majority.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
My noble friend makes a good point. The noble Lord, Lord Rooker, said that he honed his skills when answering every petition when he had a majority of about 400, although he said that he also did so when he had a majority of 18,000. That just shows that there are different approaches. I do not think that anyone has the answer for what is absolutely right and what is wrong, but a scientific inquiry would not find an answer either—other than possibly 650 different answers.
Lord Campbell-Savours
On the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, if the issue is that in safer seats the whole process of representation is conducted in a different way, surely there should be an evaluation as to what extent there would be considerably more safer seats arising out of a reduction to 600. If it could be shown that there would be more safer seats, that may be a very strong argument against the change.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
Even given a very short time to think about that point, I think that that is something of a non sequitur. There may be other ways in which we want to debate having safer seats.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, asked how the gender balance would be affected by the proposals. The equality impact assessment attached in an annexe to the Bill suggests that the effect would be neutral, but it is fair to say for the record—she asked about the commitments of the respective parties to diversity—that the Liberal Democrats have instituted a campaign for gender balance to provide encouragement and support, through a range of training, for women who are standing or considering standing for Parliament. The Conservative Party has a five-point positive action plan based on clear principles to guarantee that more women and ethnic minorities are selected for winnable seats. More pertinently, I recall from debating the Equality Bill in this Chamber before the election—now the Equality Act—that there are now specific duties on political parties.
Someone asked about the timing of the measure and suggested that it was not so urgent. However, if the Boundary Commission is to get on with its work of making proposals and recommendations in a report by 1 October by 2013 so that the 2015 general election can be fought on boundaries using an updated constituency electoral register, clearly there is a timing issue here as well.
I conclude with the words of my noble friend Lord Baker that these proposals to reduce the number of MPs to 600 would not impair the workings of democracy in the United Kingdom by having a smaller House of Commons. I commend that view to your Lordships' House and, on that basis, ask the noble and learned Lord to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
The Minister, in his final sentence, dealt with the point that I wanted to make, which has not been made during the whole debate so far. I am not in favour at this stage of having a fixed figure at all, whether it be 600, 650 or even 500. We should give some flexibility to the Boundary Commission, particularly the Boundary Commission for England. With regard to Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, in the past figures have been allocated—a minimum figure for Northern Ireland, Wales or Scotland—but not for England. The Boundary Commission has sensibly taken account of natural boundaries and community interests and come up with relatively sensible proposals. Therefore, it is absolutely imperative—even more so, given some of the other provisions in the Bill—that we give the Boundary Commission some flexibility, so that when it goes through these provisions it looks at natural boundaries and listens to community interests, although sadly it will not be able to do so at hearings now, and take some account of them. Later there is an amendment that says that the Boundary Commission is looking at these constituency boundaries and should start with the largest. I put down an amendment saying that it should start with the smallest. If you give the commission a straitjacket, it will be even more difficult, whether it starts with the greatest or the smallest or starts in the north, south, east or west. That kind of provision gives the commission a straitjacket. If it is only numbers that matter, particularly if it is plus or minus 5 per cent and not plus or minus 10 per cent, we will get ridiculous boundaries, cutting through towns and across natural boundaries, taking no account of these important matters. My noble friends on the Front Bench may not like this—I am not saying that there should be 650 seats—but there should be a clear figure and one that is specified by Parliament. I raised this when the noble Lord, Lord Maples, was speaking. For England anyway—and England is the important country in this regard—I do not think that a figure has ever been specified by Parliament before. We should give some degree of flexibility, taking account of the present boundaries.
That brings me on to another reason to have flexibility. A large number of Members of Parliament were recently elected, because there was a huge turnover in the House of Commons in the last election. They are just settling into their constituencies and getting to know their constituencies and to understand the boundaries. That is why the Boundary Commission should in my view start from existing boundaries. That may add a little bit to it, but it would give flexibility. If we specify so rigidly a figure, it will not be able to start from that. There is already going to be clear destabilisation of existing Members of Parliament. I have heard not just from Labour Members but from Conservative and Liberal Democrat Members that they are already worried about the effects that these proposals will have on the selection and reselection arrangements. It will be doubly difficult if the Boundary Commission is unable to get some degree of flexibility. I hope that the Minister will have some opportunity to deal with that and to say whether some flexibility might be considered.
I endorse what my colleagues said earlier and want to add a couple of points, first on the workload of Members of Parliament. A number of Members have dealt with the matter of the change here very effectively. When I was elected first in South Ayrshire, there were no mobile phones and no e-mail, which have made a substantial difference. I raised the importance of direct access to the Member of Parliament when the noble Lord, Lord Maples, spoke on this subject, and said that MPs do not have to take a personal interest in individual cases that come to them. I can tell the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, that even when I had a majority of 21,000—which was bigger than his ever was—I communicated with and replied to everyone. When people sent petitions about schools closures, I also contacted them. As my noble friend Lady McDonagh, who is in front of me, said, that may be why I ended up with a majority of 21,000 and why her sister has a large majority. It is because we deal with them in that way.
However, I remember the late Donald Dewar, when he was Secretary of State for Scotland and when he was Chief Whip. When he was doing all those important jobs, he used to deal with every constituent person. I remember him on the train—when the rest of us may have been enjoying ourselves a little—dictating long, detailed letters in reply to constituents so that he could—
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
I am in the middle of a speech. Does the noble Lord want to ask a question?
Lord Taylor of Holbeach
The noble Lord has been addressing the House for quite some time. He has not come up with new arguments or new points. The Minister has already spoken and I believe that we should bring this debate to a conclusion.
Lord Bassam of Brighton
The noble Lord will know that the fact that the Minister has spoken does not mean that the debate finishes. Noble Lords are quite entitled to continue the debate after the Minister has spoken and other noble Lords have indicated their interest on this issue.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
I was in the middle of a speech. I have sat through the whole of this debate. Noble Lords will confirm that I have never been out at any stage. I have listened to it. Then a Whip comes in and interrupts me right in the middle of the speech. If there are any traditions or conventions in this House, I must say that I find that kind of rudeness detestable. I was talking about my late friend Donald Dewar and I want to make a couple more points. They also relate to the fact—I am sure that the Minister will confirm this—that we have spoken about the work in Parliament and in the constituency. Those of us who represented Scottish constituencies also had to spend a huge time of travelling to and from our constituencies. It takes a substantial amount of time to travel backwards and forwards between the constituency and Westminster.
I was hoping that the noble Lord, Lord St. John of Fawsley, would be here because he usually makes some very positive interventions in such debates. He made one recently in one of our debates about the setting up of Select Committees. He, of course, was the architect of the Select Committee. When I came into the other place in 1979, there were relatively few Select Committees. There were only a handful: the Public Accounts Committee and one or two others. Norman St. John-Stevas, as he was then, set up a whole range of new Select Committees, one for each department of state. It was a very positive advancement as far as the House of Commons was concerned but with extra work for Members of Parliament, as my noble friend Lord Martin will confirm. He came in with me at the same time and saw those Select Committees being set up.
I served on the Foreign Affairs Select Committee for some time, which was very interesting, but we had to travel overseas with all of the work that that involved. I know that it was a great burden. Then my noble friend Lord Kinnock—I am looking at my good friend—when he was leader of the party, with great wisdom and sagacity, put me on the Front Bench along with my now noble friends Lord Anderson and Lord Robertson. We provided a great team, first under the noble Lord, Lord Healey—Mr Healey, as he was then—and under Sir Gerald Kaufman, as he is now. The responsibility and workload of an opposition spokesperson must not be underestimated. We did not have the resources that Ministers have, with huge departments behind us, but we had a huge amount of work to do. You had all that responsibility of looking after a constituency, sitting on Select Committees, being Front-Bench spokesmen and dealing with standing committees. It is a huge responsibility that has not been fully appreciated.
I do not think that there is enough understanding down in the other place of the importance of this place. That is something which we have to do. We have to educate them about the role and the importance of the House of Lords. However it would be useful, particularly for those people who have not experienced the other place, to meet new Members and to find out exactly what the workload is. While I endorse everything that my colleagues have said in relation to the workload and on all the other arguments about the numbers, I have raised this new point. It is a new point, whatever the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, may say. I usually see him at the airport on the way to Bergerac but it is nice to see him here. Thereby hangs another story, which I will not go into too much; he and I look very different on those occasions. I have genuinely raised another point on the degree of flexibility that we need to give the Boundary Commission. Can the Minister tell us whether the Boundary Commission for England has been consulted about this? I am sure that, if given the opportunity and asked, it would welcome that additional degree of flexibility.
Lord Mackay of Clashfern
Can the noble Lord say succinctly whether he is for or against this amendment?
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
Succinctly, if my noble friend pushes this amendment I do not think that I am minded to support it. I would rather see some degree of flexibility but I am waiting to hear all the other arguments. As I have said, I have already sat through all three-and-a-half hours of the debate and am prepared to sit through the rest of it. I will make up my mind at the end as, no doubt, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, also will.
Lord Rooker
I am not keeping to the strictures of the noble Lord, Lord Baker, as I do not want it thought that I can be intimidated by the Front Bench opposite. What I have to say will sound a lot better in the dog hours of 2 am to 4 am so I shall save most of it for later on. First, I support very much what the Minister said. He cannot answer for a political party at the Dispatch Box. I fully accept that but there cannot be a party manager anywhere in the country that is not working out the consequences of this. On my visit to the Conservative Party conference, I could not avoid seeing the glass-walled room where, hour after hour, the training sessions were going on for the boundary changes. I assume that it was happening at the other conferences as well, but you cannot answer for that at the Dispatch Box and no one would expect the Minister to do that.
I want to share something very brief. I went into the other place in 1974, when it had 635 members. Paradoxically, in 1983, when the boundary change took the other place up to 650, my constituency changed from 52,000 to 76,000. Not many had a 50 per cent increase in one go. It changed my working pattern enormously but it was absolutely manageable. There was no problem, once you got settled in and learnt which sides of the streets were odd and even and where the postcode boundaries were—that is the way I work; I got my hands on the detail—so it is manageable. To be honest, as I have already said, I take the view that there should be fewer than the 650. I would not put a figure on it. I would go much further.
The point from my noble friend Lord Soley was valuable. I was, in a way, responsible for doing the very thing that he said but you actually undermine local government. With my constituency at 76,000, I was once in Gloucester—with its inner-city, dockland and urban renewal problems—talking to councillors as a spokesman for the Opposition. I asked them, “How many councillors have you got?”. They said, “We’ve got 46”. I said, “Well, the size of your patch is about the same size as my constituency”. “Oh, well”, they said, “we’ve got 12 county councillors”. I said, “I’ve got 12 councillors”—and that was all there was for 76,000, because of the size of the wards in Birmingham being 18,000 to 20,000. I was not in a position of shoving on to my few councillors the council work that came my way, but in the end you have that ratchet effect of undermining local government because of that structure. That is the issue to be addressed. Frankly, there is an opportunity to address that.
Your Lordships can have a look at the numbers—it is not scientific and it would be preposterous to say so—and at what was said in our Select Committee report on the role and functions of Members of Parliament and then their numbers. It is the very thing that we should do in this place; the role and function, then the form of getting in here. It is not to say that MPs should be constrained in what they do. They have to be freely elected to speak freely but if they could concentrate on being the cockpit of the nation—the inquest, if you like—and turn their attention to more scrutiny of central government in a very targeted, forensic way, we would have a better democracy for it. That would come as a consequence, but it would be much better if we could take that along with the flow, by a degree of consensus, so that it is not seen to be—this is the perception—for party advantage and party-driven. The outcome may be something that we could all say is a big success. Why spoil it all in the method of getting there if, at the end of the day, we will get something that will be good for all of us? I have stuck to my five minutes.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
My Lords, I will just deal with the central points. First, the suggestion has been made by some noble Lords that we should not be debating this at all because we are the Second Chamber. I utterly reject that contention. Our position has always been that we take a—I see that the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, is shaking his head at that suggestion. He is the one who suggested that it should be left to the elected Chamber. I disagree with that. He said that we did not care about it at Third Reading in the Commons. I shall just quote Mr Sadiq Khan, who said that,
“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”.—[Official Report, Commons, 2/11/10; col. 870.]
I agree with all that my right honourable friend said.
The second contention is that if one looks at history, this House has a proud history of dealing with politically driven attempts to change the complexion of the House. Some Members will remember the attempt by a Labour Government in 1969 to introduce an Act of Parliament designed to jigger with the boundaries. It was this House that blocked that proposal, so the idea that we should not be giving this proper scrutiny is completely wrong.
The third contention is that the numbers in the House of Commons should be reduced. It is an important issue to debate. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, who we have all come to respect in this House for the way that he has dealt with this Bill, put his case this strongly. He said that introducing a reduction in the number of Members of Parliament would “not impair” the working of democracy. That is not remotely a basis on which it could be said that the number of Members of Parliament should be reduced.
I agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, that it is almost impossible, I would have thought, scientifically to work out what the approach of individual Members of Parliament will be to their constituents. It will change. I also agree with the noble Lord, Lord Martin of Springburn, that it will be for each individual Member of Parliament to determine how it is done. I completely agree with Mr Tony Wright who, before the previous Parliament came to an end, presided over the Public Administration Committee. He said that there should be an examination of what the right role and function of Members of Parliament should be.
The debate this afternoon reveals that there are differing views about it, not just in relation to what you do in relation to your constituents, but about what is the right number to have as an effective national legislature that also selects the Executive. Surely before one embarks upon something that one seeks to justify by saying that reducing the number would not impair the working of democracy, it would be sensible for there to be some independent examination of this issue—for example, the Speaker’s Conference in 1944—but there has been nothing at all. In those circumstances, when Members on this side and on the other side of the House ask for the reasons why we are reducing, the answer given by the Government is that it will not do damage.
There have been two particularly signal speeches; one by the noble Lord, Lord Maples, and one by the noble Lord, Lord Baker. They sought to grapple with the issues. The speech by the noble Lord, Lord Baker, was funny and witty and was made slightly unfortunate by the fact that he wanted to tell us all off after five minutes, but we will forgive him for that. He has a consistent history of supporting reducing the number quite significantly, and I gathered from his speech that his view is that the Commons would be a better place for dealing with policy issues if it was smaller. I also rather understand that the noble Lord, Lord Maples, was putting the same argument. They were both putting the argument quite effectively that as far as the size as their constituencies was concerned, geographically in relation to the Mole Valley in Surrey and in relation to numbers as far as the noble Lord, Lord Maples, was concerned, they could cope. That was their argument. They may be right. I do not know whether they are right, but they are two, if I may say so with respect to both of them, admirable mavericks who have had that view over a long period of time. It is not a view around which moss has gathered.
That is why, instead of it suddenly bouncing out of a clear blue sky that we should reduce from 650 to what is in effect an arbitrary number, the right course is that there is a proper examination so that people outside this place will have some confidence. The consequence of doing it in the way that the Government have done it, the consequence of there not being an intellectual argument to support it, the consequence of there not being any independent body that has concluded that this is the right thing to do, is that you could not say after this debate that even the House of Lords supports this with any degree of unanimity. It is an unstable proposal as far as our House of Commons is concerned, and it is a very unwise thing to be doing.
My amendment was a probing amendment. In parenthesis, if the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, were here, I would, with respect, answer her complaint that we did not vote last Monday. My experience in the Lords is that we vote in Committee from time to time but, generally, we try to avoid votes in Committee. That has been the practice in relation to the something like 60 groups of amendments that we have had so far in this Bill. I apologise to the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, that that was not adequately explained to her by us.
This was a probing amendment. Three points came out of it. First, I am sorely unimpressed by there not being any sense of consensus about what should happen to the number. Secondly, the danger of it being done by fiat from the other place is very high. Thirdly, I think we need to come back with another amendment that seeks to ensure—
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
I hear a noble Lord say “Oh for God’s sake!”. The tradition in this House is that we have the debate in Committee and then we produce a further amendment on Report. If it is the intention of the House to change that procedure, I would be interested to hear whether we are dissatisfied with our current procedures. Fourthly, a process whereby an independent body determines the size of the House, as is the current arrangement, may be best. On that note, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Tunisia
(13 years, 9 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Howell of Guildford)
My Lords, with permission, I shall now repeat as a Statement the Urgent Question that was answered by the Minister for Europe in the other place this afternoon:
“Mr Speaker, I welcome this opportunity to update the House on recent events in Tunisia and what is being done to assist British nationals. The House will be aware that, following a month of protests over government corruption and the lack of political and economic reform, a state of emergency was declared and President Ben Ali left Tunisia for Saudi Arabia. I hope the House will join me in expressing our sympathy to those whose friends and relatives have been killed or injured in these disturbances.
The Speaker of the House of Deputies, Fouad Mebazaa, has been appointed interim President in line with the constitution. President Mebazaa has asked Prime Minister Mohammed Ghannouchi to form a Government of national unity. Talks continue with opposition parties and civil society to agree a way forward. An announcement on the new Government is expected today.
An estimated 5,000 British nationals were in Tunisia when the situation deteriorated, the majority being tourists on package holidays. We changed our travel advice to “all but essential travel” on 14 January, and since then more than 3,000 British nationals have left Tunisia. Many of these were able to leave on additional flights laid on by their tour operators, thanks to the swift response of these companies. We believe there are approximately 1,000 British nationals remaining in Tunisia. This number is largely made up of long-term residents, as well as dual nationals and some independent travellers. Many of those still in Tunisia do not wish to leave.
Despite exceptionally challenging conditions, the embassy is working to help resolve the crisis and provide support to British nationals in Tunisia. We have sent a six-person rapid deployment team and two members of staff from the region to reinforce embassy staff and provide constant consular assistance. We have a 24-hour hotline which people can ring for help and advice. British nationals in Tunisia can call 00 216 71 108 713. Those in the UK should ring the Foreign and Commonwealth Office on 020 7008 1500. We have staff at Tunis Airport to liaise with airlines and help British travellers with medical, passport and other consular issues.
Our embassy staff remain in regular contact with our network of wardens across Tunisia to better understand the evolving picture around the country and keep those British nationals that we are aware of informed of updates as the situation evolves. We are keeping those British nationals registered on LOCATE updated on developments through regular e-mails. We have been working very closely with tour operators and ABTA, which have been doing a great job. We encourage concerned British nationals to follow developments closely, and monitor our travel advice and the news for updates. Any British nationals currently in Tunisia can register with the embassy’s online registration system, LOCATE. We are receiving very few consular calls; those who are calling are mostly asking for updates on the security situation.
We continue to advise against all non-essential travel to Tunisia. We advise anyone in the country who does not have a pressing need to be there to leave by commercial means. The airports are operating, and airlines are flying into and out of Tunisia. Those still in the country should respect advice or instructions given by the local security authorities and tour operators, and avoid rallies and demonstrations. There is no indication that British nationals are being targeted by looters or rioters. However, given the unpredictability of the situation, there is always the chance of being caught up in incidental violence. If British nationals are in any doubt about the safety of their location they should stay in their accommodation.
Politically, we are working with partners, including in the European Union, to promote political reform. As soon as possible we will be seeking to engage the Tunisian authorities to help this. This week we have spoken with the Tunisian ambassador to London, and our ambassador met the Foreign Minister on Thursday. Mr Alistair Burt was interviewed on Saturday morning by the “Today” programme and my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary has issued two statements on the issue. We encourage all involved to do all they can to restore law and order. We call for full inclusion of all legal parties in the formation of an interim Government.
The change in the past few days in Tunisia has been profound but it is not yet the political reform that many hope for. The authorities must not ignore the voice of the Tunisian people. We will be working with partners to try to ensure an orderly move towards free and fair elections, and an immediate expansion of political freedoms in Tunisia.
There were extended EU discussions on Friday. We have been calling for a speedy and substantial offer of EU support to underpin the move to free and fair elections, which will be critical in re-establishing calm and security in the country. The EU high representative, the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton, has today issued a statement which states that the EU stands ready to provide immediate assistance to prepare and organise the electoral process and lasting support to a genuine democratic transition. We will continue to provide the help and advice that British nationals need, and we will continue to engage with and support Tunisia as it works for peace and security”.
That completes the Statement.
Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead
My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement made today in the other place. I ask at the outset how it was that the FCO rapid deployment team was sent only yesterday. It seems that a certain amount of time elapsed during which people probably needed its support. After decades of authoritarian rule in Tunisia I had hoped for a stronger Statement from the Government on what has occurred there. We have seen demonstrations that have focused on high food prices and very high unemployment levels. These have escalated into nationwide protests against terrible corruption and government repression in Tunisia, which have been dealt with with inordinate violence and unjustifiable lethal force against civilians.
Has the Foreign Secretary spoken with the interim Prime Minister and is he in regular contact with the European Union high representative as the EU prepares to support efforts in Tunisia to bring democracy and good governance to that country? Has the Foreign Secretary also been following the Euro-Med discussions about the situation in Tunisia, if, indeed, these discussions are taking place? Does the Minister agree that the UK, as a member state of the European Union, must seize this moment to stand by the courageous human rights defenders in Tunisia and ask for accountable politicians in Tunisia and across the region to take a stand against what has been occurring in that country? There must be no tolerance by the EU of any efforts to undermine a nascent democracy in Tunisia. I speak about the possibility of that happening among states within the region.
There has to be accountability for those who are corrupt and who committed crimes under Ben Ali. There have been warning signals which point to the dangers of failing to act decisively when we see freedoms being abused in this way. There has to be an impartial and credible investigation into the killings and abuses to ensure that the perpetrators are held to account in courts of law. The departure of President Ben Ali does not exonerate agents of the security forces who committed such heinous crimes against demonstrators. I had hoped that some of these points would be made more strongly in the Statement. It is important that we stand firmly for respect for freedom of expression and information that belong to us all. The people of Tunisia longed for opportunity, political participation and stability. Incidentally, this view has been endorsed by the African Union Peace and Security Council. Now is the time at last to establish a basis for democracy in Tunisia.
Lord Howell of Guildford
I am grateful to the noble Baroness for that response. First, I shall deal with the rapid deployment team, which has, by all accounts, done an excellent job. The initiative of setting up the rapid deployment team was taken by the noble Baroness’s own Government, perhaps by her and her immediate predecessor, and has worked extremely well. It is a very valuable initiative and I congratulate the previous Government on putting in place a team organisation of this kind which has helped in such dramatic situations as the tsunami a couple of years back, the Haiti horror and the effects of the volcanic ash.
The noble Baroness asked why the rapid deployment team did not move faster. In fact, it moved extremely fast but there was one snag which was outside its and indeed our power and control, which was that of air transport, getting it organised and getting the team into the country fast. However, it is now there and is doing an extremely valuable job. It is a credit to this country as a whole, quite aside from who happens to be in government, that we are able to mount this sort of operation.
The noble Baroness said that she had hoped for a stronger Statement. I understand that; we all feel very strongly indeed about our core principles as a nation and we should proclaim them at all times. However, the difficulty, particularly in these very early days, is understanding which way the trend of events is going so that we can be most assured that the number one step is achieved: namely, the restoration of order and calmness and the end of violence, killing and bloodshed so that a sensible pattern of government can evolve. Although parliamentary convention required my honourable friend to say that there was a prospect of a new Government, in between him making the Statement and me repeating it, such a Government have been set up, with opposition Members. If one dare say so, that is somewhat encouraging. As the noble Baroness rightly implied, this is the point when we urge that this new Government, who embrace opposition Members, put to the forefront the concern for human rights, realise that they have a duty to accountability and that there is much to be learnt from past events which have led to this very ugly and dangerous situation which may—who knows?—we hope calm down, but which may have all kinds of domino repercussions in a wider area, some of which could be very injurious to general global and regional stability and to the interests of this nation.
That is my broad answer to the noble Baroness’s questions. She asked about regular contact with European Union high officials. My right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary is in close contact through his office at all times. We are particularly in touch at official level with the French Foreign Minister and with the office of the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton. They are key actors in the situation and strengthen our overall European Union approach as well as anything we can contribute bilaterally. I hope that those are regarded as satisfactory answers to the noble Baroness’s points, but I am very happy to elaborate on them in more detail in what is still a very fast moving situation.
Lord Steel of Aikwood
My Lords, I was about to question my noble friend on exactly that last point and ask whether he would welcome the announcement this afternoon of the formation of the interim Government. Under the Speaker, a new Prime Minister and members of the so-called opposition parties, plus civil society, there is at least a chance that order is being restored rather more quickly than we had expected. I am not surprised that he said in the Statement that a lot of members of the British community said they did not wish to return, because Hammamet, the main tourist area, has been largely peaceful. I was there recently, and should declare an interest as a member of the board of a company with interests there. Understandably, people want to complete their holidays. This may be tempting him too far, but does my noble friend agree that out of this tragedy there is a lesson to be learnt throughout the rest of the continent of Africa, and indeed the Middle East, that Governments who engage in corruption and lining their own pockets have a limited life shelf, and that others should be aware of what has happened in Tunisia and perhaps learn the lesson from it?
