Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Jackson of Peterborough Excerpts

Tuesday 1st March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Streeter]

The Electoral Commission is not responsible for the comments of any politician in this country, I am delighted to say. The report on electoral fraud showed that there were 232 cases of alleged electoral malpractice in 2010, 137 of which required no further action. Sixty-eight cases remain under investigation; in 23 cases police advice was given; two cases resulted in a caution; and court proceedings were brought in two cases, resulting in one conviction.

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

The House will know that, regrettably, six individuals have been found guilty of election malpractice arising from personation and postal vote fraud in Peterborough in the past four years. What specific strategies are the Electoral Commission pursuing to concentrate on postal vote fraud?

[Mr Streeter]

The Electoral Commission has made recommendations to the Government about tightening up voter identification, and the Government are considering that report. Naturally, the Electoral Commission takes all allegations of fraud seriously, but it is a matter for the police to investigate each and every incident.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Jackson of Peterborough Excerpts

Tuesday 15th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

No, I think that the decision should ultimately be made by the elected House, which is why I will ask hon. Members on both sides of the House to disagree with the Lords amendment. I hope, following the logic of my hon. Friend’s argument, that he will support the Government in the Lobby.

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

Does the Minister acknowledge, as we are facing a considerable and potentially irreversible constitutional change, that a precedent has been set by the Scotland Act 1978, which made provision for a turnout threshold? That was among the reasons why the then Labour Government subsequently foundered, following the withdrawal of support by the Scottish National party. So a precedent has already been set for a turnout threshold.

Legislation (Territorial Extent) Bill

Lord Jackson of Peterborough Excerpts

Friday 11th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sir Malcolm Rifkind]

Such proposals are under deliberation and likely to go forward. That could mean a reduction in the block grant to Scotland, if it were to raise a proportionate sum through its own decisions. This is an evolving situation, a dynamic constitutional process. I cannot predict, any more than anyone else, where that process might lead, but for the foreseeable future the UK Government will retain responsibility for virtually all tax responsibilities, as well as for the social security budget, all foreign affairs, all defence policy, all European Union issues, all trade policy, all electoral matters such as those we discussed yesterday, and a whole host of other issues. So we must not imply that Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish Members have a diminished interest in the affairs of this Parliament.

It is sometimes suggested that it is quite improper, in this post-devolution situation, for a Member from Scotland, Wales or wherever to be appointed as a Minister in a Department whose responsibilities cover only England. Criticisms were made of John Reid when he became Health Secretary in the previous Government because he represented a Scottish constituency. We should not think of that as a constitutional issue, but it might be politically stupid to make such an appointment because of the controversy that it will give rise to, enabling criticism to be made. There is no lack of precedent for such decisions being made in other contexts, however. During the Conservative Governments of Margaret Thatcher and John Major, every Secretary of State for Wales represented an English constituency. There has never been a Northern Ireland Secretary who comes from Northern Ireland, for obvious reasons with which we are all familiar. Let us not suggest that that is a constitutional problem. It is a political problem, and Prime Ministers have to decide whether it is sensible to appoint Ministers from constituencies that are not affected by the decisions of the Department of which they will be in charge. It is against that background that we are considering the question of voting in this Parliament.

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that we have institutionalised a sense of resentment and unfairness by not giving greater fiscal autonomy and tax-raising powers to the devolved Governments? That sense of unfairness does not exist in other devolved systems, such as the federal system in the United States, in which each state can raise its own taxes, and there is no feeling of resentment towards the central Government.

[Sir Malcolm Rifkind]

I return to my point that this should be seen as an evolving situation. We speak of devolution to the three other parts of the United Kingdom, but the devolution is different in each case. We have a power-sharing institutionalised system in Northern Ireland, which does not exist anywhere else. We have a Scottish Parliament that is an Executive with full legislative powers over devolved matters. Wales does not have a Parliament; it has an Assembly that does not yet have legislative powers. In each case, the arrangements will change, but they will change in response to experience and to what are perceived to be the political wishes of the people in the territories concerned. That is the history of the United Kingdom. We are blessed with an unwritten constitution that we can evolve and adapt over the generations in a way that goes no further than necessary but that responds to the aspirations of the peoples in the various parts of the kingdom in a sensible and coherent way.

I shall turn now to the consequences of those arrangements for voting in this Parliament. As my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire so eloquently said, a range of options has been proposed to deal with what has become known as the West Lothian question. Some of them are completely understandable, including the proposal that, if there is a Scottish, Welsh or Northern Irish Parliament, there should be an English one. That sounds completely logical, but I was once warned that logic was the art of going wrong with confidence. It is, in fact, absurd to contemplate the co-existence of an English Parliament with this Palace of Westminster, for several reasons.

First of all, to state an emotional and political fact—I say this with some caution—the vast majority of people in England think that there is already an English Parliament and that it is called the House of Commons, largely because of the history of this place and its origins many centuries ago. When such an option is occasionally raised, we are not talking only about two Parliaments. In practice, there would have to be two Governments; there would have to be an English Government just as there is a Scottish Government. The idea that that is a sensible way of dealing with these matters is foolish. It would be a sledgehammer to crack an important but nevertheless modest nut—foolish, as I say.

The second option—one of the bad options—was attractive to many of my hon. Friends during the previous Parliament. It is the idea that Scottish Members—and, one assumes, Welsh and Northern Ireland Members either now or in due course—would be vetoed or prevented from voting on issues that applied only to England. I have always thought that that is a very dangerous and unwise approach. It would manifestly create two classes of Member of Parliament for the very first time since the Act of Union in 1707, and therefore I can only describe it as a nationalist solution to a Unionist problem. I have no doubt that it would be welcomed by the nationalist parties in Scotland and Wales, because it would provide a constant opportunity for them to emphasise the increasing irrelevance of the Union, as they would see it, and to go much further than the vast majority of people throughout the United Kingdom would currently want. It is not sensible to contemplate having two classes of Member, although not because it could not work. Here I disagree with the hon. Member for Rhondda: it is not a matter of the technical problems, although I can come on to those in moment if he wants me to; rather, I believe that it would be hugely dangerous and, in any event, it is unnecessary.

If those options are unattractive, is there an alternative route to resolve these matters and to deal with the issue of fairness? We do not need a solution that is absolutely perfect in every constitutional respect that fits seamlessly into some web of other issues; we need something that resolves the problem and removes a sense of unfairness.

At one stage, I argued for having an English Grand Committee, to which English-only Bills would be sent. It could be a Committee of all English Members sitting in this Chamber, but only those on such a Committee would be able to vote, just as members of Select Committees are the only people able to vote on them. That would not, in itself, be constitutionally improper. I acknowledge, however, that that would be quite a complicated innovation, which would take a complex series of thoughts to resolve and could take years in practice to implement.

