Elections: Armed Forces

Lord Roberts of Llandudno Excerpts

Monday 4th April 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally]

I am sure it would be and I look forward to reading it. Whether we have followed exactly the consultations initiated by the noble Lord, Lord Wills, quite frankly I am not sure. Nevertheless, we are following all the initiatives that he brought in during that time and some new ones as well. I do not doubt that we want to see the military participating in elections, as did our predecessors. If that consultation is still going on somewhere, I will report it as the noble Lord requested. I assure the House that the various initiatives are still being pressed forward with due vigour.

[Lord Roberts of Llandudno]

My Lords, at the last general election, of the 10,000 troops in Afghanistan, only 500 were able to register a vote either by proxy or postal vote. This is totally unacceptable.

Furthermore, can we have some consistency in the length of time between, say, nine, 10 or 11 days for a nomination for a general election until polling day, and 25 days for others? Can we work very hard in the immediate future to make sure that we have the same length of time between nomination, close of nominations and polling day?

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, the call for consistency, which I think was also made by my noble friend Lord Rennard, is exactly the issue that Mr Mark Harper is looking at at the moment. As I said before, I think that there is a lot of sense in getting that kind of uniformity.

As to the turnout by troops serving in Afghanistan the last time, perhaps there were problems in getting to vote, but there is also a low propensity to vote among servicemen. That is something else that we are trying to address in terms of encouraging initiatives in the services by responsible members of each unit.

Public Bodies Bill [HL]

Lord Roberts of Llandudno Excerpts

Monday 28th March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Roberts of Llandudno]

I shall speak to Amendment 40, which stands in my name. In so doing I remind folk, possibly those who do not have much experience of Wales, of how essential S4C is for Welsh-speaking people. If it were withdrawn it would be as though the BBC were withdrawn from the English-speaking people. Some 600,000 people speak Welsh, and the popular Welsh serial “Pobol y Cwm” attracts 500,000 viewers every week. It is no small fry; it is an important part of the life of so many people.

I shall not take very long, but I shall ask the Minister for assurances on a number of issues. The first is that funding will be guaranteed and ring-fenced for the entire period until 2016. That assurance would set my mind at rest. The BBC charter—at Article 47, I think—limits the way in which it can rechannel the fees, which may only go to some organisation within the remit of the BBC. It is not possible to do any top-slicing with the present charter. In December 2016, we shall have a new charter, so we will have an opportunity, if needed, to revise the BBC charter as far as Wales is concerned.

The second assurance I ask for is that the board of S4C will have a notable majority of people from within Wales and that in no way will the BBC try to have the majority of people on that board. I regret that the executive of the BBC will have any outside input at all, but if Parliament decrees that that is necessary, I ask for an assurance that there will be a majority of people of Wales who understand Wales.

The third assurance I request is that S4C will have total editorial and programming independence with 100 per cent Welsh input. If I can get that, it will be very helpful.

The fourth assurance is that any new governance structure for S4C will be enshrined in a dedicated agreement, a formal declaration, laid in Parliament. It will then become the law of the land. The relationship between S4C and the BBC will be seen as a partnership, and not that S4C is a subsidiary of the BBC. The current level of independent production companies will be retained. I have spoken to some in the past few days, and they are afraid that their input will be less and that they might, as one in Caernarfon already has, not be able to meet the challenges of the present time. We should also look again at the Welsh Assembly’s role and responsibility in relation to S4C, especially after the referendum in Wales four weeks ago, following which the Assembly now has full control over topics and issues in 20 devolved areas. Possibly within a few years when the financial situation is better, S4C could become a matter that is devolved to the Welsh Assembly.

Finally, if we are not in Schedule 3, how will that affect our ability to change and to have our own governance? I should be very grateful for assurance from the Minister on that.

For me, the essentials are: secure funding over a long time; editorial independence; looking to a new charter, under which funding can be altered; and a total commitment to the Welsh language. I look forward very much to hearing what the Minister has to say on those matters.

Elections: Voting Arrangements

Lord Roberts of Llandudno Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Roberts of Llandudno]

My Lords, I wish to express my appreciation for the debate secured by the noble Viscount, Lord Astor, and to say thank you to the noble Lord, Lord Wills, for the effort that he made to enfranchise the Armed Forces when he was Minister in the other place. I have great hopes for the noble Lord, Lord Rogan. I agree with everything he says. I thought that he would turn to the electoral system in the Irish Republic, but he did not. He condemns the system which is so close to my heart—that of proper proportional representation—but I am sure that we shall remain on speaking terms. However, he spoke of the importance of service personnel being able to vote. I battled with this a couple of Sessions of Parliament ago when I tried to get serious consideration of the automatic registration of people when they sign up to the Armed Forces, so that they are included on an electoral register. We have a registration officer for every unit but I think we need more. Automatic registration would meet the criteria quite easily.

