Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Elystan-Morgan Excerpts

Monday 6th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tyler]

I can answer the noble Lord, as it happens, because I have very good brief. That Bill started its progress through the House of Commons on 28 October 1997 and was not completed until well into 1998, so it is a very similar situation to the present one. I go a step further, which is why I hope we are going to get a contribution from the opposition Front Bench. Amendment 12 specifies that this referendum should take place on the same day as the mayoral and Assembly elections in London in 2012. What is right for the goose is surely right for the gander. How can we possibly argue, as Members opposite did for hours the other night—it seemed interminable—that somehow the Scots are not capable of taking this decision on the same day when London has done so in the past, and there is a proposal, which has been supported by at least some Members opposite, to do so again in 2012? I stand up for the Scots as a fellow Celt. I think they are quite capable of taking this decision on the same day, and I hope your Lordships’ House will take the same view.

[Lord Elystan-Morgan]

My Lords, there is a fallacy in the argument of the noble Lord, Lord Tyler. There are certainly many arguments for holding these elections on the same day as elections in Scotland, Wales and England, and there are many arguments against. My point is limited to this issue. Why did Her Majesty’s Government think for a moment that it was right to come to a final determination on this matter without consulting the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly? It seems to me, looking at it either with naivety or with remorseless logic, that it was either a case of negligence or a studied discourtesy. Which was it?

[Lord Grocott]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, has missed the point of my noble friend’s amendment, which is characteristically sensible and clever. It in no way prevents the Government from having the referendum when they want to have it. It simply gives them, as my noble friend has expressed very clearly, another lifeboat. It would have been so much simpler if we had had an indicative referendum, as has already been said, because huge chunks of this document would not have to be debated between now and 5 May, if that is when the Government want to hold the referendum. Those would be matters to consider after the indicative referendum, but the House has decided not to go ahead with that. As my noble friend said, the choice is still there for the Government to take.

I put this to the Government in as gentle a way as I can. Quite often you put documents together before an election, although on this occasion the coalition document was put together after the election. This would not be the first Government in history to find that it was not possible to enact some of their intentions. That would not be a first in British constitutional history.

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[Lord Strathclyde]

Yes, there is a fourth group which supports a reform of the electoral system but not this reform. But this amendment is about the date, and all those who will support the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, if he presses it to a vote, have understood that by accepting this amendment, in practice the referendum cannot take place on 5 May. Amendment 5 does not specify an alternative appropriate day. Setting the date in the Bill, as we have done, gives certainty to those involved in the planning and campaigning. I could not help thinking during the course of the debate that if the Government had published a Bill with no date, noble Lords opposite would be the first to get up and say, “How outrageous this is. How can anybody campaign? This is the Government making it up as they go along”.

We decided on 5 May because it is the best date. It is when 84 per cent of the population will already be going to the polls. Or I should say that 84 per cent of the population will have the opportunity of going to the polls—the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, is right to admonish me on that. I made the argument last week and I make it again: it will save us a great deal of money—something like £30 million—if we go ahead on the day that we have decided.

The noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, said that people will be confused. There is a lot of outrage in the House today about this sense of confusion. As my noble friend Lord Tyler said, people have no difficulty in voting in local elections and general elections on the same day. In this House, we are used to making lots of decisions every day, but the poor people outside are not so blessed with our brains and will find it much more difficult. I think not. People are well capable of deciding who should represent them in terms of local government, the Welsh Assembly or Scottish Parliament. They are able to decide on a simple yes or no whether they wish to have AV. I have no truck with these arguments about confusion.

The noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, made a point that was echoed by one or two other noble Lords including the noble Lord, Lord McAvoy, about whether it was negligence or discourtesy that we had not consulted the other parliaments and assemblies in the United Kingdom. The Government wanted to make an announcement on a national basis on a given day to Parliament. Even if it was a lack of respect, should we change the date just because of that lack of respect, if there is no other reason not to continue?

[Lord Elystan-Morgan]

Granted that the Government had a total conviction that it should be 5 May and nothing else, would it however not have been courteous, chivalrous and statesmanlike to have consulted the Parliament of Scotland and the Assembly of Wales?