In any event, there is a much simpler alternative—one that has not thus far been mentioned—and I shall put it forward. I would strongly argue that the most simple and straightforward solution relates to when a Bill is certified by the Speaker, as my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire indicates, as applying only to England. Doing that, incidentally, is not difficult. Many Bills currently affect England and Scotland or England, Scotland and Wales, because there is no reason at the moment for the draftsmen not to draft them in that way, if it suits their drafting objectives. If the rules change and the draftsmen are required to restrict any Bill to that part of the kingdom to which it overwhelmingly applies, they can draft accordingly if instructed to do so.

Where a Bill applies only to England, the right way to resolve matters would be to say that before it can be approved on Second and Third Reading, it must achieve not only the majority of votes of the whole House but, subsumed within that, a majority of Members representing English constituencies. In other words, a double majority is required: a majority of the House as a whole and a majority of those representing English constituencies. If it does not meet that target, it cannot be deemed to have been approved on Second Reading. The attraction is that no hon. Member is prevented from speaking in the debate or from voting in the Division Lobby for or against the measure, but the question of whether an England-only Bill goes forward and is given a Second Reading will have been determined by the House to be dependent on a majority of Members from English constituencies voting for it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Bryant]

Was it Socrates—I cannot remember—who said that a small book was always a bad book? Sometimes a simple and innocuous-looking piece of legislation can do the most pernicious damage. I will come on to whether I think it is innocuous later.

It is always great to hear the right hon. and learned—and gallant, and doubtless many other things besides—[Laughter.] Other words, which he might not like so much, are coming to mind now. It is always difficult not to think of the right hon. and learned Member for East Lothian—sorry, for Kensington (Sir Malcolm Rifkind)—as a Scottish MP, and I suppose that in many regards he still is, but he is a Scottish MP for an English seat. Several hon. Members think that I am an English Member for a Welsh seat, but I am thoroughly Welsh, and Jeremy Paxman had to apologise when he maintained, in his latest book, that I was not.

The right hon. and learned Gentleman is right to maintain that Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish Members of Parliament have no diminished role just because of devolution. In many debates, they bring a specific interest and point of view that adds to the whole equation. The hon. Member for North West Leicestershire (Andrew Bridgen), who has departed the scene, said that Wales and Scotland MPs must, by definition, have less casework, which is certainly not my experience. If anything, many constituents, in the process of trying to achieve redress for their individual concern, try to play the Assembly Member off against the Member of Parliament. As the Welsh Assembly also has regional Members, my experience is that those from other political parties who failed to be elected in constituencies end up trying to play a semi-constituency role. Often, that leads to a considerable enhancement of the amount of work done. I make no complaint about that, but I think that those who assume, from their English seat, that a Welsh Assembly and a Scottish Parliament result in Welsh and Scottish MPs having less casework, are wrong.

There are many different kinds of casework. There is casework such as a miners compensation scheme, with which thousands of people want help going through the legal process. Then there is casework such as, “I think it’s an absolute outrage that you ever thought of voting for this piece of legislation.” I get very little of the latter and a lot of the former. In different constituencies around the land, some Members have a lot of immigration cases. I have had only about three immigration cases during my time as a Member of Parliament. Casework varies between constituencies, and it is not appropriate to legislate directly in relation to that.

[Mr Stewart Jackson]

Is the hon. Gentleman seriously suggesting that, with constituencies in Scotland and Wales having significantly smaller electorates than those in England, list system Members, devolved Parliament Members and MPs, such MPs have the same work loads as English constituency Members? If so, does he have any academic evidence to support that, because I am quite sceptical?

[Chris Bryant]

I think “Sceptical” might be the hon. Gentleman’s middle name. I see he is smiling—I have managed to get a smile out of him; that must be a first. He is now trying not to smile. Now he is laughing.

The only point I would make to the hon. Gentleman is that there is no academic evidence, and probably never will be. All that we have is anecdotal evidence. I merely offer my own evidence—I have not seen my work load diminish compared with that of my predecessor, who did not have a Welsh Assembly to contend with. The hon. Gentleman is right that a constituency with a smaller number of people might mean that the Member concerned has fewer people contacting them, but it might also mean that access to the Member for constituents is more difficult and that it involves considerable travelling around the constituency. Anyway, that is a matter for a different debate.

The right hon. and learned Member for Kensington referred to the issue of whether there should be an English Parliament. He is right to argue that there is a danger that we would end up with two Governments. Who would take possession of Downing street? Presumably, we would have a set of English Ministers, in addition to British Ministers, and so on. I am not sure that is the direction in which British voters want to go. The hon. Member for West Worcestershire referred to the fact that on the one occasion when we had a referendum on whether there should be devolved responsibilities within the English regions, people decided, largely because they did not want more politicians, not to go down that route.

In parenthesis, let me say briefly that I hear regularly, not from the right hon. and learned Member for Kensington but from others, that this is the mother of Parliaments. I again say that John Bright meant that England was the mother of Parliaments and that it was a very difficult and complicated birth. The effortless English superiority that sometimes arises in these debates is unfortunate.

The right hon. and learned Gentleman referred to Wales, and I was reminded of a story, which may not be apocryphal, of Charlotte Church singing before George W. Bush when he was President—a meeting of two great minds, obviously.

When Charlotte Church was introduced to the President, he asked, “Where are you from?” She said, “Wales.” He asked, “What state is that in?” , and she said “Terrible.” Discussions about issues such as this are not always informed by great intelligence.

The right hon. and learned Gentleman mentioned the possibility of an English Grand Committee. It has been suggested in the past that such a Committee should sit in the Chamber, because it would obviously have a significant number of members. During the last Parliament we discussed the possibility of regional Grand Committees and arguments were presented both for and against the idea, but it has fallen by the wayside.

I am not convinced by the right hon. and learned Gentleman’s argument in favour of a requirement for a double majority. Neither House has ever operated a system of secondary mandates.

Prisoners (Voting Rights)

Lord Jackson of Peterborough Excerpts

Tuesday 11th January 2011 Westminster Hall

[Mr Hollobone]

My hon. Friend makes a telling intervention, and he has done the country a national service by winning his seat in the general election. He ably represents his constituents on these and other matters. He is right. The manifesto on which he and I stood clearly states:

“we will replace the Human Rights Act with a UK Bill of Rights.”

