Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Lord Elystan-Morgan and Lord Browne of Ladyton

Tuesday 18th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Elystan-Morgan]

My Lords, it is not as if I had any intention of wishing to be included in that distinguished company, but I have a small point which may be helpful. I greatly welcome the attitude of the noble and learned Lord. This is one of the sanest, fairest and most common-sense amendments that we have had in this context. No doubt the Minister believes that arithmetical consistency is extremely important. I totally accept his sincerity, but it is not the case that it can be achieved. It can be achieved only if there is a register that is perfect in content. But you do not have such a register. It is inaccurate, possibly to the tune of 3.5 million. You may be thinking that you are aiming at a target through telescopic sights, and you are, but there is a kink in the barrel. Arithmetical consistency and total correctitude are simply not achievable.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton]

My Lords, I crave the indulgence of the Committee for two minutes to make one simple point to the Minister. When he goes away to consider this, will he take with him the evidence from Scotland of the application of almost identical rules to those which he seeks to introduce? In 2007 an almost identical set of rules was applied to the revision of the Scottish Parliament boundaries. The Boundary Commission adopted a hierarchy that was almost exactly the same that the Bill imposes on the commission. As the noble and learned Lord knows, the result of those revisions was a set of provisional proposals that caused outrage across Scotland. There are at least 10 reports of local public inquiries signed off by sheriffs principal which criticise the effect on communities of that rigidity.

Finally, I shall repeat just three sentences from the West of Scotland regional inquiry. They are the words of Sheriff Principal Kerr when he rejected the provisional recommendations and opposed the degree of flexibility that the Boundary Commission had not. He said:

“I take the view that the Boundary Commission in formulating their proposals for the present review in the West of Scotland allowed Rule 2 to predominate unduly in their thinking”—

which is exactly what the Bill will do since rule 2 imposes parity in numerical terms on the electorate—

“with some consequences which I would describe as unnatural in their failure to have sufficient regard to the geography and social composition of the areas and populations with which they were dealing. The conclusions at which I have arrived in this report after seeing and hearing local reaction at the inquiry may go some way towards redressing the balance in favour of matching political constituencies to the realities of life in this part of Scotland”.

There are 10 of these decisions, and they are a formidable quarry for those in support of local public inquiries. They may be used later in the debate, but in the mean time I urge the Minister, for whom I have the most enormous regard, as he knows, to take them away and look at them when considering the proposal for more flexibility in this Bill.