Others have already mentioned the very tight general election timetable: between the close of nominations and polling day there are just 11 working days. I suggest that 11 working days is far too short a period for nominations to be verified, for papers to be printed, for them to be dispatched, for them to reach the furthermost parts of our interests in Afghanistan and elsewhere and for them to be filled in and returned. It is nice to speak of doing things online, but I am sure that many of our troops are out of the reach of any sort of computer, so would be unable to take advantage of that method of voting.

This morning, the MoD confirmed that we have 9,500 troops in Afghanistan. How many of them voted? It says that at the time of the general election there were 9,000 or 10,000, so this morning I was astonished to receive figures from the Electoral Commission showing that, in the 2010 UK general election, 294 proxy voting applications were received and forwarded to electoral registration officers and 270 postal votes were successfully returned from Afghanistan to returning officers in about 120 authorities. That is out of 9,000 people who are eligible to vote. That is totally disgraceful and is not acceptable in any modern democracy.

I suggest that one of the reasons for that is the period of 11 days for the whole transaction. That contrasts with other timetabling for elections: for example, for the National Assembly for Wales, where we shall have an election very soon, there is a gap of 19 days; for the Scottish parliamentary elections, 23 days; for the Northern Ireland Assembly, 16 days; for the London Assembly, 24 days; and for the European Parliament and for local elections in England there is a gap of 19 days. When we have such important elections, why is the gap only 11 days? We tried to sort this out with the previous Government but I am so sad that they were not able to proceed to retimetable the gap between the close of nominations and polling day. It is nonsensical.

The situation becomes even more confused. Last year, a general election took place on the same day as local elections in England. Agents, returning officers and their staff were all involved in election campaigns and there was tremendous inconvenience because the different elections had different timetabling, even though they were to take place on the same day. Not only were ballot papers not returned in time because of the 11-day timetable, but candidates and parties were unable to reach the electorate with their messages and manifestos. The Representation of the People Act 1983 states that any candidate can send one item of election literature free of postage to each elector. However, that does not apply to people overseas. You get a ballot paper at the last minute but no information about the candidates and there is nothing to promote them. We need to extend this ridiculous period of 11 days so that there is sufficient time, not only for the ballot papers but also for the material from the various candidates to reach those who are entitled to vote.

Finally, having a consistent workable timetable, say of between 18 and 25 days—I believe that the Electoral Commission wants 25 days—between the close of nominations and polling day would enable those overseas, especially those serving in the forces, to play a much more significant part in our elections in the United Kingdom.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Roberts of Llandudno Excerpts

Tuesday 16th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

My Lords, the coalition kids are trashing Parliament. They are trashing everything else, after all—schools, humanities teaching in universities, the arts and the heritage, general practitioners, social housing, the Armed Forces, the police, the Civil Service, local government—so why should we expect Parliament to be spared? It is not that I think they mean to vandalise the national life; I acquit them of ill will. If it does not seem too patronising, I think the problem is lack of judgment. The Deputy Prime Minister said at Second Reading of the Bill in another place:

“We promised a new politics”.—[Official Report, Commons, 6/9/10; col. 44.]

A new politics, my Lords. I have to say that I detect a certain cockiness and callowness in that. At any rate, it is an excessively simple view that, because Members of Parliament were disgraced and the deficit needs to be cut, it is appropriate to cut the number of MPs by 50 and to save £12 million by doing so. No other justification has been offered for the reduction in the size of the House of Commons.

The coalition kids’ overconfidence and impetuosity has led Ministers into evident errors. A number of things that the Deputy Prime Minister said to the House of Commons were simply wrong. He was wrong to contend that the policy would save £12 million. If you take into account the cost of supporting Members of Parliament to serve larger constituencies and the enormous cost of a total upheaval in 2013 and of five-yearly boundary reviews thereafter, clearly the costs heavily outweigh any small savings that may be achieved by reducing the number of Members of Parliament by 50. He was wrong to say that the number of Members of Parliament had crept up over the years. He was wrong to say that local inquiries had had little impact, as noble Lords have already pointed out. He was wrong to assert that, with equal constituencies and the alternative vote, all votes would be of equal value. Under the alternative vote, general elections will still be decided in marginal seats. Tight contests will be determined by the third, fourth and fifth preferences of UKIP and BNP voters. Their votes will count more than the first preferences of supporters of the major parties.