I am sure that my hon. Friend was asked about human rights issues during the general election campaign—I certainly was in Kettering. Whenever such issues were raised, constituents were adamant that it was time for us to take sensible action on the Human Rights Act, which the previous Government introduced. The coalition agreement has kicked the replacement of the Human Rights Act by a Bill Of Rights into the long grass; it may happen, but there is no timetable, which is a great shame. Nevertheless, there is huge public demand for us to take action on these human rights issues. We would be doing our constituents a disservice if we did not raise their concerns in this place. My hon. Friend’s majority in Hendon, my majority in Kettering and the majorities of many of our hon. Friends in Westminster Hall this morning demonstrate that human rights are an important issue for our constituents.

Mr John Hirst, who is serving a life sentence for an axe killing, brought his case and subsequent appeal to the European Court of Human Rights. He celebrated with glee on the television when the appeal judgment was announced—how wonderful it was that the European Court was going to force Britain to give prisoners the right to vote. Many of our constituents will have seen that and have been disgusted by Mr Hirst’s joyous celebration of the Court’s decision.

The Court decision is interesting in several respects, because its main gripe is that there is a blanket ban on prisoners being given the right to vote. There are ways to tackle that issue, other than just caving in and getting rid of the blanket ban. It may interest hon. Members to know that 13 other countries that are signatories to the European convention on human rights also have blanket bans. Why is this country being singled out for the treatment it is getting from the European Court, when blanket bans continue in other countries, such as Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Moldova and Slovakia, among others? Our constituents will be outraged that the UK is being singled out for special treatment.

One of the issues that the European Court raised was that there has not been proper parliamentary debate about the issue. The judgment states that

“there was no evidence that Parliament had ever sought to weigh the competing interests or to assess the proportionality of a blanket ban on the right of a convicted prisoner to vote. It could not be said that there was any substantive debate by members of the legislature on the continued justification…for maintaining such a general restriction on the right of prisoners to vote.”

I am sorry, but those matters were discussed in this Parliament in 1870, 80 years before the European Court was even established. The judgment goes on to say that perhaps courts could be given the discretion to award disfranchisement to convicted prisoners on an individual basis. It says:

“It was also evident that the nature of the restrictions, if any, to be imposed on the right of a convicted prisoner to vote was in general seen as a matter for Parliament and not for the national courts. The domestic courts did not therefore undertake any assessment of the proportionality of the measure itself.”

It also states that

“in sentencing, the criminal courts in England and Wales made no reference to disenfranchisement and it was not apparent that there was any direct link between the facts of any individual case and the removal of the right to vote.”

There is therefore a way to address the Court’s concerns by making sure that judges can award disfranchisement specifically in individual cases and encouraging them to do so.

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful case. For the avoidance of doubt, if the Government do not change their policy enunciated in the statement of 20 December, I shall not vote with them, but in the Opposition Lobby. My hon. Friend touches on some interesting points. Is not it true that the recent case of Greens and M.T. v. the United Kingdom specifically allows the Government to proceed with a range of policy options, which, like the consultation in 2009, could be put out for public discussion? Instead the Government have gone for an arbitrary four-year limit, without any further debate or discussion in the House or with the public.

[Mr Hollobone]

My hon. Friend makes an interesting and brave point, and I commend his courage on the issue. He will be joined in the Lobby by many of our colleagues. The Government should be left in no doubt this morning that they have made the wrong decision on the issue and that they will not get the proposals through Parliament.

My hon. Friend is right: the Government can tackle the issue in far more imaginative ways. It was wrong for my hon. Friend the Minister to say in his statement of 20 December, which was sneaked out just before the Christmas recess, that

“we should implement the Hirst judgment in a way that meets our legal obligations, but does not go further than that.”—[Official Report, 20 December 2010; Vol. 520, c. 151WS.]

The Government have gone further than that by saying that the limit should apply to those sentenced to four years or less in prison, because there are many countries that are signatories to the European convention that apply the ban to prisoners serving far less time in prison. For example, Austria, Malta and San Marino ban all prisoners serving a sentence of more than one year. In France only prisoners convicted of certain crimes lose their right to vote.

I should therefore like to know why the Government have settled on the apparently arbitrary figure of four years. They say that it is the difference between serious and non-serious offences, but frankly I do not accept that definition. There are other ways to cut the cake. For example, the ban could be applied to those who have their sentence issued by the Crown court, rather than the magistrates court.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kate Green]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for raising that issue, which I want to explore in my remarks. The hon. Member for Kettering was right to say that there is more than one way to skin a cat. I am not suggesting that a blanket rule that applies before or after a four-year custodial sentence is the most appropriate way to go, but it is a step in the right direction and one on which I would like to see us build.

I would like to say a little more about how we might see restoration of the right to vote as a positive by enabling prisoners to fulfil their responsibilities as citizens, and how that might in a small way—I see scepticism on faces opposite me—contribute to reducing reoffending, which is surely the prime purpose of the criminal justice system. If we fail to give prisoners any stake in our society, it is difficult to see why they should wish to reintegrate into that society—why they should feel any sense of obligation to mutual rights, dignity and respect when we do not afford that to them. I see an opportunity alongside this new legislation to improve education and rehabilitation in our prisons.

When I raised the matter with the Secretary of State at Justice Question Time before Christmas, he expressed scepticism as to whether prisoners would take advantage of the right to vote. However, before last year’s general election the Prison Reform Trust participated in a debate with prisoners in a local prison. It reported that prisoners were intensely engaged in debating the political matters of the day: not just criminal justice but a wide range of issues that would affect them, their families, communities and society as a whole—a society, of which, like it or not, they remain a part.

Prisoners are rightly recognised as being among the most disadvantaged in terms of social inclusion prior to receiving custodial sentence. We should be looking to take steps to improve their social inclusion. What happens to them while they are in prison undoubtedly has a role to play.

[Mr Stewart Jackson]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Kate Green]

No; I am just coming to my conclusion.

I conclude with two questions which I hope the Minister will address. First, what plans does he have for a programme of prisoner education and engagement that takes advantage of the reintroduction of the right to vote, within the context of prison education—educating prisoners in their civic responsibilities—and how that will support their planned reintegration into the community? Secondly, I would like to follow the points raised by the hon. Member for Kettering in questioning the rationale for introducing a cut-off point at four years. That seems to suggest degrees of citizenship: one is more or less of a citizen, depending on the nature of one’s sentence. I would be interested to hear the hon. Gentleman’s view on whether discretion for judges might be applied more realistically if a blanket right to vote were put in place that gave judges the opportunity in certain cases to say that such a right was not appropriate and should be removed.

I am pleased that, after many years, we are seeing some modest steps to reintroduce a right to vote for prisoners. I support the direction of travel the Government are taking. As other Members have said, I very much hope we will move to an informed and rational debate about the effect of the measures now being brought forward.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) on securing this extremely important debate. I am pleased to have this opportunity to speak because I believe that it is fundamentally wrong for prisoners to be able to vote. If someone has decided to step outside the law to the point where they have to be incarcerated, they should have no say on how the law is made. Part of the deprivation of liberty that comes with imprisonment is a loss of entitlements, and that should include the right to vote.