Lord Howell of Guildford
My noble friend offers some very wise and comprehensive comments on the overall situation. This is a lesson. We live in a much more transparent and e-enabled age, with television programmes in their multiple dozens, such as Al-Jazeera and others, fantastic media influence, fantastic rapid communication through the internet, e-mails or the varieties of web operation that we are beginning to know so well, and of course the mobile telephone. All these influence the transmission of both truth and rumour into situations such as the one in Tunis, which can become very volatile very quickly. The lessons should not be lost on others who seek to rule by failing to be transparent and failing to transmit all the knowledge and accountability that they should to their citizens. My noble friend has absolutely hit the nail on the head on that matter. He was kind enough to recognise the problem that the new Government have been formed since my honourable friend spoke in the other place. Now that they have been formed, we are very anxious to see that they go forward in a really constructive and balanced way, and we will do everything, through our embassy, our contacts and our colleagues in the European Union, to encourage that process.
Viscount Waverley
My Lords, what if there is a repetition of a party such as Islamic Salvation Front winning the national elections, as happened in Algeria 1992? Will the Government promote an EU line to allow any obvious winner to let be? Is there any suggestion that Tunisia’s neighbours, such as Libya, Algeria and Egypt, will intervene to keep a form of status quo?
Lord Howell of Guildford
The noble Lord will understand that those are highly hypothetical questions. The Algerian situation of 19 years ago is one from which we should draw lessons, and so should the countries of the area. The neighbouring countries are, as we are, watching closely to see how this pattern will develop. However, these are very early days. One wants this newly formed Government to command confidence, get violence off the streets and ensure that non-democratic forces, and those that are inclined to violence, stay in and are kept under control. Then we will see what the broader implications are. I personally hope that the broader implications to the wider world are simply of the kind mentioned by my noble friend a moment ago, whereby democracy, transparency and responsibility to citizens are always wise if you want to stay in power.
Lord Boateng
My Lords, in welcoming the Minister’s Statement, and particularly his warm words, which are well deserved for the consular section of the Foreign Office, I must ask whether recent events in Tunisia do not underscore the importance of Her Majesty’s Government having an Africa strategy in which we are better able to co-ordinate the efforts of the FCO, DfID, the MoD and the whole machinery of government behind progressive change in Africa. That is because two things emerge very clearly from the Tunisian experience and are mirrored elsewhere on the continent. One is that food security and food prices are becoming increasingly an issue and a threat to stability and security. Secondly, unemployed young people with qualifications, unless given the prospect of jobs through growth, are likely to be led into actions that also threaten security and stability. Democracy has at last found a place in Africa as part and parcel of the ordinary people’s own agenda, to which they need to see a response. Does that not mean that this is a matter not just for the European Union and France, but for us to ensure that we have in place a whole-Africa strategy that strengthens and sharpens our response to this sort of situation?
Lord Howell of Guildford
The noble Lord knows more than most about Africa strategies and speaks wise words. Perhaps he would also recognise that Africa is a concept, as it were, and a geographical continent, but that it contains a vast range of different societies, cultures and trends in political and social evolution, all of which must be calibrated to ensure that one gets right one’s relations with different countries and shows the necessary respect to different countries, rather than lumping them all together into one general formula by which they should be treated. I think the noble Lord accepts that point, and I hope he will feel that I am adding to, rather than subtracting from, his wisdom on this matter.
Food prices and unemployment are the uneasy shadows of the age. There are tremendous volatilities in the availability of food. Some experts tell us that it is not the basic lack of supply of foodstuffs but problems of distribution, processing, handling and getting the right kind of food into the right kind of supply chains that create so many of the problems. Unemployment is similar. What does a world, and particularly a region, do, given that we are talking about the Maghreb and the Middle East, where almost the majority of people are young and are waiting for an opportunity to fulfil themselves and find useful employment? What do they do if no employment is available and the opportunity to contribute to their community is not there? What do they do if they have no country that they feel they should love and no confidence about getting a fair share of a country's prosperity? That is one of the angry themes that has come through in Tunis: the feeling that some people were doing extremely well—the fat cats—while the majority struggled and did not benefit from the relative prosperity. I say “relative” because the country is not as poor as some. It receives a great deal of aid from France. Did that help the men and women, the families and children, in their homes? Clearly not, and now we are seeing the results.
Lord Chidgey
My Lords, will the Minister tell us a little more about the assessment of the reaction among the countries in the region to the situation in Tunisia? My noble friend will be aware of reports that Colonel Gaddafi's people have been providing arms for the guerrillas on the streets of Tunisia who supported the outgoing President, and also that the security council of the Egyptian Government met hurriedly a day or so ago in response to the situation. There are great concerns about stability and turbulence in neighbouring countries that have similarly suspect forms of government. Perhaps my noble friend would take us a little further on the Government's assessment of that.
Lord Howell of Guildford
It is hard to add to the expertise of my noble friend. All the neighbouring countries are assessing the situation, as we are tonight in London. The implications are being examined very carefully. Broad themes lead to suggestions of domino theories. Articles by expert commentators have appeared in the newspapers saying that this could be the beginning of a very big transformation in the region. One hopes that it will be orderly and stable rather than violent and disruptive. That would be an important aspect of our foreign policy and national interest, and we would need to follow it closely. On the other hand, it may be possible to contain what is happening entirely in a Tunisian context, so that broader lessons could be learnt more slowly and in an orderly way.
My noble friend is right that the Egyptians are looking closely at the matter. Algeria has its problems, along with the Maghreb and Morocco, which is prosperous and well ordered but still concerned. The dark al-Qaeda jihadist extremist element is not apparently present in the Tunis situation. It is reckoned that al-Qaeda is operating in the Maghreb to the south of the area in Tunis that we are looking at. One can never be sure, but that is the broad assessment at the moment.
Lord Hurd of Westwell
I congratulate my noble friend on the balance he struck in his comments on the Statement. I will make one point. We all hope that the new Government who are being formed, or their successor, will restore order quickly. However, that may not be so; this may drag on for some time. I remember in other cases how quickly the news disappeared from our newspapers, but how the strains on our own people handling the daily problems that my noble friend mentioned remained. Exhaustion sets in quickly. Is the Foreign Office looking further than the next few days to the weeks and even months ahead, which may include periods of considerable distress and disorder—although we hope that they will not—to make sure that we continue to be able to manage the problems of our own citizens in the way that we have up to now?
Lord Howell of Guildford
I am grateful to my noble friend for his advice, which is invaluable in this kind of situation. I can answer firmly that that is what we want to do. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office needs to think about the implications of this further piece in the jigsaw of the new international order, which is fluid and changing very fast. Further to the east of where we are looking at—the Maghreb—is the Middle East imbroglio. To the east of that there is the Gulf, and to the east of that is a conglomeration of GCC states that are now reorienting themselves in the direction of the rising Asian powers. This is an entirely new world. We have to watch very closely and prepare for big changes in our existing assumptions.
Lord Bannside
My Lords, I am sure that we are glad of the Statement that we heard from the Minister tonight. However, I will stress one matter. Why did this come as a terrible surprise to the people in this area? Were the Government not aware that the matter was underneath the surface? We welcome the European part of the question. That must be worked on, because we need strong resistance to what has taken place, and strong assistance to those who will help to put it right.
Lord Howell of Guildford
I am grateful to the noble Lord for that. Why does it appear suddenly to have caught certain people by surprise? The point when these things break through, into regrettable violence and protest in this case, is always a bit of a judgment. That there were forces at work that could lead to the situation is not such a surprise. I do not want to drag the rather overrated WikiLeaks into the situation, but leaks were flying around, which certain senior diplomats were observing some years ago, that the fundamental pattern of government in Tunis looked a bit unhealthy, and that the disease and infection of corruption and vast disparities between rich and poor were around and could lead to trouble. Senior diplomats saw that something was wrong some time ago, but it is always difficult to assess exactly when these things will explode.
Baroness Browning
My Lords, I declare an interest as a former chairman of the All-Party Group on Tunisia. I was pleased to hear what my noble friend told the House tonight about the involvement of the EU and the opportunity to oversee democratic elections. Will he assure us that, as things settle down, the British Government will use their influence both unilaterally and within the EU to ensure that as soon as possible, when it is suitable to do so, there will be a concerted effort to take trade delegations to Tunisia? With a more highly educated population, Tunisia cannot exist on tourism and dates. There are opportunities in Tunisia for much more trade, but the initiative must come from this side. I hope my noble friend will take that on board and understand that one of the many frustrations among that population relate to appropriate levels of work and the appropriate amount of trade that the country needs, with which we could help a great deal.
Lord Howell of Guildford
This is a positive set of observations. Having visited Tunisia on more than one occasion, I wondered how the basis of its economy could be sustained by its very successful tourism and by what I am told are its 20 million date trees. How one can count them? I do not know. How can it be done? The answer is that it has been done, but clearly diversification and development are badly needed. I suspect that deep down inside the causes of this present disturbance is the fact that they have not been developed fast enough. We and the EU, bilaterally, certainly have a role to play, as do our French friends and neighbours.
Lord Anderson of Swansea
Our key national interest appears to be the security of our own nationals, and to that extent the Foreign Office appears to have responded speedily and in an exemplary manner. I congratulate the Minister on what he said. Successive human development reports of the UNDP illustrate the lack of poor governance in the various Arab countries, and I wonder to what extent we were already alerted to the problem and the way in which it was building up, although the spirit in Tunisia appears to be far freer than in some of its neighbours in the Maghreb. Can the Minister say to what extent he believes lessons will be learnt and the extent to which we will urge neighbouring Governments—perhaps not us, but, better, the European Union as a whole—to listen to the people and their legitimate grievances about food security and employment, even if we do not particularly like the Governments who emerge and who might have a rather different view from us on world issues.
Lord Howell of Guildford
I hope, as we must all hope, that the lessons will be learnt. They are fascinating lessons, and some very profound observations have been made. The emergence of the food shortage issue and its impact on political stability in certain societies is in itself a vast issue that relates to other aspects of crops for biological use, biofuel, and so on. That has all kinds of impacts on world food prices, which at the moment are rising very fast.
I am very grateful to the noble Lord, with his considerable experience of foreign affairs in the other place and here, for his kind words of congratulation. The Foreign Office to which I, as noble Lords will know, am relatively new, has demonstrated that in a situation of this kind, precise timing is always difficult to anticipate. However, the Foreign Office has acted with extreme speed, along with great help from ABTA and the commercial operators, who have done remarkably well in evacuating 3,000 tourists from the country at such enormous speed.
Baroness Falkner of Margravine
Does my noble friend agree that although the formation of a more inclusive Government is to be welcomed, it is very limited in its inclusion? The Islamist parties, for better or for worse, have been left out of it, as have the liberals. Does he agree that in order to have a pluralistic framework, which is what the people want now, all parties should be invited to come on board? Can he assure the House that the EU will monitor those elections?
Lord Howell of Guildford
It is early days to give a definite current on the last point, but that seems utterly sensible. As to the precise balance and formation of a new Government, the delicate, fragile gain for the moment is that a new Government are being formed and announced. Exactly what balance they should have and which parties should be included is a very difficult matter for those outside Tunisia to intervene on at the moment. All that we can do is offer our support and give them our good wishes and blessing as fast as we can, so that government rather than chaos emerges out of the present street violence and disorder.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
(13 years, 9 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
23:38 - Division on Motion that the Question be now put. - Ayes: 219 / Noes: 130 - Motion that the Question be now put agreed.
23:53 - Division on Amendment 59. - Ayes: 131 / Noes: 211 - Amendment 59 disagreed.
12:14 - Division on the Motion to resume.. - Ayes: 124 / Noes: 188 - Motion disagreed.
Lord Soley
“The number of constituencies in the United Kingdom shall be decided by an independent commission established by the government, but shall not exceed 650 or be less than 500.”
Lord Soley
My noble friend Lord Lipsey will speak to Amendment 60. These amendments go together. Amendment 59 is one of the core amendments about the nature of what the Government are doing. As regards this Bill, I have been troubled for a long time about the importance of constitutional issues. Everyone, including the Government, accepts that this is a constitutional Bill. I get the feeling that the Government have not recognised just how important this issue is, particularly to the opposition party, because the Opposition have not been consulted on the size of Parliament. I regard that as particularly important.
I have been a member of the Labour Party for a long time. But it is not being a member of the Labour Party that drives me in politics; it is my strong belief in parliamentary democracy and the rule of law. I have held that view for many years. It goes back to when I was about six years old and watched adults dancing around an effigy of Adolf Hitler burning in the street. I wondered what sort of planet I had ended up on that people should be behaving like that. Over the coming years, it made me understand better why parliamentary democracy was so important and, much later, made me understand why the rule of law was so critical to it.
This, for me, is not a party political issue in that sense, but it has become party-political precisely because the Government have chosen to determine the size of the House of Commons. This amendment points out that that is not right way to do these things. There ought to be an independent assessment of what the size of Parliament should be, and ideally—it is why the amendments are grouped together—that should be done through something like a Speaker’s Conference or, better still, all-party agreement.
That is profoundly important because what matters in constitutional Bills of this type is that if it is perceived that a party in government is altering the size of the House of Commons to suit its own party purposes, that immediately makes the Bill deeply party political. That is what I do not think the Government have taken on board. In summing up, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, said that there was some suggestion of secrecy about the numbers. There has never been any secrecy about the numbers. Actually, I quoted from Andrew Tyrie’s paper which made it clear that the Conservatives would win more seats if they could reduce the size of the House of Commons by 60 seats, and originally they thought they would win even more if they reduced the size by 120 seats. That does not mean that he did not also have a view that the House ought to be smaller, because he did, as did other people who supported him. It also did not mean that he was wrong to say that it would save public money; it probably would. But what you do not do is just change the size of the House of Commons without all-party agreement.
To his credit, as I said in the last debate, Andrew Tyrie made that point. Indeed, he made two points, the first of which was that the Government of the day should seek all-party agreement. He referred to agreement with the Labour Party, but I would simply talk about all-party agreement. His other point concerned the payroll vote issue, which I shall come to in a moment. Why is this so important? I have said in one or two other interventions that one of the problems we face is that whenever we act as international observers in overseas elections, which many Members of this House have done from time to time—certainly I have done it—we do not just look at how well protected the ballot boxes are or at how well the polling stations are protected. We look not just at how the electoral register has been drawn up, but at how the number of seats in the parliament has been drawn up. If we found a situation where one of the major parties in that parliament had been excluded from that process, we would be deeply worried.
I want to put it this way, particularly to Members opposite. They may recall that on the last amendment I referred briefly and in passing to when we decided, quite rightly in my view, to remove the judges from the House of Lords to a newly created Supreme Court. One of the many factors behind the change was that European countries coming out of communist regimes were saying, when they were told by the European Union that they had create judiciaries separate from their legislatures, “But Britain doesn’t”. We were trying to create a situation where we could separate the legislature from the judiciary, but what matters now is a question that I would like the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, to address, if he is going to respond to the debate. If anyone from this House is observing an election, not least in one of the eastern European countries, and they are told that the Government of the day have decided on the size of the Parliament without the permission or agreement of one of the major political parties, will they really say “Yes, that is all right. It is not a problem”? I ask this of all the Members sitting on the Benches opposite because it is very important.
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Strathclyde)
I cannot resist. Did the noble Lord think that it was outrageous that the Labour Government decided in 1997 to remove the hereditary Peers from the House of Lords without any consultation and agreement? Of course he did not.
Lord Soley
I answered that question before, but in a different way. I said, and I say again, that what matters is that, if you change the constitution in a way that reduces the chances of a political party winning an election, you cannot reverse what the Government have done. Removing hereditary Peers from here did not change the opportunity for a party to win an election. It is an important difference. That is why I make the case that one has to look at constitutional Bills differently. Of course, constitutional Bills about removing hereditary Peers or judges are very important, but when you change the composition of a House, which alters the ability of a major party to win an election, that party can no longer assume that it is in a position to reverse what the previous Government have done. That makes all the difference.
Lord Davies of Stamford
The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, has thrown in our face the deal done in 1997 or 1998 over the future of hereditary Peers. I hope that my noble friend will agree that that, surely, was a fine example of negotiation—a very delicate and complicated but very successful negotiation. I believe, indeed, that the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, played a not-undistinguished part in that very successful and historic compromise. What we have this evening is a complete absence of any desire to even talk, let alone have a negotiation or a compromise. Surely that is the fundamental difference between the two situations.
Lord Soley
My noble friend is quite right and he has reminded me of something. I remember being in the Corridor outside when the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, had had talks with the then Prime Minister, Tony Blair, or with his office, and William Hague, the then leader of the Conservative Party, had got to hear about the deal that my noble friend refers to. I happened to bump into William Hague as he came back down the Corridor having seen the noble Lord. His face was as black as thunder. I only heard a bit of what he was saying, but it certainly was not complimentary about the deal that had been done. I diverge, but the point is right. There was a negotiation.
Lord Snape
Will my noble friend acknowledge the courage of the Leader of the House at that time? He fell on his sword as a result of those consultations and negotiations, which the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, now denies ever took place at all.
Lord Soley
I must admit that I was always impressed that the noble Lord survived the experience, so I give him full marks for political survival. Let me get back to the central point, because it is critically important. When we observe elections in other countries—this was particularly true of the communist countries in eastern Europe, where a number of the communist parties had reformed themselves but still wanted to hold on to control—we see that, if you allow a Government to decide the size of a Parliament, you prevent another Government from having a chance to come in and alter it. You see it in Russia today; it is precisely what President Putin has been doing. The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, and David Cameron are not President Putin and the British Parliament is not the Duma or the Russian Parliament in general, but this is one of those principles that matter. The noble Lord, Lord Baker, said that principles do not matter in these things. I have to say that, on things like this, they do. They matter a lot. The feeling, rightly or wrongly, is that if one party loses out you undermine the credibility of your electoral system in a major way.
The other problem that the Government have got themselves into is that, presumably, the Liberal Democrats signed up to this 60-seat reduction on the basis of the discussions that had been going on in the Conservative Party over the previous seven or eight years, which I referred to in my earlier speech. However, there is absolutely no need to have a set number of seats. One of my noble friends made the point that you can instruct the Boundary Commission to create a number of seats within a certain range. That is much better, because it allows the commission to take into account everything from geographical to socioeconomic factors. You do not need to decide the number of seats in a precise format.
The reason why I put the range of 500 to 650 in my amendment is that I recognise that the Government have said over many years that they want to reduce the size of Parliament. I also recognise the importance of the deal politically between the Liberal Democrats and the Conservative Party. For them it is crucial and it is one of the reasons why we are having this big fight right now. I say again to the noble Lord, though, that I would like to compromise to some extent. Personally, I would prefer these things to be decided by all-party agreement, and I toyed with putting that in. I do not think, however, that the Government could live with that in the present climate. What they could maybe live with and recognise is that it is vital that Governments do not decide the size of Parliament.
With the amendment, I have tried to give flexibility to the Government, not only in setting up the independent body but also in deciding its timescale. I do not pretend that it would be possible for that body to come up overnight with a definition of what MPs should and should not do, but there are different ways in which this can be addressed, one of which is to say, “If we’re going to have a smaller number of MPs, what parameters should there be?”. You could do that as a starter before addressing some of the other issues.
What are the other issues? One of the most crucial, which has been totally ignored in the Bill, is that if you reduce the size of the House of Commons but do not at the same time reduce the payroll vote—those people who depend on the Government for their jobs—you immediately increase the power of the Government and decrease the power of Back-Benchers. There are fewer Back-Benchers to hold the Government to account and more Members in the pay of the Government of the day. That is not desirable. Someone else referred earlier to the professor at Essex University whose name escapes me for the moment—
Lord Soley
Professor King made the point that, if you reduce the number of MPs from which Ministers are drawn, you also reduce the “gene pool” for Ministers, as he described it. He said that that was quite important. I do not want to get into a detailed argument about why I am sympathetic to the idea of reducing the size of Parliament; I just want to make a couple of points in relation to it.
Baroness Wall of New Barnet
Would my noble friend describe for us what he means by an “independent commission”? I cannot understand why the Government would resent that and be opposed to it. My noble friend is suggesting that they would establish it and it would be independent. Can he give us some reason why he thinks that they may not want it?
Lord Soley
I am afraid that the only answer—this is the core of the problem that is making us do things such as debate this late at night when we could be doing other things with our lives—is, quite simply, that there is a political agreement between two parties, the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives, to do this regardless of the consequences or of the Opposition. That is what they are doing.
I accept that the wording of my amendment is not perfect and that the Government would have to take it away and work on it, but there is no doubt in my mind that they could appoint an independent commission to look at this and come forward with some guidance on the basic issue of the numbers.
Lord Clinton-Davis
What is highly relevant is that this commission would be able to examine the evidence behind what my noble friend is proposing. Is that not very important?
Lord Soley
It is very important and it would also allow the commission to look at what is, for me, a critical point: the principle of a Government deciding the size of Parliament without the agreement of the parties within it. That is what is so dangerous and undesirable about this proposal.
I want to extend my comments a little on the implications of the payroll vote. As I said earlier when I referred to pulling a thread on a jumper, the trouble is that when you pull at the thread of the number of parliamentarians and change it, you change other things as well. If you reduce the number, you inevitably change the power of the House to challenge the Executive. You also inevitably, as Professor King points out, reduce the pool of people from which Ministers can be drawn. However, it is possible to provide answers to those problems, although this is why I say that reducing the number is not a nice, simple option. It is perfectly possible to say that we will reduce the payroll vote in the House of Commons. You could, if there were agreement, then increase the number of Peers in the House of Lords or you could take a really radical step and increase the number of Ministers who are drawn from outside Parliament but who have to be called before Parliament. You could pursue all sorts of very radical proposals if that was what you wanted to do. The Liberal Democrats have occasionally said that they want to do things such as that. They have said that they want Ministers from outside this place who can be called in and cross-examined on the way in which they run their departments. All those things are possible, but what is not possible—
Lord Soley
I shall give way in just a second. What is not possible is to reduce the size of Parliament and not reduce the payroll vote without losing a lot of power for that Parliament.
Lord Strathclyde
What the noble Lord is saying is very interesting, but he is now speaking to Amendment 91A. Perhaps he would like to talk about this subject when we reach that amendment, rather than while we are debating this one.
Lord Soley
I am pleased that the noble Lord is on the ball. That is probably why he ran rings round William Hague. He is quite right, but I cannot not mention it in the context of an independent commission looking at the implications of a reduction in the size of Parliament. The other point that I want to make—
Lord Snape
Before my noble friend leaves that point—it is not for me to make his speech, as he is doing a more than adequate job—why does he not reply to the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, by pointing out that the noble Lord, Lord Baker, who is in his place this evening, has made it quite clear why he feels that the size of the House of Commons should be reduced? It is for pure political advantage. That is what he said in his article in the Times and that is what this debate is all about.
Lord Soley
My noble friend is quite right, but I am seeking to persuade the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde. I am wooing him, if you like. He does not look as though he is being wooed, but we will keep working at it and I might even get the noble Lord, Lord Baker, on my side. I indicated earlier that, when the noble Lord made his suggestion, he knew that it should happen with all-party agreement. I think that I am also right in saying that it would have implications for the size of government.
I want to touch on another very important point. If this proposal goes through in its current form, the Government will be not just opening the door but laying out a welcome mat to any future Government of any complexion to say, “We’ve decided that this is the right size for Parliament and we are going to legislate to make it that size”. That is what is so dangerous about this measure. If it goes through in its present form without an independent assessment of some kind, all-party agreement or a Speaker’s Conference, the noble Lord will have no grounds for complaint if a future Government—
Lord Soley
I shall give way in just one second. The noble Lord will have no grounds for complaint if a future Government, be it a Labour Government or any other kind of Government, come forward with a proposal that, they will have worked out, will benefit them politically.
Lord Morgan
Does my noble friend not agree that it is very puzzling that this completely arbitrary figure has been given for Members of the legislature but that no figure has been given for the size of the Executive, even though many civil servants have made such proposals? Perhaps, in the course of his fascinating remarks, he will be able to draw out from the Leader of the House an explanation as to why one aspect has been stressed and not the other.
Lord Soley
My noble friend is quite right. I am waiting for that point to be answered, but, then again, there are a number of points that are not answered.
Lord Campbell-Savours
Perhaps I may marginally disagree with what my noble friend has just said. He said that a Labour Government would have to have in mind the way in which we have been treated. The reality is that a Labour Government would not do it, because we think that it is wrong and unprincipled. The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, should understand that, and that is what is making us very angry.