[Lord Strathclyde]

I am sure that it would have been all of those things, but none is a reason not to have the referendum on 5 May. That is the point.

The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, asked whether, if we carried on like this, there was any prospect of getting this legislation through not just by the end of January but by the end of January 2020. I have my doubts as well. Of course, that gives the lie to the accusation that we are not debating these issues thoroughly. We could not debate these issues more thoroughly than we have done over the past day and a half in Committee.

Before us is the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, who offered us the date “before 31 October”. In the same group we are offered 30 June, 15 September, 6 October and 13 October, and the noble Baroness, Lady McDonagh, offered us 3 May 2012. It is a smorgasbord of opportunity. I am grateful to noble Lords such as the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, who have been constructive and helpful by saying that we should save ourselves with this lifeboat of an alternative. However, I am entirely satisfied that, with the evidence from the Electoral Commission and the debates within the Government, we are perfectly capable of holding this referendum on 5 May.

I have one other concern. The real unspoken reason why so many noble Lords opposite are against—

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[Lord Strathclyde]

I understand the views in Scotland and in Wales, and possibly in Northern Ireland as well. However, we have asked the Electoral Commission to give us its considered view. It has done so, and we back it.

[Lord Elystan-Morgan]

Following that question from the noble Lord, Lord Rowlands, perhaps I can ask who decided that there should be no consultation with the Scottish Parliament or the Welsh Assembly. I accept that there was no obligation whatever on the Government to change their mind on the matter of 5 May but, nevertheless, the decision not to consult was deeply insulting not just to the Parliament and the Assembly concerned but to the nations concerned.

[Lord Strathclyde]

I accept the noble Lord’s point; he has made it before. Perhaps if we were doing it differently, it would be done in a different way. For reasons of confidentiality and of making a statement, and rather than allowing the rumour mill to flow, it was right to make the decision we did.

Parliament Act 1911: Centenary

Lord Elystan-Morgan Excerpts

Monday 6th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, this Government will be different, which is why so much of our legislative programme is about devolving power to people. The localism Bill, which will be published shortly, and the Bill on elected police commissioners are all about taking power away from the Executive and handing it back to people.

[Lord Elystan-Morgan]

My Lords, does the Minister accept that as a matter of legal interpretation, the words “popular basis” apply not only to a directly elected House but to a House that is appointed on a broad popular basis?

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, that is a good try. I am not sure that I agree with the noble Lord, and I am certain that it was not in the mind of the parliamentarians who passed the 1911 Act.

Business of the House

Lord Elystan-Morgan Excerpts

Monday 29th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[The Countess of Mar]

My question has a bearing on what the noble Lord, Lord Richard, has just said. Does the Speaker in another place make a decision entirely on his own or with legal advice from the Clerks in the House of Commons?

[Lord Elystan-Morgan]

My question is very much along the same lines. It goes to the root of the question raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis. Is she right when she says that the mere fact of a Bill involving public expenditure makes it possible for it to be certified as a money Bill? If that is so, then it is extremely serious and of massive constitutional relevance.

Is it then the case—I do not have the wording of the 1911 Act before me—that since 1911 it has been a matter of restraint not to certify possibly thousands of Bills that might have been money Bills but for good reason have not been so regarded? Am I right in thinking that although the 1911 Act very considerably curtails the effect of any amendment made by this House, there is not one word in it that suggests that we should not discuss a money Bill?

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, that is precisely why the Government have allocated a whole day for discussion and debate on this Bill. There will be a very full Second Reading day on it, especially given this debate. It is right that this House’s voice should be heard, but it cannot be heard more than the Parliament Act 1911 allows. This is so well precedented over the past 99 years that even I, who like history and historical anecdotage in the House of Lords, find this whole debate extraordinary.

