Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Grocott Excerpts

Monday 6th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[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.

[Lord Reid of Cardowan]

My noble friend will have noticed the staunch support for Scottish wisdom given by the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, and I am sure that the nation is grateful for that, but if the noble Lord is actually looking at the wisdom of the Scots, will he look at the last time there was a dual election in Scotland, when there were local government elections, a referendum on first past the post for local government, Scottish parliamentary elections on the alternative vote and the criticisms afterwards? It was a shambles for which the Labour Government were rightly upbraided. That is precisely the point that is being made about the potential on this occasion.

[Lord Grocott]

I very much agree with my noble friend. We have so many different electoral systems—five already with one proposed implicitly in this legislation and another additionally proposed if and when we come to elect the House of Lords. Before long, one will need at least a first year’s study on the British constitution to understand the various electoral systems that are being simultaneously offered to the British public. That is something that requires serious attention.

We all understand the Government’s intention. Apart from financial reasons, I would like them to explain why it is so urgent to get this dealt with by 5 May. We recognise that all too often Governments do not get what they want. That is sometimes for very good reasons. Perhaps the Liberal Democrats know a little about this at the moment in respect of student fees. When that happens, the ideal position to be in is one of some flexibility, which my noble friend offers with this amendment.

I offer one thought. I had the honour of having the responsibility in this House of trying to schedule government business in a way that was, as far as humanly possible, acceptable to the four parties to the discussions—the three political parties operating independently and the Cross-Benchers. It is an extraordinarily difficult business to achieve satisfactorily. For the life of me I cannot see how this Bill, which has not had the pre-legislative scrutiny or proper consideration for a Bill of this size—which is actually two Bills because it will become the Act that delivers the referendum, should the vote go in favour of a change in the voting system—can be considered in the time available between now and next February. It is beyond me.

We are on page 1 and I will sit down soon lest I be accused of filibustering, which I am emphatically not going to do in considering this Bill. We have another 300 pages to go. We have three more Committee sittings before Christmas. We have a half-term break scheduled. There have to be two weeks between Committee and Report on the Bill, three days between Report and Third Reading and heaven knows how many exchanges of ping-pong between the two Houses. It is quite beyond me how that can be achieved. I have not done the maths but, even if we spent all the legislative days left between now and next February on this Bill—assuming we get through, let us say, five pages a day, which would be pretty good going at the rate we are going at present—I do not see how on earth this can be delivered.

If the Government are sensible, there will not need to be any vote. If there is any reason other than the alleged saving for having all these elections on the same day, please let us hear it. The only one that I have heard is the financial argument, which we must take seriously. Of course, the best financial argument of the lot would be the one that I would offer to the Government, which is not to hold the referendum at all. Perhaps we could have the figures on that just to show the probity with which I assessed these questions of public expenditure. If there is another explanation, let us have it, but in the mean time what is conceivably lost by having the flexibility that my noble friend is offering?

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[Lord Rennard]

My Lords, I thought that we had a very good compromise in 1997 agreed with the party of the noble Lord opposite but, after 13 years, that compromise was never delivered. I was quoting the Deputy Prime Minister rather more fully; I was going to talk about the word “little”, which he used. I believe that it is a little change, which preserves the single-Member constituencies, which Members in other parties hold very dearly. I happen not to. But since it preserves the single-Member constituency principle, I believe that it is a little change that will bring greater benefit.

There is also, of course, the word “miserable”. The only thing that would make me really miserable—and I say this in all sincerity to noble Lords who supported Amendment 16—would be if we failed to give people their say and made progress on a form of voting system that was effectively designed for the political circumstances in 1872, when Gladstone brought in the Secret Ballot Act.

[Lord Grocott]

Will the noble Lord clear up one crucial issue for me, at least, and I hope for the House, about the Liberal Democrats’ approach to this referendum? They constantly refer to it as a compromise—and whether it is miserable or not is for others to decide—while several are on record as saying that it is a step in the right direction. If there is a referendum next May and the result is in favour of the alternative vote, although I hope it is not, for how long do the Liberal Democrats consider that decision to be binding?

[Lord Rennard]

My own view is that since Gladstone introduced the current system in 1872 in the Secret Ballot Act, for 138 years noble Lords and Members in another place decided that that system was perfectly good without revision and without letting people have their say. It is a good precedent to let people have their say, and we will wait to see when there is public demand again to have any further say. But for 138 years we have kept the same system. One hundred years ago, a Royal Commission recommended the adoption of the alternative vote, and 93 years ago, a Speakers Conference recommended the use of preference voting. Seventy-nine years ago, the other place voted for the adoption of the alternative vote, which was blocked on five occasions by your Lordships’ House. It is 36 years since a minority Conservative Government offered another Speakers Conference on electoral reform and it is 13 years since a Labour Government with a large majority had a manifesto promise and were elected on the basis that there would be a referendum on the issue of proportional representation. So it is a significant achievement for all those committed to electoral reform that twice this year in the House of Commons, with different Governments in place, there have been substantial majorities for a referendum to be held on the alternative vote. I want to see progress on this issue and hope that we will not give Members in another place a further opportunity to deny the voters their say on this issue and leave us back where we were in 1872.

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[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

Will noble Lords allow me quickly to conclude my speech? The noble Baroness has intervened twice already.

For us on these Benches, it is now or never. It is AV or nothing. We believe AV to be an improvement, and an improvement in the public interest. For those reasons I will not, I am afraid, be tempted to vote for either the amendment we are discussing or those that bear upon it.