My hon. Friend quoted the Prime Minister as saying that even contemplating giving the vote to those incarcerated as convicted prisoners makes him feel physically ill, and he said that in response to a question that I asked him. It is nauseating to think of some of the worst offenders having a say over how this place, or any town hall or parish council, is run. What aggravates us is that this issue was ignored by the previous Government and kicked into the long grass. It is yet another mess that we have inherited and have been left to deal with.

[Mr Stewart Jackson]

Mindful of the comments of the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), is it not hypocritical of the Labour party to take a similar view, given that in 13 years, it made very little impact on rehabilitation in the penal estate in terms of putting prisoners to work and improving literacy and numeracy? To now say that preventing prisoners from having the vote is somehow attacking their human and civil rights is hypocritical and gets the priorities completely wrong.

[Gareth Johnson]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. During the 13 years of the previous Government, I worked in the criminal justice system and I saw their lamentable record. We are still waiting to hear what the Opposition would do about the issue of prisoner votes. We have heard the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston give her opinion, but we have yet to hear the official position of Her Majesty’s Opposition. We also want to know why nothing was implemented in the last four or five years since this particular judgment was passed by the European Court of Human Rights.

We all want to see prisoners obey the law. That is why they have been put into prison in the first place. We all have to obey the law. The United Kingdom is a member of the European Court of Human Rights and is, therefore, subject to its decisions. As members, we cannot pick and choose the decisions we want to comply with. We have two options: either we accept this judgment, hook, line and sinker, or we pull out of the European Court of Human Rights. Perhaps we need to review our membership, because it should be for Britain and not the European Court to decide whether or not British prisoners vote.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr Mark Harper)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Benton. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) on securing the debate, particularly on getting it as a kind of reserve option, and thank him for his generous remarks at the beginning of his contribution. As ever, of course, he and I will not fall out, even if we end up disagreeing. I would like to take the opportunity, as everyone else has, to wish all hon. Members a happy new year, although that does seem rather a long time ago.

I shall set out what the Government have announced and then try to deal with as many of the questions as I can. I will respond to questions which I believe are of interest to as many people as possible, and write to hon. Members about those that remain which I can not answer at this point. I will place a copy of the letter in the Library so that Members can see the Government’s responses.

It is worth starting with a bit of background because hon. Members have mentioned it—I will get through this quickly. We have already mentioned that some prisoners—those on remand, for example—have been able to vote for some time. The bar on prisoners who are serving a sentence dates back to 1870, and successive Governments have maintained the position that those who have broken their contract with society by committing an offence and are imprisoned should lose their right to vote.

My hon. Friend the Member for Kettering opened the debate in a perfectly helpful way by quoting my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, who made it clear that he does not want to make this change. To be frank, it is not something that I want to do, and I believe that many Government Members would rather not do it, but we do not have a choice. We have a legal obligation. To answer my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), the proposals are not a sop to anyone. The European Court of Human Rights made a ruling in the Hirst case, and we are legally obliged to comply with it.

It is worth reminding ourselves what the Court actually said in the Hirst case. It said that the existing bar on convicted prisoners—the blanket ban—was contrary to article 3 of Protocol No. 1 of the European convention on human rights. I believe that my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Mr Offord) referred to Mr Hirst. Although the ruling was given in his case, under the proposals that we will put before the House, he would not have been entitled to vote when he was in prison because he committed a serious crime and was sentenced to a lengthy term of imprisonment.

We in this country seem blessed—that is not really the right word. The most odious criminals appear to be the ones who run off to the European Court of Human Rights. Another odious criminal who took the Government to court—the judgment was announced before Christmas—also had been convicted of serious crimes.

The Government are following three principles in their approach. The first goes to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis). We have to meet our legal obligations, but we want to go no further than that. Secondly, we want to ensure that the most serious offenders are not given the right to vote. That is why we did not say that there would be no line, that the limit would be entirely up to judges. We want to ensure that there is a line, so that anyone above that length of sentence would not be able to vote. We recognise that the most serious offenders should not be able to vote.

[Mr Stewart Jackson]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Harper]

Let me make a little more progress. I am conscious that Members have raised many questions, and I want to try to deal with some of them rather than stack up new ones.

The third principle is to prevent the taxpayer from having to pay successful claims for compensation. One of the problems we have is that even if the compensation in an individual case is not significant, we in this country are blessed—again, that is probably not the right word—with lawyers who are assiduous, if there is money on the table, in running around and getting lots of people to sign up for cases under no win, no fee rules. Various Members have mentioned that there are already 2,500 cases pending. One can be certain that if there were a successful case for compensation, lawyers would quickly go around prisons to sign up prisoners for legal actions on the basis that there might be £1,000 compensation on the table. The Government would be faced with thousands and thousands of cases. We estimate that compensation in an individual case might be around £750 to £1,000, but multiply that by the thousands and thousands of prisoners who would bring cases if there were money on the table, and we would be looking at significant sums for the taxpayer. The one thing that would be worse than making these changes in the law would be giving hard-earned taxpayers’ money to some of those criminals. I shall take my hon. Friend’s question.

[Mr Jackson]

I thank the Minister for that explanation, but his argument would carry much more weight if Frodl v. Austria had been the last substantive case in the European Court of Human Rights on this issue. The ruling was very prescriptive and said, in effect, that the majority of prisoners had to have the vote. However, it was not the last case. As I made clear earlier, the last case was Greens and M.T. v. the United Kingdom, and paragraphs 112 to 114 of its ruling specifically made it clear that the Government had a range of options on which they could consult. It is not a question of the Government having to comply with the arbitrary limit of four years; that simply is not true.

[Mr Harper]

My hon. Friend makes a helpful point by referring to the Greens and M.T. judgment. This comes down to what several Members have said about whether we have the option of doing what the previous Government did, which was nothing. I am afraid that we do not. In that judgment, the Court gave the UK Government six months from the date that the judgment becomes final to introduce proposals. I can say to the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) that there are various ways of dealing with it, but the Government will introduce primary legislation in the House. That should deal with questions raised by several Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone), who is a member of the Backbench Business Committee. Proposals for primary legislation will be put before the House, and Members will have an opportunity to debate them fully. We will not try to think of a different way to implement the judgment, but we want to ensure that we have a debate in the House.

Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority

Lord Jackson of Peterborough Excerpts

Thursday 2nd December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Adam Afriyie]

The hon. Gentleman is a new Member, and he is spot on. That is why the majority of hon. Members believe that it was right that an independent body set the rates of remuneration. We talked about privilege earlier, and this is a matter not of MPs’ privilege but of the people’s privilege to have an MP who can work, unimpeded by a third party that is unaccountable to the public. If a body can tell MPs how to do their work—which, in effect, IPSA can in its current form—democracy and the people’s voice are undermined.

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is being very generous in giving way. Perhaps he would like to disabuse my hon. Friend the Member for Chippenham (Duncan Hames) of the notion that we are employees. When I came to this House, I wrote to the then Speaker to inquire about the possibility of availing myself of child care vouchers. I was told that it was not possible because I was not an employee, but was regarded by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs as self-employed. That is the distinction.

[Adam Afriyie]

Absolutely. My hon. Friend hits on the key issue, which has not been resolved in the last 100 years, of whether a Member of Parliament is a paid employee with a salary, in which case one would expect a job description. MPs do not have job descriptions; it is therefore semi-illogical that they would have salaries. HMRC is absolutely correct that for most intents and purposes, MPs are self-employed. I will comment on that in a moment, but I am conscious of the time that I am taking.

Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Lord Jackson of Peterborough Excerpts

Tuesday 16th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Austin Mitchell]

I have taken enough interventions for the time being. I want to make a few points of my own instead of being forced to respond to questions about hypothetical situations that I have not dealt with.

The Conservative party did not mention fixed-term Parliaments in its manifesto, but we did: Labour had a fixed four-year term in its manifesto. The Liberals, insofar as they had a position—they always have a lot of contradictory positions—had what the Deputy Leader of the House said when he was their spokesman on constitutional affairs, when he urged four-year terms. Perhaps he has had a message from the new leadership telling him to rescind his speeches from when he was the Liberals’ constitutional affairs spokesman. Will he listen? I know that he is very comfortable on the Front Bench—he is built for it—but there is no need for him to change his views on this issue so radically and dramatically as he seems to have done.

So the Liberals wanted four-year terms, the Conservatives had nothing about it in their manifesto and I argue that five-year terms are too long. I agree that we should have had an election in 2007. That would have meant the Labour Government going much sooner. Why am I proposing three-year terms? The Executive always want longer terms, because they want to be in power for as long as they can and because longer terms allow more time for more mistakes and for tough measures to hit the people. There are certainly some tough measures coming from this Government, which might be why they want a five-year term. Regular and more frequent elections hand power back to the people, which is what the people want. They want us kept on a shorter leash. That is what the feeling of hostility to politics, Parliament, parties and politicians that built up last year indicated to me. Triennial elections would certainly keep us on a shorter leash because we would have to go back to the people more regularly. They are suspicious of us; they think that we are out for ourselves and they want to control us more effectively.

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman is being customarily generous in giving way. Does the experience in the congressional elections in the United States not show that their two-year terms mean that members of Congress, once re-elected, are constantly considering fundraising, canvassing and campaigning for their re-election, thereby undermining the electorate’s faith and trust in them?

[Austin Mitchell]

The US House of Representatives, which is the equivalent to our House, has a two-year term, which is very democratic, but I am proposing a three-year term, which would cause us to go back to the people much more regularly than we do now. The people want to be heard. An outstanding feature of our democracy as it has developed is the people’s desire to be listened to by this place, which they so angrily asserted in 2009. It is frustrating for people to feel that we do not listen. What better way is there of consulting the people? We should do it not through polls but through regular elections, as in Australia and New Zealand, where three-year terms work very effectively.

The people want us to be accountable, and more regular elections are the best way of keeping us accountable. Elections bring a great renewal of energy and contact with the people. They are great for concentrating our role of representing them and voicing what they want in this place; they recharge the batteries. More frequent elections would make us more vulnerable, more amenable and more prepared to listen to the people because we would have to be out there every three years listening to and meeting people and persuading them in a way that is not provided for anywhere else in our system.

This House is a great hiding place: the longer we stay here between elections, the more out of touch with the people we get. They want us to be more accountable and to listen more and they want more frequent contact. We cannot dodge that responsibility or say that reasons of statesmanship or coalition politics require us to stay hiding in this place, out of touch with the people, for five years. The condition of our being here is that we need to renew that contact as regularly as possible.

I seem to have been here for so long that I could have come in with that Asquith election victory that led to reform of the House of Lords in 1910, but I began my political career by dreading elections because one has to go out and force oneself on people and they may not want that. One has to leap up to them with a handshake and a fixed grin. One has to give them one’s opinions, listen to them and ask them questions—talk to them. That was a nervous ordeal for me and I was terrified, but over time I have come to like elections more and more, particularly if I win. That is another reason why I would like more frequent elections. They are a form of renewal and of contact with the real world that we do not otherwise get in this place.

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[Mr Jackson]

The hon. Gentleman is always entertaining, and I pay tribute to the fact that on the day the Labour party lost a 22,000 majority in 1977, they returned the hon. Gentleman in Grimsby, but will he tell the House how many people in the Dog and Duck in Great Grimsby have said to him, “I won’t vote for you, Mr Mitchell, because the term will be five years instead of four ”?

[Austin Mitchell]

None, but perhaps people will not vote for a candidate because he is too old and might not last a full term. The hon. Gentleman is right to say that the issue is not frequently raised, but there is a feeling, and there was at the end of the previous Government and at the end of the Major Government, that the Government have gone on too long. That is what I want to avoid.

There is a feeling among the public that they want us to go back to them more frequently. They want to meet us more frequently. They want us out there in the streets, canvassing more frequently. That is why I say that more frequent and regular elections are basic to democracy. They put the people in power and they make the politicians prostrate before the people. The people can tell us what they want, and that is what it is all about.

The role of the House, as the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills said, is to hold power to account—to hold the Executive to account. We do not do it very well because, with a party majority, the Executive and the Prime Minister drive a steamroller through the House. Mrs Thatcher would shout down at us “Get out of the way,” and we would tremble. With John Major, the steamroller wandered all over the place, but the Executive are still powerful.

The only real way of holding power to account in this country is to put it before the people more regularly in triennial elections and give them the power to throw the rascals out—give them that choice every three years. That is basic to democracy.

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[Andrew Percy]

I hope that politicians on all sides take notice of their electorate at all times. The problem with going to a three-year term is that they may take less notice of their constituents and a great deal more notice of the newspapers. Given that Governments tend to be most responsive to newspapers in the last year or six months before an election, the risk with a three-year term is that the Government would be beholden to the newspapers and chasing headlines for the entire term of office.