The noble Countess, Lady Mar, and the noble Lord asked about the Speaker’s role in all this. Parliament Acts are a long-standing part of the constitutional settlement of the United Kingdom. Under the Parliament Act 1911, Mr Speaker is under a statutory duty to certify a Bill a money Bill if, in his opinion, it contains provisions dealing with national taxation, public money, loans or their management. The important words there are “a statutory duty”. It is not a choice; Mr Speaker has no discretion in the matter. That goes to answer the point of the noble Lord, Lord Richard, who gave the impression that somehow there was discretion in this matter, and that I could say to the Speaker, “On balance, old boy, could you certify rather fewer money Bills?”. That is not the case. It is done on advice given by Mr Speaker’s Clerks on the basis of a statutory provision. The decision to certify this Bill a money Bill is taken entirely by Mr Speaker in another place. We accept the consequences of that because of the 1911 Act and all the precedents that have been set over the past 100 years. In my opening speech, I talked about the 60-odd money Bills that have arisen in the past 13 years. The outrage on the part of noble Lords opposite is extraordinary given that, seven months ago, they were sitting on this side of the House but never once did they scratch their heads and say, “These money Bills are a bit odd. We really should repeal the 1911 Act”.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Elystan-Morgan Excerpts

Monday 15th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Elystan-Morgan]

My Lords, I find myself in considerable agreement with the remarks of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer. Within six days, this House has seen the Government deal with two Second Readings of Bills of immense constitutional importance. Noble Lords will recollect that last Tuesday we had the Second Reading of the Public Bodies Bill, and now we have this matter before us. The Bills have a great deal in common, but what is most striking is the fact that the Government seem to be very much on the defensive and, if I may say, on to a loser in respect of them both. They are on a loser in relation to the arguments that have been and will be deployed in this House later today and tomorrow, and very much on to a loser in relation to the castigation of both Bills by that most distinguished body of persons, the Select Committee on the Constitution. The committee’s castigation has not been a mild dissertation on what the alternatives might have been. It was not a slap on the wrist, as I described it the other evening. Rather, it was a magisterial rebuke of such dimensions and intensity that it would cause, I suggest, any sensitive Government to smart in embarrassment.

One is tempted, in relation to both these losses, to remember Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest”. Losing one is indeed unfortunate, but losing both smacks of carelessness. That will be the verdict of the community not only in relation to these two matters over the long term, but also very probably in relation to the third, which will be with us in a few weeks or perhaps months, on the Government’s protection of their position in the House of Commons. They will be protecting themselves on a five-year basis, taking out a lease on a certainty of five years rather than having a month-by-month tenancy, as it were, along with the other provisions of that Bill.

On the question of the attempt to equalise the size of constituencies in the United Kingdom, it is of course superficially attractive to aim for equality all round. But that is the most shallow and superficial approach imaginable. It is based entirely on the mirage of a chimerical conception. You cannot achieve, with a mere mathematical formula, any form of total equality. Even with constituencies of exactly the same size, you would not achieve equality. Let us assume for the purposes of argument that the AV provision is not carried by a referendum—and I would be surprised if it would be. If that is so, you would still have inequalities. Constituency A will have a successful Member elected by 37 per cent of the electorate, while constituency B would have a 55 per cent vote and constituency C 65 per cent. Where is the equality in the situation of a compact urban constituency covering a few square miles in which a constituent living at the furthest periphery can walk to the office of his Member of Parliament in 20 minutes, compared with a massive rural constituency comprising a couple of counties where it would take half a day’s travel to achieve the same result? No equality is possible. Slavish adherence to a mathematical formula does nothing to bring about equality save in the most shallow and chimerical way.

The price that has to be paid for this is high. Many constituencies are communities that have a history. They have a soul, an identity and a cohesion that will disappear completely or, at the very best, there will be so much doubt and uncertainty about the matter that no one will know who their Member of Parliament is or might be, or where his constituency is going to be. I had the great honour of serving the county of Cardigan in the other place for eight short years. That community is one of the oldest in the United Kingdom, going back around 1,500 years. The community in that land from the estuary of the Dyfi to the Teifi and to the west of the Plynlimon range to the sea has been hammered out on the anvil of the centuries. But under this formula it will virtually disappear and its identity will be lost totally. That uncertainty will apply to hundreds of constituencies in the United Kingdom. If there is any real benefit to be gained, even superficially and over a short period of time, by a slavish adherence to a mathematical formula, it will all be lost and counterproduced by uncertainties and the sheer chaos brought about by this attempt at equality in relation to constituencies.