[Lord Grocott]

My Lords, I was going to intervene briefly in any case, but the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, has given me so much material that I cannot guarantee that it will be as brief as I thought. His whole contribution was as though absolutely nothing had happened in the way of electoral reform during the last 15 years. A host of different electoral systems have been introduced. I have not as yet written my memoirs about the period of the Labour Government, but I can reveal to the House this little bit of information. Every time the word went round that we were suggesting there should be a change in the electoral system for Europe, local government, Scotland, Wales or wherever, I always did my best within government to try and prevent that happening. There is a chapter in my memoirs that I shall call “I told you so”. Before the European proportional representation system was introduced, people like the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, although I cannot speak for the noble Lord, and my noble friend Lord Rooker—for on this matter we have not always agreed—predicted with absolute confidence: “Look at all the wasted Labour votes in Surrey and Sussex. Look at all the wasted Conservative votes in the north-east. They will start flocking to the polls as soon as we have a proportional system and their votes won’t be wasted any longer”. It has not happened. That is not me in a seminar saying that. It has not happened.

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

I am grateful for the noble Lord for giving way. We are talking about Westminster elections—not a proportional Euro-election, but Westminster elections.

[Lord Grocott]

But why on earth, if the noble Lord’s argument does not apply in Europe—and empirically I can show him that it does not apply—why would it suddenly start applying in Westminster elections? I just cannot understand the point.

[Lord McFall of Alcluith]

Maybe this will help the noble Lord, Lord Phillips. Since devolution took place in Scotland, in 1998, the turnout for Westminster elections under first past the post has been the greatest of all; followed by the Scottish Parliament with proportional representation, which has been less; followed by the European elections, which has been even less. Can the noble Lord tell us why that is?

[Lord Grocott]

I will even try and trump my noble friend on my knowledge of Scottish elections. I agree entirely with what he said and the implication of what he said. However, is it not also true to say that in what was described as the laboratory of a Scottish election for the Scottish Parliament—where people have two votes, one for PR and one for first past the post; and that is as near a laboratory as you will ever get in an electoral system—in election after election, more people turn out for the first past the post option than they do for the PR option. With this kind of debate, the whole of the discussion takes place as if nothing has happened, A lot has happened. A lot of electoral systems have been tried. Those who were suggesting, insisting on, demanding reform—for there was a huge public demand for a change in the electoral system—have been proved conclusively and unarguably wrong in terms of the benefits they told us would accrue if their proposals were accepted.

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick]

I am very reluctant to join in the almost filibustering tactics of the Opposition and incur the wrath of my colleagues, but would the noble Lord not reject the idea of the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, that a vote for someone who loses an election is a wasted vote? In a presidential election people lose, but that does not mean that their vote has been wasted. In case the Opposition have not noted it, people will lose under the alternative vote if they vote with their first preference for a losing candidate. Will that be a wasted vote as well? This whole idea of a wasted vote is complete bunkum.

[Lord Grocott]

I wholeheartedly agree with that, and I speak as someone who has lost nearly as many elections as the noble Lord, Lord Phillips—four, as a matter of fact, all for the Labour party. If anyone should be opposed to first past the post and want to change to any other electoral system, it probably ought to be me. I should add that I have also lost three county council elections and one or two parish elections as well. So it is a pretty abysmal electoral record. However, I have no doubt whatever that as far as local electors in local constituencies are concerned, first past the post is the fairest, best and most understood electoral system. But that is not what we are here to debate. I am not going to filibuster—I can assure the House of that. I am going to stick rigorously and briefly to the amendment that we are debating and try and say why I am opposed to it.

The amendment would give us a choice between first past the post, the alternative vote system and a proportional vote system. People like me used to be at a huge disadvantage—like the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, I have not changed my mind on this over decades—but I support, and always have done, first past the post. Historically, however, we were always at a huge disadvantage. We were asking people whenever we were in debate, “Judge the first past the post system, which you know and with which you are familiar, against these various alternative theoretical systems”, which were unspecified—and particularly, I say without undue criticism of the amendment, unspecified in the choices being put to the electorate here. As for the first past the post system, it is precise and exact. That is what we know. That is what we have lived through. It has its strengths and it has its weaknesses, and we are very familiar with its weaknesses.

As for the alternative vote system, as my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours has already conclusively argued, it is actually a series of possible options in itself. As for a proportional vote system, there are very nearly as many of those as one can imagine. Whenever I was in a debate with someone about first past the post versus proportional representation, they would always say to me, “Ah, but you’re arguing against that form of proportional representation, not the form of proportional representation that I am in favour of”. When you are choosing between what is known and what is unknown, a referendum of this sort is always difficult. But I am not therefore arguing that you can never put anything to the electorate because, taking that to its logical conclusion, you never could put anything to the electorate as you would always know what is familiar best. I am saying, in relation to this amendment, that if we are to have a referendum—I would prefer that we did not, but if we do—it needs to be as specific as it can be.

I find myself in a strange position. Probably for the first time in my life, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Rennard. I do not think that this amendment is helpful. It does not have the precision of the proposal currently on the table: it is first past the post versus the alternative vote system. That at least has the merit of clarity, although I would much prefer that we did not have either.

The noble Lord, Lord Rennard, helped the House—at least it was helpful to my line of argument—when he conceded, and he can correct me if I am wrong, that for him, and I would assume that it would apply to whatever referendum question went to the public, this would only be a short-term solution. This is a referendum about work in progress. I must say that that alarms me.