On the clash of elections, I have sympathy with those representing countries with devolved Assemblies. I would not want a Welsh Assembly election or a Scottish Parliament election on the same day as a general election, but it is a bit inconsistent for some on the Opposition Benches to suggest that a clash of elections is always bad news, because they deliberately arranged for that by holding European and local government elections on the same day, using two different voting systems. However, that is best avoided. I accept that the case for a general election is a little different and that a general election should be held separately from the elections in the devolved regions.

I have no academic or study to quote on the four-year term; I just feel in my gut that it is the right length of time for a Government. A four-year term is better because it would fit with local government elections and devolved assemblies. The Canadian Government changed from five to four years a couple of years ago, and we have heard about the three-year terms that exist in Australia and New Zealand. For me, four years would be a more appropriate term for us to be in office. There is an acceptance that after being in power for five years, we tend to be a little too detached from the electorate, and consequently end up making bad decisions. However, I cannot support the three-year term proposed by my near neighbour, next door but one, in Great Grimsby. That would throw us into a perpetual state of elections. It is often said about US congressional elections that American Congressmen are in a perpetual state of election, which is why they have so many earmarks and pork barrelling; they have no sooner got themselves to Washington DC than they have to run back to their electorates to try to gain election.

[Mr Stewart Jackson]

My hon. Friend refers to the American political system and reiterates my earlier point, but is it not true that at the other end of the scale US Senators, who have a six-year term, can take a broader view of both national and international issues? Very few people say to an experienced American Senator that they are past it or clapped out, or not thinking of the good of the country because they are in their fifth or sixth year.

[Andrew Percy]

The problem with the American Senator term is that a third of the Senate is elected every two years, which means that they, too, are in a perpetual state of elections, so that idea does not carry over completely.

The other experience of more regular elections is that there tends to be a greater propensity on the part of the electorate to re-elect their incumbents. As I am now an incumbent, that is not necessarily something that I would take issue with. I suspect that all hon. Members would be happy to see incumbents re-elected—[Interruption.] Well, yes, perhaps their own incumbency re-elected. I was particularly intrigued by the comments of the hon. Member for Great Grimsby that elections offer the opportunity for politicians to recharge their batteries. That is certainly not an experience I have ever had in an election campaign.

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[Mr Stewart Jackson]

The hon. Gentleman is being very generous in giving way, and he is making an engaging argument on a threadbare premise, if I may say so. Is not his argument essentially weakened by the fact that there is a mechanism to deal with an atypical event? I refer him to the controversy of 1979 over the Scotland Act 1978. That Parliament had been going for four years, and there was a vote of confidence on 28 March 1979. In other words, four-and-a-half years into that Parliament, the issue was considered of such import to the affairs of state and to the House that a motion of no confidence was tabled. Such a motion can still be tabled under this Bill. Therefore the value judgment between four and five years falls down. It would only really stand if the House had no capacity to dismiss itself and enter into a period prior to an election.

[Chris Bryant]

I have to presume, as does the House, that the Government will go through with all the various provisions that they have laid down in the Bill, and in clause 2 there are two provisions for an early general election: the first determines what happens if there is a motion of no confidence, although it does not say what such a motion is; and the second relates to a motion for an early general election, although it does not say whether such a motion would name the precise date of that election. The Government presume that we will need a two-thirds majority in the House to achieve an early poll, so on the Government’s argument—and, if the hon. Gentleman is going to support the Bill as it is, on his argument therefore—the presupposition is that there will not be many early general elections. Indeed, the Bill, by trying to make it almost impossible to have an early general election, is much tougher than the vast majority of other constitutions that I have looked at throughout the world. That is another reason why four years is better than five. In fact, the hon. Gentleman has helped me to make part of my argument.

In relation to the intervention by the hon. Member for Elmet and Rothwell (Alec Shelbrooke), I believe that in practice the Bill will lengthen the Parliaments of this country. Since 1832 there have been 45 general elections: the average peacetime length has been three years and eight months, as the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr said; even including the lengthy wartime Parliaments of the first and second world wars, the average has been only four years; and, during the period when the maximum allowable duration under the Septennial Act was seven years, from 1832 to 1911, the average was three years and 10 months. In practice, by fixing elections as “every five years”, we will lengthen Parliaments and ensure less frequent general elections.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Jackson of Peterborough Excerpts

Monday 25th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

It seems to me that the hon. Gentleman is trying to have it both ways. He is arguing that people who are not members of the Government are a bulwark against an oppressive Executive, and I accept that. At the same time, he admits that his own Government—the previous Administration—got it wrong, and I agree. However, this is not necessarily just a numerical issue. We should cast our minds back to the Iraq war debates, when a huge Back-Bench cohort failed to hold the Executive to account on one of the most important issues of foreign policy in our country’s history since the war.

[Chris Bryant]

I think I agree with the hon. Gentleman. In the previous Government we were not always as alive as we might have been to the fact that this House does its job best when it is most free to be able to do so. However, the difference that he has to face is that unless he intends to agree with the hon. Member for Louth and Horncastle, he is supporting a Bill that wants to cut the number of MPs from 650 to 600. That will, in effect, cut the number of Back Benchers, because it does not cut the number of Ministers. My argument is that if we are going to cut one group, we should cut the other. That is entirely in line with the new clause.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Jackson of Peterborough Excerpts

Tuesday 19th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Graham Stringer]

I agree. The accurate word is “evading” not “avoiding”. I stand corrected. If people are evading tax, and therefore breaking the law, one cannot expect them to change. It is up to those bodies that enforce the law to enforce it. I am happy to clarify that position. Getting the electoral register to represent everyone who is entitled to vote is not a simple process. However, I am sure that hon. Members believe, as I do, that people should be registered and should comply with the law on being registered.

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way with his customary generosity, but he fails to recognise that there has to be a definitive basis for registering those qualified to vote in an election and for distinguishing between them and others who live in the area and are served by a Member of Parliament. He might inadvertently be leading the House in that direction. In my constituency, there are 70,000 electors, but nearly 78,000 residents—the rest are mainly EU migrants. As a constituency Member of Parliament, I will serve those people, but there is a distinction between them and those who are duly, properly and legally entitled to vote for me at an election. He is not making that distinction clear to the Committee.

[Graham Stringer]

I have not come to that point yet, but there is an overlap. Some recent immigrants are Commonwealth citizens and entitled to vote in general elections. It is a complicated matter. The hon. Gentleman makes a fair point, but there is some overlap between people who are entitled to vote and people who are part of the recent immigrant community.

Another large area where there is under-representation and, probably, unlawful activity associated with it relates to houses in multiple occupation and private landlords. For different reasons—sometimes voting abuse, sometimes to conceal the number of people living in houses of multiple occupation—landlords prevent their tenants from voting or hinder their attempts to do so.