That position is one which will bring about the greatest injustice of all in Wales. The total number of seats in Wales will inevitably be reduced under the plus or minus 5 per cent on 76,000 rule from 40 to 30—a reduction of 25 per cent. Wales will have fewer seats than it had at the time of the Great Reform Act 1832. Many will say, “Come off it. You should be saying not that it is wrong now to change the system but that it was wrong not to change it over the decades”. That argument was put to Mr Kenneth Clarke when he was Home Secretary and dealing with the Boundary Commission Act 1992. He said, “No, I am not having it. Wales is a national entity; there is here a constitutional arrangement of long standing which I am determined to honour”. The situation now is exactly as it was in 1992.

There is one further consideration in relation to Wales—the question of devolution. I raised that point with the Deputy Leader of the House in June of this year and asked him whether there would be an over-cull of Scotland and Wales because of devolution. I received a straight and clear answer—no. So the situation in relation to Wales turns entirely upon the question of the 76,000 plus or minus 5 per cent rule. That is entirely wrong and the matter must be looked at again.

The question of reducing the total number of Members of Parliament compounds the evil. We are in a situation where Members of Parliament—some of them deservedly; most of them undeservedly—have been castigated and regarded as extremely unworthy persons. The coalition Government are saying, “Yes, we agree with you. They are pretty rotten chaps so we will get rid of 50 of them”. I will not animadvert on the question of why it is 50 rather than 115, as proposed by the Conservative Party, or 150 as proposed by the Liberal Democrats but, be that as it may, I make the point, with as much force as I can possibly command, that there never was a factual basis for that calculation. One could easily argue that, if an in-depth inquiry had been held into the number of seats the House of Commons should have, it is at least as possible that the inquiry would have found that we needed more Members of Parliament rather than fewer.

Let us consider the facts. It is said that we have more Members in our House of Commons than most other Parliaments in Europe. That is perfectly true, but we have a much greater population than most others. However, the ratio of Member of Parliaments per 1 million of the population is, in this country, lower in the main than in many other countries. We compare roughly favourably with France and Italy. Many of the states in Europe are federal states and do not heap upon the shoulders of their Members of Parliament the constituency duties that we have given ours. In the 60 years leading up to now, the population of this country has increased by 25 per cent; the increase in relation to Members of Parliament is 4 per cent. So there is at least an arguable case that an inquiry could have recommended a greater number rather than a lesser number, or indeed leave the matter as it was.

The point has been eloquently made more than once already in the debate that it is not as though slavish adherence to mathematics is of itself any panacea because you cannot slavishly adhere to that which is impure and incomplete in itself—in other words, a register of December 2010 that is inaccurate to the tune of 3.5 million.

I doubt very much whether the Conservative Party really believes that it is necessary to reduce the numbers of Members of Parliament. It has given the wrong message—a message which belongs more to Gilbert and Sullivan’s “The Mikado”, Pooh-Bah and Ko-Ko—remember the little list of the people who should disappear—than to the bringing about any equity in this situation.

I refer the House to the evidence given in 2003 by a Member of Parliament, a member of the Conservative Party, to the Boundary Commission in relation to the question of reducing the numbers of Members of Parliament. He said that he was entirely against it and that he hoped very much that the idea would be abandoned. He was the Member of Parliament for Witney, Mr Cameron.

This Bill, the one that we dealt with six days ago and the one that we will be dealing with in a couple of months’ time will have a massive impact on the whole situation; it will be epoch-making. It will not cause equity but it will bring about total chaos.

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[Lord Baker of Dorking]

I say to my new ally in the campaign—Snape and Baker ranging the country—that we will draw great crowds. I will come on to political advantage later, if I may.