I think that I can probably help the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, in his summing up. His Liberal Democrat colleagues rightly have been asked: “How long? Should this referendum result in a yes, for how long would it stand?”. The Liberal Democrats have already given us their answer, which is basically: “As short a period as possible. We want to move on rapidly to full PR or whatever”. I can guess what the answer of the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, would be if he were asked: how soon after a yes or no vote should the matter be put to the public again in a referendum? I would guess that his answer would be, “We wouldn’t want to touch that with a barge pole”. I think that that would at least be a straightforward and honest response. But as far as this proposed amendment is concerned, it is not one that should be attractive to the House.

[Lord Snape]

It is a pleasure to follow my noble friend Lord Grocott. So far in this debate it has been the other way round. He will not be surprised to learn—I do not know how gratified he will be—that I agreed with every word that he has said, too. Like him, I am a fan of the first past the post system. Unlike him—purely coincidentally, I am sure—I have had a bit more success, which is probably the best argument against first past the post that either side of your Lordships’ House has come up with. Certainly I do not find much favour with the amendment due to the various alternatives that it provides. No one listening to this debate could doubt the sincerity of the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, although I found some of his conclusions somewhat confusing, to say the least. We talk about young people and politics. There will be lots of young people interested in politics demonstrating outside this building this week, largely because politicians who make promises and then immediately break them do not greatly enamour themselves to those young people.

Parliament Act 1911: Centenary

Lord Grocott Excerpts

Monday 6th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Strathclyde]

The noble Viscount, Lord Tenby, certainly does have an historical interest, and I admire his perseverance and that of my noble friend Lord Steel, who had yet another Second Reading on his Bill on Friday. I am not one of those who regard the passage of the 1911 Act as one that the House of Lords should celebrate. I think it was a disaster for the House of Lords. We took on the House of Commons at the wrong time, we overstepped the mark, and if it should be commemorated, it should be commemorated by an act of mourning.

[Lord Grocott]

My Lords, is it not worth reflecting, with all due respect to the noble Lord, Lord Roberts, who is so persistent on these matters, that one stark contrast between the Parliament Act 1911 and the attempt which the Government are apparently making towards reform today is that the 1911 Act, as the Leader of the House has reminded us, was about defining the powers of the House of Lords in relation to the democratically elected House of Commons? Is it not worth taking a lesson from that in acknowledging that the present reforms are all about a directly elected House of Lords, which would clearly diminish the House of Commons and lead inevitably to conflict or even a blockage between the two Houses? Until the Government address, which they have not done so far any more than the previous Government did, this fundamental question of the effect of an elected Lords on the powers and influence of the House of Commons, they really do not deserve to be taken seriously on Lords reform.

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, I am with the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, on 1911. It was a moment when the House of Lords did not act responsibly, and this House should not have confronted an elected Chamber. As for everything else that he says, these are matters for the Bill that we will publish early next year and for the debates that will ensue.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Grocott Excerpts

Tuesday 30th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rennard]

I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, will not be surprised to find that his amendment does not find favour with me. I hope noble Lords will generally appreciate the position of many of us on these Benches. We feel a high degree of frustration about suggestions of inquiries, commissions, consultations, deliberations on electoral systems, and suggestions that there should be a referendum for people to decide at some unspecified future date. We have a long history of observing these things, and these electoral systems have been examined by many people over many decades. Many forms of electoral system now operate in this country, including, for example, the alternative vote system. In particular, Scotland operates STV when all its council elections are due but the alternative vote when it has a council by-election. The problems in Australia to which the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, referred do not appear to happen in Scotland when Scottish voters are using the alternative vote to elect a single councillor. So I would pray in aid what is happening in Scotland and in Northern Ireland as being perhaps a little more relevant than suggestions about problems somewhere in Australia.

It seems to me that the academic evidence generally suggests—and it is the consensus of those who take the closest interest in these issues—that there really are no advantages in the so-called supplementary vote system compared with the alternative vote system and that there are a significant number of disadvantages to it. Principally—and the reason why it is not used by any of the parties using alternative vote in their internal mechanisms—the supplementary vote system has the same problem as first past the post in that you have to try to guess who is near the top of the pile and use your vote tactically. That does not necessarily work, particularly when you have a more than two-party system, and we should recognise that these days we have a more than two-party system—indeed, at least a four-party system—in Scotland and in Wales. For voters to be expected to try to guess which two are in the lead and to use one of their Xs only for one of the two parties deemed to be the biggest is not fair. It is not fair to Green voters and perhaps to other voters in England, and it is not fair in the four-party systems that operate in Scotland and in Wales.

It was not without reason and not without considerable debate that the last Labour Government introduced a proposal for AV in the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act in the last Parliament. It was not without considerable debate and discussion and proper examination, I have no doubt, that the proposal for AV and a referendum was included in the last Labour Party manifesto in the general election just six months ago. I am sure that the party has its deliberative mechanisms for forming its manifesto.

In response to this general debate about modes of AV, SV or other systems, and comments that AV does not work, we should bear in mind how widely it is used. It is used by the Conservative Party in electing its party leader and its candidates; it is used by the Labour Party in electing its leader and its candidates; and it is used by the Liberal Democrats in electing our leader and our candidates. It is widely used in many other organisations, including the Church of England and many of the charities.