Worse than errors of fact is confused thinking. The Deputy Prime Minister said at Second Reading that people must see us taking action to restore trust, including,

“ensuring that politics is transparent”.—[Official Report, Commons, 6/9/10; col. 34.]

The alternative vote is a uniquely opaque electoral system; it is impossible to foresee the consequences of the second, third, fourth and fifth preferences and so forth—the residual preferences of supporters of residual parties. It would be more rational and safer to hold elections by lottery, it seems to me, than by election under the alternative vote system.

Worse than confusion is poor judgment. To hand power to extreme parties in marginal seats is surely profoundly unwise. To subordinate every other important consideration to arithmetical equality in redrawing constituency boundaries, to discount the factors of geography, history, identity, continuity and to ignore the significance of local government boundaries is surely very unwise indeed. Is this a worthwhile new politics? How is anybody to make sense of this in relation to the Government’s ambitions for a big society and a new localism?

My noble friends Lord Touhig and Lord Elystan-Morgan spoke powerfully about the damaging impact on Wales of enlarging the size of constituencies. To reduce the parliamentary representation of Wales by 25 per cent at a time when there are also going to be Assembly elections and when a referendum is anticipated on the powers of the Assembly is surely in effect an invitation to the people of Wales to withdraw from engagement with the United Kingdom.

I had the honour to represent Newport in the House of Commons. Newport is a city with a long history, of which its people are very proud. It has been a settlement since Roman times, it was the home of Chartism, it was a significant port and it has been a major centre of steel manufacturing. Newportonians are intensely conscious of their local identity and the special character of their city. Before then, I had the privilege and happiness to represent Stratford-upon-Avon and South Warwickshire in the House of Commons: a rural constituency, equally forged by history and embraced by county boundaries that differentiate Warwickshire from Northamptonshire, Worcestershire, Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire. Wise politicians do not meddle with these realities and attachments; they do not transgress these boundaries for a theory; they understand that you cannot rally hearts and minds through an arithmetical formula.

Many of the mistakes that we make in public policy arise, it seems to me, from the fact that politicians, officials and, indeed, members of boundary commissions suffer from the characteristic handicap of our neophiliac age—they know no history. For them, it is always year zero; they lack understanding and respect for institutions and what others hold dear.

The Deputy Prime Minister asks us to measure the reforms that he proposes against the standard of 1832. As I understand it, it was the Great Reform Act that first constructed the concept of the constituency based on locality, to which its MP or MPs were accountable. The new manufacturing cities such as Manchester—I speak with diffidence on Lancashire in the presence of the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, but not in the presence of the noble Baroness, Lady Farrington, who is no longer in her place—wanted to have their own Members of Parliament to speak to their concerns. Mancunians were not satisfied to be represented by the county Members of Parliament for Lancashire. Equally, rural Lancashire wanted Manchester and the new cotton towns to have their own Members of Parliament to stop urban votes swamping rural votes and confusing issues and representation. The 1832 Act redistributed seats from rotten boroughs to new towns and cities and enlarged the boundaries of small constituencies so that each seat represented a community and its interests. The view was held that when MPs spoke for defined constituencies with shared interests and a common sense of place, Parliament could better clarify the issues and come to decisions. The removal of the rotten boroughs, which had been tools of patronage, strengthened Parliament against the Executive.

The Municipal Corporations Act 1835 built on the foundations that the 1832 Act laid down. Under that legislation, communities could petition for incorporation as entities of local government. That process produced a map of local government that was erratic, anomalous and untidy but which accurately and authentically expressed people's sense of place and identity. That structure of local government lasted well over a century.

The Deputy Prime Minister's reforms move in the opposite direction to the reforms of 1832. They destroy the expression of community and identity in parliamentary representation, and they advantage the Executive against Parliament. Abraham Lincoln said:

“I like to see a man proud of the place in which he lives”.

Any Government so insensitive as to offend people's pride in the place in which they live are acting to alienate people from the political process. This is being done in the name of restoring trust in politics.