Lord Soley
My noble friend is right, although I thought that I said “any future Government”, not particularly a Labour Government. Any future Government could come in and simply say, “We are going to change the size”. That goes back to the previous amendment, on which I do not want to dwell but where I quoted from Andrew Tyrie’s booklet produced for the Conservative Party and referred to things that were said by other members of the Conservative Party in the intervening period; that is, that the figure of 120 over 10 years was too many, too fast, but that 60 over five years was manageable. My noble friend intervened with a question, but the real question is: should this Government win the next election, will they then go for the other 10 per cent? It is in the booklet; it is not a secret. There was considerable discussion of that figure. The Deputy Prime Minister said that he wanted the House to be reduced by 150. It is legitimate to ask whether the Government think that it is wise even from their point of view to have a system where the Government of the day get elected, look at the size of the House of Commons and say, “Well, we could have done better if we had this number” and then legislated accordingly. If in five years they are here, fighting such a proposal late into the night, they will not be feeling as they are feeling now and going around saying, “Oh, this is a filibuster. We don’t like it”. They will say, “This is an abuse of the constitution”. Every one of them will be doing it, the Liberals more than anyone else. This is where the Liberals say one thing in one place and another in another place.
Lord Soley
I thought that the noble Lord was agreeing with me, but I might be wrong. Let us make no bones about it: if we are going to lay out the welcome mat to any future Government, not just a Labour Government, to be able to legislate on the size of Parliament, we are breaking one of the principles that we all observe when we check international elections. We are going against what is said in the European Union, the United Nations and the Commonwealth about checking elections. We all look at that as international observers for those bodies, yet here, all of a sudden, we are saying, “No, it’s all right for the Government to legislate for the size of Parliament. It doesn’t matter at all”. Of course it matters.
This Government might think that cutting the number MPs will be popular. Up to a point, they are right, but the problem is that they are playing the role of the overly powerful Government. It is not just the Public Bodies Bill and powers which they have taken which are over the top—Henry VIII powers are used in so much legislation now. I would be the first to concede that Henry VIII powers were taken to some extent under the Labour Government, but it is happening much more now—the Public Bodies Bill is virtually a Henry VIII Bill. But it is not just that; it is also putting enough new Members in this House so that the two political parties which form the Government, the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives, have a near-majority over the other political party. In other words, we are in danger of breaching that constitutional principle which we have all followed for years: that no political party should have a majority over the others here. I understand fully that the Government do not have a majority over the Cross Benches and the Labour Party jointly, but they certainly come very close to having a majority over the Labour Party. That differs greatly from what happened previously.
Lord Soley
My figures may be slightly dated, but, either way, it is profoundly dangerous. I will end on this note—
Lord Grocott
Before my noble friend concludes, am I the only one—I am sure I am not—who can see the irony that since we started debating Part 2 of this Bill last Monday, which is basically about reducing the number of Members of Parliament by 50, during just that week 14 new Members have been introduced into Parliament—into this House? Can he explain the rationale of that situation?
Lord Soley
It is what I call over-powerful government again. Again I point out what Andrew Tyrie said. I am not attacking Andrew Tyrie. There are things I think he got wrong in that document, particularly about the figures of representation in other countries. However, it is a well written document and well argued. One of the other things that might make my noble friend sleep less soundly at night—assuming he gets to sleep any night in the near future—is that Andrew Tyrie actually said that the MPs who are displaced by this reduction in size should be given peerages, so we will have even more coming in here. It would be quite nice if the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, answers this and says that will not automatically happen, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it might.
Baroness Wall of New Barnet
I have sat, like many other people, for many hours and have only just decided to contribute. There are several reasons that have been given by noble Lords on this side of the House why this is absolutely unacceptable. For me the most moving and convincing argument was that of my noble friend Lord Boateng, who talked about the role we play when we are asked to go out to Governments who are being formed as democracies. The Governments we belong to have always prided ourselves on being absolutely the epitome of governance and everything else. How do we ever accept the opportunity to go and guide and help those people when we have this situation ourselves now?
Lord Soley
My noble friend is making a point I made with very great emphasis right at the beginning of my comments. It is important to understand that we will be doing something radically different from everything we tell other countries to do. We look at elections overseas with the various bodies we work through—the United Nations, the European Union, the Commonwealth and so on—but we will be doing something we are telling other countries not to do. There are no ifs and buts about that.
Lord Garel-Jones
Like me, the noble Lord spent a bit of time in the other place. Like me, no doubt he can recognise a filibuster when he sees one. Can I please invite him to consider the danger under which he is placing this House in standing up against the expressed will of the other place by a substantial majority, and in masquerading and taking advantage of the customs of this House whereby we do not enjoy the facilities that are enjoyed in the other place precisely to bring to a conclusion boring filibusters of this kind?
Lord Soley
I am sorry to hear the noble Lord say that. He is so wrong and so misled on it. I have not in any way filibustered at all. The Committee has sat for nine days. I have made 13 speeches, none of them more than 15 minutes. I have made 19 interventions in nine days. Is that a filibuster? I am asking the noble Lord. Of course it is not. If he thinks that, he has a very strange definition of a filibuster.
Lord Garel-Jones
The noble Lord must be very aware from his experience in the other place many moons ago that there it would have been proposed that the question be now put.
Lord Soley
On a constitutional matter of this importance in this Chamber? What makes the difference is that this Chamber safeguards the constitution against abuse in the other Chamber at times. If the noble Lord does not understand that, he does not know why he has been here. Maybe he ought to think that perhaps he should not have come here if he takes the view that we ought to just roll over and have our bellies tickled every time the House of Commons says so. It is not like that at all and I think it is sad that someone of his experience should actually say that. This is a matter of considerable importance. It really is. If he is complaining that it has become party political, he needs to take on board that it has been made party political by a Government who have decided to do what other Governments are not allowed to do under all the systems we observe when checking elections—to change the size of a Parliament to suit their own political ends. That is what makes this different, and that is what makes it party political.
I shall end with a quote from Vince Cable, who put it very well.
Lord Howarth of Newport
Before my noble friend concludes his valuable and very interesting remarks, would he care to remind the noble Lord, Lord Garel-Jones, that until very recent years it was unthinkable that constitutional legislation would have been timetabled and programmed in the House of Commons. This really is an abuse. Since it has happened, it is only in this House that it is possible to give adequate scrutiny to this legislation. Does my noble friend recall that, in the House of Commons proceedings on this Bill, Clauses 3 to 6 on very important matters—the conduct of the referendum, combining polls and the rules about media coverage—along with Clause 11 that we are now debating, on the number and distribution of seats, were entirely undiscussed in the other place, in Committee and on Report? My noble friend is absolutely right to treat these important matters at some length and searchingly as he is.
Lord Soley
That is right. It is not just Labour Members in the other place but Conservative Members too who wrote to us asking us to cover these matters in our debates in the House of Lords, because they were not covered in the House of Commons as they should be.
I end with a quote from Vince Cable, who, in an eavesdropped conversation—and in my view the journalists have something to answer for, but it is out so it must be said—stated that there was a real danger of the Government becoming Maoist in their tendencies. That is right. There is a foolish rush of power—perhaps of power to the head—which is driving them forward.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury
I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Soley, for giving way. I perfectly understand the legitimacy of arguments about the proper way in which one should reduce or not reduce the number of MPs. Where I do not follow him—and what seems an illegitimate argument—is for him to say, as he has said a number of times, that this is being done as a gerrymander, in effect. I put it to him that there is no evidence for that. What is the purpose of the Boundary Commission if it is not to ensure that any change in constituencies is fairly effected?
Lord Soley
Nobody has moved the word “gerrymandering”, myself included. But let us be very clear what was being said, and not just in Andrew Tyrie’s document. He says that the current numbers are unfair as they overrepresent the Labour Party and that the Conservative Party is underrepresented. He does not use those last words, but it is there throughout. In a number of the speeches, comments and articles written in newspapers, which I have going back over that period, it is repeated on numerous occasions by Conservatives that the Labour Party has too many seats. What he is basing that on—although I do not want to go over my last speech—is the number of the electors. But of course it rules out the underregistration problem and the social and economic factors that we referred to, so it is not appropriate. What matters is that with those figures, he has worked out, quite rightly—although I know there are arguments about this—that the Conservatives would win more of those seats. The argument gets a big convoluted if you put in the alternative vote, when it becomes more difficult to predict. But there is not much doubt that in the mind of the Conservative Party since 2004 there has been the view that the Labour Party has too many seats in Parliament and that the Tory Party should have more.
Lord Tyler
I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Soley. Uncharacteristically, he seems not to have been attending to all these debates. If he had been listening, he would have heard the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, making it quite clear from the democratic audit analysis of the potential effects of the proposals in the Bill that there is no substantial increase in advantage for the Conservative Party. Indeed, I have to say that there is some disadvantage to my own party. In all fairness, I should have thought he would recognise that. It is the most legitimate, careful analysis of the potential impact of this Bill.
Lord Soley
I said a number of times, as I did in my last speech, that I am not sure whether the Tory Party would gain as much as it thinks, but it clearly thinks that it is going to gain. They are saying it over and over again. Does he deny there is evidence of that? It is also in the speeches. David Cameron said in 2009, “We are unfairly treated”, so what is he saying? Do your Lordships think that he really has not asked his party workers to work it out? Of course he has.
Lord Anderson of Swansea
Surely, even if were not to turn out that way, the very process raises the question. It will be a tainted process and people will suspect it as such.
Lord Soley
The point I made earlier is that if a major party is left out of the arrangements for deciding the size of the legislature, there will be trouble. I give way to my noble friend, who has great experience of this sort of thing.
Lord Wills
I am grateful to my noble friend. I wanted to suggest that he might direct the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, who asked for evidence of the partisan nature of this legislation, to the website of Mr Mark Field—a prominent Member of the other place on the Conservative Benches—where he made it explicitly clear. I think that this is still up there; it was a few days ago. It says quite clearly that the party managers in the other place were going around seeking support for this legislation precisely because it would be to their partisan advantage.
Lord Soley
There is no doubt that that is how most people in the Conservative Party view it. I shall simply sit down on this point; the Government have made a fatal flaw. They are trying to decide the size of a Parliament without the agreement of the major parties. No other modern democracy would do that. All the bodies that we are part of, which oversee elections in countries emerging from dictatorships, look for that problem, identify it and point it out. The Government have also not looked at the other factor which I have referred to: the size of the payroll vote. They had something in here which said that they would reduce the size of the payroll vote. I know that we will come to that later. Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, will vote for it. He has obviously noticed it and clearly recognised its importance. It may be that I can tempt him into the Lobby on that one; who knows?
This is so important, not some stupid idea of: “Well, just filibuster for the hell of it”. I do not want to go back to what we did in the other place, staying overnight. I have far better things to do, frankly, with the remaining years of my life than to stay up night after night. But if a Government change the size of a Parliament without all-party agreement, they are driving a coach and horses through all the agreements that exists between parties in this place. They therefore cannot and must not assume that we will not fight it, because they would fight it if we did to them. If we did come back—and, as my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours says, I hope that we will not—with a figure in the House of Commons that suited us, do not tell me that they would not all be lined up on the other side doing everything that they could to prevent it. I beg to move this amendment.
The Lord Speaker (Baroness Hayman)
I have to inform the Committee that if Amendment 59 is agreed to, I cannot call Amendments 60 to 63ZA for reasons of pre-emption.
Lord Lipsey
My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 60, which is a companion amendment to that moved by the noble Lord, Lord Soley. Before I go into the substance of the argument, perhaps I could make an offer—I must say that this is without any permission from my Front Bench—to the party opposite. We will happily stop accusing you of gerrymandering if you stop accusing us of filibustering. I heard the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Soley. It was all material and to the point. If I was filibustering, I would have been extraordinarily grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Garel-Jones, who unfortunately is not still in his place—I expect he thinks that he has made his point—for prolonging the debate. Yet I was not grateful for it because it seemed to do what we all want to avoid doing: to turn this into a party political argy-bargy instead of being, as it should be, a proper scrutiny of the Bill before this House of Parliament.
In the interests of proceeding reasonably rapidly, I shall not go over again the arguments that my noble friend Lord Soley put so well for an independent look at this. My remarks are devoted more to the case for that being done by a Speaker’s Conference. A range of views have been expressed on the substantive issues of whether we should stick with 650—my conservative noble and learned friend Lord Falconer has strongly argued that case; or whether we should reduce the number—the reductionists include the noble Lord, Lord Maples, and my noble friend Lord Rooker; or should, like me, sit on the fence but say that there are arguments against a reduction. I am bound to say that I did not find the Minister’s response to the earlier debate terribly convincing on why the number should be 650. He did not say the figure was plucked out of the air because he is too shrewd an operator to do so, but it did not sound very different from being plucked out of the air to me. I am therefore taking as made the case for independent inquiry, and I will detain the House only to make the case that that should be by a Speaker’s Conference and not, for example, by a royal commission, an independent inquiry headed by a judge or whatever.
The main reason that I think it should be by a Speaker’s Conference is that this is essentially a matter for parliamentarians. I say “parliamentarians” because I should want this House to be represented on any such Speaker’s Conference. This is not because it is Members of another place who are going to be most adversely affected by what is being proposed. That is an issue—they have trade union rights, if you like—but that is not a good reason why they should be involved. The first reason that they should be involved is that they are the most knowledgeable about the issues involved. They may not all agree, but they have the experience of representing their constituents and existing in the House of Commons to weigh the arguments. There are arguments for a reduction; there is no doubt about it. It is difficult, for example, to get to speak in a debate in the Commons now. It is important that they should be weighing those arguments with the issue of which they have more knowledge than anybody else, which is whether the workload can be coped with by the average MP with the current level of staffing or even an increased level of staffing. They would bring that wisdom to bear, and we need it.
The second reason for thinking that a Speaker’s Conference is right is that however wise the verdict, if it does not attract political consensus, it will not be right and it will not necessarily stick. It is important that we achieve such a consensus, and it is important that all parties are agreed on it. A Speaker’s Conference could achieve this. The coalition should be very sympathetic to this line of argument because the figure we have came about not because either one of the two parties involved was committed to it but because they sat down together and this was the figure they came up with. Widening the consensus to embrace all parties would seem to be an argument that should appeal to the coalition. It seems to me that those are the two fundamental cases for a Speaker’s Conference.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
I wonder whether my noble friend heard me arguing earlier for some flexibility for the Boundary Commission. Would it not also be possible for the Speaker’s Conference to recommend a range so that it should be between figure x and figure y to give a little bit of flexibility to the Boundary Commission? Is that not another advantage of his proposal?
Lord Lipsey
That would be a possible outcome of a Speaker’s Conference. It might also decide that the way to deal with the particular problem that he is advancing is by increasing the tolerance allowed in the size of constituencies, and that is a matter to which this House will return.
In order to have a look at whether a Speaker’s Conference is the right way forward, I devoted a happy Sunday to examining the records of past Speaker’s Conferences. Funnily enough, that is not as easy a task as you might think, partly because there is no agreement on how many Speaker’s Conferences there are. I started off with British Political Facts, which is the bible on all these matters, and it said six, but I then found a speech made by Jack Straw in another place—Official Report, Commons, 12/3/98; col. 781—in which he listed two Speaker’s Conferences not listed by British Political Facts in 1908-10 and 1930. There is also the ambiguous case of the 1919 Speaker’s Conference on devolution, which was chaired by Mr Speaker Lowther, and nobody seems to be able decide whether it was a Speaker’s Conference. Let me confine myself to the six Speaker’s Conferences that everybody agrees on and the progress that they made.
There was the Speaker’s Conference on electoral reform of 1917, which is my favourite. It not only advocated extending votes to women but—prize of prizes for the Lib Dems—it recommended STV. This, alas, was subsequently voted down by seven votes in the House of Commons. There was a Speaker’s Conference on electoral reform in 1943-44, which dealt, for example, with Welsh representation. The 1944 Speaker’s Conference was notable, incidentally, for including three Peers of the realm. It set out lasting principles for redistribution and directions to the Boundary Commission, which endured well. Sixty of 71 quite controversial recommendations by the 1965-68 conference on electoral law and procedure, under Mr Speaker Hylton-Foster, were accepted.
The 1973-74 Speaker’s Conference was under Mr Speaker Selwyn Lloyd. I am sorry the noble Lord, Lord Maclennan, is not present because I believe he sat on that as an MP, as did the noble Lord, Lord Pendry. That brought about an increase in election expenses, which otherwise would not have come about, for the February 1974 election. There was the 1977-78 Speaker’s Conference, under Mr Speaker Thomas, on Northern Ireland representation. I see my noble friend Lord Radice is with us evening but the noble Lord, Lord Molyneaux, who also sat on that conference, is not present. That managed to solve the question of increased representation for Northern Ireland, although not everyone got everything they hoped for out of that. Then there was Gordon Brown’s Speaker’s Conference on electoral turnout and women and ethnic minorities in Parliament. It is not a flawless record but it is a considerable one, covering some of the most difficult problems that have faced this country’s constitution.
Lord Davies of Stamford
Does the conference on the future of home rule, which took place in the summer of 1914 at Buckingham Palace, and was certainly presided over by the Speaker, not count as a Speaker’s Conference?
Lord Lipsey
I do not know whether it should but it does not count in Mr Straw’s list or in British Political Facts. If my noble friend wishes to inform the House further about that, I am sure it would be immensely valuable to our proceedings this evening.
Lord Morgan
I think the difference is between a conference convened by the party leaders, which they ask the Speaker to chair, and a conference that the Speaker is a dynamic element in arranging.
Lord Lipsey
I defer absolutely to my noble friend. Indeed, I was quailing in my seat at the thought of the intervention he might make, which might have sent me back to the classroom on this matter.
Lord Anderson of Swansea
On the Speaker’s Conferences, I genuinely am ignorant about this one question. To what extent was there a clear remit to each of these Speaker’s Conferences? From this debate, it is rather important that there should be flexibility and that a number of principles should be put to the Speaker’s Conference to decide. Has it been the practice to give a very broad remit or to set out in extenso the various principles on which the Speaker’s Conference should decide? Since my noble friend has devoted all of one Sunday to the study of this subject, I am sure he can enlighten us.
Lord Lipsey
Noble Lords will find that a range of experiences are set out in a Speaker’s Conference Standard Note, House of Commons document, SN/PC/04426, which has in it most of the knowledge that I have tried to impart. In some ways we should learn from the shortcomings of past Speaker’s Conferences in setting up this new one. They have tended to be rather big, often having 27 members. Not all of them have included Members of this House. For very good reasons I am sure that this time we would want to include Members of this House this time. In particular—this deals with the point that the Government might make against them—this one will need a speedy timetable as it is no part of the purpose of this side of the House to delay a decision or to make it impossible to introduce these changes for the next general election, if that is the desire of Parliament. Indeed, it would speed the passage of this bit of the legislation through this House if there was such a speedy conference. I really do not think this issue is so complicated that two or three months of hard work would not get us a good verdict which would enable the whole process to go forward on a sound basis of consensus, and therefore to endure.
The Government have rushed us into a bad place and now they are complaining that we are rushing willingly into that place. The figure they have come up with may be right, but if it is right it is by sheer fluke, not by plan or consideration. This House, of the parliamentary Houses, stands for a reasoned approach to public policy, and in particular to public policy on our constitution. I therefore commend this amendment to the House.
Lord Morgan
My Lords, I support the amendment admirably moved by my noble friend. This is my first intervention in discussing this measure. I do so partly because late at night one has an opportunity to make a speech without being shouted down by mass of numbers and because the constitutional issues raised are so enormously important. The proposal for a Speaker’s Conference is very serious and admirable as it gives an opportunity for objective measured reflection, which is manifestly something we are not having through the procedures chosen by the Government to get this measure through. There has been much debate on this and I have heard many noble friends on these Benches correctly say that Parliament has not had a proper opportunity to deliberate on the principles of this Bill. I say, never mind Parliament, the electors have not had a proper opportunity to do so. That is one of the extraordinary anomalies of this case, which was not put together in a manifesto. The Liberal Democrats gave a quite different number for the membership of this House. The Conservatives prudently did not give any number at all. It was not in the manifesto. It was not actually even in the substitute for the manifesto, which in itself was a constitutional anomaly, the coalition agreement, which was not put before the electors but was put before the people in that rather small room who put the present Government together. Some issues are not even in the coalition agreement, which I understand did not produce the figure of 600. This has simply emerged out of the ether and is therefore not to be found in any document, written or unwritten, other than the Bill we are discussing.
A Speaker’s Conference would also provide objective reflection on this portmanteau Bill of policies yoked together haphazardly, as the coalition parties were yoked together. As we have heard so frequently, it is at variance with constitutional tradition whereby major changes have been deliberated over at very great length and with great care. The Bill is being rushed through not because of the constitutional needs of good government in this country but because of the nature of the relationships between the Liberal Democrat leaders and the Conservative Party leaders which affect the date of the referendum for their own, no doubt, proper purposes. This is simply a matter of private deals, not of constitutional necessity.
One of the things that a Speaker’s Conference would most certainly do is what Speaker’s Conferences have previously done, and that includes the very important principle of localism and local identity, which is being swamped in this Bill. Incidentally, if I might add to my noble friend’s admirable historical disquisition on this—I was sorry to interrupt him—the Speaker’s Conference of 1919, which he passed over rather rapidly, dealt very specifically with localism and regionalism and was a conference, incidentally, where the issue of Welsh home rule came up quite strongly. One of the ironies is that the proposals for Wales are likely to make Welsh home rule rather more likely—and they are the work of the party of the union—because of the way in which Wales is being treated.
Speaker’s Conferences have looked at a variety of criteria for assessing whether constituencies should exist, where they should be drawn, their geographical, economic and cultural aspects, and so on. They have used historical identity and the relationship with local government. None of these subtleties are being looked at in detail in the Bill. On the contrary, we have simply a crude mathematical formula. That is not the way that change has been done in this country.
We have heard in previous debates about the Chartists, who called for equal electoral districts. However, the Chartists, in that pre-railway age, had a very strong sense of localism and historic identity. Chartism was an amalgam, a coalition, of dispossessed people in different parts of the country. The Chartists were very aware that a variety of localities were represented in the country’s political system—or that they should have been. They were not objecting to the disparities; they were saying that Old Sarum was deemed to be a community, even though nobody lived there—it was just a lump of ground owned by someone. Other constituencies are equal in historical aberrations. Manchester is a community. Sheffield is a community. Liverpool, Hull and Birmingham are communities. That was the kind of consideration that the Chartists tried to bring.
The Speaker’s Conference on Wales, as my noble friend Lord Lipsey said, considered very carefully the nature of localism there. Like me, my noble friend who lives there is aware of the subtleties of localism, geography, historic identity and historic relationships in Wales. If I may digress, I am aware of that because my mother and father came from two Welsh-speaking areas three miles apart, but their Welshness and their language were totally different. They were divided by the River Dovey. I grew up not bilingual, but trilingual, because I spoke in my father’s Welsh and my mother’s Welsh, as well as trying to struggle along in the English language, which I am still trying to master after the passage of years. I am doing my best.
It is extremely important that these subtleties should be looked at by a judicious body, chaired by the Speaker, with a variety of legal and historical evidence adduced. No evidence at all has been adduced, as the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, said, for the figure of 600 Members of Parliament. That is just a figure, worth no less and no more than any other figure. There is plenty of evidence that the size of the House of Commons is not out of line with that of other Assemblies in the European Union or in North America. Some of those other countries have, in any case, federal systems, such as those in Germany and Spain. Therefore, the comparison is totally meaningless.
It is disturbing that the Bill, with little opportunity for consideration and reflection, not merely decides arbitrarily without evidence, but sets up a yardstick for future determination. Once you have started with this kind of system, it will continue, and its inevitable logic is that the representation of the House of Commons will go down and not up. Therefore, we need to take a careful, considered view of these matters, which are important not just for our constitution but for our historic identity.
I will say one final thing. The Speaker’s Conference of 1944 was an admirable, careful and thorough study of the geographical, sociological and other aspects of the distribution of constituencies. There was quite a lot going on in 1944. A total war was being fought and the resources of this country were strained to the limit. Nevertheless, the Speaker's Conference held its deliberations carefully and at length. It was typical of Winston Churchill, who showed great loyalty to parliamentarism, that he endorsed the work of the Speaker's Conference in 1944. If we had time in 1944 for a proper, considered look at the distinction between national and local considerations, we have time for it now, instead of this botched and rushed procedure.
Baroness Wall of New Barnet
I have listened very carefully to my noble friend. There was a lot of history that I found very interesting. What struck me most was the issue of localism. I find very confusing the position of the Government. They say that they are all about the big society and that people will decide locally what schools they would like and how their hospitals are run. Local issues are presented by the Government as the way forward. My noble friend mentioned that it was fundamental in the conference that local issues were taken into account. However, this seems totally unacceptable to the current Government. Perhaps my noble friend can elicit from the Government why that is the case.