Voters in this country are used to using 1, 2, 3; it is a very simple and easily understood system. I fundamentally believe that the issue of whether we go to AV now or we stick with first past the post is primarily a question for the voters in this country, which they should have in a referendum very soon and on the most appropriate day.

In my view, too much of this discussion and debate is about which system is supposed to favour which party. That is totally the wrong argument and issue. We should let the voters decide on this issue, and the system should be decided according to which system gives most power to the voter. AV gives more power to the voter than first past the post.

[Lord Grocott]

The noble Lord stressed heavily the importance of consulting the electorate before a change is made. Is he, with his long experience of Lib Dem organisation, able to confirm to this Committee whether in the course of the coalition negotiations the Lib Dem party was trying to persuade both the Labour Party and the Conservative Party to push ahead with a Bill for AV without a referendum? Can he throw some light on that? It is crucial to this debate.

[Lord Rennard]

My Lords, I can throw no more light than the books currently in circulation describing the coalition talks; I was not privy to them in detail. However, I understand that the Labour Party proposed that it would proceed with AV, as in its manifesto; and it was conceded by the Conservative Party that it would proceed with AV in a referendum to be held at some point in the future, and subsequently it was agreed that it would be held on 5 May. I do not think that that is terribly relevant. The important thing is which system gives most power to the voters. AV gives more power to the voters than first past the post and we should let the voters choose on that basis.

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[Lord Snape]

I support my noble friend Lord Rooker and endorse largely what has been said by my noble friend Lord Hamilton. Can you imagine if a Labour Government produced the sort of constitutional changes that we debate this evening with all the other constitutional matters that this Government intend on forcing through this House as they have forced them through the other place? The British press would be outraged if a Labour Government tinkered—that is the wrong word—or smashed the constitution in the way that this Government propose to do. If we had proper parliamentary journalism, either in this House or the other place, you would see the same outrage about the proposal that is before your Lordships today. In reply to this debate, the noble Lord, Lord McNally, smiled at my introductory remarks when I spoke on Second Reading. I think that he accused me of a Max Miller-type performance. I had to ask some of my older noble friends who he was talking about because, of course, I had no idea who Max Miller was. I hope he will accept that I will not indulge in such a performance this evening. I am seriously concerned, as are many of my noble friends, about the proposals before your Lordships tonight.

The House ought to listen to my noble friend Lord Rooker. I have known him for over 40 years. Indeed, I was his Whip in the 1970s, which was no easy task. He has always been a man of independent thought, view and expression. I remember in the 1970s that he and another colleague managed to drive a coach and horses through Denis Healey’s budget, which caused me, as his Whip, a rather painful interview with the Chief Whip at the time. Those on either side of your Lordships' House who have ever worked in the Whips’ Office in either place will know just how painful such an interview could be. The House should listen to what my noble friend said earlier today. Is it really our intention, as my noble friend outlined, that no matter what the majority, or how many people participate, to pass legislation that will fundamentally change the way that Parliament—the House of Commons—is elected in this country? Surely it is incumbent on this House to stop this madness and say that an indicative referendum is the only acceptable option at present. Are we really saying that regardless of turnout, the argument and other matters being discussed by the British people, the result of the referendum will be binding on both Houses? As my noble friends have done, I appeal particularly to the Cross Benchers, who traditionally and understandably regard themselves as the guardians of the traditions of your Lordships’ House and of this country, to think very carefully about how they vote tonight. I appeal to them to support my noble friend and vote for what I believe is the only sensible course of action open to us.

[Lord Grocott]

I always tremble a little when I follow my noble friend Lord Snape, who was also my Whip during the 1970s. I shall follow the habit of a lifetime and agree with him on this matter. I was delighted that my noble friend Lord Foulkes was able to penetrate the weak thicket of my arguments and deduce that, on balance and weighing all things up, I am totally in favour of first past the post. I am pleased to be on exactly the same side of the argument in respect to this amendment as my noble friend Lord Rooker. That may surprise noble Lords given that, although we agree on most things, over the years we have not agreed on electoral reform. His argument about the need for this to be an indicative referendum was absolutely convincing.

Surely we can all agree that this is a very unusual amendment. I want to deal briefly—I hope this is the last time that I have to do so—with the argument put forward by the Lib Dems that somehow the Labour Party in opposition must be bound by every dot and comma of the manifesto on which it has just lost the election. The concept of a referendum on AV has already been road tested. The Conservatives and the Lib Dems opposed it before the election and are now bringing it in, presumably claiming that they have a mandate to do so. Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord McNally, can tell us whether he thinks that there is a mandate to do that. I hate to keep repeating the fact that the one party that would have had a mandate lost the election. I do not like losing elections, even though I have lost an awful lot of them over the years. Therefore, we can put that issue to bed, but if anyone raises it again I give whoever does so, particularly the Lib Dems, a severe warning that I shall look through all their election manifestos covering the elections they have lost, which now covers a period of about 100 years, check on all the commitments that they made and start reading them out. If people are awake at the end of it full marks to them, but can we please put that argument behind us because it does not hold water?