I favour the second half of the Bill because three years ago I took a Bill through your Lordships’ House that did very nearly the same thing. The Bill was to reduce the House of Commons by 10 per cent, which was then Conservative Party policy, so there would have been not 50 but 65 fewer Members. It was also designed to equalise votes. I was interrupted by my new noble friend Lord Rennard—yes, he is in his place—who knows a thing or two about constituencies and electorates. He reminded me that the policy of the Liberals was to reduce the number in the House of Commons to 500. The Liberal policy was to reduce the number by 150; the Conservative policy was to reduce it by 65. Well, in the sweet compromise that figures the coalition’s proposal, the figure 50 was settled on and I am happy to settle for 50 now. That will be a considerable improvement.

Why do I think so? The noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, talked about the numbers in other countries. We have a population of 60 million and we have 600 MPs. Compared to other countries, we could be described as well represented. Japan has twice our population and 470 MP equivalents. Russia has two and a half times our population and 450 MP equivalents. America has five times our population but just 430 Congressmen and 100 Senators. Six hundred is quite a good number for the electorate’s representation. In Scotland and Wales, there are also the local Members of Parliament, who deal with most of the complaints of their constituents, as powers have been considerably devolved. There is plenty of representation at all levels where people can go and seek support from their elected representatives.

Under the Bill, the new constituencies will have an average electorate of 76,000, give or take 5 per cent either way. The former Lord Chancellor wanted 10 per cent, which would largely negate some of the Bill’s effects, but he is used to putting forward such amendments. At the moment, the size of an electorate in England is 72,000, in Scotland it is 65,000, in Northern Ireland it is 63,000 and in Wales it is 56,000. I remember when the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, and I were both in the House of Commons. It was a long time ago.

[Lord Elystan-Morgan]

A very long time.

[Lord Baker of Dorking]

Time runs not to the memory of man. The noble Lord had quite a small constituency compared to an English constituency. I think that his electorate was about 50,000. That meant that English seats had 14,300 more electors than Welsh seats. There is substantial overrepresentation. You cannot deny it. If democracy means anything, it should be that one vote is equal wherever it is, but it is not. The Welsh voters who put the noble Lord into power as an MP were much more powerful than the voters who put me into power in England; they had a greater say on our nation’s affairs. The noble Lord cannot shake his head; it is a fact. It is true and realistic. There is massive overrepresentation.

That can be seen not just in Wales. Islington in London has an electorate of 67,000, whereas just a little way away in Brent—these are Labour seats—the electorate is 87,000. There is no logic to this and it is indefensible.

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[Lord Elystan-Morgan]

I am much obliged to the noble Lord. The fifth point of William Lovett’s charter was equal-sized constituencies. Whether he meant it literally is another matter; he was applying his mind to the question of Old Sarum having, I think, seven people living in it and one Member of Parliament while Manchester had two MPs. At the same time, of course, along the same avenue of thought—trying to make Members more answerable to the public—the noble Lord will remember what the sixth point was: annual general elections. Thank God it never came to that.

[Lord Tyler]

My Lords, I should not have gone so far into the issue of the Chartists; the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, is an expert on everything that can be taken literally. I do not wish to pursue him down that course. Perhaps I should say, though, that I represented North Cornwall, and one of the rotten boroughs in that constituency was Bossiney, of which Sir Francis Drake was the rotten borough Member. I think that here were only two electors, one of whom might have been himself.

We in this House would be incredibly unwise to subscribe to the hubris in the other House about alleged gerrymandering, led ad nauseam—I have followed this both in print and in person—by Mr Chris Bryant. At best this was misplaced and, at worst, deliberately misleading. At present, Mr Bryant has 51,554 constituents. I had over 87,000 constituents when I represented North Cornwall. If ever there was a gerrymander, that is it. That is something to which we must surely attach a principle, and it is justifiable to do so.