Lord Morgan
I am most indebted for that very interesting intervention by my noble friend. Very often those who claim to be localisers are actually centralisers. No Government rolled forward the frontiers of the state more than that of the noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher, in the 1980s. Hers was one of the most centralist Governments in our history. The present Government claim to advocate localism. Mr Pickles says that he advocates localism and the big society. He does that by telling councils what their policies should be on lighting, on the emptying of bins, on the number of local employees, on the stipends of local government officers and so on.
Localism is shot through the history of this country. It is an honoured tradition of the Liberal Party, which was pluralist. Lloyd George spoke of assizes of the people being set up in different parts of Britain. He was a radical liberal and I hope that his spirit still has resonance in the ranks of his mutated successors. The Labour Party used to claim that, but it lost its way. In the era of Keir Hardie and George Lansbury, Labour was committed to localism and local government. It then became a party of centralisers. That was one reason why it lost the last election and why the Conservatives’ spurious claims to be localisers made some headway. I was very pleased on Saturday to hear Ed Miliband reclaim localism for the Labour Party.
The Conservatives used to be a localist party. They used to claim as their patron saint Edmund Burke, who saw localism and varieties of identities and localities as the key to what he called prescription: the evolutionary historical character of a nation.
Baroness O'Cathain
I always love listening to the noble Lord, Lord Morgan. I have been to some of his lectures and there is no historian like him. Perhaps I may ask him a simple question. What has all that to do with this amendment?
Lord Morgan
First, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her great kindness. Secondly, I was endeavouring to say that the Speaker’s Conference and any rational detached look at the electoral system would introduce the issue of localities. That is what I was trying to say and, if I did not say it very clearly, I apologise. It is essential to segregate local and national identities. Edmund Burke said it and I say it.
Lord Winston
My noble friend cites 1944. Would he like to opine on whether he feels that Parliament was held in greater respect then and whether that is relevant to how it is regarded now?
Lord Morgan
The answer is clearly yes. If you look at the material of the Army Bureau of Current Affairs in 1944, you find that, when people were asked why they were fighting, they said that they were fighting for Parliament and the Crown in Parliament. That was in the literature. It spelt out, among other things, the imperishable doctrines of the Levellers, who were seen as pioneers of a democratic Parliament.
I am sorry if I did not make it clear, but I think that a Speaker’s Conference would introduce a subtle variety of criteria on the basis of constituencies. You would then conclude the total appropriate number for the House. This should be done in a detached, careful and scholarly way. I hope that even though the present Government are trying to destroy history with their higher education policy, with so little room for history, they will look at the way in which these matters are decided—any way other than this, which seems to me a botched non-compromise and a disgrace to democracy.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
My Lords, I rise with some trepidation because I am going to disagree with my noble friend Lord Lipsey and, I am afraid with my noble friend, the very eminent professor, who has just spoken. Instead, I would prefer to support the amendment standing in the name of my noble friend Lord Soley, which calls for the number of constituencies to be decided by an independent commission. I hope that the reasons for that will become clear.
It is probably agreed—perhaps not by the Leader of the House, but by everyone else—that we do not know the right number for the other place. Your Lordships will probably not remember, but in one of our earliest debates—it may have been on Second Reading—my noble friend Lord Dubs made from a seated position perhaps the most effective intervention when he mimed plucking from the air how that figure of 600 was arrived at. He claimed that that got him more fame than all his speeches, but I am not certain about that.
I am less interested in the question that has taken so much of the Committee’s time of how that figure of 600 was reached than by how any number should be reached. That is why I support the amendment moved by my noble friend Lord Soley. Incidentally, he may not know it, but in a book that I have just been reading by Jonathan Powell he is described, as he was at the time, as one of the sanest MPs. He has now been transferred into one of the sanest of our noble Lords—hence the amendment.
What is of interest to citizens—not us, the political class, if I can put us all into the same category, including even the Cross-Benchers, who as legislators would be deemed to be in the political class—on whose behalf we are all here, for whom we work, to whom we owe our legitimacy, to whom surely we have some duty of care and attention and who are the basis of our motivation in everything that we do, should be uppermost in our minds in this debate. For many years I represented the consumers of various goods and services on a variety of bodies and was in negotiations with suppliers from big business and small business, in the public sector as well as in the private sector. I learnt enormously from those whom I was supposedly there to help but who unfailingly taught me much.
I think that we should be thinking of some of the things that I learnt about how consumers, citizens, users and, yes, voters see and relate to those who take decisions on their behalf or whose decisions affect their lives, as we debate. Those people want to know: who decided what? When did they decide it? Where did they decide it? Why did they decide it? Those people ask, “Were we consulted? Were we warned about it? Were we thought about in advance?”. They often asked me whether those decisions respected their interests and their needs. Perhaps most importantly, they would say: “How can I get my voice heard by those people who take decisions that affect me?”.
That is why, historically, trade unions were formed: to give workers some say. It is why user groups are formed, whether of people who use libraries, parent groups, or car groups—all sorts of groups where people who share an interest want to get a voice. What bigger issue is there than how people can get their voice heard by Members of Parliament, who take decisions that affect them or can influence decisions taken by others that affect them?
How constituencies are put together and how many there are should perhaps not be decided at all by the political class, which is why I have to differ with the view that there should be a Speaker’s Conference. I think that the decision on the number should be taken by an independent group hearing from local people as to how they can best relate to their Member of Parliament, who will vote on the big issues here in SW1 but who will also use their influence and interventions over numerous issues—be they planning, hospitals, education, local government services, housing or private issues, such as complaints against a provider.
Lord Morgan
I have enormous sympathy with the spirit of what my noble friend is saying, but the point is that a Speaker’s Conference would only recommend; it would not decide. The decision would be taken by people very similar to those whom my noble friend discussed.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
It is the decision-making that I am interested in, but it seems to me that we need an independent committee that can go out to hear those views before it makes its recommendations. We need to decide how many electors can effectively be represented by a Member in the other place and not how many electors an MP can represent. Let us look at it the other way round: how many electors can effectively be represented by a Member of the other place? That means talking to those voters and asking them how they see the need for such direct communication with their representative, how they want to feel represented and how they want to be consulted.
Lord Anderson of Swansea
I think that my noble friend is arguing both for an independent group and for a Speaker’s Conference, because either, in their different ways, could achieve her aim. A Speaker’s Conference could commission public opinion surveys and would have the benefit of having Members of Parliament who could give the view from the front line. That would have a more valuable conclusion. I do not see why my noble friend is arguing against a Speaker’s Conference, which could do very much as she is suggesting.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
If I may say so, I think that that is the voice of the trade union of former Members of the other House, as opposed to those of us who have never been there.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
Indeed, my noble friend, the most eminent professor, has never been there.
My view is that this should be a matter for the electors; their views should have a big say. It may be that these two amendments can come together to meet the essence of what we both want. I am trying to stress that this decision should not be taken by the political class; it should be taken after hearing from voters, citizens and those who will become voters how they think they can best be represented. How will people want to relate to their elected Members? Will it be by phone and e-mail? Will it be in person, one to one, or will it be through groups? I am not on Facebook, but people increasingly want their views to be heard through groups and texting, along with others of a similar position.
That may result in all sorts of needs for the size of the House, because it may be better to go, as I think was said on the Benches opposite earlier, for big constituencies, rather like the old Euro constituencies, which were the size of nine of our current constituencies. It was clear to electors that that was not where they should take local issues and that they should go to their councillors, or that they should take just big policy issues to Members of Parliament. I am not certain whether that is the right or the wrong answer. Perhaps we should have smaller constituencies, so that people can meet their representatives more. The needs of the electors should be uppermost in our minds, or in the minds of those who take these decisions, in relation to the number of seats and, therefore, the relationship that Members can have with their electors.
The same applies to the personal issues or issues of policy that electors have. Again, it may be that people will much more want to gather together, whether they have an interest in the environment, historic buildings, health or education. They may want to be grouped much more when talking about policy. Surely these issues need serious debate, rather than a quick and easy decision.
I do not know what the right number should be but, from my work with the consumers and users of any service, I know that they want to be asked, to be consulted and to be involved in those decisions before the decision is taken. That is why I support my noble friend Lord Soley in calling for an independent commission to work on this, to do real work with voters and to think about those sorts of issues. Then we might get an answer that is accepted by the whole electorate and provides for a House of Commons that really reflects the will of the people.
Lord Goldsmith
My Lords, I too support the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Soley. It is a hugely important issue—I am troubled that there is some appearance on the other side of the House that it is not—for two reasons. First, it is hugely important for this country how our people are represented. The number of Members of Parliament, for all the reasons that have been described previously, is very important. It is also important for the reason put by my noble friend Lord Soley, and mentioned by my noble friend Lady Wall; namely, the example that we set to the rest of the world.
Other Members of this House have the experience, as the noble Lord, Lord Soley, spoke about, of the Council of Europe talking to other countries and helping them to build their democracies and their systems. I have that experience, through a slightly different route, through the work that I have done across the world involved with human rights organisations and lawyers’ organisations. I ask myself this question: if they said to me, “Why have you reduced the number of Members of Parliament? What was the reason for it? What was the rationale? How did you arrive at the number?”, at the moment I can do no better than refer to the answer given to the Select Committee on the Constitution, on which I have the honour to serve.
When we pressed the Minister for Political and Constitutional Reform, Mr Mark Harper, with the question, “Why have you chosen 600?”, he could not answer. He told us that it was not a horse trade and that he did not think that it would qualitatively affect the representation of people in this country. But he could not tell us where the number came from. He ended by saying, and here I quote from paragraph 28 of our report:
“I am not going to pretend that there is a magic science to all this”.
I have been listening to cross-examinations all my life, so when someone says that there is no “magic science” to something, what they mean is that there is no science at all. There is no basis for this figure. I cannot explain to people across the world why Britain, the cradle of democracy, has chosen this number. They will know that people have accused the Government of looking to find a way of reducing the number of seats for the party in opposition if I cannot even explain the Government’s own view.
The merit of both the amendments, although I support the amendment put forward by my noble friend Lord Soley rather than that of my noble friend Lord Lipsey, is that they do two things. They propose a rational way of deciding what the right number should be and they provide it in a way that is either independent or at least non-partisan. Both have the merit that after the event people cannot say, as has been said in this House, that this is being done just in order to favour one party rather than another. I do not want to be part of a democracy, with the tradition we have, where that is what is said about us.
Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, we are dealing with that under Amendment 91 later on. I look forward very much to hearing what the noble and learned Lord has to say when we get to it.
Lord Goldsmith
I am afraid that the noble Lord is going to have to listen to me about it now. I have explained to him why I want to speak.
Lord Strathclyde
There is a fundamental regulation in this House that we speak to the amendments that have been moved. I have respectfully pointed out to the noble and learned Lord that the amendment to which he wishes to speak will, I am sure, be moved later on. That is when we should discuss it. He should stick to the rules of the House.
Lord Goldsmith
I am absolutely sticking to the rules of the House because what both of these amendments propose is an assessment rationally based on evidence as to what the numbers should be. It is impossible, in my view, to answer that question without knowing what the relationship between the Executive and the legislature is going to be. Let me remind the noble Lord and members of the party opposite of what was said by the Deputy Prime Minister in explaining the rationale of the constitutional reform being put forward. One of the things he said was this:
“It is an unambiguous judgment on our part that reducing the power of the executive, seeking to boost the power of the legislature, making the legislature more accountable to the people … collectively introduces the mechanisms by which people can exercise greater control over politicians”.
These are good and fine thoughts, but how do you unambiguously reduce the power of the Executive or seek to boost the power of the legislature if you reduce the number of Back-Bench MPs and do not proportionately or in some other way reduce the membership of the Executive?
It may be that it is not right, as the later amendment proposes, to do that simply on a proportionate basis, but in the Constitution Committee we asked both the Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister, Mr Mark Harper, about the relationship between the Executive and Back Benchers after these reforms. I remind noble Lords what they both said—it is in paragraph 32 of the seventh report of the Select Committee on the Constitution:
“The Deputy Prime Minister recognised that ‘There is a strong argument that says that you must look at this and adapt the number of people who are on the government payroll so that you do not get a lopsided imbalance between those on the payroll and those holding them to account’”.
He is quite right. When is that going to happen? He said: “I totally accept that”, but it is not happening in the Bill. Unless the Leader of the House is going to surprise us by accepting the amendment later—I strongly suspect that he is not going to do anything of the sort—it is not going to happen in the Bill.
The Minister was asked the same question. He also accepted that,
“there is a problem that needs to be dealt with”,
but argued that the Bill is not the right vehicle to do it. What I say, and I care about constitutional reform—sadly, lawyers do—is that this House is being asked to accept, and indeed the country is being asked to accept, a change in the balance between the Executive and Back-Benchers, purportedly in the context of a programme which argues for a reduction in the power of the Executive in circumstances where we do not know what the end result will be.
Lord Martin of Springburn
On the power of the Executive, I accept the noble and learned Lord’s case that we have to reduce the Executive, but will he accept that when that reduction takes place those who are left should respect the constitution of this country and that the first people to be informed of any ministerial change should be the Members on the Floor of the House of Commons? I am not putting him, as a former Minister of the Crown, in this category, but there were Cabinet Ministers and junior Ministers who could not wait to get into a television studio, but would not come to the Floor of the House. That is why Urgent Questions were accepted. Complaints would come from the then Opposition about this practice, and now I see that the roles are reversed. We are back to square one and there are Ministers who love going to the media, but are not prepared to come to the Floor of the House. The Executive should always be prepared to get on to the Floor of the House.
Lord Goldsmith
I entirely agree with the noble Lord and I apologise for not realising that he wanted to intervene. The point that he makes is that part of the point of the relationship between the Executive and the legislature—the Executive and Back-Benchers—is precisely that Back-Benchers and Parliament as a whole can keep Ministers to account. If you get an imbalance, where the Executive stays the same but the number of Back-Benchers reduces by 10 per cent or thereabouts, that ability for accountability disappears.
I come back to the question raised by the Leader of the House—why is this relevant to this amendment? It is relevant to this amendment—to both amendments—because both talk about the need for assessing on a rational basis what the right position should be. I do not see, given how important is the relationship between the Executive and the rest of the legislature, how we can address the issue without dealing with the number of Back-Benchers compared to the size of the Executive. An independent commission could look at the question and make recommendation; so, indeed, no doubt, could a Speaker’s Conference. Either of the amendments has the benefit of that assessment.
Lord Anderson of Swansea
Does my noble and learned friend accept that, when he talks about the members of the Executive as a whole, he should include not only the Government, but also Parliamentary Private Secretaries, the numbers of whom have proliferated and who feel themselves equally to be within the big tent of government?
Lord Goldsmith
My noble friend Lord Anderson is right about that, which is one of the issues that needs to be dealt with.
On the essential principle, these two amendments raise the critical question: do we have to rush to judgment about the number of MPs, and how should that number be reached? I am going to listen with great interest to what the Minister says—perhaps he will come up with a better answer than the one that the Select Committee on the Constitution of your Lordships’ House was given—but at the moment there is no answer as to why, in those circumstances, the number should not be determined independently, or at least on a non-partisan basis, by rational judgment and by evidence. The case for that, in my view, is overwhelming.
Lord Elystan-Morgan
My Lords, I will speak briefly in support of the spirit of Amendments 59 and 60.
First, though, the suggestion has been made more than once in the past few hours that it is wrong in some way for this House to be concerned with matters that affect the membership of the House of Commons and how those Members should be elected. That, in my respectful submission, is an utterly absurd view. Parliament is one and indivisible. Whether we like it or not, we are wholly responsible as one of the Houses of Parliament—technically, the senior House, although that is not so in practice vis-à-vis the elected House—and we have a duty. That trusteeship means that we cannot avoid scrutinising in the greatest detail anything that affects the future of Parliament as a whole.
Having said that, I believe that, as has been spelt out clearly by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, both amendments have this in common: they are a cri de coeur for a grave and weighty constitutional problem to be decided on the basis not of a stab in the dark nor of instinctive feelings—no matter how genuine those feelings are—but of evidence.
The noble Lord, Lord Morgan, with whose speech I completely concurred, in a very scholarly dissemination of the problem—as one would expect from a distinguished historian—put the matter clearly in the context of history, whereas the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, put the matter in the context of law. As one who has spent most of his time in the courts, in one way or another, I ask myself this question: if a grave and weighty decision is to be arrived at by any tribunal, how can that tribunal decide other than on the basis of cogent evidence and on the basis of questions such as what construction and weight should be placed upon that evidence and what conclusions and inferences should be drawn therefrom?
The argument that was put forward—with great respect, I think that I do no disservice to the noble Lord the Leader of the House nor, indeed, to the noble Lords, Lord Baker and Lord Tyler—was this: “We know exactly what the parties think about this and what they have said in their various manifestos, so there is no need to look any further”. That misses the point completely. There is every need to look further because we all have deep instinctive feelings, probably genuine and sincerely held, but they are nevertheless no more than feelings and instincts and are not based on evidence. Whether that evidence is gathered in the way that Amendments 59 or 60 suggest or in some other way, provided that it is gathered by an authoritative, independent and well qualified body, our duty in the situation will have been met.
There are two duties in ensuring that Parliament can decide. As the noble Lord, Lord Morgan, has said, the matter should be determined not by the Speaker’s Conference or by any other conference but by Parliament. First, Parliament must be able to arrive at an informed decision on the basis of the facts—indeed, the facts may well be in dispute, and Parliament will have to select which facts it accepts and which it does not. Secondly—this is equally important—the people of this country should understand why it was that their legislators came to that decision.
Lord Davies of Stamford
My Lords, my noble friends Lord Soley and Lord Lipsey have done a great service to the House by bringing forward their two amendments this evening. I think that they have also done rather a good service to the Government, although I am not sure that the Government realise it yet, because they may have provided a way out of this situation that would enable the Government to get substantially what they want with the general consent of the Committee.
I am trying to act according to what I think should be the principles of the House of Lords—that is, in good faith, with good will and with a genuine openness to compromise. I think that those are important values, particularly in a Second Chamber, or revising Chamber, as this House is. Therefore, I say straight away in that spirit, and at the risk of shocking some of my noble friends, that I accept that the Government have a democratic mandate to reduce the size of the House of Commons. Unfortunately, the Tory party and the Liberal Democrats won the election. Both parties had in their manifestos a commitment to reduce the size of the House of Commons and that must constitute a democratic mandate. We do not necessarily like that—some of us dislike it less than others—but I think that in all honesty we have to accept that.
However, what the coalition parties sure as hell do not have is a mandate to reduce the number of MPs in the House of Commons to 600. A different figure was given in the two manifestos. The coalition parties can change their mind, as I hope we are all allowed to do, but the fact is that the mandate does not cover the number; it covers the principle. Therefore, by definition, the number must be open to debate and discussion. It is totally legitimate for us to go into that debate and discussion to see whether we can find either the ideal number—which, for reasons that I shall explain, I do not think we can or will find—or an alternative mechanism for ending up with the right solution. That is clearly what we must do.
On this side of the House, we should be honest enough to recognise that the Government have a mandate to reduce the size of the Commons, and the Government should be honest enough to recognise that they do not have a mandate for a specific figure and that, therefore, the debate on the figure must remain open. The Government have already changed their mind about the number and, as I said, they have a perfect right to do so, but perhaps they will change their mind again in the light of the debate that is taking place. That would not be in any way humiliating for the Government; it would be very sensible and democratic for them to listen to the debate and then come to a more mature conclusion.
Again, I may find that I am in disagreement with some of my noble friends on this side of the House, but I am not, and never have been, against the principle of reducing the number of MPs in the House of Commons. I do not feel particularly strongly about the figure of 650, although I think that we would all accept that there must be a limit to the size of the reduction that can responsibly take place.
I enjoyed what I considered to be an important contribution to the debate by the noble Lord, Lord Maples, although I am sorry that he is not in his seat at the moment. However, I disagreed with him very strongly when he said, “Well, it’s all right if Members of Parliament have more people to deal with—more constituents, more electors and a greater population, whether registered or not registered—in their constituency, because they can use their staff to look after them”. Having served in the House of Commons for 33 years, perhaps I may say to the Committee that I do not think that that is a good argument. Of course, I had staff—I had very good staff—and I used them to deal with constituency cases, to verify the facts, to look at possible solutions and ways forward, and of course to follow up cases, which is always a very important aspect of a constituency MP’s work.
I also used my staff to draft letters, but I always signed them myself, and I always made sure that I knew the considered advice that I was giving my constituents. It was always I who sent a letter to the authority, local authority, Minister or quango, or whoever I needed to contact to try to resolve the question. It is extremely important that Members of Parliament continue to take direct personal responsibility for that kind of action—responsibility both to the constituent who has appealed to him or her and to the organisation or perhaps colleagues in government to whom one appeals on behalf of the constituent.
I am absolutely horrified at—as has been referred to already in the Committee this evening—the habit of Congressmen in the United States, who allow their staff to draft letters and send them using an automatic signature machine so that it looks as though the Congressman has reviewed the case when he has not. That is deeply shocking. I would be appalled if that habit came into this country. However, if you talk to Congressmen, you begin to understand, because they typically have 250,000 or 300,000 electors, which is far more than anyone here is proposing.
There must be a dividing line somewhere. For most of the time that I was in the House of Commons, I had a constituency that came close to having 75,000 electors, so I would not be shocked by that figure—if the Government had wanted to make it 77,000, I am sure that I could have coped with that, too. However, there is a limit, and we should be aware of the trade-off between having a more cohesive House of Commons, with fewer people there, and being able to offer a personal service to, and have a direct relationship with, those who send Members of Parliament to Westminster, which is such an important part of our democracy.
We have to look at how we achieve that solution and trade-off and how we optimise or reconcile those two different considerations. It is extremely doubtful that this or the other House could ever come to a resolution on that; we would never be completely happy with such a solution. There is no perfect, idealised, atomic number somewhere in the air that, if only we were clever enough, we could identify. The only practicable solution for achieving a majority of a particular number in this House or the other place would be for the Government to take up that number and push it through via the Whipping system. That would be highly undesirable.
I shall not accuse the Government of gerrymandering, as I do not believe that the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, would be a willing party to that. I am sorry that the gerrymandering issue has arisen, but I have to tell the Government in all honesty that any Government who at any time start directly to determine things such as the number of Members of Parliament will open themselves to suspicions of gerrymandering. That is very dangerous. Gerrymandering is like corruption. It is so awful and so damaging to the legitimacy of our—or any other—democracy that not only should we not get involved in it but we should conduct ourselves in such a way that there is not the slightest suspicion that we might be getting involved in something of that kind. That means that we have to take the determination of the number away from the Floor of this House and the other place.
My noble friends Lord Lipsey and Lord Soley have produced alternative solutions—very much for the reasons put forward by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, so I need not repeat them. I prefer the solution of my noble friend Lord Soley. I tell him now that, if he is minded to press Amendment 59 to the vote, I shall be happy to follow him into the Lobby. In other words, it is far better to allow the Boundary Commission or some independent body to determine exactly what the number should be.
Lord Renton of Mount Harry
It surprises me that the noble Lord and others have said that an independent commission should decide on the right new number for MPs. What makes anyone think that we would agree with the result of an independent commission? We would surely disagree for one reason or another. For that reason, I firmly think that it is right for a majority in the Commons to decide on what the number should be, as they did by a vote of 321 ayes to 264 noes, because they are in a far more rightful place in history to make that decision than any commission will ever be.
Lord Davies of Stamford
I disagree with the noble Lord. I am quite surprised to hear him advance that position, because I know him well and believe him to be a man who believes not only that we should be guided by the political wisdom of the past, by history and by tradition but that we should not ignore that past and should be very cautious in doing violence to the traditions that have served us so well in British parliamentary democracy for so long. I know that there are many other contexts in which the noble Lord would be entirely with me.
We have heard figures given this evening—I do not remember them entirely—for the way in which numbers in the House of Commons have varied during the past 100 years. That has been a reflection of the Boundary Commission’s decisions, not of decisions taken by the House of Commons or this House to go for a specific number. Those variations have been a consequence of decisions made by the Boundary Commission when it has conducted its responsibilities, as it regularly does every decade or so, to look again parliamentary boundaries in this country.
Lord Campbell-Savours
There is another example. The Liberal Democrats will remember it very well; we had arguments about it in the last Parliament. It is the Electoral Commission. There were many times when the Liberal Democrats objected to our objections to aspects of Electoral Commission reports and recommendations, so there is a tradition of accepting independent body judgments when it comes to issues of elections and boundaries.
Lord Davies of Stamford
I am grateful for my noble friend’s support. That, indeed, is the right answer to the noble Lord, Lord Renton. In practice we have accepted these decisions. Part of the consensus on which British politics has been based is that we do not interfere with the Boundary Commission. We let it get on with its job, and we respect its decisions and its independence. It is deeply conscious of its responsibility in the light of the trust placed in it by Parliament and the public. When it has concluded its work, we accept the umpire’s decision. That is in the best British tradition, if I may say so.