This is, indeed, a very unusual referendum. Whatever we think of the merits of it, I think we can acknowledge that it is unusual. As a lifelong member of the Labour Party, I find myself agreeing in key respects with both the Conservative Prime Minister and the Liberal Democrat Deputy Prime Minister. I agree with the Prime Minister’s opposition to AV, and whenever the referendum takes place—I hope that will not be for a while—I shall be voting the same way as him. However, I must say in passing that it must be the first time ever that a Government have called a referendum which they hope to lose. That is a constitutional first, if nothing else. I agree very strongly with the right honourable Nick Clegg’s description of the measure as a miserable little compromise, as my noble friend said. However, to put it mildly, that is not a strong basis on which to hold a referendum. In addition, the Government are committed to holding it on the same day as local elections, which means that it will be a legislative referendum. That is essentially what it is; it is not an indicative referendum but one which legislates. We know that there are massive differences in turnout in different parts of the country. That is not a good basis for any decision, but is a particularly bad one when we are effectively asking the electorate to legislate. As I have already said, for different reasons the two key members of the Government are not wholeheartedly committed to the referendum, so for that reason, if none other, it should be no more than an indicative referendum.

I conclude by asking the noble Lord, Lord McNally, a question which will need to be asked sooner or later as it is very important to the nature and integrity—if that is not too pompous a word—of the debate that is taking place. I cannot claim that I have read by any means all the various reports on this matter, but there seem to be very strong indications emanating from the Lib Dem negotiating team in the coalition building programme. This is a serious question and I hope that the noble Lord will give it a serious answer. The members of the team were very keen indeed for either the Labour Party or the Conservative Party to bring forward legislation to impose the alternative vote system on the British people—neither party having campaigned for it—and that it should be imposed without a referendum. Either that is a fact or it is not—I do not know as I was not part of either negotiating team and would not have expected to be. However, we need to know the answer to that question before we can proceed any further with this passionate commitment.

[Lord McNally]

Rather like the previous Government, I think we shall leave to the memoirs what was or was not said during negotiations. However, what is on the record is the coalition agreement, which is the basis of this Bill. Not for the first time, and certainly not for the last, the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, is dragging through this House an enormous red herring.

[Lord Grocott]

I had expected the noble Lord to tell me that I was a constitutional Conservative, or some other such epithet. I think that on the previous occasion he described me as a Neanderthal; now I am dragging red herrings. I asked a fairly simple question—but I think that the House feels that it is an important one—regarding the integrity of the passionate commitment to a legislative referendum which, as I understand it, his party was opposed to in the coalition agreement.

[Lord Lipsey]

My Lords, during the past half hour I have felt as if I have strayed to the wrong end of the building as I see a lot of people who I still think of as Members of Parliament in the Commons making the same speeches as I have heard them make so many times in the House of Commons Chamber. They bear repetition and it has been a great pleasure to listen to them, but I doubt whether they will be the most effective at converting the Minister because he and his party are in favour of AV whereas recent speakers have made it very clear that they are not in favour of it, and they are perfectly entitled to hold that view. As a supporter of AV, I want to put the case for this amendment. However, I will not put the constitutional case, which the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, has put very well.

The bit of the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, that convinced me—I came into this debate with an open mind—was that he saw this measure as an alternative to thresholds. The House will debate thresholds later. However, when I hear first past the posters advocating the enormous benefit of thresholds, when they are in favour of a system whereby it does not matter what the turnout is or however low the share of the vote a Member has—if he gets one vote more than another Member, he is elected—I do not take the case for thresholds from them terribly seriously. However, there is a political danger for those of us who believe in AV that that plausible argument for thresholds will come through and will be passed, even in this House, will go down to the other end and will be backed by the Tories. At the end of the day, we will be fixed with a threshold. I am long enough in the tooth to remember what happened with George Cunningham’s threshold and the devolution legislation of the 1960s.

It seems to me that the better approach to the genuine problems raised by those who seek a threshold—what happens if there is, for example, a 3 per cent turnout—would be better dealt with by this amendment and by making the referendum not absolutely binding. That would put aside the threshold issue and leave us to get on with the referendum on a basis which, I hope, all sides could accept.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Grocott Excerpts

Monday 15th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Strathclyde]

Yes, my Lords, but on the whole I think it is better for people to know what it is they are voting on, which is what is envisaged in the Bill.

[Lord Grocott]

Further to the question of the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, I hate to have to admit it in public, but we lost the general election. Can the noble Lord point me to a constitutional principle which tells us that parties which lose the general election are thereby bound to put to the electorate ad infinitum the same proposals on which they lost?

[Lord Strathclyde]

There is none. I was just hoping that there might be a little consistency from the party opposite and that it would wish to support the coalition in giving the people their say on whether there should be an alternative vote system.

The reason to have the referendum on 5 May is that it will save money—about £30 million—to hold it on the same day as other votes. About 84 per cent of the UK electorate can go to the polls for local elections or elections to the devolved assemblies on 5 May. I do not see the purpose of dallying a few months, at a cost of £30 million, to get to the self-same place.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Grocott]

My Lords, having sat through this debate so far, I have been greatly encouraged, as I suppose we all are, by the number of people who I found myself agreeing with wholeheartedly—not least the previous two speakers. I thought that the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, made a series of points very effectively—I will not repeat them—while my noble friend Lord Snape, with whom I have not knowingly disagreed for 36 years, likewise made some very powerful points indeed. Yet I do not want to put false optimism into this debate because, overall—trying to find the right adjective to describe the Bill—I find it depressing. That is the best adjective I can offer to the House.

I find it depressing, in part, because it is a political fix. The noble Lord, Lord Lamont, tactfully described it as a political alliance but we know what we are talking about. I was not born yesterday; I know perfectly well that parties have to reach agreements and that compromises are made. However, I cherish many aspects of our constitution and I do not like the idea of it being the subject of a political fix, not least for the reason, which was mentioned earlier, that once constitutions are changed, the chances are that they will stay changed.