The hon. Gentleman previously mentioned recent immigrants. Registration is low among those in black and ethnic minority groups for a number of reasons. Sometimes it is because they do not understand the system or are frightened of it, and sometimes, as was mentioned previously in the case of poorer sections of the community, it is because the levels of functional illiteracy are higher than one would want. That means that many of the forms end up in the bin, because they cannot be understood. There are different estimates, but generally in this House—and not just on the issue of electoral registration—we ignore the fact that probably about 22.5% of the adult population in this country are functionally illiterate and find it difficult to deal with forms.

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[Gavin Barwell]

Well, there we go. The hon. Gentleman is suggesting, with his customary eloquence, that we go even further than the hon. Member for Swansea West did. I think he is arguing that we should use the whole over-18 adult population as the basis for deciding the boundaries. Indeed, in an earlier intervention, he said that he had a significant number of asylum seekers in his constituency who, although they were ineligible to vote, still gave rise to casework.

There are many different proposals for ways in which we can develop these figures. My point about the hon. Member for Swansea West’s amendment is that we cannot come up with a definitive figure. We can start with the census and take into account the electorate, and we can then use other data sets to refine that information, but we cannot come up with an accurate figure.

My own view is that we should stick with the current basis, which looks at the published electorate, but that we should also take action to deal with under-representation, which affects certain parts of the country more than others. The hon. Member for Swansea West talked about poverty, and the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George), who has now left the Chamber, referred to work carried out by the Electoral Commission that showed that the transience of the population—the churn—was the key factor. There are certain groups within the population, including the black and minority ethnic community, young people and people who live in the private rented sector, that are much more likely to move frequently, and that is the main causal driver of this problem.

[Mr Stewart Jackson]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the difficulty in the past 15 or 20 years has been that the Boundary Commission has not been guided by Government regulations specifically to look at future population changes? That has been an important factor in making many, if not most, of the constituencies in this country out of date almost as soon as they are created.

[Gavin Barwell]

That cuts to the point of one of the amendments, which deals with the frequency with which we carry out the reviews. That is an important point, because if we had more regular reviews, they would be based on more recent data, and we would not see such dramatic changes. If we had a review every five years, we would not see significant changes in many of our constituencies.

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[Austin Mitchell]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The present system of redistribution was devised by the Conservatives. Now, finding themselves in electoral danger, they want to scrap it to protect themselves and remain in power in this tenuous coalition.

[Mr Stewart Jackson]

As ever, the hon. Gentleman is a comic turn. Does he agree, however, that he was not so voluble when in 1970—as he is old enough to remember—a Labour Government were the only Government in history to shelve significant boundary changes for party political reasons? He was probably also not as voluble at the time of the 2005 election, when the Conservative party out-polled the Labour party in England and Labour had many dozens more seats than the Conservatives. Was that fair, or was it gerrymandering?

[Austin Mitchell]

I am not sure whether the hon. Gentleman is trying to outdo my comic turn by putting me in the House of Commons well before I was actually here, but he is entitled to do that.

I am voluble now because of the threat to democracy that is implicit in this whole process. As one of my hon. Friends said earlier, that is what is waking up the Liberal Democrat part of the coalition. It is easy enough to organise a redistribution for 650 Members, but if there are only 600 pieces in the jigsaw, the implication is that every boundary in the country must be changed. That is what is waking up the Liberal Democrats, because they tend to win seats through intense community work and community politics involving cracked paving stones and late buses, and they must have a community to work to. That settled community will be disturbed by the redistribution, and the Liberal Democrats will lose seats. Their amendments suggest that they are now waking up to that fact.

It is a bit late in the day, but I can tell the Liberal Democrats that they will lose out. The AV part of the deal, which was supposed to benefit the Liberal Democrats while the redistribution was supposed to benefit the Conservatives, will not be carried, because it will be defeated in the referendum. Then the Liberal Democrats will ask themselves, “What have we got out of this coalition? We have abandoned all our faiths, we have sacrificed everything we believe in, we have allowed massive cuts to the detriment of British society—and what have we got out of it?” The answer will be “Peanuts. Nothing.” Their only resort, if they are to prevent themselves from being thrown out in the election following the redistribution, will be to throw out the Government and stop the redistribution.

I estimate that the Liberal Democrats will belatedly begin to wake up to that fact in about 2013 or 2014, and then they will become a disruptive factor within the coalition. I am trying to prevent them from ending up in that situation—[Interruption.] No, my heart bleeds for them. I am very sympathetic because it is tragic watching them betray their principles one by one in order to cling on to power and to get bums into ministerial cars and on to ministerial Benches—but if that is what they want to do, let them. I am trying to help them by persuading them to vote for amendments 127, 341 and 38. [Interruption.] No, I am a decent man. I would have voted Liberal in 1951, except that I did not have a vote because I was too young, but I wore a Liberal rosette on my meat round. That is the full history of my association with the Liberals—it ended in 1956 with the invasion of Suez—and now I am trying to protect them.

In conclusion, we should support these amendments in order to prevent the brutality of a process that would be damaging to British democracy and the community and that would create an unsettled situation for Members of Parliament. I spent many years in New Zealand, and we had much more regular redistributions when I was there—every five years, I think. That was before proportional representation came in. The seats could be made much more equal, but as a result of the changes no Member of Parliament knew five years ahead whether he would be representing the same area, or whether some bits would be shipped out and others would be shipped in because of boundary changes, and therefore the seat he would be representing would be totally changed. I want to prevent that situation from happening here. We represent settled communities that have clear boundaries, and we should not disrupt them in this fashion just for the electoral purposes of the Conservative party.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Jackson of Peterborough Excerpts

Tuesday 12th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Sadiq Khan]

I am happy to take as many interventions as possible, but the hon. Gentleman has to grow up. Just grow up: we are having a proper debate about clause 1. As the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr Shepherd) said, this is really the old politics. Let us debate the merits of clause 1.

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

I hope that we can introduce some civility into this debate. The shadow Minister really should raise the level of the debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Richard Fuller) raised a valid point: it ill behoves the right hon. Gentleman to lecture us on referendums on far-reaching constitutional issues when his party not only reneged on a solemn promise made at the ballot box to have a referendum on the Lisbon treaty, but guillotined the relevant Bill, forcing it through this House.

[Sadiq Khan]

I am happy to compare the record of Labour Governments on having referendums and making constitutional changes—changes with agreement and proper pre-legislative scrutiny—with that of this coalition Government or any previous Conservative Government.

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[Thomas Docherty]

I greatly appreciate my hon. Friend’s contribution. Yet again, he has managed to introduce an issue that is important to people in both our constituencies.