Lord Anderson of Swansea
Is not the problem with what the noble Lord, Lord Renton is saying that he is arguing that the majority in the other place should be sufficient for the time being? That majority might change after an election. I can imagine the roars of disapproval at that new majority if we in opposition became the majority, and the roars of opposition from the other side. After a change of government, we would have as much legitimacy in changing the numbers as the current majority has if there were no interposition of some independent body, whether it be a Speaker’s Conference or some other form of independent commission.
Lord Davies of Stamford
I very much hear what my noble friend says. Of course, he has said similar things in the debate this evening, and he said them very well. I repeat that I was saddened and surprised to hear the noble Lord, Lord Renton, take the line that he took. I know he is very conscious of the history of this country and the history of the world. He just has to look at the history of other European countries over the past 100 years to see the terrible things that arise when Governments allow themselves to use a momentary parliamentary majority to change the rules of the game and change the constitution of the country. That is a very dangerous road to go down. If you compare the degree of legitimacy, public support and stability that we have enjoyed in this country for centuries with some of the histories of countries whose parliaments have not had that sense of moderation, limit and self denial in the exploitation of the momentary majority, I think you conclude that we have been very blessed by those traditions. It would be a very sad day if we were to overthrow those traditions and go down the road which the Government appear to be leading us tonight.
Lord Kinnock
On that point, does the noble Lord not agree that at this juncture we need an independent commission to assess and recommend the effective size, given the objective realities of parliamentary service and representation? We need an independent commission to provide advice that would be accepted consensually, as, under the terms of this Bill, the Boundary Commission, which has provided us for 61 years with a fundamental protection against any suspicion of gerrymandering, is to be railroaded and provided with parameters for its operation. Whatever else happens, it must conclude with recommendations that result in a House of Commons of 600 Members. Given the inexact nature of that, and given the absence of science or the absence of objective rationale supporting the figure of 600, is not an independent commission of wise people a fundamental essential?
Lord Davies of Stamford
I wholeheartedly agree with my noble friend. The most succinct way in which to put this issue is as follows. The Boundary Commission, charged with its very delicate task, as we know from debates this evening and from our own experience of determining a fair pattern of electoral districts and constituencies in this country, has to manage three variables. They include acceptability, which is very important and which means the degree to which the parliamentary constituency boundaries correspond to local people’s feelings of self-identity and community and perhaps how much they coincide with local government boundaries and boundaries involving other health authorities, travel to work areas and economic and social factors of that kind.
That acceptability has always been a major consideration in the mind of the Boundary Commission, which has always made great efforts to ensure that its recommendations are accepted as far as possible. That is part of making a democracy legitimate and accepted and therefore work happily, and that is why the commission has always placed great emphasis on the opportunity to have public inquiries on its recommendations. It has not run away from that at all. As I am sure the Leader of the House will remind me if I go on any further, that is a subject of further amendments, so we will have other opportunities to discuss that very important matter. The Boundary Commission has always recognised that acceptability is a very important aspect of their work.
The second issue is the extent of the uniformity of numbers. The Boundary Commission has always felt that, other things being equal, it was always desirable that constituencies should have the same numbers. Other things are not always equal, and so it has often made recommendations that do not involve very equal numbers in constituencies. Nevertheless, that has always been a principle at which it wanted to aim.
There is a third criterion, which the Government are introducing now—the actual number of seats that emerge. We all know that there is a trade-off between these things, and that if you have greater acceptability you will have greater variation in numbers because the commission will be more elastic in accommodating local susceptibilities, but at the expense of having some constituencies that have different numbers of electors than other constituencies. Equally, if you enforce a particular ceiling such as 600, you very much restrict the ability of the commission to achieve either of the other two purposes—uniformity of numbers or acceptability. There are three variables, and there is a trade-off between the three. That is inevitable; any system that you had would involve a trade-off between the three. The question is whether you honestly recognise those trade-offs or whether you do not.
My own view is that of these three criteria, two are recognisable general principles. Acceptability is a general principle. It is something that we can all say is right in theory and principle. We want to aim towards it; it is part of the good in our constitution, not part of the bad or dysfunctional. Equally, it is very desirable that we should as far as possible have constituencies of equal numbers, so that everyone has the same weight in terms of their representation in Parliament. Again, that is a general principle. It is part of the good in a constitution, not part of the bad or the dysfunctional. I put it to the Committee that a particular number is not a general principle. Six hundred or 650 is not a general principle, and neither is 525 or 535—whatever the Liberal number was. These are just pragmatics and incidentals. They are the result, or should be, of achieving the optimum trade-off or reconciliation between the two general principles.
My noble friends Lord Soley and Lord Lipsey have actually helped the Government, because they have provided a way by which they could achieve what the Government really want—what all of us really want: a system that is as acceptable as possible and that as far as possible involves constituencies of equal numbers. We could do it by leaving it to the Boundary Commission to come, as it always did, to the consequential conclusion as to what numbers of seats should emerge. If necessary—and I agree with my noble friend Lord Soley here—we could set an absolute maximum and give it some parameters. Fine; I would not object to that, as long as the parameters are wide enough for it to do its job without undue distortion and thereby to achieve, as far as possible, the implementation of those general principles to which all of us in this House must ultimately attach the greatest weight and importance.
Lord McAvoy
I wish to speak to my noble friend Lord Soley’s amendment, but before doing so I shall briefly draw attention to the comments made earlier by the noble Lord, Lord Garel-Jones—he is, unfortunately, not in his place. The noble Lord comes down from the mountains bearing great prophecies of doom because of alleged filibustering on this side of the House. Before I start on the detail of the amendment, perhaps I might give some detail from an answer obtained from the House of Lords Library by my noble friend Lord Kennedy of Southwark on the time spent on Bills in the last Parliament between May 2005 and April 2010. The Marine and Coastal Access Bill had 19 days, the Coroners and Justice Bill had 16 days, the Identity Cards Bill had 16 days, and the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill had 15 days. It really is a pity that the noble Lord, Lord Garel-Jones, is not here—
Lord Strathclyde
Perhaps the noble Lord can tell us how many of those were Bills of 18 clauses.
Lord McAvoy
I cannot say off the top of my head, so I give that one immediately to the noble Lord. The point is that there are 300 pages here on the second part of the Bill, which is constitutional. Surely that must be recognised. That brings me to the point. Now I am being subjected to House of Commons tactics and bullying. I thought that I had escaped all that, but I will try to survive. Let us get to the context, which is that this is a constitutional Bill. I have mentioned this before but I still have a slight sense of disorientation, because when I came here I was told that this was a place of revising—a place where you take your time to study things, make points and get on with things—and that the conventions were there.
Let me say right away—and I can speak only for myself—that the difficulty I have found is that I have come through here at a time of great constitutional upheaval because of this Bill. The normal conventions have not been applied and are still not being applied because the Government are riding roughshod over that process, which is causing problems. Many Members opposite, and, I think, Cross-Bench colleagues, have made the point that people have not been obeying conventions. I have reviewed my conduct and watched what I have been saying and doing. That pressure is not allowing people like me to learn to adapt to the normal pace of events in your Lordships’ House.
In reviewing how I have conducted myself, I have certainly modified my behaviour because I do not intervene now on Ministers or on other Members, because I know full well and have realised that it is counterproductive. It does not work and the House does not like it. I have had to learn that in a compressed sense of rivalry and animosity, in many ways, particularly because the Government are riding roughshod over the House of Lords on a constitutional Bill. That is the only thing that I recognise.
An independent commission would certainly be far better than what we are getting now. I have a lot of time for my noble friend’s amendment, but it seems not to be accepted because I find that there is an element, especially from the Liberals, of, “We are the masters now”. It is like Hartley Shawcross after the Second World War. We now have an illiberal, authoritarian streak not from Conservative Ministers but from Liberal Ministers and Liberal Back-Benchers who are being dictatorial in their approach to any opposition. Before Liberal Lords fall about laughing too much, I remind them that Mr Adrian Sanders has called Danny Alexander a cuckoo in the nest because he is more Tory than the Tories now, so let them laugh at that as well.
Look at where we are. This is illiberal and authoritarian. I take the point of view that consensus, which has always been my way, is the best way forward, especially on constitutional and electoral matters. I shall give an example of why there should be consensus, and I think an independent commission would have a better chance of getting consensus. It is what happened in the Scottish devolution negotiations between the Labour Party and the Liberal Party. I very much regret the absence of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, because he was a beneficiary of that consensus. Orkney and Shetland got two places; Orkney got one place in the Scottish Parliament and Shetland got another. Between them, they have about 33,000 voters. I went along with that consensus because it is a way of trying to get agreement. You look at situations, and there is good will there. I will tell your Lordships' House that there is very little good will and consensus for the Liberals in my heart, especially after the deal that they have got there. If the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, wants to defend his Liberal colleagues—
Lord Strathclyde
Does the noble Lord think it would have helped the distribution of seats in the Scottish Parliament if there had been an independent commission or indeed a Speaker’s Conference on it?
Lord McAvoy
With the benefit of hindsight, yes, I think it would—if the noble Baroness allows me to answer because I am having a conversation here. We are reviewing the legislation and discussing, which is what I always thought the House of Lords was supposed to be like. With the benefit of hindsight, I think that would have been better because, quite frankly, my late right honourable friend Donald Dewar made a deal with the then Jim Wallace, but we have lived to see the same people who were beneficiaries of that consensus and that deal taking a completely hard line and an authoritarian attitude towards people who have got problems with their constituencies.
I have an amendment for a later stage, and I will be interested to know why Orkney and Shetland is a reserved constituency compared to my old constituency of Rutherglen. The Scottish Parliament negotiations are a clear example of why an independent commission should go ahead. Take the Isle of Wight, for instance. I think that an independent commission would give great weight to the Isle of Wight case. We have had appeals from Mr Andrew Turner, the Member of Parliament for the Isle of Wight, and a consensual letter from all the political figures in the Isle of Wight Council. That is very impressive: consensus works. I think an independent commission would have a better chance, and it would certainly look free.
I take the point made by my noble friend Lord Davies of Stamford. I do not think anybody seriously thinks that there are corrupt people sitting on the Front Bench over there who have corrupted the boundaries. I do not think that. If I thought it, I would say it, but I do not think it. However, matters like this have to be not only pure but seen to be pure, and I do not think that is the case when you get political interference with the political composition of the House of Lords. I am very conscious. I have said what I have got to say. I have said what I wanted to say. I am glad the noble—the mocking and the abuse and the verbal talk when people are supposed to be speaking is nothing less than bullying and intimidation and it really should stop. I am not used to it. [Laughter.] Well, perhaps I should say that I am not used to receiving it.
Lord Rennard
Perhaps the noble Lord is an expert in intimidation from his experience as a Whip in the other place. I have just been doing a little maths on this subject, and I think this is now the 19th day that Parliament has debated this Bill. There have been 19 days so far. When the noble Lord was a Whip in the other place on the then Labour Government’s Constitutional Reform Act 2005, a total of 56 hours, 45 minutes was spent deliberating on that Bill.
Lord McAvoy
I did not realise how busy I was in the other place. I am impressed that the noble Lord has an impression of my workload there. I do not agree with the grounds for saying that what we are doing on this Bill is not correct and proper, although I agree that there are grounds for saying that we are talking too much. However, this side of the House is subjecting the Bill to scrutiny; that side of the House is not.
Lord Radice
My Lords, I support the proposition put forward by my noble friend Lord Lipsey, although I also think there is a lot of merit in the proposal of my noble friend Lord Soley. I am attracted by the idea of a Speaker’s Conference, partly because I sat on one. I am not sure that many Members of this House have been on one. I was a very junior Member of the House of Commons when I served on the Speaker’s Conference of 1977-78 under Speaker Thomas. It was set up to consider and make recommendations on the number of parliamentary constituencies that there should be in Northern Ireland. It had a cross-party membership. For the Conservatives there was Sir David Renton and the late Ian Gow. The Ulster Unionists were represented by Enoch Powell and Mr James Molyneaux—now the noble Lord, Lord Molyneaux. The Liberals were represented by Clement Freud. I have not mentioned the noble Baroness, Lady Knight, who was also there for the Conservatives.
It carried out its deliberations very quickly. It took written representations. Nine papers were received from political parties and six from individuals. You can have far more than that but that is what we had. It was a contentious issue that we had to solve. We took oral evidence from the Registrar-General of Births and Deaths in Northern Ireland. The key issue was the population increase in Northern Ireland, which justified further seats for Northern Ireland. This had been resisted by different Governments. We also received evidence from the deputy chairman and secretary of the Boundary Commission for Northern Ireland and the Lord President of the Council.
We had eight meetings and resolved, by 18 votes to four, that there should be an increase in the number of parliamentary constituencies in Northern Ireland, and by 22 votes to one that the figure should be 17. We also decided—this is a matter of interest—that the Boundary Commission for Northern Ireland should be given a degree of flexibility to overcome any practical difficulties. We then agreed, by 22 votes to one, to the final recommendation that the number of parliamentary constituencies in Northern Ireland should be 17, but that the Boundary Commission should be given power to vary that number, subject to a minimum of 16 and a maximum of 18.
Lord Trimble
I congratulate the noble Lord and the Speaker’s Conference on the deliberations that he mentioned. However, it arrived at a result that coincided exactly with that which had been agreed as a political deal between Jim Molyneaux and the Labour Government before it was set up.
Lord Radice
Yes, that may well be so but it was a sensible way of proceeding on a very controversial issue—more seats for Northern Ireland. However, it produced a result that, if it was not supported by all the parties in Northern Ireland, certainly had the backing of all the major parties in the Commons. That is precisely my point: it produced consensus, which is what the Government have not achieved with the present Bill. I recommend the idea of a Speaker’s Conference or the commission, as suggested by my noble friend who is sitting next to me, as a better way forward if the Government want to achieve consensus. It may well be better for them in the long run if they achieve that consensus.
Lord Howarth of Newport
My Lords, the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Soley proposes that the number of constituencies for the future should be determined by an independent commission and the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Lipsey prefers that the recommendation should be made to Parliament by a Speaker’s Conference. I do not think that the difference between these two manners of proceeding is necessarily very great. Indeed, an independent commission could turn out to be a Speaker’s Conference. However, I prefer the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Lipsey because my noble friend Lord Soley has thrown into his amendment a stipulation that the number of constituencies to be determined by the independent commission should not in any case exceed 650. If we examine the arguments on whether there should be more or fewer Members of Parliament, there is a strong case not for reducing the numbers of Members of Parliament but for increasing them. But whichever device were to be adopted, both of these modes of proceeding are designed to be reasonable, to gather evidence, to enable all concerned to work towards consensus and for their conclusions to be perceived to be unimpeachable. That last point is extremely important.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, in responding to the earlier debate—he did so entirely admirably—defended a case that is very difficult to defend. He reminded us that in the approach to the previous general election both the Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrat Party signalled their view that there should be a smaller House of Commons. He suggested that there was therefore a mandate, but, of course, no mandate for a smaller House of Commons was provided by the electorate because neither the Conservative Party nor the Liberal Democrat Party won the election. Certainly, the coalition agreement has no status as a mandate at all. Of course, there needs to be a coalition agreement and of course this House treats with the greatest seriousness what the coalition agreement has put forward for the country, but this House is not intimidated by the coalition agreement, nor does it consider that it has some special quality.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, was of the view that in the end the size of the future House of Commons had to be a question of judgment. That is possibly so but, as the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, reminded us, when you are making a judgment it is your responsibility to make it on the best basis of evidence and of reasoning. Moreover, it is essential that the judgment is perceived to be disinterested. That is where the Government are in some political difficulty as they wax indignant at any suggestion that they are tilting the system in the political interests of one party or another. I will not impugn their sincerity in that matter but their political problem is in part that there is a perception that they are not objective in this matter. Irrespective of whether an independent commission or a Speaker’s Conference were involved, at least the matter would proceed reasonably, whereas the proposition that we have before us in the Bill—that the House of Commons should in future consist of 600 Members of Parliament—is not really even a product of judgment but of an opportunist wheeze.
The Prime Minister was of the view that Members of Parliament were unpopular and that there was a large deficit, which needed to be reduced. It occurred to him and his advisers that it would be a good wheeze to propose to the people that we should therefore have fewer Members of Parliament. That is the kind of opportunistic gimmick that political parties devise and resort to to get them through their relations with the media for a day, but it should be forgotten just as quickly as that.
You need a better basis for determining the appropriate size of the House of Commons. You have to start by looking at what those who elect Members of the House of Commons expect and, indeed, require them to do. Above all, they expect them to debate the great issues of the day, to scrutinise legislation and the propositions of the Government and to hold the Government to account. It is very important that there should be enough Members of Parliament who are not members of the Executive and not Parliamentary Private Secretaries on the payroll vote to be able to hold those independent debates. Such Members will take the Whip and they will have their party loyalties, but when push comes to shove those who elected them expect them to exercise a certain independence that is rightly not permitted to members of the Executive.
I was very interested in and listened very carefully to the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Martin of Springburn. Any of us must listen carefully to the views of a former Speaker of the other place. He favoured a reduction in the number of Members of Parliament on the basis that it might make for better debate, because he recognised that there is a problem for Members of the other place in getting into debates and having the opportunities to speak as often as they would no doubt like. That is true and relates to the procedures that the other place, in its wisdom, has developed over many years. It is interesting that Members of your Lordships’ House, who are more numerous and every day becoming significantly more numerous than Members of the House of Commons, can all individually get into debates when they wish. Indeed, there will be ample opportunity this very evening for noble Lords on the other side of the House to expound their views at length on this extremely important legislation. No Member of your Lordships’ House can say that they do not get the opportunity to contribute to debates. Therefore, it is just possible that the other place, in considering its procedures, might consider how it is that this House, which is more numerous, enables everyone to participate.
My noble friends Lord Soley and Lord Rooker were both of the view that it would be better if the size of the House of Commons were to be reduced. My view is that the House of Commons has great difficulty in performing all the functions that the citizens of this country want of it. It is getting more difficult as more and more Ministers are appointed. We are told that we have to look forward to there being more frequent coalition Governments—heaven forefend, but that is what is anticipated by quite a lot of people. We have seen that, when a coalition Government are formed, there have to be jobs for lots of the boys and girls in each of the parties that form the coalition. We now have an Administration in the House of Commons who have more Ministers than any other Administration have ever had. We are going to need more Back-Benchers who will still have an independent voice of their own.
Lord Elton
Can the noble Lord refresh my memory? I thought that the number of Ministers in the House of Commons was regulated by statute.
Lord Howarth of Newport
The noble Lord will find that, one way or another, Members of the Administration, including Parliamentary Under-Secretaries and Whips, have become even more numerous than they used to be.
Lord Myners
Perhaps I may suggest to your Lordships’ House that the number of Ministers receiving salaries is limited by statute, not the number of Ministers.
Lord Howarth of Newport
But even before we saw this unfortunate growth in the size of the Administration, it was commonplace that the House Commons had great difficulty in examining all the legislation that came before it with the care that everyone would wish. For example, the Commons found it very difficult to find the time to scrutinise European legislation with any adequacy. It is an important part of the history of government in this country that over several recent decades there has been a vast increase in the quantity of secondary legislation—statutory instruments—which the House of Commons is entirely unable to scrutinise as much as would be desirable.
Legislative committees, which used to be known as Standing Committees, are set up ad hoc to scrutinise pieces of legislation, but so difficult is it for very busy Members of the other place to give their detailed attention to Bills that these are now routinely programmed. Members of your Lordships’ House will also wryly acknowledge that important pieces of legislation such as this one come through to us without having been exhaustively examined in Committee in the other place.
Separate from the scrutiny of legislation is the work of Select Committees. Departmental Select Committees did not exist before 1979. They are a source of great pride to the other place and to us all, but it is not disrespectful to the other place to note that attendance at Select Committees is less complete than perhaps it should be and that, because Members of the other place are legitimately very busy on a host of matters, sometimes one has the possibly erroneous impression that not all those participating in the work of a Select Committee have entirely mastered the papers before them.
The Public Administration Select Committee, chaired in recent years with enormous distinction by Mr Tony Wright, has persuaded not only the other place but the Executive that there should be greater independence for Select Committees. That raises hopes for the future work of Select Committees. It raises expectations about the amount and quality of the work that they will do. That is a large responsibility that falls on the other place and it may need more rather than fewer Members of Parliament to do full justice to it.
Party committees are a very valuable presence in the life of the other place because they enable the Executive and the Back Benches to explain themselves to each other. However, these meetings take time and, again, their attendance is not always as full as might be ideal. There are also all-party committees that come and go. All noble Lords have a view on whether it is necessarily a good thing that there are quite as many all-party committees as there are at any given moment. However, the best of them have enormous value. I will mention, for example, the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Disablement, in which the noble Lord, Lord Ashley, when he was a Member of the other place as well as when he became a Member of your Lordships’ House, played an outstandingly distinguished part. I see the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, in his place opposite. When he was the Member for Daventry in the other place, he inaugurated the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Archives, in which I, too, had the pleasure to serve. It is a very valuable committee, which brings together from all sides of both Houses Members of Parliament who have a particular interest and some expertise in a topic and, through the work of the committee, are able to relate to professional interest groups and others outside. This is extremely important in the representative work of both Houses of Parliament and very important for ensuring that there is a depth of knowledge on a range of specialised topics.
I mention also the All-Party Parliamentary Archaeology Group, which I have been involved with. I promise the House that I will not recite the entire list of all-party groups, tempting though it may be. The noble Lord, Lord Allan, when he was a Member of Parliament—I think it was for Sheffield Hallam—was a distinguished, active and expert member of that group. That is important. However, the reality is that it is very difficult for all-party groups to get a sufficient number of Members in the other place to take a full part in their meetings because there are not enough colleagues to carry out all the work that needs to be done. I could mention the all-party groups that are necessary to enable the House to function, such as the House of Commons Commission, for example, which has to be staffed and served. There is also the Speaker’s Panel. The enormous volume of legislation, particularly from the coalition, that is churning through Parliament creates a lot of demand. There is the international work of the other place. For some years, I was a member of the Intelligence and Security Committee. We have an important job to do on behalf of the Parliament of this country.
Lord Howarth of Newport
I know that the noble Lord is going to remind me of the Companion, and quite right, too. That is one of his valuable sentinel roles in this House. Is that right?
Lord Elton
I did not quite catch what the noble Lord asked, but would he accept that we have a general idea that there are a lot of committees in the House of Commons which have a lot of things to do. The noble Lord thinks that there should be more people to do it. He has made his point; we have got it.
Lord Howarth of Newport
I am infinitely obliged to the noble Lord. He is always rigorous and helpful to the House in exactly that respect.
Lord Winston
There is an important issue and I do not know whether my noble friend has addressed it. With the impending reform of the House of Lords, we may lose much expertise. For example, in my area of science and medicine, we may lose a great deal of expertise. Reducing the number of people in the House of Commons who may have that expertise, particularly scientists who might wish to stand for election, would be a grave problem.
Lord Howarth of Newport
I very much agree with my noble friend. What he says on this subject is bound to carry weight on all sides of the House. We have a scientifically illiterate democracy, but the position has improved somewhat in recent years in that we have seen more people elected to the other place with a scientific background. There has been some improvement in the capacity of the other place to debate issues of science and technology, but it must be self-evident to anyone reflecting on it that this is extremely important. If there is a deficiency in the number of Members of Parliament who are versed in science and technology and able to maintain an adequate debate in this extraordinarily important realm, that must be a worry.
The noble Lord, Lord Elton, has anticipated my point that if we reduce the size of the House of Commons it will be a lot more difficult for all those necessary functions to be carried out. My final point is that the House of Commons has also to furnish members of the Executive. That means that any comparison with legislatures in a presidential system or one in which the Executive are appointed from outside the ranks of the legislature is nonsensical.
I hasten to draw my remarks to a conclusion because I know that the House is keen to make progress. I could have said much more, but we will see how the debate develops as the evening wears on. It may be that I will have the opportunity to make some additional remarks, but for the time being I rest my case.
Lord Strathclyde
Noble Lords have complained for some time that there has been no contribution from this side of the House. I have heard nothing new said by noble Lords opposite over the course of the past four or five speakers, so I wonder whether it would be helpful to the House if I gave an authoritative view from the Front Bench as to my thoughts on the amendment. I am utterly clear as to the views of noble Lords opposite on the amendment, so I will now give a comprehensive reply.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
My Lords, the noble Lord the Leader of the House intervened to ask whether that would be helpful to the House. I have a sense on this side of the House that a considerable number of Members want to speak. The normal way that we deal with it here is that the Minister responds, but not conclusively. I think that it would be best if we heard from this side of the House, and if then noble Lord the Leader responded, because that is the normal way that we do it.