It is also unwise for the Government to create constant instability. Just as Parliament is convalescing from the horrors of recent years, everything is to be uprooted and torn up again in 2013. New local parties will have to be formed in short order before the next election. There will be candidate selections, bitterly contested, no doubt, between those people who regard themselves as the heirs to the previous constituencies. Every five years thereafter there will be traumatic discontinuities both for constituencies and from Parliament to Parliament.

The Government are further weakening Parliament in the name of restoring trust. There will be no reduction in the number of Ministers commensurate with the reduction in the number of Members of Parliament. This Administration are larger than any that we have ever had before. There are 95 Ministers. That is five more than there were in the previous Government, and 12 more than there were in the Administration of Margaret Thatcher in 1983 when I first came into the House of Commons. Since then, of course, there has been devolution, so there should be a need for fewer departmental Ministers. The category of Ministers that has most increased in number is, of course, the Whips.

Government patronage is growing. The reduction in the number of Back-Bench Members of Parliament will enfeeble what is already an all too feeble capacity of the House of Commons to hold the Government to account. What is being done is in plain contradiction of the commitment in the Tory manifesto to a,

“sweeping … redistribution of power … from the government to parliament”.

The way in which the Government have handled the Bill so far in Parliament demonstrates an unreconstructed attitude on the part of the Executive to Parliament. Major constitutional legislation was programmed in the House of Commons. Twenty years ago, that would have been unthinkable. Remember the debates that we had, for example, on the Maastricht treaty. Clauses 3 to 6 on very important matters—the conduct of the referendum, combining polls, and the rules about media coverage—and Clause 11, on the number and distribution of seats, were entirely undiscussed in the other place in Committee or on Report. If the House of Commons is so effete and supine as to tolerate that, it is clearly the responsibility of this House to scrutinise the Bill with great rigour and to amend it in the many respects in which it is deficient.

All Governments should be humble in the face of their responsibilities, exercise a decent restraint in the use of the huge powers that our system of parliamentary government confers on them, and respect the views of others. This applies particularly in the case of a coalition Government, neither of whose parties won the election and who have no mandate for their policies.

Too many of the reflexes of Ministers and too many of the measures that they have brought in show disrespect for Parliament. We saw it in the Local Government Bill, where Ministers were content to exploit for their political convenience a decision by a judge to override a previous decision by Parliament. We saw it in the resistance to refer to the Examiners both that Bill and this Bill yesterday. We saw it shortly after the formation of the new Government in the attempt to rig future votes of confidence. When we come to scrutinise the fixed-term Parliaments Bill, we shall be on the lookout for further such chicanery. We have seen it in the Public Bodies Bill, which confers massive Henry VIII powers on the Government. Your Lordships’ Select Committee on the Constitution has excoriated that measure. We see it in the packing of this House to stack up a majority, destroying the character and value of this House and undermining our capacity as a revising Chamber.

Reform of the electoral system is massively important. I happen to believe that it is right and timely that people should be given the opportunity to choose a new electoral system. There is a crisis of alienation from our politics. Far too many voters across the country feel that their votes at elections make no difference. The choices offered to them should include the single transferable vote—a proportional electoral system. The Deputy Prime Minister said on Second Reading that,

“it is vital to our political system as a whole that they are considered to be legitimate and fair”.—[Official Report, Commons, 6/9/10; col. 34.].

Why are people to be offered AV but not STV? After all, the commission chaired by Lord Jenkins found that AV was even more disproportionate than first past the post. The reason the Deputy Prime Minister gave when challenged on that was feeble. He said:

“For the sake of simplicity, however, it is better to present people with a simple yes or no alternative”.—[Official Report, Commons, 6/9/10; col. 41.].

However, he could have got STV on the ballot paper. The noble Lord, Lord Rennard, said yesterday that that was not practical politics, but the Liberal Democrats were extremely powerful at that moment. It was only with Liberal Democratic help that the Conservatives could form a Government, just as now only the Liberal Democrats—and not, for example, the National Union of Students or the PCS—can bring down this Government. The Liberal Democrats are happy to condone and tolerate the economic recklessness of this Government, their casual cruelties, for what? For a referendum on AV. What scale of values is that?

Constitutional reform should be embarked on not hastily, not casually but with the greatest care and sensitivity. Ministers should recognise that the constitution is intricate and its parts interdependent. The future of both Houses needs to be considered together. The future of central and local government needs to be considered together. There should be no taint of exploitation for party advantage and no suspicion of gerrymander, as there is with the Bill. There should be no rush towards deadlines contrived for political convenience. The case should be made on the basis of a full laying out of the facts and of honest, sustained debate. Genuine consultation should lead to compromise and the building of consensus.