I am also depressed because there is no overall view of the constitutional reform structure, if I may put it as grandiosely as that, that the Government are engaged upon. There is no attempt to explain how each of the three Bills that we are promised—there is another one as well, I think, about recalling MPs, so I make that four—relate to each other. Not least, why are we discussing changing the electoral system in the Commons in such detail when we are about to talk about introducing an electoral system into the Lords? Surely those things should be considered, at least in part, in relation to one another.

I am depressed as well because the Bill damages two or maybe three important parts of our parliamentary democracy. First, it damages the relationship between MPs and their constituencies, which for me has always been at the heart of our democracy. It is what brings all MPs back to earth every weekend, whatever part of the stratosphere they have inhabited during the week. It is what gives you strength and direction. What is more, it is generally appreciated by the public; amid all the difficulties of recent months and years, the one constant has been that, while the public do not like MPs in general, generally speaking they quite like the work that their own Member of Parliament does.

I find the Bill depressing because it weakens Parliament in relation to the Government. There is no answer to that and no Minister, as far as I know, has tried to offer one.

The Bill is depressing for another reason too, and the Minister really will need to address this. He repeatedly prayed in aid big majorities in the Commons. Now, he knows the Commons pretty well, as do a lot of people in this House, and he should know it well enough to know that if people had been voting in the way that they strongly felt—in a free vote, let us say; a funny thing for an ex-Chief Whip to talk about, but let us surmise for a moment—my guess is that there would have been at least a two-thirds majority against changing the electoral system. Nearly all the Conservatives would vote against it, although they can speak for themselves, and my estimate, although it is a low one, is that 60 per cent of the Parliamentary Labour Party would have voted against it. I do not suppose that any Liberals would have done so because they vote as a bloc in a Stalinist way, but the rest of us would have made our own minds up. That is my guess. So let us not feel any inhibition whatever about what we do in dealing with the Bill, because the House of Commons, and I could cite names if that were required, wants us to do some work on the Bill and make changes to it.

I shall say a word or two about first past the post versus AV, which is a crucial part of the Bill. If anyone should hate the first past the post system, it really should be me. I have lost more elections under that system than I care to remember: four out of eight general elections, not to mention sundry country council elections and others. In this case, though, experience gives me an even greater respect for the first past the post system, certainly in comparison with AV. Indeed, for me it is not first past the post versus AV; I prefer to see it as being first past the post versus second or third past the post, which is obviously what AV amounts to. It means that the person who comes first is not necessarily declared the winner. As someone who spent a bit of my youth talking to bookies, I must admit that I quite like the notion of the horse that comes third or fourth being declared the winner—I would be richer—but that is not a good basis on which to operate a constitution. I find the arguments in favour of AV almost totally unconvincing and almost dishonest. As the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, suggested, it is not at all the solution to the difficulties that the parliamentary system has encountered recently.

A whole new concept has been introduced, which made me do some research. I was suddenly being told by Liberal Democrats and others that there was a crucial determinant of someone’s eligibility to be a Member of Parliament—namely, whether they achieved 50 per cent of the vote. That is what gave them legitimacy. If they did not have 50 per cent, they did not have legitimacy. Not being an anorak as far as numbers are concerned, I thought I would check whether I achieved 50 per cent in those four elections that I managed to win. Frankly, I did not have the faintest idea. I am happy to report to the House that the figures were as follows. My first win was on 42.6 per cent; my second was on 42.8 per cent; and my third was on 48.3 per cent, so at least the figures were moving in the right direction. My fourth win was on 57.8 per cent; at last I was legitimate.

I simply report to the House as a matter of fact—I am happy for someone to intervene or contradict me on this—that not only did I not know whether I had got 50 per cent until I checked the figures, but I absolutely assure the House that my constituents would not have had the faintest idea. Whether I had 50 per cent did not make a scrap of difference to the work that I did in the constituency. The same people came to me about the same kind of problems. Nor did it make a scrap of difference to my work as a Member of Parliament. As far as I know, no one said, “Don’t listen to him” or “Listen only to 48.3 per cent of what he says because he hasn’t got 50 per cent of his electors behind him”.

I hoped I could pray in aid the noble Lord, Lord McNally, on this. I took the precaution of checking the result in Stockport South in 1979. The noble Lord, Lord McNally, achieved 45.1 per cent of the vote. I had not appreciated the angst that he must have suffered because of this. When the returning officer declared him duly the Member of Parliament for the said Stockport South constituency, he would have been consumed by guilt, I imagine, because he was not a legitimate Member of Parliament. He must have felt quite ashamed when he came down here as an illegitimate Member. It is beyond parody or sarcasm. It simply bears no relationship whatever to how people here or in our constituencies ever think about the legitimacy of an MP.