Since the Bill is about voters and their relationship with Members of Parliament, though, we need to look in detail at how Part 2 will be implemented. There must be a vital role in your Lordships’ House for revising that. Having represented Cornish constituencies for some 14 years, I know that special connection between MPs and their constituents. For years people campaign in an area, helping constituents or putative constituents and hoping to earn their trust. We must be careful that the Bill ensures that those links, those distinct local ties, are enabled to stay in place. The Deputy Prime Minister clearly wants that. I carefully examined the statements that he gave to the Constitution Committee, and he said that he is seeking only to give primacy to the electoral numbers in each seat, not to completely override the other factors, which he—not I—lists as follows: community relations, community cohesion, history, the character of an area and the disruption that might be caused. So the issue of disruption to existing constituencies and communities is, at the moment, a serious question under the Bill and we will have to look at it carefully. I think that there are Members on all sides of the House who have formally performed that important constituency role and will agree with me that that is a proper role for us to undertake.

The Bill could lead to an electoral map drawn from scratch, with all the ties that constituents and campaigners have made with one another severed at a stroke. However, I do not believe that that is what Ministers or indeed your Lordships want, and we have a vital role in addressing that problem. I look forward to hearing the Minister.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Elystan-Morgan Excerpts

Monday 15th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Elystan-Morgan]

This matter turns on a very narrow and, indeed, very simple issue. I can put it in one sentence; it is a question of what is meant or not meant by “a local interest”—not a private interest but a local interest. As far as I know, this is not defined in any statute or authoritatively defined in relation to the definition of hybrid Bills.

There are two issues, both of which are very simple, and I do not believe that one of them really arises. The first issue is whether there is a body that has a distinctive reality in relation to the words of the Companion that have been taken from page 556 of Erskine May. The second question is whether, if it has that distinction, it is dealt with differently from all the others that belong to that body. I take the second question first. There clearly is a difference in approach here in that the Western Isles and the Islands of Orkney are inviolate from any prospect of change. Many of the 600 constituencies that will remain may well escape unscathed, but they have no guarantee of being inviolate. Therefore, it seems to me that, as far as the second limb is concerned, one has clearly shown that a distinction is clearly drawn. There are 600 constituencies—assuming that 50 are lopped off—598 of which are dealt with in one way and two in another.

The first question—what is a local interest?—is not a question of a private interest. Local interest is defined in the Companion and, as I say, is taken verbatim from page 556 of Erskine May. There is no definition. In my submission, a local interest—if I am wrong in this, I will gladly come to the stool of penitence—is not a proprietary interest; it is an interest involving persons living in a locality as persons living in that locality. If I am wrong, it means that even though people living in the Orkneys or in the Western Isles are in a locality, nevertheless their locality status does not count. I believe, with very great respect, that the matter is as simple, clear and narrow as that.

[Lord Goldsmith]

My Lords, I am not sure that it is necessary for your Lordships' House even to go as far as that. I invite your Lordships’ attention back to the Motion of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, on whether the Bill should be referred to the Examiners, not whether it is hybrid. It is a very long time since this House has sat as a court determining difficult questions. The whole point of referring a Bill to the Examiners is for them to decide independently whether it is hybrid.

I should declare an interest as a member of the Select Committee on the Constitution. I have my name down to speak in the main debate. Given that I am taking up some of your Lordships' time now, I withdraw my name from that debate, but I underline the importance of determining what test your Lordships' House should use to decide this Motion. It is exactly as the noble Lord, Lord Howarth of Newport, has said, and as stated by the Speaker in another place when he ruled on the Local Government Bill in the 1962-63 Session and commented that,

“if it be possible for the view to be taken that this Bill is a Hybrid Bill, it ought to go to the examiners. There must not be a doubt about it”.—[Official Report, Commons, 10/12/62; col. 45.]

In the light of the discussion that has taken place, I invite noble Lords to consider the views expressed by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, and the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, on the one hand, and those of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd, on the other, on whether it can conceivably be said that there is no doubt about it. I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, spoke in the way that he did about Mr Goudie, but in answer to my intervention he accepted that he is not saying this does not represent the honest and genuine opinion of someone who is experienced and learned in these matters. His conclusion was that it certainly could be said that this Bill was hybrid. That is why, in his view and that of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, it should go to the Examiners.

I wish to underline two further points. First, a lot has been said about whether the Bill affects private interests. The noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, is absolutely right; that is not the question. The definition in the 23rd edition of Erskine May is that hybrid Bills are public Bills that are considered to affect specific private or local interests. One cannot ignore this question of locality.

