Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Baroness McDonagh and Lord Desai

Monday 10th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

That is quite a different argument. I am saying that I do not know whether it is better for a Member of Parliament to represent a much broader area of the country and our communities and therefore to unite and understand those, or whether it is better for them to be very specialised and to represent an area that feels very close together with a lot of shared interests. I see the merit of the amendment as enabling a committee of inquiry to think about how our communities can best be represented, whether at local government level, or, as it particularly addresses itself, within the House of Commons. Building on that, because I assume that it involves the same building blocks, would be an elected House of Lords, and indeed an elected European Parliament.

[Lord Desai]

My Lords, I want to make a point not about individual constituencies, because I have never been in another place, but about the importance of the amendment as making certain things statutory. Those of your Lordships who have read Richard Crossman’s diaries may remember the glee with which he said, “Oh, the Boundary Commission are our people and they will fix these boundaries in our favour”. For many years we have conducted affairs more or less according to the idea that the party in power has a licence to fix things in its own way. I think that we have now come to the stage at which it is very likely that we will have coalition Governments, and when you have coalition Governments you have to stop doing that sort of thing. You have to put things on a statutory basis. What I like about my noble friend’s amendment is that it very systematically establishes a committee of inquiry that will report year after year and will take a comprehensive look at a number of these issues, including the time to conduct boundary reviews, et cetera. What we are debating here is not so much whether one should equalise or not—maybe we should equalise—but how we equalise. It might be inevitable that diverse constituencies are put together. This is not so much about what we do but about how we do it and how we continue to do it on a permanent basis.

That is an important part of the amendment. By putting it in the way he has—and I hope that the Minister will take this very seriously—my noble friend is adding something to the constitutional reform process on which the Government are embarked. This will prove a very important brick to give greater legitimacy to the kind of reform the Government want than they have got so far. Therefore, when it comes to House of Lords reform and determining the size of the House, if this amendment is accepted it will be much easier for the Government to propose the new size of the House of Lords because they will be able to say that a committee of inquiry has been permanently established that can consider and report on the matter. This is why I commend my noble friend’s amendment.