Lord Strathclyde
I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord for telling us how we normally do business. It is not normal for us to spend two and a half hours on an amendment—this one—and to have spent three hours on the previous amendment. If we are talking about normality, I rather wish that this whole debate had been conducted in a more normal way—
Lord Strathclyde
May I finish this point? I said that I have not heard anything new. I have no promise that anything new is to be said, so would it not help, rather than noble Lords opposite continually saying the same old thing, if I now gave a view on the amendments?
Lord Wills
To that very point, I have been trying to get in to speak to contribute something new to the debate, which is something of which the noble Lord will not be aware. That was my experience of dealing specifically with these issues and the process for dealing with them when I was the Minister responsible for them. He will not have known this, because obviously, it is a convention that the previous Government’s dealings are not passed to the new Government, so this would be new. I wonder whether he would allow me to share that information with the House before he commences his remarks.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
I think that there the sense that we should go on for a bit. Some noble Lords opposite are shaking their heads; there is a very strong sense from behind me that we should go on—the norm should be followed.
Lord Strathclyde
Perhaps I should not have given way to the noble Lord, Lord Wills.
This has been a great debate. I can tell the House—
Lord Strathclyde
No, I am no longer giving way. I have the Floor and I am not giving way to the noble and learned Lord. We cannot carry on if the noble and learned Lord will not give way. I was asked to give way; I will not give way to the noble and learned Lord. He can speak after I have spoken, when I give way to him.
The Committee will be interested to know that, a few hours ago we passed a landmark where we in this House have spent twice the number of hours in Committee on the Bill as they did in another place, and we still have not completed the Committee stage. The House of Commons debated the Bill for five full days in Committee, and a further two days for Report and Third Reading. Moreover, the Government made use of their ability to programme business to ensure that debate at Report was focused on the provisions which were given relatively less scrutiny in Committee, including what are now Clauses 8 and 11, which were previously Clauses 6 and 9 respectively. So to those noble Lords who said that these issues have not been debated, that is not quite the case.
What we have seen tonight is worth while and instructive to anyone from outside coming to see how the House of Lords now does its business. This is the last hurrah of the dinosaurs in the Labour Party seeking to defend the status quo. All of them wish to see a House of Commons with 650 Members, completely denying that people want fewer politicians. If there has been one growth industry in the past 13 years, it has been in the number of politicians. They have more in Scotland and Wales, they wanted regional government in London, and now they do not want to see a reduction in the number of Members of the House of Commons.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
In the light of is condemnation of extra politicians, why have this Government made so many new Peers?
Lord Strathclyde
That is rich coming from the noble and learned Lord, who was one of Tony Blair’s closest advisers. Tony Blair made more Peers more quickly than any Prime Minister ever, including Lloyd George
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
We did not seek to reduce the size of the House of Commons on the basis that there were too many politicians. At least we were not hypocritical.
Lord Strathclyde
Absolutely, there was no hypocrisy. The noble and learned Lord has to wait only a few more weeks to see the draft Bill that the Deputy Prime Minister will publish on this Government’s views on the future of your Lordships’ House. These amendments say that this House, or this Parliament, is not capable of deciding for itself the number of Members of the House of Commons. They also would lead to the boundary reviews not being in place in time for the next election, which is of course what I know noble Lords opposite really want.
Perhaps we have got it wrong. Let us suppose that people up and down the country think, “You know, we can’t just get by with 600 Members of Parliament, we need 650”. I assume that that will be the Labour Party’s policy going into the next general election. It may be that the electorate decide to support the Labour Party in that view, but at the last election, in our manifesto, we said that there should be a reduction. We struck a coalition agreement to say that there should be a reduction and we are now producing it as part of the new politics.
Lord Touhig
Does the noble Lord also think that the British people might be somewhat sceptical about putting 400 more paid politicians in this House?
Lord Strathclyde
I have got no idea from where the noble Lord gets his figure of 400. But of course he is one of the new politicians in this House. If he did not want to come here and he thought that it was wrong, he could always have turned it down, which one or two have.
Lord Touhig
Forgive me if I have not made myself clear: I was referring to 400 more elected paid politicians, which is the view of the Liberal Democrats, his partners.
Lord Strathclyde
The figure remains to be seen. I very much look forward to the lengthy debate that we will have. There was a curious sense coming from noble Lords opposite. Some thought that there should be a Speaker’s Conference to make this decision. Some thought that it should be an independent group which had nothing to do with politicians, as if politicians can make all sorts of great decisions about the future of this country, such as on going to war or taxation, but cannot be trusted to decide how many Members should sit in another place. It is the most extraordinary proposition and it is one, frankly, which I find deeply patronising.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton
Will the Leader of the House tell us the last time a Government in this country determined the exact number of Members of the House of Commons?
Lord Strathclyde
The number of Members of the House of Commons has increased and decreased on several occasions over the past 20 years. Noble Lords opposite are making the case that it is wrong for a majority of the House of Commons to decide what their numbers should be. I do not follow that at all.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton
My Lords, the question I asked has not been answered.
Lord Strathclyde
The noble Baroness is right. If there is such an example, I shall find it and let her know.
Lord Campbell-Savours
Perhaps I may advise the House that it was nearly 180 years ago. After that date, it was always targets that were set. It was never caps.
Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, surely, the issue is not about the overall numbers; it is about how those seats are distributed. That will continue to be done by the independent Boundary Commission under the instructions under this Bill to aim at an average of around 75,000 over the country.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton
My Lords, I asked the noble Lord when the Government of the day last decided.
Lord Strathclyde
I heard the question and I said to the noble Baroness that if I can find the answer to it, I shall let her know. Our contention is simple. There is no reason why Parliament should not decide on the numbers of Members of Parliament. We have no need to go to an external body or to a Speaker’s Conference to decide that for us. We have all the expertise. Noble Lords opposite have demonstrated just how much expertise they have on another place. That is why we took the view we took. I hope that the noble Lord will withdraw his amendment.
Lord Soley
I shall say straightaway that from the way in which the noble Lord has started his contribution I am unclear about whether he is summing up the debate. I do not think he is right to do so because, frankly, he has not answered me. If the noble Lord would listen to what I am saying, he has not actually answered the questions I put to him. I understand that the normal courtesy of this House is for the Minister to answer the questions that are put to him. The questions were things like: what does he say when we are faced with a situation, of which I gave many examples, of overseeing elections in other countries where there is a constant expectation that a Government should not decide the size of a House of Parliament? He has also not dealt with my other question.
I assume that at some stage the Minister will respond to the questions that he has been asked. For the moment I reserve my right to sum up this amendment when people have finished speaking. But I have to say that he has not answered my questions, and I think he knows it, because they are difficult questions for the Government.
Lord Strathclyde
The noble Lord, Lord Soley, has suggested in the most bizarre way that because the Government have decided, and if Parliament decides it as well, that there should be 600 MPs, that somehow this turns us into a Soviet dictatorship and that no noble Lords opposite will be able to go anywhere in the world and argue that we are a democracy. That is completely absurd. In the past 13 years noble Lords opposite decided on the electoral system for Europe, they decided on how many Members should sit in the Scottish Parliament, in the Welsh Assembly and in the London assembly. None of these questions was raised. I do not know how much embarrassment the noble Lord, Lord Soley, can take when he travels abroad and people point out these terrible errors.
This is my winding-up contribution and my answer. We simply do not accept any of the premises that noble Lords opposite have made.
Lord Soley
I will sum up when other people have spoken. I want just to repeat that the Leader of the House does no good for this House if he fails to answer the questions that are put to him. I would also say to him that anyone coming to this debate out of the blue would think that his recent contribution was, if anything, a filibuster because it did not answer the question.
Lord Soley
I am serious. Let us hear the arguments for a moment. I have brought forward considerable evidence to support what I said about the problems that any Government would have with this. I also asked the noble Lord what he would do if a future Government of any political complexion came forward at the next election or the one after that and said, “We think that this number of MPs would be more beneficial to us and therefore we are going to drive it through”. I challenge him to say that he would not fight that every inch of the way. Those are the questions he has not answered. I am afraid that they have to be addressed because they are too important for the House and too important for the country.
Lord Wills
My Lords, I had thought that the noble Lord had given way to me, but I hope that I can now make the speech that I wanted to make earlier, which I make genuinely in the hope of helping the Government.
As the then Minister responsible, I went through all these issues in a great deal of detail, so I think that it might help the House to know the judgments that we made when we were in Government. Both Amendment 59 and Amendment 60 speak to the importance of having an impartial process—which, crucially, is seen to be impartial—in dealing with these issues. I have already spoken about why that is so important, so I will not rehearse those arguments again now, but the instances that I gave of the consideration that we gave to these issues in Government might—even at this late stage and with all the bad feeling that there is about it—persuade the Government to think again.
It is no secret that we looked at these issues. Since 1997, as a Government we were embarked on a developing programme of constitutional reform, whose latter stages have been largely adopted by the new Government, which have claimed credit for the proposals as the new politics. As part of that developing programme of constitutional reform, we were looking at these very issues. As Minister, it was quite clear to me that all the issues that the noble Lord and his colleagues are so concerned about were real issues that should be engaged with in bringing forward any measures. We looked at these issues for some time. It is no secret that the amendment that I moved last week—Amendment 54ZA—was largely based on the conclusions that I came to as the Minister for constitutional reform. I hope that the noble Lord is listening to this, because he might learn something about why he has got himself and the Government into such a mess with this legislation.
Having looked at these issues, we came to the conclusion that the best way forward was to set up the sort of independent inquiry that my amendment proposed last week and that we have again heard advocated today. We did not bring forward that proposal for one simple reason: we felt that there was too little time left in the lifespan of that Government to be sure that we could bring about an all-party consensus on the mechanism. That is why we did not bring forward the proposal, although it was ready and prepared and officials had done the work. We believed that it was absolutely essential to achieve cross-party support for the mechanism. We thought that that would be difficult, because these issues are contentious and complex. As we did not think that we had enough time, we did not think that it was proper to introduce proposals that did not have that basis of cross-party support for the mechanism—not for the conclusions or outcomes or for 650 or 600 or 500 seats—by which we were to get there.
The reason that we thought that that was so important was not that we were unworried about what an incoming Conservative Government might do—of course, we were worried about that. We knew—I knew—that there was a possibility that we might lose the election and that we would get a Conservative Government. Politicians are always worried about what the other side might do, so this was not an easy conclusion. However, so important did we consider the impartiality of the process that we did not introduce our proposals. Even then, I hoped and honestly believed that, whatever Government came in—I did not expect a coalition Government, in the event that we were not re-elected—would abide by those basic constitutional proprieties, which are now being so flouted.
Cross-party agreement is so important precisely because of the element of trust. The issue is not just what parliamentarians think about the process and whether the Labour Party in Parliament thinks that the proposed process is flawed; fundamentally, the issue is about the people whom we serve. The people have to believe that politicians can be trusted to run the system impartially, without any appearance of partisan self-interest. I do not know whether the Government’s calculations are based on partisan self-interest because they simply have not provided the information, but it is so corrosive when such doubt remains. The Government have ample opportunity to deal with the issue by accepting either of these amendments or by saying that they will look at the issue again. What the Government must do is recognise the doubts that their process has created in the minds of many, many people. This will be poisonous if it is allowed to fester in the way that the Government are allowing it to fester.
I do not think that anyone on this side of the House wants to stop the Government getting their legislation through. [Laughter.] As I have said many times, I do not think that that is the case. I do not know how many noble Lords opposite, who are commenting from a sedentary position, have actually looked at what I have said. I have made it clear over and over again that I support the objectives of both parts of the Bill. As Minister, I was going to bring forward legislation. We brought forward legislation for the proposals in Part 1 of the Bill and I was preparing, as I have just said, to bring forward legislation that would have dealt with the issues, in the same way, that are dealt with in Part 2.
I want to see these objectives realised, but I want to see them realised in a proper way that will command consent across all parties and among the British people. The Government could still get their legislation through in this Parliament if they took a pause by taking advantage of one of these amendments to institute an impartial process. Such a process need not take very long—it need not take the three years that my amendment proposed—and could take just a short number of months, if the Government so wished. At least, there would then be an independent, fair-minded inquiry. That is what we were going to do in Government, and I urge and, indeed, beg the Government to follow that example.
Lord Judd
If I had not already intended to intervene, the remarks of the noble Lord the Leader of the House certainly strengthened my conviction that I had something that I must say.
The more that I have listened to this debate, the more disturbed I have become. Why? Because I do not believe that there is anyone, in this House or the other House, who believes that the state of democracy in our country is at a peak in terms of quality and spirit. What undermines some of that quality and spirit is a widespread feeling among the public that politics as practised in Westminster is a closed community of politicians and that elections for the other House are about people gaining access to that closed system, from which they continue to run the country without overmuch sensitivity about the real convictions and anxieties of the people.
I do not believe that that is a very mature attitude in society as a whole and it is not altogether valid. To the credit of Parliament, much has been done over recent decades to try to meet that situation—by, for example, the introduction of the Green Paper system whereby, when serious legislation is being proposed, there is a genuine attempt to generate public consultation and debate about the proposal and to give the wider public an opportunity to shape the legislation that is finally put forward. That exists for all kinds of important legislation on social and economic issues.
Nothing is more central to our democracy than its constitution. We have to be incredibly sensitive about this because the constitution is not ours in Parliament—we are the practitioners within the constitution. The constitution belongs to the people. We operate within the context of something in which the people must have confidence.
I am by no means the person with the longest experience in our Parliament, but this year I will have been here for 33 years, in one House or the other, and for the majority of that time in the other place I was involved in government. When I look back, whether from the standpoint of being inside government or outside it, I often reflect that one of the things that have gone wrong is that, so often, politicians of good will and serious intent put forward legislative proposals as a solution to problems before there has been any sufficient attempt to build up a widespread understanding among the public of what the issue is that is being addressed. We get the solutions ahead of the understanding of why we are putting the solutions forward. If that is true about legislation as a whole, how much more central it is to the issue of how we handle constitutional matters.
What alarmed me about the noble Lord’s intervention was that he said, “We have demonstrated to ourselves in this debate”—of course, there was an element of sarcasm in what he was saying—“that we have the knowledge and the qualities that are necessary to make these decisions”. By saying that, he illustrated exactly the problem. The proposals that my noble friends put forward are not exclusively about the decisions; they are about having in place a system that would enable a debate and widespread discussion to take place, so that, when in the end the legislation was introduced, it would happen in the context of the widest possible public understanding of why it was necessary. Our case is that that simply has not happened on this Bill; it is being rushed through without that widespread public discussion.
For me, the discussion is infinitely more important than where the decision is made. I want those making the decision to have to make it in the context of an opportunity for the public really to have debated and discussed what they wanted. From that standpoint, I feel that my noble friends have done a great service by putting these amendments forward today. I beg noble Lords on all sides of the House to take seriously the issue of our being the practitioners of the constitution, not its masters.
In that context, I have been toying with whether I wanted to make the following observation, because it could so easily be misunderstood as playing at partisan politics, but it really grieves me to see Liberal noble Lords sitting there silently while this debate takes place. Almost to the suspicion of some of my colleagues on a number of issues about which I care desperately, I have found myself extremely close to the spirit and values of many Liberal Democrat Members opposite. I have found myself challenged by their conviction on some of the issues about which I feel very deeply. They have always argued that they are about the power and the influence of people in our society. However, here we are debating this issue tonight and where are they? They are locked into a coalition that inhibits them into silence. This is a tragedy in our political situation and I felt that I could not allow this debate to go by without making that absolutely clear.
Motion
Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, I have listened to a number of speeches this evening. Many of them are an abuse of the procedures of this House and others have been demeaning to this House in the face of a wider public. Therefore, with the utmost regret, I beg to move that the Question be now put.
The Lord Speaker (Baroness Hayman)
My Lords, the Companion is very clear as to the procedure when a Motion that the Question be now put is moved. It instructs me to read to the House in the following terms:
“I am instructed by order of the House to say that the motion ‘That the Question be now put’ is considered to be a most exceptional procedure and the House will not accept it save in circumstances where it is felt to be the only means of ensuring the proper conduct of the business of the House; further, if a member who seeks to move it persists in his intention, the practice of the House is that the Question on the motion is put without debate”.
I therefore have to ask the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, whether, in the light of that advice from the Companion, he wishes to persist in his intention.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
My Lords, I make this application with a view to the House adjourning. Noble Lords will know that the Companion says in paragraph 3.01:
“The House usually sits for public business on Mondays and Tuesdays at 2.30 p.m., on Wednesdays at 3 p.m. and on Thursdays at 11 a.m. The House also sits on Fridays at 10 a.m. when pressure of business makes it necessary. It is a firm convention that the House normally rises by about 10 p.m. on Mondays to Wednesdays, by about 7 p.m. on Thursdays, and by about 3 p.m. on Fridays. The time of the meeting of the House can be varied to meet the convenience of the House”.
It says that where there are to be changes there should be consultation through the usual channels. We have now had a very exceptional move by the House, as the Lord Speaker made clear in her warning to the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, before he moved his Motion. So exceptional was it that the consequence was that the Front Bench on this side did not get an opportunity to respond to either Amendment 59 or Amendment 60. If that were to be repeated there would, in effect, be a guillotine on debate in this House. I am happy to see the former Chief Whip Lord Hesketh nodding. The consequence would be that what makes this House exceptional—namely that there can be indefinite debate, particularly on constitutional issues—would be lost. I respectfully suggest that the House should now adjourn. That is why I have moved this Motion to resume. It is far better that we, as a House, keep our reputation—
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
Noble Lords might laugh but it is appropriate that we do things in the right and proper way. This House exists properly to scrutinise business. The prospect of there being proper scrutiny of legislation deep into the night, then again tomorrow, then again on Wednesday and then again on Monday, in my submission, significantly undermines the standing of the House. I therefore invite the House to resume. It would be the sensible thing to do and would avoid the sense that we are no longer concerned about the constitution but are properly concerned instead about the change in the circumstances in the House. Given that there is a Liberal Democrat and Conservative coalition, unlike in my previous time in the House it is now possible to ram things through without proper debate. Indeed, the coalition has just done so. That would never have happened when there was not—
Lord Greaves
There is a certain amount of this that I can listen to, but after a while I find that I cannot listen to it any longer without intervening. The Committee started at three o’clock. It is now 11 minutes past midnight. That means that the Committee has spent the best part of eight hours considering two amendments. If the noble and learned Lord believes that that is ramming things through, his brain does not work in the same way that mine does.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
I have always suspected that my brain does not work in the same way as that of the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, and I have always regarded it as being to my credit that that is the position. We have debated two amendments over eight hours—four hours each. The first concerned whether we should reduce the size of the House of Commons from 650 to 600. I regard that as an important constitutional issue. The second amendment that we debated before the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, brought the debate to an end was whether the size of the House of Commons should be fixed by an independent commission or a Speaker’s Conference. The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, whose brain does not work like mine, or, I suspect, like anyone else’s in the House either, might not think that those are important things to debate but I do.
Lord Greaves
The point I am attempting to make is not that the time that has been used up on these two amendments is excessive, although many Members around the House believe that it constitutes an abuse of the conventions of this House. The point I am making is that this is not a case of ramming things through.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
Therefore, the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, thinks that the time involved is not excessive. I do not know how he voted just now. I assume that he voted on our side in that respect if he did not think that the time was excessive. It is time for the House to stop this, resume and go back to considering this measure in the normal way. That is what has made the House so successful over the past 13 years.
Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, the noble and learned Lord complained that I had brought the debate to a close. I did nothing of the sort; the House did.
Baroness O’Cathain
I wish to ask the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, whether he is prepared to offer an apology for the personal abuse that he levelled at the noble Lord, Lord Greaves. We have listened to Members of the House and the problem is that the noble and learned Lord deliberately made fun of the noble Lord, Lord Greaves. Not only was it abusive to him and upsetting to us, it did nothing for the conduct and behaviour of this House. I trust that the noble and learned Lord will feel duly ashamed when he reads Hansard tomorrow.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
Of course, I apologise immediately to the noble Lord, Lord Greaves. I did not mean to cause him any upset. I agree completely with the noble Baroness, Lady O’Cathain. I was teasing and mocking him and I went too far. I unreservedly apologise.
Lord Greaves
I suppose that I ought to thank the noble and learned Lord for that apology. I can say to him and to the House that it takes a great deal to worry me. I see the noble Baroness, Lady Farrington, having a good laugh. If noble Lords, in addition to the noble Baroness, and other former members of Lancashire County Council knew the abuse I got there, your Lordships cannot touch it.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
That is what I thought, but I was obviously wrong.
Amendment 61
Baroness McDonagh
Baroness McDonagh
I have asked for this amendment to stand alone in the group. I believe that it is right to get on with the business of looking at the number as it was adequately debated in the other place.
I believe that 630 will give the Government the ability to achieve all their aims: to reduce the number of constituencies, equalise the number of voters, and for our constituencies to represent a community of interest, which is important. This is a genuine attempt to be helpful, as was my Motion to split the Bill before the Second Reading began. I wanted the Government to be able to meet their deadline of having a referendum on 5 May and I hope that they understand that this amendment is in the same vein.
Before looking at the reasons behind having a House of 630, it is important to go through why I believe that the figure of 600 will not work. I am against setting a House of 600, because I believe that it will take away the power of the independent commissioners and put the power to draw boundaries in the hands of politicians. That is a bad thing. When you consider the number of 600 and begin to draw maps across the United Kingdom, you see that it will end up looking like the rush of the former colonial powers to carve up Africa. At the time, they thought that it was okay to carve up countries along straight lines—not to recognise a community of interest, natural borders and other interests. This will be a great mistake.
I have a previous experience of something like this happening to a constituency where I lived. My noble friend Lord Beecham referred to that example previously. In the mid-1980s I lived in a constituency called Tyne Bridge. That constituency was drawn from four local government wards in Newcastle and four in Gateshead. While I was living in that constituency, there was a parliamentary by-election. I had worked in some by-elections. I had worked in Peter Tatchell's by-election in Bermondsey and in a by-election in Mitcham and Morden during the Falklands War, so I am used to voters being forthright in their views on the doorstep. I have never had as much abuse on the doorstep as when a constituency was combined from wards from Newcastle and Gateshead, which had the River Tyne running through them. People know where they live. In that by-election, they voted with their feet. It was the first by-election for many decades when less than 40 per cent of voters turned out.
The figure of 600 will also create constituencies that are too large. There are 49 million voters in this country eligible to be registered. Therefore, the constituencies that we draw must allow for 49 million people to be in constituencies. None of us knows what the cut-off register will be at 31 December as it has not been published; and we do not know where the cut-off will be until the Bill is passed. So we need to start with the premise that constituencies will hold the number of people who are entitled to vote. With 600 constituencies, we have about 81,000 electors each. It would have been 75,000 based on the 2010 general election. That is 81,000 if all voters on the register last year are on the new register at the cut-off of 31 December.
A ceiling of 600 constituencies does not take account of any population move. I ask the Minister to answer on this point. Over the next 20 years, the population of the United Kingdom is, we are told, to exceed 70 million. That increase to the voting population will come through in any event. Over the next 20 years, it may also be added to by, for example, lowering the voting age to 16. I have only to look around in my local authority to see that the rising-fours will add 25 per cent to the primary school population. It is wrong and ill thought out to cap a number that does not allow for a movement of population. It would be much better to do it on the basis of the number of voters that you wish to see in a constituency. But if you do not do that, setting the number at 600 makes the constituencies far too large.
Lord Boswell of Aynho
Will the noble Baroness acknowledge that under the present arrangements, some of us, myself included, have had the privilege or the task of wrestling with an electorate approaching 90,000 already? Some of her concerns about these overlarge constituencies are less than well founded.
Baroness McDonagh
The difference in the situation proposed under the legislation from that which has formerly been is simply that the number of voters in a constituency is taken together with a whole series of other factors, one of which does not have primacy—so you do not split local government boundaries or county boundaries. You can take into account the geography in the Boundary Commission’s book when you know that there is going to be an increase in population. You can take into account other physical barriers, such as motorways and so on. In large constituencies you tend to have an electorate with a community of interests which it is possible to represent. A good example of that would obviously be the Isle of Wight. With this, you will go across vast areas where people do not recognise the other parts of the geographical area in the same constituency.
I need to go back to this issue because I feel that I can answer it. How do we end up with the number 600? I will explain why it would be right to have a House of Commons comprising 630 MPs. How do you end up with 600 MPs when one part of the coalition is suggesting 500 and the other is suggesting 585. I do not suggest that either party is innumerate, but generally you would fix somewhere around the figure of 540. You would not come up with a figure that was larger than either of the two figures suggested if it was not based on something else.