I will say two other things about the weakness of the alternative vote system, which I hope are relevant to our debate. First, we surely have enough different electoral systems operating in this country at present. We have five by my calculation: first past the post, the additional member system, single transferable vote, supplementary vote and—wait for it—the d’Hondt system of proportional representation, which I do not understand and I suspect many other people do not either. More to the point, we will now not only have another electoral system for the Commons if the coalition has its way, but we will also have another electoral system for the House of Lords. That makes seven different electoral systems in this country. I would have one simple question in the referendum: would you like to revert to the first past the post system, which has served us so well in the past, for all these elections? I am certain that it cannot possibly be right to have seven different electoral systems. Added to which, we are warned—let us acknowledge the warning—by Nick Clegg and others that this is only a temporary phase. I wish those who are going to vote in favour would be honest with the electorate and this House and say, “We are voting for it but, as Nick Clegg has said, it’s a miserable little compromise. It won’t last long. Get ready because we’re coming with the real job later”. That is no basis on which to change the electoral system of a country. When its most prominent supporter describes it only as a miserable little compromise, that is not a great rallying cry: “What do we want?” “A miserable little compromise!” “When do we want it?” “Now!”. It is not the kind of thing which inspires an audience, quite apart from the fact that it will cost a lot of money. We keep being told that it will save £12 million to have fewer MPs, yet we are embarking on this hugely expensive referendum.

I want to comment on the “making constituencies bigger” section of the Bill, which I prefer as a title. Again, I offer the House my own experience, which may or may not be accepted. I had the privilege of representing two constituencies during my political life: one was Lichfield and Tamworth, with an electorate then of 101,343; the other was The Wrekin, which, before its redistribution, had an electorate of 90,872. Thank heaven, the dear old Boundary Commission came along and split that constituency into two, as it has also done with Lichfield and Tamworth. The link between MPs and their constituents is at the heart of our constitution. However hard you work—and, my word, I did work hard, as do most Members of Parliament—you cannot give the same service to constituents when you represent 101,000 as you can when you represent 60,000 or 70,000. For the life of me, I cannot see the justification for increasing constituency size in the way enshrined in the Bill.

I can conclude only where I started. I hope that this speech is not too depressing because I feel depressed about the Bill. The coalition has a huge majority in this House and in the other House and so far there is no sign that the Government are listening to any of the arguments. However, I am encouraged by the overwhelmingly hostile contributions which so many noble Lords have made today. Their speeches were overwhelmingly hostile to large sections of the Bill. I hope that we will do our job in this House and put it into better shape.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Grocott Excerpts

Monday 15th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Strathclyde]

Private or local; I am very happy with that as well. It is whether it affects it in a manner different from the private interest of other persons or bodies of the same category. In the opinion of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, and many others the right to vote is a public right and the manner and place in which it may be exercised are not private interests. It is on that basis that I agree with my noble and learned friend and with the Clerks of the House of Lords that there are no grounds on which it could be argued that this is a Private Bill.

[Lord Grocott]

My Lords, I listened to the Leader of the House many times when he was Leader of the Opposition and was often almost seduced by his oratory. However, that was not the case on this occasion and I do not think that it was a speech that he will be entirely thrilled about, because it was based almost entirely on suggesting that my noble and learned friend’s argument was spurious, shallow, pointless and simply and avowedly party-political. The noble Lord is nodding, so he is obviously confirming that. I want to comment initially on two points that he made, which are important considerations for the rest of us during this debate.

The noble Lord said that we know “that this Bill is on a tight timetable”. In other words, it has been guillotined quite severely in the Commons; that; of course, is what he hopes to be able to achieve in the Lords. I simply ask him: who is responsible for this Bill being on a tight timetable? The Government have made that decision in the full light of all the information. It is also, presumably, the reason why the Government say that it was not even possible to have pre-legislative scrutiny on this huge constitutional Bill—one which I think the party leader of the noble Lord, Lord McNally, has described as being part of the most important reforms since 1832, with characteristic understatement. Your Lordships need not worry; I am coming to hybridity. I am sure that the noble Lord will deal with that as seriously as I am dealing with the comments that he has been making.

The noble Lord enunciated what I thought a unique constitutional principle—at least as far as I have heard in this House; it was an astonishing one to come from the Leader of the House—in which it is not this House’s business to consider issues which have not been voted on or considered in the other place. He has commented on it enough times to make me realise that this means that large swathes of business under this coalition Government will not be possible for us to discuss, because he knows perfectly well that in the other place large sections of business are frequently not discussed and not voted upon. That is due to timetabling, which obviously took place under the previous Government as it does under this one. But please let us not pretend that he is making a serious constitutional argument that we must not consider it ourselves because it has not been considered by the other place.

I come to a severely practical point on the issue of hybridity, which was partly touched upon in an earlier exchange. No one could seriously argue that this particular clause of this particular schedule did not have characteristics of hybridity: “Preserved constituencies” is all it says. It then lists two constituencies with no explanation whatsoever of why they are preserved. I put this as a procedural point to the Leader of the House; I would have thought that there is clearly no reason on earth why any other constituency that wants to be added to the preserved list should not be able to make out a case for doing so. There are 648 parliamentary constituencies not covered in the preserved list. I shall certainly be trying to persuade this House that Telford is a constituency that should not be interfered with. It is a fast-growing town in the West Midlands, whose population changes much more rapidly than other constituencies. I put only that point to him. I will not develop the argument now—it would not be to the specific point of hybridity—other than to point out that these amendments, should they be tabled, could not possibly be grouped because the nature of the hybridity means that each case is individual and is unrelated to all the other constituencies. That is the basis on which these two constituencies are put down.