Secondly and finally, I draw attention to what Mr Goudie said in his opinion at paragraph 17. That for me is the critical question which has been raised before. It is not a question of whether or not these two constituencies should be subject to special treatment—for myself, I can well see why that should be so—but a question of what the position is regarding other constituencies. Like other noble Lords, I have received communications from people in different parts of the country—from Cornwall and the Isle of Wight—asking and expressing their views about being treated in a different way. Mr Goudie says in paragraph 17,

“it is … reasonably and properly arguable that the justification (whatever precisely it may be) is capable of being urged as being applicable to other constituencies”.

My understanding of the process which is taking place is that if the examiners agree that the Bill is hybrid, it will provide an opportunity for those other constituencies to put forward their case as to why they, too, should be treated in a special and favoured way. Good luck to them if they succeed in that endeavour. For those reasons, I will support the Motion.

Local Government Bill [HL]

Lord Elystan-Morgan Excerpts

Tuesday 8th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hanham]

My Lords, my understanding is that the Public Bill Office has not changed its view as a result of that advice, and I intend to proceed on that basis. Before I sit down, I should make it clear that if the noble Lord decides to put his Motion to a vote, I will have no option but to ask the House to oppose it as, were he to succeed, it would delay the passage of the Bill and clarity for the future of the local authorities concerned, which need a decision.

[Lord Elystan-Morgan]

I rise to support the Motion. Even in my greatest delusions of grandeur, I do not consider myself a constitutional lawyer. However, with very great respect to the House, I believe that this matter turns on a fairly narrow point to which I shall come in a moment.

The definition of hybridity stems from a ruling of the Speaker of the House of Commons in the Session 1962-63, and very much follows the words of the Companion which have already been quoted. The issue, therefore, is whether or not certain bodies or private interests, which stand on the same ground in respect of being private or being limited as bodies, are treated in exactly the same way. What is not spelt out in Erskine May, as I understand it, is whether or not there might be justification for treating bodies of that nature, which are of the same class, differently as different considerations relate to them. As I understand it, nothing in Erskine May casts light on that fundamental issue.

Since the enactment of the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007, 13 orders have been made creating unitary authorities in Cornwall, Durham, Northumberland, Shropshire, Wiltshire, east Cheshire, west Cheshire and the city of Chester, Bedford County, mid-Bedfordshire, south Bedfordshire, Norwich and Exeter. The first 11 of those authorities gained unitary status in 2008. By 2009, those procedures were well set and, indeed, the transitional stages had been completed. The other two bodies with which we are concerned were dealt with by this House—if I remember rightly—on 22 March and, clearly, the transitional provisions have not begun to operate. Therefore, their situations are very different. If that be the basis of distinction, there would be justification for dealing with them differently. However, as far as I know, there is no rule which says that special cases need special exemptions: either you deal with all bodies in exactly the same way or you fall foul of hybridity. As I say, 13 orders have been made since 2007 and there has been no challenge in 11 of them. The other two were challenged in this House. Is that challenge valid, or not? That is the narrow issue that this House should consider.

Barnett Formula

Lord Elystan-Morgan Excerpts

Monday 7th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove Bay]

My Lords—

[Lord Elystan-Morgan]

My Lords—

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, there is plenty of time for both noble Lords to speak. Let us hear from the noble Lord from the Cross Benches.

[Lord Elystan-Morgan]

My Lords, is it not the case that the whole economic and financial landscape has changed so fundamentally over the past 30 years that a rough and ready yardstick of calculation, as it was then, now becomes something utterly inequitable; and that if there is no radical change, parts of the United Kingdom, such as the land and nation of Wales, will suffer the perpetuation of this inequity? Is it therefore a matter not of waiting for events to happen but of radically tackling a massive injustice?

[Lord De Mauley]

My Lords, the Government hear what the noble Lord and other noble Lords say. However, while we recognise the concerns expressed by, for example, the Holtham commission, as I said, the priority must at the moment be to tackle the deficit.