I have seen the figure published on current affairs and news items, and I have read it in the newspapers. I cannot believe that I am the only person in your Lordships’ House who reads newspapers and watches television. From examining them, I know that eminent psephologists of all political persuasions tell us that 600 is the figure that most benefits the Conservative Party. I knew that already because that is what my former counterparts at the Conservative Party head office had told me, so it was no surprise. The problem is that the figure is based on what I would describe as an obsession. There is a belief in the Conservative Party that it was robbed of the elections between 1997 and 2010, and that if only the electoral system had been different the Conservative Party would have won the election.
I will give three quotes from the debate so far. These are just examples, but I could go through Hansard and repeat them. The noble Lord, Lord Maples, said that,
“the general election in 2010 … required the Conservative Party to get 40 per cent of the vote to get an overall majority, but Labour to get only 34 per cent cannot possibly be considered fair”.—[Official Report, 15/11/10; col. 571.]
This is an example of trying to change the constituencies because of a belief that this is what prompts the differential between the numbers of votes for the parties.
The noble Lord, Lord King of Bridgwater, said that he,
“remembers the 2001 election in which we won the vote in England … we ended up with 60 or 90 fewer seats, having received more votes in England. The whole thesis of the Opposition is to keep the situation like that”.—[Official Report, 12/1/11; col. 1522.]
I have heard some noble Baronesses opposite even say that they were robbed of three constituencies through electoral fraud. The reality is this. At the last election, the electorate decided that it no longer wanted Labour to be in government. That is clear. However, it was not sure that the Conservative Party was ready to govern. That is why the Conservative Party did not get an overall majority.
I shall give one other quote:
“The equalising of the size of constituencies would remove an unfair advantage currently enjoyed by Labour”.
That was from a publication by Andrew Tyrie MP in 2004, with a foreword by Damian Green MP, to which I think my noble friend Lord Soley has already referred. This has been going on for many years in the Conservative Party, but it is apocryphal. It is not true; it is a falsehood. Labour gets elected on fewer votes because in Labour constituencies, the voters are people who are less likely to vote because of their social and economic demographics. The reverse is true for the Conservative Party. It seems to have become a real obsession, and I believe that the Government now need to move past it.
When I was in the Labour Party during 18 years in opposition, I remember that I wanted to see my party put many Bills through the House of Commons and the House of Lords. They were on matters such as introducing a minimum wage, education reform and reducing hospital waiting lists. My personal experience was that my mother had to wait 18 months in severe pain for a hip replacement operation. I wanted to see handguns removed because of the Dunblane massacre. It is telling that one of the first Bills that the Government wish to introduce would reduce the number of constituencies from 650 to 600.
Why the figure of 630? I believe that if we introduced 630 with an eligible electorate of 78,000, that would make for reasonably sized constituencies for Members to represent. I also believe that reducing the House by 20 seats would take away some of the worst excesses of large constituencies. Like all around the House, I want as far as possible to see constituencies of the same size, and this figure would allow for that. I say again that the average size of the constituencies of all three parties—Labour, Lib Dem and the Conservatives—does not differ by the quota set out in the Bill, but a figure of 630 will allow county boundaries and local government boundaries not to be crossed. That will make the exercise of the Boundary Commission much more efficient and much quicker. It will also allow a community of interest to prevail.
I would prefer that we concentrated on the number of voters in these constituencies. I think it is important that we represent the public from the grass roots up, not from the top down. The Government have already made it clear that they are not prepared to accept that view, so I am introducing an amendment which I believe will allow them to do what they are trying to do, but in a way that will represent our communities and take the public with us.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton
Although the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, is no longer in his place, I am certain that the noble Lord, Lord McNally, will be aware that the answer to my question about when a Government last sought to control the absolute number of constituencies in the other place was 1832, which is a long time ago. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord McNally, will accept that there could have been an element of gerrymandering then and now.
Lord Anderson of Swansea
My Lords, my noble friend has made a persuasive case that has drawn on her personal experience in a very effective way, but I am not, in fact, persuaded because I do not see what is the magic about the number 630 as against, say, 625 or 635. In my judgment, the exact number should be left to the work of the boundary commissioners, who should be given fairly strict criteria on which to work. That should be the way in which we reach a particular number.
Before going further along the approach that I would favour, I want to make one or two preliminary remarks. First, we are in some interesting and, indeed, unprecedented times. The political scientists among us—I think I saw the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, here, but he may not be in his seat—must be salivating at the way in which we are making precedents. The closure was moved and it may well be that the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, and other noble Lords intend to move further closures. That is unprecedented, but it may well be that we are moving along the route of virtual guillotines, as they have in the other place. That would put a very different complexion on the spirit of debates in this House. I suspect that the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, will be rather like Max Boyce—whose name was mentioned by, I think, my noble friend Lord Kinnock—who used to go around great rugby games in Wales and say, “I was there”. When he is lecturing to his students about this great new precedent, the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, can say, “I was there”. He has probably gone home by now, but at least he was there at the relevant time. When the closure was moved—which could, as I say, be analogous to a guillotine—and the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, heard the Lord Speaker read out that that could happen only “in exceptional circumstances”, I was reminded of Alice in Wonderland, where “words mean what I want them to mean”. Clearly, in his vocabulary, “exceptional” is a very flexible word indeed. We are moving in this very interesting way.
Secondly, I just want to comment on the intervention made by the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde. Given that we had had a debate of about two hours and 45 minutes, it is normal and courteous at the end of such a lengthy debate for the speaker from the government Front Bench to give due weight to the contributions that have been made, but we had just a few minutes for that. Some might have thought that that was arrogant, but I was prepared to give the noble Lord the benefit of the doubt and assume that that was just an hors d’oeuvre—a little taster on the way—and that far more debate would be allowed, to which he would give a second and far more substantive reply. But, no, he colluded with the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, in truncating the debate at that stage. Again, that is closer to arrogance.
Finally, I think that the reason that the magic figure of 600 has been raised is due to the inflexibility that has come about as a result of the coalition. A deal has been done in a smoke-filled room—although perhaps we no longer have smoke-filled rooms—and neither party to the coalition is prepared to move one iota away from that. Clearly, that inflexibility may change. Who knows what will happen to the Liberal Party over the next four or five years? Will there be a formal merger of the two parties? In the recent Oldham East and Saddleworth by-election, there were hints that one party might make way for the other or at least tell its supporters to support, as best they can, the candidate who has the better chance. Indeed, we do not know in which party Mr Clegg will be by 2015. Things are moving along, anyway, and that may well be the reason for this inflexibility.
I personally am not convinced of the case for 630. I do not know what the right number is—I am prepared to leave that to the wisdom of the Boundary Commission—but I know that any number that is chosen will have party-political consequences. If there are party-political consequences to 600, there will also be party-political consequences to 630 and to 500. In deciding on the numbers, or indeed on the approach, a Government can move in one of two ways. They can make up their own mind and bring down some figure as if on a tablet of stone, like Moses from the mountain, and say, “That is the number that we insist upon”. The problem with that is that the Government’s decision will be tainted. If we accept—as I think everyone should—that any number will have party-political consequences, people will believe that the number that the Government have chosen is the number that the Government think is to their party advantage. However, being an innocent in politics, I am sure that the Government had before them a little notice saying, “The national interest”, and that, in their judgment, the number 600 accords exactly with the national interest. However, the public and the chattering classes may be a little more sceptical than I am.
If one is serious about the numbers, surely one must adopt another device that, in so far as is practicable in the circumstances, enjoys the greatest amount of political support. Otherwise, what will happen is that, just as one Government can choose a number that—rightly or wrongly—the public believe is in the party interest of that Government, so another Government could come along and say, “We will alter the rules for our political advantage”. Surely that is wrong. It is wrong that any number should be considered to be based on partisan grounds. The only way of ensuring that the figure is believed to be legitimate and of ensuring that it has staying power in the longer term is for the Government not to impose a number but to bring in some system whereby there is an independent assessment.
Therefore, however persuasive my noble friend has been—she made a very good and plausible case—I think that her magic figure of 630, although it would be more acceptable because it would provide greater flexibility and a greater opportunity for the boundary commissioners to take account of localism and time boundaries and all the other important matters, would still lead to inflexibility. My judgment is that the boundary commissioners, subject to strict rules, should be given as much flexibility as possible to take account of all relevant criteria.
Lord Winston
My noble friend Lord Anderson was so quick on his feet that I did not have a chance to ask my noble friend a point that is directly related and relevant to the amendment that she has moved. I should like to ask her now, if I may. Noble Lords opposite know that I never give long speeches and I always try to speak to the point of a debate when I join it. I should like my noble friend to clarify how she arrives at the figure of 630. I genuinely do not understand why it is not, for example, 625 or 635. It would be very helpful to have the mathematics behind what she is proposing. I do not have a view about how big the House of Commons should be. I am inclined to believe that the number probably should be reduced but I do not understand how she has arrived at the figure that she is proposing.
Baroness McDonagh
I thank my noble friend and I shall deal with all three interventions, as well as that of the noble Lord opposite. When my noble friend Lord Anderson of Swansea said that the number of constituencies has political consequences, the noble Lord shouted back, “Of course it does. We all know that”. That is the first admission that we have had in this debate so far that there is a political reason for coming up with the figure of 600. I do not believe that that is a good reason to state what the number of seats in the other place should be.
Coming back to the three interventions, I absolutely agree with my noble friend Lady Farrington. I personally believe that it is wrong to set in law a cap for the number of seats in the other place. However, in answer to the point raised by my noble friend Lord Anderson of Swansea, because you cannot do everything that you need to do, sometimes you should do something to protect the interests of the public. I believe that setting the number of seats at 630 will allow that to happen and that we will not end up with a map of the UK on which the constituencies are marked out by straight lines.
I turn to the question asked by my noble friend Lord Winston. Under the current legislation, county boundaries are sacrosanct and constituencies are not allowed to cross them. Perhaps a small sample of us should go out and ask the public whether they believe that we should cross their county boundary. I do not know how many people here would like to come with me to Cornwall. I do not know it particularly well because it is not an area where we have had a lot of Labour constituencies. However, if we stopped people in the street and asked them whether they wanted their parliamentary constituencies to cross the county boundary to Devon, I think that we know what the answer would be.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton
I am awfully sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, is not in the Chamber, because he could support me in the argument that it would be very dangerous to go to the dividing line between Lancashire and Yorkshire and start interfering with the boundary. As a former Lancashire county councillor like me, he is aware that there are parts of the dividing line between Lancashire and Yorkshire where people insist on having both the red and the white rose, because they still have not finished the War of the Roses.
Baroness McDonagh
I thank my noble friend for that intervention. I hope that noble Lords opposite will not see these points as being petty. These matters really mean something to people; people really know where they live. I have witnessed many noble Lords taking groups of people around the House. It does not take long—it is usually two minutes into the conversation—for them to tell the assembled group, whether it is an after-dinner group or a school party, about how they got their title. It is always the same conversation: “I said this to Garter; Garter said this to me”. Great rigmarole is attached to the story, and that is because your Lordships believe in a community. In our hearts, we believe in a place that has a community of interest. It is what this democracy has always relied on.
My noble friend talked about Lancashire and Yorkshire. I do not know who would think of drawing a constituency that crossed that boundary—I would rather not have to explain it—but it will happen. We are talking about straight lines and not about communities of interest. If the Government wish to do that—
Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top
My noble friend is being overly generous to the Government. We are seeing the first part of PR put into the British consciousness. PR cannot work if it is linked to a community. You need to break that link of accountability between place and representative if you are going to have proportional representation; that is the very essence of the system. I believe—and I may be being paranoid—that that is the road down which the Government are taking the first step. I am not sure that every noble Lord understands that, but when one looks at the parts of the Bill together and the Government’s determination not to split them, one sees that that is one of the purposes behind the Bill.
Baroness McDonagh
Perhaps I may answer my noble friend’s point. I will then be happy to give way to the noble Lord.
Baroness McDonagh
No, it is my point to answer, I believe. I shall be happy to give way to the noble Lord afterwards, if he will let me answer. I thank my noble friend Lady Armstrong for making that point, which she managed to put much more articulately than I could.
If the Government want to break with a community of interest, they should introduce a system like that which exists in Israel. It is a pure PR system, based on a list. I would have no problem with the Government putting that to the electorate. What I have a problem with is their coming in by the back door with a system of government on which nobody has been able to have a say and of which nobody has had any pre-legislative notice.
I turn finally to the question of how I came to the number 630. My starting point was not what would benefit the Labour Party but the assumption that county boundaries are sacrosanct. I used local government boundaries as building blocks, because most local government wards are communities. I also believe—I know that we will get into this later in the debate—that we will cause terrible harm if people have to seek different councillors and MPs within a small area such as a local government ward. By doing this, we will just turn people off our politics and our democratic system. I used those as building blocks. How then can you get constituencies that are roughly the same size? To do that you are forced up; you are forced to build up and you get to 630. It was not a top-down effort on my behalf. I did not approach the exercise in the same way.
Lord Glentoran
I thank the noble Baroness. I have two or three points to make. I did not talk to anybody to get my peerage—I happen to be a hereditary Peer. That is why I am here and why I have been here as long as I have. I am a Conservative through and through, although I of course support the coalition. I live in a country where we have single transferrable voting and a total nonsense at the moment of some form of Executive which seems unable to make decisions. I for one—I think there are many people in my party like me—am not looking to pave the way for a different form of voting, as the noble Baroness said.
Lord Howarth of Newport
My Lords, I very much welcome the contribution by the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran. We have been looking forward to it for some hours since he trailed it a little earlier in the evening and it has been a sweet moment. It has also been a sweet moment listening to my noble friend Lady McDonagh as she moved her amendment. She spoke with a profound knowledge of elections and how they work, and, more importantly, of politics in this country much more broadly and of what makes people respond and behave as they do in politics. I have enormous respect for her judgment. I therefore have a natural disposition to be drawn to her proposal that the House of Commons instead of being reduced from 650 to 600 should be reduced only to 630. However, I have some difficulties with her amendment. One of the difficulties that I find in it I expressed in discussion of the amendments tabled by my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer. I do not think that it is appropriate for the Government to determine the size of the House of Commons. My noble friend and I both agree that, for all sorts of reasons that we touched on in earlier parts of the debate, it should not be for politicians to fix the size of the elected House of Commons.
However, I do think the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lady McDonagh is moving in the right direction. I shall probably be more inclined, when we come to them, to favour the amendments in the names of my noble friends Lord Snape and Lord Kennedy of Southwark. I am very much looking forward to those debates in due course. As I have already said to the House, I think there is a very strong case for a larger rather than a smaller House of Commons. I put some thoughts to the House earlier on why I think the pressures of business and demands on Members of Parliament within the House of Commons are very great and are difficult to be accommodated with the existing size of the House of 650. Equally, I think that when whichever body it is comes to consider the appropriate number of constituencies, it will also want to look very carefully at the volume of work that is expected of Members of Parliament in their constituencies—the expectations, indeed the requirements, of electors.
As a result of the defeat of the amendment proposed by my noble friend Lord Soley, we know that a generically independent commission will not determine this, but I live in hope that the solution put forward by my noble friend Lord Lipsey will in the end recommend itself to the House and that we can come back to that at Report. I mean his proposal that the Speaker’s Conference should determine the matter. As the Speaker’s Conference considers what the appropriate size of the House of Commons should be in future, I hope that it will take account of a number of factors that seem relevant. We all know that the age of deference is long gone, but the demands of constituents upon Members of Parliament will grow and grow—and will grow further should we see the introduction of a new constitutional arrangement proposed by the coalition, at the instance of the Liberal Democrats who have been keen, at least up until recently, to introduce a right of recall. I have been interested by the fact that, whereas all the rest of the agenda for constitutional reform, about which the Liberal Democrats have hitherto been so enthusiastic, has been pressed forward energetically and urgently, for some strange set of reasons we are not seeing them put the case with any comparable urgency for the introduction of a right of recall. I do not know whether my noble friends have any idea of why that might be, or whether it is anything that transpired in the politics of our country in recent weeks and months that could have caused them to have second thoughts and even, possibly, to lose their nerve over this.
Lord Kinnock
While the House reflects on the fascinating question that my noble friend raised about the evaporation of the passionate commitment to the right of recall, I take issue with him on his declaration that the age of deference has long past. I look across the House and see the age of dual but disproportionate deference actually in operation. I see the Liberal Democrats who fought the last election on a commitment to have 500 Members of Parliament in conditions of a single transferable vote, proportional representation, and devolution in England. I see a Conservative Party that fought the last election on an arbitrary and populist reduction of 10 per cent in the number of current Members of Parliament, taking us down to 585. It appears that both have deferred to the other, but the Liberals have done a damn sight more deferring, sacrificing a commitment to PR and devolution as well as a commitment to the right of recall. That is a pretty good definition of knee-crawling deference.
Lord Howarth of Newport
Indeed, as my noble friend suggests, they tug their forelocks quite obsessively. My noble friend makes the same very valid point as did my noble friend Lord Judd made so plangently in the previous debate. It is sad to see the Liberals defer to the Tories within this coalition in the way they do. None the less, the threat that the right of recall might have been be instituted has not entirely gone away because those cruel Tories might decide to bring it in, even if the Liberal Democrats have changed their mind about it for very understandable reasons. If there were to be a right of recall, that would enormously compound the uncertainty that already faces Members of Parliament in their own constituency, which would be yet further compounded by the increased uncertainty generated by the more frequent changes of boundary that the coalition proposes in this measure. Members of Parliament are naturally going to be watching their backs even more than has been the case in recent years. They will be worried that they might be recalled and worried in any case that their constituency will no longer exist, or will be so altered that they will have to spend a very great deal of time and energy salvaging their own political situation if they are to have a prospect of being returned again to the House of Commons. For those sorts of reasons, I fear that Members of Parliament in future are unlikely to give the same amount of attention and energy to their work in the House of Commons as they otherwise might have done. That seems to have a bearing on the question of how large the House ought to be.
Lord Glentoran
My Lords, I am so sorry to interrupt the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, once again, but he is giving us a lecture about all the possibilities of the future and about all the things that MPs at the other end do. What I, and I am sure people on this side of the House, would like to hear from him is what the party opposite thinks and considers is a sensible number of MPs to be elected to the other House.
Lord Howarth of Newport
I cannot, of course, speak for the Front Bench of the Labour Party, but in my own view it should be not less than 650. I therefore disagree with the proposition from my noble friend Lady McDonagh, although she is shifting the debate in a direction I want to see it move in. I am making a case not only that she is proposing too few Members of Parliament—630—but that we ought to have an amendment down on the Order Paper, and probably will on Report, that will provide for an increase above 650. I do not want to detain the House unduly, but I think that some of these issues—
Let us consider the question of immigration, which is such a staple of Members of Parliament’s surgeries. Indeed, Mr Greg Hands, the Member of Parliament for Hammersmith and Fulham—
Lord Kinnock
Before my noble friend moves on to that point, in response to the interesting point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, which he answered with perfect rectitude and transparency, neither he, I, nor anyone in this House, or indeed in the other place, can anticipate what the finalised policy of the alternative Government—the Labour Party—will be on numbers in the House of Commons. However, does my noble friend not agree with me that it is a supreme irony that the only way for our parliamentary democracy to prove absolutely that the coalition Government are not engaging in gerrymandering is by seeking not to change the number after the next election, which will be won by the Labour Party, in order conclusively to demonstrate that while others may have sought to meet their political convenience by establishing a fixed number for election to the House of Commons, the Labour Party will not engage in the same nefarious practice?
Lord Howarth of Newport
I completely agree with my noble friend. I have said that I do not think it is appropriate for Governments or politicians to fix the size of the House of Commons. That should emerge from the deliberations of the Boundary Commissions, themselves informed by the criteria that a Speaker’s Conference or some other independent body has formulated and proposed for discussion and debate in the country and upon which I hope we could reach consensus.
As I say, I am anxious to conclude my speech, but I just want to say something about immigration. I was mentioning that Mr Greg Hands, the Member of Parliament for Hammersmith and Fulham, stated in 2007 that he had between 700 and 800 unresolved immigration cases in his constituency case load. It is immense. We are now seeing a tighter cap on immigration brought in by the coalition Government, so that it can only be expected that this pot will boil even more vigorously and fiercely than it has in the past and that Members of Parliament will be very busy with that. Of course, they are going to be busy dealing with the crisis about student debt and, very possibly, with bankrupt universities in their constituencies.
Lord Anderson of Swansea
My noble friend has given some examples of the increased workload on Members of Parliament: for example, the fact that with increased boundary changes there will also be a degree of internecine strife between Members of Parliament who will fear that a neighbour, perhaps of the same party, will seek to oppose them in future boundary revisions. Is he also aware that it is increasingly difficult to find Members of Parliament to be members of Select Committees? We pride ourselves on our Select Committees, but even the Foreign Affairs Committee—which I had the honour to chair over two Parliaments and which was, along with the Treasury Committee, probably the most prestigious and sought-after committee—frequently did not have more than two-thirds of its members present. That problem is surely likely to increase.
Lord Howarth of Newport
My noble friend Lord Anderson of Swansea must not tempt me to repeat myself. We must not repeat ourselves in these debates because there are many substantive issues that we need to look at. However, I suggested in some observations in an earlier debate that there was a problem in finding all the people needed to be members of the important committees in another place.
Lord Anderson of Swansea
I was not talking about finding people to be members but getting them to attend.
Lord Howarth of Newport
I had the temerity to touch on that, too, but I did not have time—because I did not wish to detain the House—to talk about the importance of finding people to serve on the Council of Europe and the NATO General Assembly, and for all the other important responsibilities that Members of the House of Commons, between them, all carry.
My noble friend touched on the possibility of internecine strife developing between existing Members, who might find themselves in some contest for the nomination for a future constituency. I will give way in a second. I do not think that in the Labour Party people would be so uncomradely as to engage in that, but who can say what might happen among the Members of Parliament of the parties opposite?
Lord Winston
I do not want to delay the House very much, but my noble friend has talked about committees. Is it not also true—I do not think this has been raised before—that Members of Parliament often deal with a large number of very technical issues? For example, as a scientist presenting to them on embryology, it was extremely difficult to get proper comprehension of the science that we were discussing and the ethical issues that were involved. MPs were eager to learn about this but it took a lot of time.
One of the problems I found, both as a Member of this House and before I joined it, was that it was very difficult to find enough Members of Parliament to attend meetings that we had organised with experts to make sure that there was a thorough recognition of the subtleties of the legislation. This certainly applied to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990. That is only one of several issues. More recently, it was also true of the issues of hybrid embryos, when there was great difficulty in explaining those things. Members of Parliament would attend a committee for 15 minutes and then be off to the next job. That, I hope my noble friend will agree, is one reason why he is making a very pertinent point.
Lord Howarth of Newport
My noble friend makes an extremely important point. With the abolition of bodies such as the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, which the Government seem to be contemplating, and a whole series of expert bodies that is adumbrated in the provisions of the Public Bodies Bill, we will face yet greater difficulty in ensuring that there is an informed body of knowledge among Members of Parliament to enable them to debate effectively these immensely important and sensitive issues. My noble friend Lord Winston has tempted me to explore that avenue but, in view of the time and the impatience of so many of my noble friends to make their own contributions to the debate, I ought to sit down.
Baroness Nye
I support my noble friend Lady McDonagh. I have worked with my noble friend over many years. On matters of organisation I always follow her lead because she has great expertise in this area. It has not always been the case on, perhaps, politics or personalities over that period, but this is not the place.
When I spoke at Second Reading, I started by saying that I thought there was a consensus among all the parties that we had a duty and responsibility to look at legislation to see whether it restores trust and confidence in our parliamentary democracy. I have listened to most of the debate in Committee and I am afraid that nothing I have heard has managed to change my mind. In the Second Reading debate I had the privilege of following the noble Lord, Lord Maples. Unfortunately, he is not present. I did not agree with him then and I do not agree with him now.
As has been said, there has been no pre-legislative scrutiny or any kind of consultation on this constitutional reform. We heard this afternoon—it was actually yesterday afternoon—from the noble Lord, Lord McNally, that the Government still strongly advocate pre-legislative scrutiny. If this Bill had had that scrutiny or consultation, more progress might have been made and we might not have found ourselves in such problematic areas.