Let me stress that amendment 1 is not a wrecking amendment, although some members of the Government may wish to portray it as such. It is supported by Members on both sides of the argument about the alternative vote. It is not intended to, nor will it, lead to the killing of the AV referendum; it merely seeks to create a level and fair playing field for the referendum, and to demonstrate the respect that the House should have for the devolved Administrations of the United Kingdom.

As Members will know, it is rare for an issue to unite Labour and Scottish National party politicians, and rarer still for them to be joined by Welsh and Northern Irish colleagues. However, that is the feat that the Deputy Prime Minister has managed to achieve, and I am grateful for his ability to bring us all together in that spirit. The amendment seeks to address the genuine anger that is felt in the three devolved Administrations. The fact that a joint letter has been sent by the three First Ministers to the Deputy Prime Minister expressing that anger should not be forgotten.

[Mr Stewart Jackson]

I am listening carefully to the hon. Gentleman’s argument. He clearly concedes that the electoral arrangements and voting systems which may change in future will apply to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Will he also concede that there is a precedent for the Government’s legislation? In 1998 there was a referendum on future constitutional arrangements and the establishment of the Greater London authority and the Mayor, at the same time as the holding of 32 separate London borough elections.

[Thomas Docherty]

According to my recollection, all 32 London boroughs held elections on the same day. Regrettably, on 5 May next year elections will not be held in the whole United Kingdom. I believe that there will be no elections in some 20% of England.

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for reinforcing my point about the level and fair playing field. Given that he has just made my argument for me, I look forward to him joining us in the Lobby.

[Thomas Docherty]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that excellent point. I cannot go into great deal in the short time available to me, but I can point out that—as I am sure my hon. Friend already knows, and as Members in all parts of the Committee have mentioned—there have been very different turnouts. Elections to the Scottish Parliament have typically attracted a turnout of about 50%. I fear that, important as local government issues are to the parts of England involved, the turnout for those elections will be nowhere near that—which, again, reinforces my argument about the level playing field.

[Mr Stewart Jackson]

I am happy to take lessons from the hon. Member for Clwyd South (Susan Elan Jones). Having been a London borough councillor for eight years, I am sure that we can discuss our knowledge and experience of various elected bodies. However, I must disabuse the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty) of his belief that I was making his point for him. The point that I was making was that the people of London were quite able to make decisions in respect of the election of London borough councillors and long-term constitutional decisions, by way of a referendum, on the same day. That is the point that the hon. Gentleman is avoiding.

[Thomas Docherty]

As I am sure my nationalist colleagues will remind me, I should be nervous about making the mistake of, perhaps inadvertently, comparing the Scottish Parliament to a parish council. I urge the hon. Gentleman, as part of the respect agenda, to tread carefully when making analogies between borough councils and the Scottish Parliament.

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[Caroline Lucas]

Many millions of people in this country will be looking at what some Members do in the Committee this evening, and they will be looking with a degree of perplexity, given that what we hear many Members might do runs counter to what was in their manifestos.

[Mr Stewart Jackson]

I thank the hon. Lady for giving way; she is being very generous. If there was a groundswell of popular support for the single transferable vote, surely the Liberal Democrats, just after the election but before they entered the coalition Government, would have been able to persuade the Labour party to push through primary legislation to deliver the single transferable vote. However, that was not possible because, quite frankly, the single transferable vote is not generally supported by the voting public of this country.

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[Caroline Lucas]

I agree, and I very much hope that Liberal Democrat Members will follow us through the Lobby to support this amendment. Even if we do not win the vote tonight, this could become a self-fulfilling prophesy. If some Members are not willing to put their bodies where their mouths are, and are not prepared to fulfil the promises in their manifesto, we cannot be surprised that people lose faith in the political process. This amendment is about restoring faith in the political process; it is about trusting the electorate and delivering on promises to treat them a bit better.

My primary concern as we consider the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill is that it is the public who should choose our voting system, not the politicians. That ought to be a principle around which we can all agree. We can argue about whether to adopt AV-plus, first past the post, the single transferable vote or the additional Member system, but the principle should be that it is for the people to decide.

[Mr Jackson]

Does not the real-world experience of the single transferable vote system show that deals are made by politicians in smoke-filled rooms after elections, after the people have had the opportunity to make their choices? One has only to look at the anecdotal evidence from such systems across the world to see that, in reality, the ordinary voter, having cast their ballot, is shut out from the business of governance. That is the result of the STV system.

[Caroline Lucas]

That is an argument against STV, but I keep stressing that what we are talking about is the right of the public to choose the system. When they have that right, we can have the debate about whether STV does or does not lead to decisions being made in smoke-filled rooms. The hon. Gentleman’s assertion is rather ironic. He is concerned about what goes on in smoke-filled rooms, and perhaps he does not want the public to make any decisions on this. He does not want the fresh air of public opinion to be waved over our debate tonight, but that is exactly what should happen. That is why the public should decide.

Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Lord Jackson of Peterborough Excerpts

Monday 13th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Sheila Gilmore]

We appear to have lost coterminosity entirely in Scotland, and that is an issue because the situation there is making it extremely difficult for people to have more engagement in politics and a better relationship with their elected representatives. When I tell people, “I am your Westminster MP, but this person will be the candidate for that part of the constituency, although not in your sister’s area, which is not that far away,” it is difficult to make them understand. We also have local government boundaries, which are completely different again.

I am not necessarily saying that we have to change the situation in Scotland immediately; we are learning to live with our different boundaries. However, there is absolutely no need to walk into the situation that I have described. A simple change, backed up by the evidence, to a four-year fixed term, would cure the problem. I hope that the Government will at least consider the issue again—and quickly, so we can get it out of the way.

Obviously, there are other issues. I am not qualified to comment on the detail of some of them, but they are important and we need to spend time on them during the passage of the Bill. I hope that at last the Government have heard the question.

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

I fear that the hon. Lady is perhaps underestimating the sophistication and intelligence of her constituents and those in the rest of Scotland. The evidence seems to suggest that when elections have coincided—for instance, the local elections on 6 May this year and the county council elections previously that coincided with general elections—people have been discerning and have made separate decisions. I would vouchsafe that that was the case in Scotland.

[Sheila Gilmore]

I am not suggesting that people cannot make separate decisions, but there are practical difficulties. However, over and above those difficulties—which we saw clearly in 2007 and because of which we have taken a step to move elections apart—the overwhelming objection is that we would be in danger of drowning or swamping the important issues of the different legislatures. That is important for what we have built up under devolution. I may now be an elected representative in this place, but those of us who fought hard for devolution did not do so to see everything disappearing in the way that it would in such elections. That is why we should simply amend the Bill to have four-year terms. Then I would be much more supportive of it than I am in its present form.