There must be consensus. That is why it is essential that there is a threshold for the vote on AV in the referendum. It is quite unacceptable that major change should be introduced on the basis of low turnout by an electorate who are ill informed, through no fault of their own because they have not had time to inform themselves on the matter, and no doubt disgruntled and unhappy with the policies of the Government. It is a reform that is not supported by a substantial consensus.

Nor should the vote in the referendum be confused with other votes in elections held on 5 May. The Electoral Commission was robust when it responded to Tony Blair as Prime Minister when he was minded to hold a referendum on the introduction of the euro at the same time as Scottish and Welsh elections in 2003. It said that combining an election and a referendum could,

“have a distorting effect on the conduct and outcome of both polls”.

Whatever its views now, it was right then.

The Bill provides for change to the electoral system, change to the nature of our constituencies, change to the number of MPs, change to the relationship between MPs and constituents, and change to the relationship between the Executive and Parliament. Those of us who honour and cherish the Parliament of the United Kingdom—while always, I hope, being ready to accept duly considered, timely, gradual reform—will relentlessly oppose careless, improper, damaging constitutional change, as threatened in the Bill.

[Lord Roberts of Llandudno]

Is the noble Lord really rejecting the Labour Party manifesto and its commitment to a referendum on AV? He would be far happier if there was STV in the UK.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

For the reasons I have given, I do not think it is a good idea to hold a referendum on AV; nor did I think so then. I would be deeply hesitant about moving from first past the post, but given what has happened to public attitudes to politics and Parliament in this country, I believe it is appropriate that people should now be given the choice, the opportunity, to switch to a different electoral system.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Roberts of Llandudno]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to take part in this debate. Much of what we have heard seems to treat the electoral system as something that is static and could well be stagnant, but it has always been evolving. There was the secret ballot, generally advancing the number of adult males who could vote. Then there was more or less universal suffrage, with the introduction of votes for women. Then the voting age was reduced to 18. It has always been an evolving system. As it has evolved, it has largely adapted to the needs and demands of the time.

The first past the post system was possibly far more acceptable when there were only two parties, as in the 19th century. There were the Whigs and the Tories, then the Liberals and the Conservatives, so in every constituency there would be a straight fight. That meant that whoever won would have had to have won 50 per cent of the vote. It was only as the other parties came on the scene that fewer than 50 per cent of the electorate could enable a party to win a seat. I refer to Wales in the 1910 general election. There was one two-Member constituency, Merthyr Tydfil, and let us admit that it did the nation proud by electing Keir Hardie as one of its two Members. However, there were 32 single-Member constituencies, and of those 32 only a Swansea seat had a three-cornered contest, won by Ben Tillet, who entered the fray on behalf of the Labour Party. In 31 of those Welsh seats it was therefore just a straight fight, so those Members would represent 50 per cent of the electorate.

One hundred years later, we rarely see a two-party fight. There is a multitude of candidates for every seat. In Wales, as in other places, since the Labour Party emerged we have had Plaid Cymru and the Green Party; we often have between five and eight candidates contesting the one seat. That means that of those seats, very few of them see more than 50 per cent of the votes cast for the winning candidate. For instance, I was looking at the 40 seats that we had at the general election, and in only six of them did a party have 50 per cent or more of the votes. We have a situation that demands adaptation and modernisation or else we are back in the dinosaur era of the 1900s.

I am thinking of north Wales—I can speak of the area that I know. We have nine parliamentary seats in the regional list area for the Welsh Assembly. Of those nine seats last May, no one winner came anywhere near having 50 per cent of the votes. Aberconwy was won with 35.8 per cent for the winning Conservative candidate, while 63.2 per cent voted against that candidate. In Alyn and Deeside, 39.6 per cent voted for the winning candidate while 60.4 per cent voted against. So it was throughout the region. Arfon, Clwyd West, Delyn, Clwyd South, Vale of Clwyd, and Wrexham were all won with less than 50 per cent of the vote. Usually the winning candidate had around 40 per cent or less.

Ynys Môn, the last one, was won by Labour with a vote in favour of the MP of only 33.4 per cent. That meant that 66 per cent of the electors in that constituency did not vote for the winning candidate. Is that a fair result? The Bill that we are discussing is a Bill for the representation of the people. Do figures such as these give us adequate and fair representation of the people? When there was a straight fight in Anglesey in 1910, Ellis Jones Griffiths, who I am happy to say was a Liberal, got 70.7 per cent of the vote—more than double the 33.4 per cent of 2010. I suggest that, whatever our traditional approach to this, the system is horrendously unfair. Two-thirds of the electorate in a constituency are unrepresented directly.