I disagree with my noble friend Lord Kinnock—it does not happen very often and I apologise for it in advance—but I understand the position of the Liberal Democrats as before the election they wanted to introduce STV, and therefore saw no need for the other place to have any more than 500 elected representatives. They also wanted to have a thorough overhaul of the state and to introduce a form of federal government which would involve many decisions being devolved to the institutions. I will not comment on whether or not that was a good policy. I do not agree with it but at least it had the merit of being coherent and understandable. The Conservatives also went into the election seeking a reduction in seats of 10 per cent, which would have brought them down to 585. When they drew up the coalition agreement, because the Liberal Democrats agreed to a referendum on AV and not on STV, their proposal to reduce the number of MPs to 500 was obviously not appropriate and was withdrawn. In my humble opinion the next best thing would have been to go back to the figure of 585, but that did not happen. As we have heard in the debate tonight, yesterday and at other stages, we have not really got to the bottom of where the figure of 600 came from. We have heard that savings to the public purse is a priority. I should have thought that forgoing an extra 15 Members would have added to those savings. To go back to my point about confidence being restored, I do not think that it is restored if, within weeks of campaigning for a reduction to 585, the figure suddenly switches to 600, with no explanation.
I take the point that my noble friend Lord Soley made that, whatever the figure is, if this Government set a figure it establishes a precedent for any future Government to set a different figure. Governments should stay out of deciding the number of seats. The amendments proposed by my noble friends for an independent body to look at this would have been a good way forward. Why am I therefore supporting my noble friend? One of the things that the Government could have done was to look at the House of Commons (Redistribution of Seats) Act 1949 and the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986, which both had targets of 613 seats. It was a target, not a specific number that we should have, but there was a feeling that we all agreed on 613. An independent boundary commission would then put that into place. When the Minister winds up, I hope that he will say whether that figure was considered and whether the Government considered amending that legislation to make the 613 figure not a target but the limit.
I support my noble friend’s amendment because I think that 630 is closer to that 613 figure and therefore would also get rid of some of the problems regarding Cornwall, Ynys Mon and certainly the Isle of Wight, as my noble friend has pointed out. Therefore, it is a way of addressing the issues. I take the point that both parties in the coalition have put forward a reduction in seats and therefore we must take that seriously. I would prefer not to go down this route but, if we are going down it, we need some leeway in what the figure is, and 630 to me would be the best way of achieving that. Therefore, I support my noble friend.
Baroness Billingham
My Lords, I should like to speak about something slightly different, but I am pleased to support the amendment of my noble friend Lady McDonagh.
Before I came into this House, I had the great privilege of being a Member of the European Parliament. That gives me an insight into what it is like to represent a constituency because I represented not only one constituency—as most people here will have done or will have associated themselves with—but seven Westminster constituencies. It just so happens that, before I was elected MEP, each of those constituencies in Northamptonshire and part of Leicestershire were held by men, and each of those men were Conservatives. It was a shock to all of us, including me, that I was elected then—I promise noble Lords that I have never asked for a recount—but that gave me an opportunity of working with those constituencies which, although they were side by side, were unique in themselves.
Perhaps I may remind noble Lords of those constituencies: Northampton North, Northampton South, Wellingborough, Kettering, Daventry, Corby and part of Leicestershire known as Blaby. I can assure noble Lords that, when I spoke in Northamptonshire, I always referred to my constituency as Northamptonshire and Blaby, but it will come as no surprise to anyone that, when I was speaking in Blaby, I called it Blaby and Northamptonshire. I learnt so much working with all those constituencies. Those were places that have developed over the years and over generations. They are not areas from which people move away, as people tend to stay in rural and middle-England areas such as Northamptonshire. Generation after generation can be traced back in those villages. I would urge enormous care to be taken on making too many radical changes in such constituencies.
Each of those constituencies had political divisions within them, but they also had things that united them. If there was ever a threat of a hospital closure, you can be assured that people would all be out on the streets together. In other ways, too, traditional industries were represented quite separately in those seven constituencies—one need only think of Northamptonshire’s old boot and shoe industry. Within a decade, we lost 22,000 jobs. One of my roles in those constituencies was to try to get the European Parliament to provide further support, which we achieved very successfully.
Noble Lords will also remember that Corby was a steel town that had more than its share of misfortune. The whole of that industry was wiped out in the 1980s, but you will recall that the people who arrived in the 1930s to work in the steelworks came down from Ravenscraig in Scotland. I could take you tomorrow to primary schools in Corby where you would not believe that you were not still in Ravenscraig, because the accents are still so strong. The constituencies were unique and the boundaries really mattered.
Lord McAvoy
On Corby, I agree with and understand my noble friend’s point about Scotland. Is she aware that there is even a Rangers FC supporters’ club in Corby?
Baroness Billingham
I most certainly am aware of that. On a Friday night, if you asked anyone in Corby, “What are you doing at the weekend?”, they would say, “We are going home”. I would say, “But you have lived here for the past 50 years”. Coaches were lined up in the high street for the supporters—some to watch Celtic and some to watch Rangers. Traditions died hard in Corby.
What I am trying to say is that we should not upset the apple cart by making radical changes. The development of the composition of constituencies and the way in which they function is important, not only politically but to the organisations that strive to make their constituencies better.
Finally, let me say that I had a great opportunity in 2000 to look even more closely at the constituency, when I was asked to chair an urban regeneration company in Corby. For five years we rebuilt the town: we built a new city centre, new schools, new roads and 22,000 new homes. One would have thought that the surrounding constituencies would have been jealous, but not a bit of it. The villages worked together in the county council because people knew that the need in Corby was extremely great. They supported the planning applications and the funding, and the result is there for all to see.
We should look very carefully before we tear up historic and important places where people not only want to live and work but enjoy living and working, and where they want their children to live and work and to have some sense of history. We should be aware of what we have at our disposal and of the jewels that are already in our hands.
Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady McDonagh, for the way in which she moved her amendment, which I am strongly inclined to support. I come here—as I often do to debates in this Chamber—not having made up my mind in advance and wanting to listen to the debate. Further amendments have been tabled and I will listen intently to the expositions that will be made, but at the moment I am heartened.
It is a pity that the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, is no longer in his place, because his intervention—like that of the noble Lord, Lord Winston—sought a response from the noble Baroness on how the figure of 630 was arrived at and what criteria were brought to bear. Having looked at the previous debates in which I did not intervene and having listened to the debate so far today, I think that for the first time we are starting to see some criteria laid down that could lead to a figure that rational people might see as appropriate.
So far, we have two parties that have come together on this issue in a coalition. They have both broken the promises that they made to their respective electorates about the number of MPs that they would put into place if they were elected. They then came up with a figure of 600. From listening to the Leader of the House, it seems that 600 was plucked from the air as a nice round figure. Now that at last the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, our expert on constitutional issues, is with us, I hope that we might be able to persuade him to give us the benefit of his experience and advice on what he would see as an appropriate set of criteria that should be brought to bear in an examination of the number of constituencies that we should have in the Commons. I am serious about this. We need a proper debate that is not based just on figures plucked out of the air because they are nice and round.
In conclusion, although I do not have any great expectation of getting a response on this, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord McNally, who is smiling at me, will be prepared to give us some criteria. Not just this House but the public at large deserve no less. As the noble Baroness, Lady Nye, point out, if we are to start to build trust and confidence in how the Government conduct their business and to open up parliamentary activities, we must set the facts and figures in front of people rather than just do what is most appropriate to the mood of the party of the day. I hope that we will focus on hard facts, real statistics and real issues, so that we can move forward in what I hope will be a lengthy and informative debate that should lead to a proper position being reached rather than something that is plucked out of the air.
Lord Harris of Haringey
My Lords, when I saw the amendment on the Marshalled List, I thought that we would have a very different debate from the one that has emerged. Until the speeches of my noble friends Lady Nye and Lord Brooke, I thought that we were not going to touch on what I understood was the essence of the amendment that my noble friend Lady McDonagh has moved.
I had assumed that the amendment represented not a real belief on the part of my noble friend that 630 should be the proper size of the House of Commons but what, in a traditional Committee stage of a Bill, we would regard as a probing amendment. The reality is that we have yet to have exposed to us any rationale for the size of the House of Commons that the Bill proposes. My noble friend Lord Brooke referred to the words of the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, who talked about plucking a nice round number out of the air. I remember also the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, telling us with enormous earnestness—and, I assume, absolute honesty—that no political considerations were contained in the figure that emerged. So what were the reasons for choosing 600 as opposed to 650, 630, 575 or 585?
I was tempted to say that there was some sort of arcane numerology about this. Noble Lords will be aware that 650 is the product of three prime numbers: two, five squared and 13; 630 is of course the product of four prime numbers: two, three squared, five and seven. I defy anyone to find a similar formulation or number that involves five prime numbers. Maybe my noble friend Lord Winston, or some such person could come up with something.
Baroness Liddell of Coatdyke
Perhaps I could postulate another figure, given the nature of the debate. Could we maybe go for 666?
Lord Harris of Haringey
It is interesting that the noble Baroness suggests that. When I looked in more detail at the combinations of prime numbers, I was going to say that perhaps the figure of 600 was chosen because it was a round number and that it would be very different from choosing 666, which is the mark of the beast, which no doubt noble Lords opposite would not have wished to use.
Lord Snape
As the mover of the next amendment, let me just assure my noble friend that there will be no fancy mathematics from me.
Lord Harris of Haringey
I would expect nothing less.
However, 640 has the virtue of being the product of only two prime numbers: two to the power of seven and five, as I am sure the noble Lord is well aware. Actually, it is interesting that you could choose a number that is simply one prime number—I have not done the analysis of to which they will be—but there is a comparatively small number of options that we have considered that are the product of two prime numbers.
I do not believe that that was the motivating factor in the Government choosing that figure, but the people of this country have a right to know what were the determining factors for the choice. Essentially, we have two options. One is that it is a political fix, as a number of noble Lords have suggested, but the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, has assured us that that is not the case. What is the answer? Has the number been entirely been plucked out of the air, as the noble Lord, Lord McNally perhaps suggested? If so, that is an extraordinary way of choosing the size of the elected House of Commons. It is bizarre. Are we being told that the only two possible reasons why 600 has emerged as the figure is either a crude political fix or a random number plucked out of the air?
I do not believe that the noble Lord, Lord McNally, would not be party to a crude political fix, nor do I believe that he would treat the country with such contempt as simply to allow a number to be plucked out of the air. There must be a rationale, so why is that not being shared with your Lordships in this House or with the country? What exactly are the arguments? In the absence of being given a convincing explanation that is not numerology or a number that seemed nice—a number that is less than 650 but a bit more than any number that we have previously mentioned in the run-up to the election, which may be the way that these things were done—I begin to believe that perhaps there was some political undercurrent in choosing the number 600.
I want to hear the noble Lord, Lord McNally, reaffirm that there have been no political calculations of that sort. I want him to say that none of the special advisers supporting Ministers involved in the decision have been exchanging e-mails on the subject of what will be the political consequence of choosing 600 as opposed to 585 or 650. Let the noble Lord make the assurance that there are no e-mails between special advisers, that there have been no conversations with Ministers and that work in the political parties has not been done—or, if it has been done, that it has not been shared with those who have been making the decisions.
It cuts no ice if we are being told that the number of 600 has been arrived at for no reason whatsoever. Frankly, we will believe that it was political chicanery. The noble Lord, Lord McNally, will have to work very hard to convince us otherwise and that there are not smoking e-mails or smoking correspondence somewhere that demonstrate that that was the motivation driving the Government to the figure that has been chosen.
Lord O'Neill of Clackmannan
My Lords, I come to this debate remembering what my noble friend Lady McDonagh said at the beginning about the boundaries being redrawn here in a manner comparable with imperial Britain carving up Africa. My mind goes back to 20 years ago today, when our forces went into Kuwait and we entered the first Gulf War. In some people's minds, that was to correct a cartographical error of British imperialism. When British Governments adopt arbitrary means to achieve quick political fixes, eventually the problems blow up in their faces.
I remember that, not that many years ago, when the noble Lord, Lord Lang, was Secretary of State for Scotland, he had the very bright idea that he could change the political character of Scotland, particularly at local government level, by taking away an entire tier of local authorities—removing the regions. He was then going to re-establish the political map of Scotland by having a number of single-tier authorities. Much to everyone's surprise, he believed that in some instances, those single-tier authorities would be run by Conservative administrations. As it happened, the neighbouring authority to my constituency—in fact, part of my constituency was in it—was Stirling, which was to be the Tories’ jewel in the crown. They did not win anything across Scotland.
The Scottish electorate turned on them with a ferocity that was even greater in 1997. They did that because they resented the cheap, quick fix of a bit of political gerrymandering. The irony was that not only were we, as a consequence of that victory, able to have the road to 1997 and a Labour Government, but it provided us with the elimination of one of the major obstacles to devolution: a two-tier system of local government in Scotland. There are innumerable examples of Governments—invariably Tory Governments—who have tried to be too clever by half when they have messed about with our constitutional and electoral arrangements.
Lord Snape
It is not just in Scotland, of course, where the Conservative Party has messed up local government. It did exactly the same thing in England under the Local Government Act 1972, which created metropolitan county councils that it thought it could win. The Act was created by the Heath Government in 1972 and abolished by the Thatcher Government a decade or so later because they could not win them. It was at enormous expense; yet here we are debating legislation that will supposedly save money by reducing the number of Members of Parliament. The whole thing reeks of hypocrisy.
Lord O'Neill of Clackmannan
My noble friend makes a very good point, but I will not go down that road. It is interesting that it is not only north of the River Tweed where there have been mistakes of this nature. It is endemic in the Conservative Party and, at the moment, in its running dogs, the junior members of the coalition. The point I want to make is that the boundaries in Scotland have been changed. The constituencies were changed as a consequence of devolution. We reduced the number of seats from 72 to 59. We did so because there was a precedent or a reason for it. As a consequence of the treaty of Union 1707, Scotland was to be overrepresented in the Westminster Parliament because Scotland gave up the three estates at that time.
As for some of the earlier discussions today about the reduction in the number of seats, such a reduction can have legitimacy if there is a reduction in the inequality of the legislatures. As a consequence of devolution, when Scotland began to get responsibility for a number of the powers that it had previously had in England, we in Scotland we could not disagree with a reduction in the number of seats.
My noble friend Lady Liddell of Coatdyke and I disagreed about what I thought was the consequence of that, which was to reduce the number of seats in the Scottish Parliament as a consequence of a reduction in the number of seats in the British Parliament represented from Scotland, but we do not need to go into those battles this evening. The point I want to make is that there were well laid out precedents for a reduction in the number of seats. They were on the basis of a broad constitutional settlement, which the Conservatives grudgingly accepted but now embrace because the proportional representation arrangements in the Scottish Parliament and in Scottish local government, which I deplore, to be perfectly frank, afford them a foothold in Scottish politics that they would otherwise not enjoy under any other system. However, that is not what they are offering here, although my noble friend Lady Armstrong suggested that this might be the precursor to some grander programme of electoral reform. Frankly, that is a bit premature at this stage.
It is clear that if we reduce the number of seats on the basis that we are talking about, the Labour Party might well lose 25 seats, the Liberals about seven and the Conservatives about 10 seats. I am not sure of the arithmetic, but it would be wrong to assume that it will necessarily be to the electoral advantage of the proposers of this scheme that there will be much advantage, because it is so blatantly unfair and unjust that the British public will probably turn on this wretched Government and its associates—running dogs if you want to call them that.
I happen to believe that in some respects the reduction in the number of seats will not present too many electoral problems for us, but it will leave a rotten taste in the mouth of the British electorate. Electors will see the manner in which this whole project is being pursued: the indecent haste, the lack of consultation and the inability of individual Members of Parliament and interested parties across the political spectrum to have a say in what is happening to areas in which they have worked for over the years. This is what sticks in the craw of so many people at this time.
We have an arbitrary figure that has been plucked out of the air but which seems to suit someone’s convenience. Frankly, I think it will blow up in their faces and in the end will not be that significant. What is more important is the impact in the interim if this is carried. It will have an effect not only on the body politic in Britain but on the actual operation of politics in this country. People have said that a reduction in the number of seats and an increase in the number of electors will have an impact on the job and responsibilities of Members of Parliament.
We know that at the moment in the other place, every penny spent by a Member of Parliament is under the closest scrutiny, but if you increase the number of people a Member of Parliament has to represent, you increase the workload and the responsibilities of the staff. As has been suggested, there is likely to be a continuing rush of activity resulting from the indiscriminate sending of e-mails that often cannot be traced back to a constituent. You have to add the caveat, “I am sorry. I cannot answer this query until you give me your postal address rather than your electronic address”. This kind of thing will increase and make the job of MPs to represent their people effectively that much more difficult.
It has been made clear that if the economic difficulties that we are facing continue, the workload of Members of Parliament will rise. I represented a seat that for many years had in excess of 20 per cent long-term unemployment among the electors because of the decline in the textile industry, the closure of pits and the like. The point I want to make is that those people did not have just one problem; they had all the problems that poverty brings. It is assumed that somehow we can get out of this difficulty and that there are some bright and sunny uplands that the economy does not really worry about since there will only be 600 MPs and we are going to reduce public expenditure on political representation. That is nonsense. Frankly, I think that in playing with the political system, this Government are playing with fire.
I do not really worry about the impact of a reduction in the number of seats on the outcome of the next general election because I think that Labour will win it substantially. It will win it because of the daft notions of the people on the Benches opposite about matters such as this. What is equally worrying, however, is that as public representatives—we are appointed, not elected, but we are part of the system—we will see the political system in this country suffer as a consequence of the arbitrary and arrogant way in which this Government are approaching a fundamental proposition: the manner in which we are represented.
It is always difficult for Members of Parliament to adjust to and work out how to deal with particular areas when boundaries are changed. One reason why my title refers to Clackmannan is that for 26 years it was the one part of my constituency that I represented continuously over the period. Local government boundaries came and went, and constituency boundaries came and went, but I kept a hold on the county of Clackmannan. It is the smallest county in Scotland and the one that was never big enough to be represented on its own. It has a population of only about 55,000, with 36,000 to 38,000 electors, so it always has to be added to other bits, although the people of Clackmannan always say that other bits are added on to us.
It will be quite a traumatic experience for a number of people in the House of Commons, newly elected Members who have been nurturing the seat for the past four or five years, to be confronted at future general elections, earlier than they had anticipated, with selection conferences and the problems that they will cause within the party. There will have to be completely new strategies developed by these individual Members of Parliament—the people who, in most instances, are blameless of the excesses of their predecessors, but who, nevertheless are being treated with the contempt that many of their predecessors deserved. These individuals do not need that; they do not need the hassle of boundary redrawing; they do not need the hassle of being told, “The job you are doing is not sufficient, you should be doing a bigger one”. Because, at the end of the day, that is what this means—the addition of another 10,000 or 12,000 people to an MP’s workload. It can be quite significant and quite unsettling. It comes with the job, but it does not have to come quite as early as we are talking about as a consequence of accepting the changes that the Bill would afford.
The figure of 650 is one that we can live with at the moment. We can consult widely and effectively by means of a Speaker’s Conference, or by means of other forms of consultation and we can change it if that is seen to be appropriate, but to pluck a figure out of the air and to drive it through in the arrogant manner that this Government are adopting is, frankly, totally unacceptable. They will face the same consequences that their predecessors faced when they tried to gerrymander and to fiddle with our electoral system and our constitution.
Lord Trimble
My Lords, I had thought of intervening during the speech of the noble Lord, Lord O’Neill, but it occurred to me that the comments I was going to make would not be appropriate to address to him, as they relate to earlier speeches. I want to share with noble Lords the fact that a few moments ago I received a text message from my younger son, who is a university student. He told me that he is watching this on BBC Parliament and his comment is that Labour are consistently waffling.
Baroness Mallalieu
My Lords, I hope that the House will forgive that I was unable to speak on Second Reading on the Bill and that this is the first time that I have intervened in Committee. It is not intended to be in any way discourteous to the House. I shall try to avoid waffling and I shall try to be brief.
Surely, what all sides of the House want to achieve is a figure which will enable the House of Commons to carry out its work most effectively and at reasonable cost. What we have in the Bill—and I say it to my noble friends who have put down amendments with specific figures—is horse-trading, and that is no way to change the constitution of our country. The thought that it is only Members of this House or another place who should be making that decision, without assistance or consultation from outside, seems to me to be insulting to the electorate. It is the electorate who must decide what they want their Members of Parliament to do and how many of them are needed to do it. The failure to consult independently on the Bill in any proper or meaningful way seems to me to greatly diminish what the Government intend to do with the Bill as at present.
What cannot be decided, surely, is how many Members of Parliament are required until we are clear what we want our Members of Parliament to do. That is what my noble friend Lord Winston said earlier in relation to the medical profession and I think that we sometimes lose sight of it in politics.
We have heard conflicting evidence in the course of what I have found a fascinating evening. On the one hand there have been noble Lords like the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, who have said that there is no difficulty in representing a constituency of 96,000, I think he said, and the noble Lord, Lord Maples, who said that he could not understand what either the Scottish or the Welsh MPs were doing with their time because they had so little to do. On the other hand, I have listened to others—on this side, mainly—who have spoken of huge workloads, caused sometimes by complex legislation such as on immigration.
I have never had the good fortune to be in the other place—not for the want of trying a couple of times—but I have had second-hand an opportunity, over a considerable time, to see the way in which the job of an MP has changed and is continuing to change. That is why I feel that to set in stone a particular figure for the numbers is wholly wrong.
I was born in 1945, which, coincidentally, was the year that my father was elected as a Labour MP to another place. At that time there were 640 Members of Parliament and, I think, an electorate of some 33.5 million. That electorate has shot up many times since then, whereas the number of MPs has not. My father, as I understand it from those who knew him, was regarded as an excellent constituency MP.
Baroness Mallalieu
I am grateful to that person who knew him. In those days, a Member of Parliament was not required or indeed expected to be totally full-time. He was expected to have another job, and the hours of the House were designed with that in mind—indeed, frankly, people were paid with that in mind—and the burden on those people was very much less. My father was a good constituency MP because he went once a month to his seat in Huddersfield, which was his home town but where he did not live; he had surgeries there, and he reported back on what had happened in Westminster, where he considered his main job was. He dealt with constituency problems but he did them one afternoon a week, when his secretary, Mrs Whibley—how could I forget her name?—used to come to the house and sit down and deal with the whole of his parliamentary correspondence when he dictated the replies to her. As I understand it, when I was asked as a child, “What does your father do for a living?”, my answer was, “He cuts the grass and sometimes he writes articles”. I saw an awful lot of him because Members of Parliament were not required to be in the House at that time until later in the day, and my father followed his profession as a journalist.
What I have seen of my friends who are in another place, though, is that it is a wholly different world now. Some have spoken of the difficulties of Members of Parliament attending committees. When I first came to this place—which, I am reminded by my noble friend Lord Desai, who came at the same time, was nearly 20 years ago—I was mildly irritated, to say the least, by the fact that whenever one went to a meeting, particular all-party groups and so on, Members would inevitably come in late and leave early. I thought that it was some sort of bid to appear to be very busy and important, but the more I have seen of it, the more I have realised that it is genuinely a problem. They have such a great burden, not only because of meetings to attend but because the hours of the House have changed so radically over the past 50 years or so that they are genuinely pressed to devote the amount of time that is required, particularly, by committees and Select Committees of the House. They are also dealing now not just with a vastly increased workload from constituents but with a much more sophisticated political lobbying system and with pressure groups, all of which require attention. Others have spoken of e-mails, faxes, mobile phones and other things that simply did not exist all that time ago.
To put it frankly, although I have heard from others in the House today that they have no problem in dealing with huge constituencies, the Members of Parliament who I know best seem the whole time to be pushed to achieve what is required of them. I do not know whether reducing the number would make that harder. I do not have the ability to make that decision; all I can do is listen to the conflicting accounts from both sides. It seems that there may be considerable constituency variations, some where it is possible for a Member of Parliament to deal with a much larger number of electors, and others where the workload is almost unbearable, even given the considerable support that MPs now have. If it is intended in this part of the Bill to reduce the costs of the electoral system for the general public, I just wonder whether the general public really appreciate that if the burden is great, they will not receive the service that they currently have unless there is also an increase in expenditure on staff.
I am coming to the end of what I want to say. Ultimately, whether the figure is arrived at by horse trading, as I suspect, or whether it is plucked from the air, that is wholly wrong, but even more wrong is setting the number in stone, as the Bill does. We need flexibility. We need independent people, such as boundary commissioners, looking at the whole process and deciding what is right and, above all, we need the public to be involved in the debate.
For the life of me, I cannot understand the Government’s attitude in refusing to split the Bill. It seems to me that, if they were to do so, it would be perfectly possible in a relatively short time for us to have the debate and for the public also to have their say on what they want of their MPs and whether they want to see a reduction in the size of the Commons and, if so, to ensure that they understand the consequences. It may be that they will do that, and it may be that, having heard those arguments based on the evidence that the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, called for—we have not seen any of it tonight—I will come to the same view. However, I cannot accept that the Government are seeking to make a major constitutional change without any proper consultation or pre-legislative scrutiny and without giving us any explanation of how they have determined that this vital change should be made.
[For the continuation of today’s proceedings, see Official Report, 18 January 2011.]