If, for the sake of argument, many amendments were tabled making the case for individual constituencies, it could not then be sustained, even if you concede that this clause is hybrid, that it was only a small part of the Bill, as some of the proponents of this not being a hybrid Bill are advancing. If, during the passage of the Bill through this House, other constituencies were added to the “exempt” clause, it would become a much bigger part of the Bill. I put it to the noble Lord the Leader of the House that these are serious questions; the case is certainly serious so far as I am advancing it. There is hardly a constituency in Britain that could not put its case on the basis of its boundaries, its communities and their relationship of the communities to each other.

In passing, we have to acknowledge that all local contribution to this by way of public inquiry, which has always been the case in the past, is being bypassed too; as the noble Lord the Leader of the House has told us, the Bill is under a very tight schedule. I acknowledge that there are different opinions on this, but it is not worthy simply to use the characteristics of normal parliamentary banter, which I enjoy as much as anyone else, in responding to a very serious Motion that my noble and learned friend has tabled which, on the noble Lord’s own admission, will delay the Bill, if that is what it does, by only a week and a half. On a matter of such constitutional importance—the Government’s words, not mine, although on this occasion I agree with them—should we really not be able to delay the Bill by that time in order to establish where there is clear and serious doubt, although the noble Lord will no doubt be able to persuade enough people to his point of view? We should at least have the opportunity of dealing with that question in the proper way by referring it in the way that my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer is suggesting.

[Lord Lloyd of Berwick]

In a brief intervention some months ago, I acquired an entirely undeserved and unsought reputation for being an expert on hybridity. On that occasion, though, I detected what I thought to be a serious issue that needed to be considered in the way described. On this occasion, I can detect no such issue. I have listened with great care to what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, has said. I accept that the threshold is a low one, a point that I made on the previous occasion, but an elector’s interest in voting is not a private interest in the sense described in the Standing Orders. There can therefore be no question of treating one private interest differently from another. I am saying, only in a roundabout way, exactly what I believe the Clerk of the Public Bill Office has himself said in the letter that has been mentioned.

Before I am asked, I shall say that I have not read—

Coalition Policies

Lord Grocott Excerpts

Monday 8th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Strathclyde]

Broadly speaking, yes, I do, because they have the support of the majority in the House of Commons and were overwhelmingly and clearly pointed out in the respective manifestos. There are one or two exceptions where that is not the case but, as I said before, we will recognise them when we see them.

[Lord Grocott]

As it is not necessarily feasible to go through and analyse every single response, can the Leader of the House at least tell us how many people wrote in saying they thought it would be a good idea to spend £100 million on a referendum on the alternative vote?

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, the noble Lord is of course right that it is far too short a time to look at each one but I flicked through the responses usefully over lunch and, for instance, here is one taken at random:

“We want referendums on national issues as we were promised”.

Another is:

“We want FAIR VOTES NOW!”.

Here is another one:

“I am concerned that having an elected upper house will mean that there is less accountability rather than more”.

I thought that one would go down well.

House of Lords Reform

Lord Grocott Excerpts

Tuesday 29th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Strathclyde]

Because, my Lords, this committee is charged to create a Bill in draft. There will be a full role for Back-Benchers in both Houses, on all sides and with different views, when we set up a Joint Committee of both Houses which will then give it the scrutiny it deserves before it is introduced to each House.

[Lord Grocott]

Could the Leader of the House, in the spirit of the coalition document, referring as it does to the importance of transparency, ensure that the agenda and minutes of this committee which is meeting at present are made available to the House and to the public?

European Council

Lord Grocott Excerpts

Monday 21st June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, is right when he says it is beyond belief that the EU should wish to inspect our Budget before it is presented to Parliament. He is entirely right. In that there is not a cigarette paper of difference between him and the Prime Minister, or I suspect even the Opposition. We would all agree that the EU has no role and no place to look at our budgetary arrangements and, indeed, our parliamentary procedures. That position has been made entirely implicit in the Statement that I repeated a few minutes ago. It is not unfinished business; it is firmly finished business and we will be leaving it entirely the way that it is currently.

The noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, made great play of looking at the conclusions and the Statement that we made. This is an old game to play and the noble Lord does it with great skill. I assure him that again there is no difference between the conclusions and the Statement that we made. They can live together entirely side by side and there is no difficulty for the Government.

[Lord Grocott]

My Lords—

[Lord Hylton]

My Lords—

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I think we should hear from the Labour Party.

[Lord Grocott]

The Leader of the House has reported, quite rightly, that there were extensive discussions about the ongoing problem of Iran. Were there any discussions on the wider issue of the region and the ongoing problem of the blockade of Gaza? How can the suffering of the people of Gaza be relieved? How and when will there be discussions at some stage, as surely there must inevitably be, between representatives of the European Union and representatives of the current Administration in Gaza?

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, there was a discussion on Gaza. Generally speaking, the conclusion was positive about the steps that have been taken and we very much hope that the measures taken by the Israeli Government will be part of reducing tension in the area.

Special Advisers

Lord Grocott Excerpts

Monday 7th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, these advisers are the personal appointments of Cabinet Ministers. Their job is to help Cabinet Ministers to do their job even more effectively than they would otherwise have done if they had not had such an appointment.

[Lord Grocott]

My Lords, I am not sure that the Leader of the House answered the question put by my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours precisely. The question is really this: if any Minister, in relation to his or her activities in connection with a special adviser is seen to be in breach of the Ministerial Code, would it be the Prime Minister or the Deputy Prime Minister who would have to exercise disciplinary action against them?

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, in the first instance it is up to the Minister who appointed the special adviser, but if there was a most serious breach of the code, I am sure that it would be for the Prime Minister to take a view.