When we fight elections every party uses the two-horse race theme, saying that it is a fight between Labour and Conservative or Liberal and Conservative. We try to squeeze the vote, instead of having a straightforward system whereby the people themselves choose the second name that they want to vote for. It is a far more transparent and much fairer system. Under the system that we have today, if we go for larger constituencies—if, say, Ynys Môn were to go from 50,000 to 75,000—and just 33 per cent still vote for Labour, it will mean that even more people are unrepresented. If we have larger constituencies it is absolutely essential that we have the AV system of election.

Let us also look at something else. The system that, a century ago, gave at least half the electors an MP of their choice, today denies that to the majority of the electorate of the United Kingdom. We speak of 3.5 million people who are unregistered. Can I speak for the 20-odd million people whose votes are not influential in electing a Member of Parliament? We have the opportunity in the AV Bill and the AV referendum to put that right.

How do we encourage young voters? I have another meeting tomorrow evening in Parliament.

[Lord McAvoy]

My good friend the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, has informed me that in 2005 my electorate was just over 74,000. In response, I should have said “approximately 77,000”. I needed to get that clear. In 2010 it must be near enough to 77,000. Does the noble Lord, Lord Roberts, take into account that the bigger the constituency in numbers, the more casework there will be? In my old constituency I went from having 53,000 to that 74,000 after the reduction of the Scottish seats. It made for a considerably increased amount of work.

[Lord Roberts of Llandudno]

That has nothing to do with my argument. My argument is that in larger seats more people will not have a direct influence on the Member that they elect, which is very serious.

I come to mention the Bite the Ballot campaign, which aims to engage young people in democracy and bridge the gap between democracy and young people’s apathy. Are we going to say to those young people, “We want you to be engaged in democracy but, remember, two-thirds of your votes will not count”? Are we going to say that more than 50 per cent of the votes that they cast will have no influence whatever? That is why we need to support not only the Bill but the AV referendum when it comes.

To conclude, the system that we have today is unfit for the 21st century. It was worn out in the 20th century and barely acceptable in the 19th century. I ask those who say, “Let’s keep the old system”, what is your alternative if we are to tell young people that their votes count? Under first past the post we say, “Hard lines—you just haven’t come up with a winner”. What is your alternative? Will you continue to support a dinosaur system of elections, or are you ready to move into the future?

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

Since the noble Lord is, quite rightly, interested in young people, would he support a change to the Bill to enable voting in the referendum at 16?

[Lord Roberts of Llandudno]

I would be quite happy with that. It is Liberal Democrat policy to lower the voting age. I think I have said enough for tonight.

[Baroness McDonagh]

I do not know why the noble Lord is shouting at us. Holding a referendum on the alternative vote was in the Labour manifesto.

[Lord Roberts of Llandudno]

It was, so I will continue shouting until the Labour Party admits that it was in its manifesto and that it will vote for the Bill and, when the time comes, vote positively in the AV referendum.

Parliament: MP Numbers and Constituency Review

Lord Roberts of Llandudno Excerpts

Thursday 24th June 2010 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Roberts of Llandudno]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what consultations they plan to hold with local authorities and the Boundaries Commissions on reducing the number of Members of Parliament and reviewing the size of parliamentary constituencies.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord McNally)]

My Lords, Ministers are taking advice on the details of proposals, including on consultation, and, as I said in the House on 15 June, we will of course seek to frame the legislation in a way that ensures that the Boundary Commissions complete their task in a timely, fair and thorough way.

[Lord Roberts of Llandudno]

I thank my noble friend for that response. Will the Government assure us that when the Boundary Commissions consider this, they consider not only the electorate size but the geography and the local authority boundaries when reporting on the new constituencies? Will they also discuss thoroughly with the devolved Administrations any effect that the new boundaries for Westminster might have on, say, the Cardiff Assembly or the Edinburgh Parliament?

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, my noble friend will know that the sole objective of this exercise is to bring greater fairness to our electoral regulations and equal weight to votes. He is right, of course, that common sense and a sense of history and of geography will have an influence on this, and we will consider the implications for Wales and the other nations and regions of this kingdom when we come forward with our proposals.